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October SUTVS Q&A Recording

We have posted the recorded Q&A with our October speaker, Christina Balentine. Apologies for the technical difficulties we had with this inaugural Q&A session. We have figured out the problem, though, so there should be no issue accessing next month’s Q&A. Thank you for your understanding as we figure out how to transition SUTS to this virtual platform! Please see the link below for the Q&A about Super Humankind, and if your question wasn’t answered (or if you have more questions), feel free to email Christina at cmbalentine@utexas.edu. Thanks y’all, and see you next month! 🙂 

Virtual SUTS! Super Humankind: How humans have adapted to thrive all over the world

Welcome to the first ever Science Under the Virtual Stars! We will be exploring human adaptation to extreme environments this month. Enjoy the kids (of all ages) activities, virtual natural history tour of Brackenridge Field Laboratory, and the lecture on Super Humankind! A Zoom link to the live Q&A with the speaker, Christina Balentine, will be posted next week. This live Q&A will be held on October 8th at 7:00 pm CDT (UTC -5).

Activity 1 (hands-on): Can you adapt? (To print or fill out on your computer, click File > Download > Microsoft Word (.docx) or PDF Document (.pdf))

Activity 2 (hands-on): Feeling peckish! (To print or fill out on your computer, click File > Download > Microsoft Word (.docx) or PDF Document (.pdf))

Activity 3 (online): Skin color adaptation

Coloring book: Adventures in Archaeological Science (multiple languages available)

Tour of Brackenridge Field Laboratory (13 min)

The lecture! Super Humankind: How humans have adapted to thrive all over the world (31 min). Please fill out this form with your questions for the live Q&A on October 8th at 7:00 pm CDT (UTC -5)!

October 1st & 8th, Christina Balentine

Super Humankind: How humans have adapted to thrive all over the world

Superheroes like Wonder Woman, Spiderman, and the X-Men spark the imagination: what if we could have super powers like these heroes? In fact, humans all over the world do have certain super powers! Thanks to genetic adaptation by natural selection and through cultural innovations, humans thrive in seemingly intolerable environments: at extremely high altitudes in the Himalayas; the freezing cold Arctic; and in toxic, arsenic-rich regions. In this presentation, we will explore these and other super human abilities, and see that humans really do have super powers! 

Science Under the Stars has gone virtual! This semester all SUTS activities will be online, but we encourage you to participate outdoors under the stars in your backyard! (If wifi allows for it, of course.) October’s schedule is as follows:

  • October 1st: Links to the pre-recorded lecture, video tour of Brackenridge Field Lab, kids activities, and more will be posted here and as an event on our Facebook page.
  • October 8th, 7:00pm CT: Live Q&A with the speaker! Ask questions ahead of time by filling out the Google Form posted with the event links, or ask your question(s) live during the event.

We can’t wait to “see” y’all again and chat about science!

Science Under the Stars is a free public outreach lecture series based in Austin, Texas.