Fall 2013 Lineup!
We hope everyone is having a great summer! Please save the date to come and hear these awesome speakers!
- September 12: Kelsey Jiang (stickleback)
- October 10: Alejandro Berrio (coffee)
- November 14: Ian Wright (spiders)
- December 12 : Amanda Lea (Panama)
Christina Andruk
Plants On Fire!
Fire is a natural part of Texas plant and animal communities. Too little fire has altered our savannas and woodlands and put them at risk for catastrophic wildfires. This talk will explore how prescribed fire can be used to restore endangered species, manage invasive species, and reduce extreme wildfire risk.
Ben Liebeskind
Electrical Life
It has been known for centuries that animal tissues can generate electricity. This fact has fed some of the more outlandish pseudo-scientific theories, such as animal magnetism. But every organism on the planet, right down to bacteria, uses electricity in one way or another. Join UT graduate student Ben Liebeskind as he explores some of the lesser known uses of electricity in strange and wonderful organisms, and talks about how evolution has favored the rise of complex electrical signaling in animal brains.
Dr. Mark Moffett
Life Among the Ants
Dr. Mark W. Moffett, research associate at the National Museum of Natural History, author of the book Adventures Among Ants, and protégé of E.O. Wilson, talks about the ways that modern humans are much more like ants than we are like chimpanzees. With our societies of millions, only certain social insects and humans need to deal with issues of roadways and traffic rules, public health and environmental safety, assembly lines and teamwork, market economics and voting, slavery and mass warfare. The talk will be illustrated with a few of the hundreds of images from Mark’s National Geographic Magazine stories, many of subject never seen before. The lecture will transport the audience around the world, to experience the fierce driver ants of the Congo, deadly bulldog ants of Australia, marauder ants of Asia, leafcutter ants of South America, and slavery ants of the USA.
Science Under the Stars is a free, monthly public outreach lecture series founded and organized by graduate students in the Section of Integrative Biology at University of Texas at Austin. Our goals are to host fun, informal science outreach events for Austin citizens of all ages, and give scientists a venue to share their work with the general public.
Victoria Huang
Sex in the Animal Kingdom
This Valentine’s Day, learn about how other animals find their mates.
You may know about the birds and the bees, but do you know about the
snails and the sea horses? Courtship and mating behaviors are as
diverse as the species in our world. Learn about how the environment
influences an animal’s reproduction, and how it finds The One (or One
Hundred).
Victoria is a graduate student in the Section of Integrative Biology
at the University of Texas at Austin.
Science Under The Stars 