#wsf15

[karen5lund]

Space, Snails & Quanta: Getting My Geek on at the World Science Festival

I spent the last week of May doing something very cool: volunteering at the World Science Festival. And by “cool” I mean getting up close and personal with squid guts. First up was a lecture by Ell...

Great fun at the World Science Festival!

[woowinnie]

Lawrence Krauss (astrophysicist and author of "The Physics of Star Trek) will moderate this panel talking about the cosmos.

[woowinnie]

Yay!!! Tomorrow at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts - Day 01 of the World Science Festival

[worldscifest-blog]

Photo of the Day: Dandelion Wine

Each seed of a dandelion is equipped with its own parachute, ready to ride a gust of wind away from its parent flower. Seeds have to be dispersed to minimize crowding and competition over resources among the offspring of the same plant.

More cool science and #WSF15 updates, right here. 

[worldscifest-blog]

Shara Bailey is the director of the Women in Science Program at NYU and an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology’s Center for the Study of Human Origins. She’s also involved in the World Science Festival program Who Run The Lab, which invites high school girls to tour labs run by women scientists. We’re proud to call her our #WCW!

Shara Bailey is also an associated scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Bailey’s research focuses on dental perspectives on human evolution, especially Neandertals and early modern humans. She has worked extensively on Neandertals and Upper Paleolithic modern humans from Europe, including the earliest known modern humans from the site of Pestera cu Oase in Romania. She has also studied the Homo floresiensis (aka “hobbit”) dentition as well as some of the earliest Homo sapiens in Africa. Bailey’s current work revolves around the evolution of childhood, which comprises a systematic and comparative study of the deciduous dentition (baby or primary teeth). Her books include a co-edited volume (with Jean-Jacques Hublin) on Dental Perspectives on Human Evolution with Springer Press and The Evolution of the Human Dentition (in progress). In addition to fossil hominins, she is involved in projects investigating dental variation and systematics of extant hominoids.

[worldscifest-blog]

What is sleep?

Join the World Science Festival as we search for the answers with a panel of four world-renowned scientists and moderator Alan Alda. Tickets for the live event in NYC on Sunday May 31 are available here. Not in town for WSF15? You can live stream the event here.

Birds do it, bees do it, rats and fruit flies and we do it—sleep, that is. But what is sleep? Why do we dream? And what goes on in sleeping brains—from the tiny fruit fly’s to ours? Find out as we watch the brain activity of a wired-up person sleeping offstage, learn about sleep’s many phases and discover the stunning result of not sleeping for days on end. Capping the program, Alan Alda will announce this year's Flame Challenge winners, those scientists whose explanations of sleep were voted best by our 20,000 eleven year-old judges.

This program is in association with the Flame Challenge, an annual contest held by The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.

[worldscifest-blog]

Photo of the Day: Livin’ La Vida Larva

Unlike some other caterpillars, the larva of the giant leopard moth (also called a “giant woolly bear”) doesn’t have venom or a sharp bite to discourage predators. Instead, when threatened it curls into a ball and relies on its stiff spines to ward off danger.

More cool science and exclusive #WSF15 updates, right here. 

[worldscifest-blog]

Photo of the Day: Spot the Crab

The candy crab (Hoplophrys oatesi) has a great talent for deception, as seen in this photo.

More hidden gems, right here.