Pint of Science Festival - Berkeley

Ever wanted to learn science without the difficult jargon? How about talking to a scientist over a beer? Because we could all agree that learning science is more fun with a cold pint in your hand.

Regeneration Lost and Found: What worms can teach us

Humans are not so good at regeneration. Growing back a piece of a liver or a childhood fingertip are at the maximum of our capabilities, but some invertebrates-especially worms-are masters of regrowing lost body parts. Flatworms can lose a head and regenerate all structures, including the brain, within a week. However, like humans, some worms have lackluster regenerative abilities. By tweaking the expression of a single gene, evolution has led to the loss of regeneration in these worms though human regeneration is surely more complicated.

Speaker: James Sikes, University of San Francisco

Tools of the Pornithologist: Using robots to spy on the sex lives of birds

Animals use a dizzying array of sounds, smells, colors, dances, electrical fields and seismic vibrations to convince each other to mate. How do scientists study the conversations about mating between males and females of non-human animals? One way to do this is to participate, controlling one side of the conversation with a robot. Gail Patricelli will talk about using robotic females to study courtship behaviors in two spectacular bird species, the satin bowerbird and the greater sage-grouse

Speaker: Gail Patricelli, UC Davis