© Pint of Science, 2024. All rights reserved.
It’s 2022 and everybody’s talking about our life on Earth, but what are we missing in our fast-paced view of the world? As the lines are dawn ever nearer between dystopian fiction and reality, join us for a series of talks that delve into life through the guise of seldom celebrated species.
The Case for Pigeons
Dr Alex Evans
(STEM and Outdoor Learning Coordinator at Leicester City Football Club)
Pigeons! This talk will be a humorous examination of pigeon taxonomy, anatomy, behaviour, misconceptions and romance!
The exceptional world of fossil preservation: what can we learn from a bunch of old rocks?
Anna McGairy
(PhD Student)
Fossils are the only direct evidence we have for early animal life, but often only the hard parts, like shells, are preserved. When fossils are found with their soft parts – like guts and gills – we can learn what the organisms were eating and how they interacted with each other. Together we’ll explore how exceptional fossil sites like the Burgess Shale in Canada and the Chengjiang Fossil Site in China can tell us what life was like in the oceans over 500 million years ago.
The Cosmic Oasis
Professor Mark Williams
(Professor of Palaeobiology)
The Earth is a special place in the cosmos, an oasis for Life surrounded by the desert of space. Now humans threaten the very integrity of that oasis, degrading the systems that support Life on land and in the seas. For Life to thrive, humans must evolve a better relationship with other species, travelling a path that is mutually beneficial. How will we get to that better place?
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.