Parasites, dolphin autopsies and space-dust. Standard friday night.

Picture the scene, it’s Friday night in a swanky part of London and John, ‘Curator of Molluscs’, comes out with ‘And that’s not the most extreme way of getting sperm into a lady’. If this sounds a bit weird, that’s because it was. 

Late on Friday afternoon I found out about an event called ‘Science Uncovered’ at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London (South ‘Ken’ to the locals/luvvies). As I’m getting increasingly interested in ways to discuss science and engage with the public, I thought I’d pop along before I went out on Friday night. I turned up 2 hours late for my night out, brimming with enthusiasm for other people’s research, trying to explain the beauty of parasites to my (now half-inebriated) friends in a (very hot) salsa bar near Leicester Square. As you can imagine, they didn’t represent the best audience so I thought I’d let you lot in on what you missed!

I arrived at the museum in a bit of a rush, determined to be in-and-out in 30 minutes. I was immediately greeted by a poll on ‘How important is science to everyday life?’ People were hastily cramming their voting tokens into the box marked ‘Very’ and trying to look knowledgable but not too keen – the standard ‘science face’. However, within minutes, it was impossible not to become drawn in to the exhibition. There were over 300 scientists discussing their work throughout the museum. For example, in the Earth Hall, earth scientists from Imperial were showing off the power of desktop scanning electron microscopes by using an ENORMOUS plasma TV to show pock marks on panels that they’d taken from the Hubble telescope after a meteor shower, and marine biologists were talking observers through a gruesome but extraordinary dolphin autopsy under the huge blue whale in the ‘Blue Zone’ for mammals. The whole thing was really informative and interesting and I’d actually encourage anyone who feels their interest in science waning to go and check out their late night events (I think the last Friday of the month is often dedicated to such one-off exhibitions).

It would take me hours to recount the whole event, so here are some highlights...

Being chatted up with – Is that your perfume or just your natural pheromones that smell so good? - Scientists really do know how to the woo the ladies…(It was Escada, Marine Groove, in case you were interested - I was quite sweaty from the tube and had over-applied it.)

Hearing science rubbish, like: ‘I would like the alphabet to consist of less letters. I feel we’re just collecting them…’

Left: Getting up close to some gross parasites (Taeniasis)

Right: Playing children's games to help explain extinction and  food chain disruption

 Below: Using an ENORMOUS plamsa tv to control the view of 'space-dust' from a desktop scanning electron microscope. 

Left and Right: Having a go at predicting the weather – actually quite difficult to point to the right bit of the screen!

 Below: Making modern ‘cave paintings’...

Below: Marvelling at the cake-based representation of tectonic plates – who knew Iceland rendered in icing would be so delicious? (I think that's upside-down Chile/Argentina on the right)

Below: Listening to ‘Soapbox scientists’ discuss their given topic with anyone who would listen – and a few who would not - some 'interesting' questions...

 

Left: Learning about the ingredients in Gin (no free samples, sad times)

Below: Studying the beautiful art created from the patterns of nature, including wasps and coral

Comparing the ‘recovered’ foetuses of a hump back whale (large tank, below left) and a harbour porpoise (bottle, below left and close-up, right) at 6 months gestation.

Below: Playing with whale teeth!!Left: Blue whale baleen (krill filter); middle: whale tooth (can't remember the name, but you can count the rings to work out its age - just like a tree!); far left: Minky whale baleen.

 


Left: Watching the dolphin autopsy – apparently a major cause of death is internal heamorrage from male adolescents i.e. excited and horny teenage dolphins

 Finally, the most memorable stand consisted of pickled sea creatures and was run by John, the aforementioned ‘Curator of Molluscs’. He was obscenely passionate about his work and had a crowd of agog listeners within minutes. I will (poorly) recount some of his best facts.

-Sea creatures that can change colour are chromatophoric and they change their skin colour my inflating the minute patches of skin that display the colour they want to be. 

-Boy cuttlefish use this to get some cuttlefish action by pretending to be girls (so that the men don’t attack them) and then ‘seducing‘ the lady cuttlefish whilst their backs are turned (sneaky beggars).

-Some octopi have hectocotyli – an appendage that removes sperm from an internal penis and then ‘delivers’ it to the lady octopus. Nice.  

-There were weirder penis stories from the marine world involving the words ‘detachable’ and ‘sperm explosion’ but it wasn’t all phallus-related...

-We also learnt that the octopus beak is just that, a beaky monstrous thing that is so strong and sharp it’s being investigated by nanotech companies!

Another highlight was being shown Darwin’s ‘pet’ octopus that distracted him from his theories of evolution. Until he killed it and pickled it that is. Naturally.

Pickled octopus tentacle. Yum!

An octopus 'Beak'. Very nasty!

Throughout this weird and wonderful list I'm sure you can see that I thoroughly enjoyed my evening of other people's research. There were plenty of scientists, artists, kids and 'normal people' who all seemed to be enjoying themselves too! 

As I left via a side door, late for my evening of salsa and Mojitos, I was quite jealous of all the people I'd met that night who quite clearly love what they do...