Café Scientifique with Journalist Doug Fine and Professor George Weiblen, "Hemp's Return to Humanity" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 03-17-15. "Journalist Doug Fine and professor George Weiblen discuss whether hemp is the game-changing plant that’s going to feed the world and free us from fossil fuels while putting small farmers back to work. Hemp has strong fibers, nutritious seed oil and untapped potential as an alternative energy source. Fine published 'Hemp Bound' in 2014, a book...

Edit: Danielle would like to correct something from the Q&A - "The estimate for venom volume was way off! Should be between 0.1mL and 1mL, I get it from them in diluted form, which is why my estimate was so big." Café Scientifique with Professor Sharon Jansa and her grad student Danielle Drabeck, "Natural Toxins: Why We Care and Why the Honey Badger Don't." Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 02-17-15. "Bell Museum curator of mammals Sharon Jansa and her intrepid grad student Danielle...

Café Scientifique with Professor Evan Skillman, "The PHAT Map: Hubble’s Legacy." Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 01-20-15. Check out our video interview of Evan: http://youtu.be/WhNo7ILN8-g "Andromeda’s stars, along with their ancestors and descendants (e.g., molecular clouds, HII regions, supernova remnants, etc.) can help us see and understand what galaxies are made of, providing opportunities for vast advances in the foundation on which all knowledge of the Universe is based. In...

Check out the YouTube version of this to see all of the wonderful images in the presentation: http://youtu.be/c9y64QHCa4o Café Scientifique with Tim Quady, "Museum Diorama Design and Fabrication." Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 12-16-14. "Tim Quady, owner of Blue Rhino Studio in Eagan, will present the process of designing and fabricating museum exhibits, including huge, long-extinct creatures such as mammoths and short faced bears. Taken together, the November and December Cafes are a...

Café Scientifique with Professor David Fox, "The Lives and Times of Ice Age Mammoths and Mastodons." Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 11-19-14. "Mammoths and mastodons are among the most well known species of the North American and Eurasian megafauna, and comparisons by Georges Cuvier in the early 19th century of their bones to those of the African and Asian elephants established the concept of species extinction. This talk will describe how contemporary paleontologists study the anatomy,...

Café Scientifique with Professor Michel Janssen, "Einstein: The Old Sage and the Young Turk." Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 10-21-14. See the video at http://youtu.be/kVFyYrvXGvg "Drawing on his work for the Einstein Papers Project and his collaborations with scholars at the Max Planck Institute for History of Science in Berlin, Dr. Michel Janssen will explain, in layperson's terms, the scientific methodology behind the spectacular successes of the young Einstein (special and general...

Café Scientifique with Professor Andrew Simons, "Carp and Culture." Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 09-16-14. "The relationships between humans and carp are complex and surprisingly varied in different cultures around the world. In North America, carp are despised as ravenous invasive pests that destroy habitat for fishes, ducks and other organisms. Yet in China, Japan, Britain, and Eastern Europe, the carp is cultured for food, raised as expensive pets, revered as a symbol of...

Café Scientifique with Professor Scott Lanyon, "Birds, Evolution, and the Tree of Life" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 05-20-14. "From Darwin's finches to the last passenger pigeon, the relationship between humans and birds has been by turns eye-opening, complicated, mysterious, instructive and deadly. Prof. Scott Lanyon will be speaking on how keen observation of our feathered "frenemies" helps provide the foundation for phylogenetic systematics—the way biologists reconstruct the...

Café Scientifique with Dr Marla Spivak, "Our Disappearing Bees" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 04-15-14. "Over the years, honey bees have faced a series of devastating problems, including a witches' brew of diseases, parasites and pesticides that together contribute to the mass honey bee die-off known as colony collapse disorder. Now, a relatively new class of insecticides that affect the central nervous system of insects is pushing the pollinator crisis to the edge, while researchers...

Café Scientifique with Tony Thompson, "Conservation Ethic in Modern Agriculture" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 03-18-14. "Thompson is a farmer and philosopher who notably appeared in Bell Museum's Emmy award winning documentaries 'Troubled Waters' and 'Minnesota: A History of the Land.' In acknowledgement of agriculture scientist, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and University of Minnesota alumnus Dr. Norman Borlaug's 100th birthday, he will be sharing his insights into the Green Revolution...

Café Scientifique with Clement Pryke, "Microwave Background-Basking in the Afterglow of the Big Bang" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 02-18-14. "Cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the after glow from early times when the Universe was a smooth hot plasma. By studying the CMB we can learn much about the origin, contents and ultimate fate of the Universe; indeed, CMB studies are at the center of the current "golden age" of cosmology."

Café Scientifique with Dr. Claudia Scarlata, "Galaxy Formation and the Reionization of the Universe" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 01-21-14.

Café Scientifique with Dr. David Stephens, "Bird Brains: Decision-Making, Experimental Games, and the Evolution of Learning in Blue Jays" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 12-17-13. "Dr. Stephens' research blends mathematical and experimental analyses to address a range of issues in behavioral ecology, especially feeding behavior and cooperation. Using psychological techniques and experimental games such as the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Stephens Lab at the University of Minnesota analyzes...

Café Scientifique with Marlene Zuk, "Sex on Six Legs - Insect Behavior, Evolutionary Biology and Sexual Selection" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 11-19-13. "How is it that insects, with their robotic demeanor and stripped-down biological toolbox, are able to accomplish so many of the same functions as humans? Tonight, evolutionary biologist Dr. Marlene Zuk gives us an account of the social behavior (and yes, the sex lives) of ants, crickets, bees, and other insects, illuminating the...

Café Scientifique with Sharon Stiteler AKA The Birdchick, "Birding for These Modern Times" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 10-15-13. "Sharon Stiteler is the author of three books and the enormously popular Birdchick blog. She keeps bees with Neil Gaiman (and photographs birds in his backyard,) and travels 40 weeks of the year to spy on birds all over the world. 
During one of her rare stints at home in Minnesota, and hot on the heels of a multi-week European birding trek, Stiteler will...

Café Scientifique with Dr Craig Packer, "The Short and Happy Life of a Serengeti Lion" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 09-17-13. Check out video of the talk with powerpoint: http://youtu.be/xm8XIRo8b-s "One of the most fearsome and charismatic animals on the planet, lions have long been of great fascination to humans. But for all their so-called ferociousness, their existence is in peril. Craig Packer studies lions' evolutionary traits and their complex social structure—while working...

Café Scientifique with Mary Meyer, "Top Ten Plants that Changed Minnesota" Hosted by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, and recorded at the Golden Nugget on 08-15-13. Dr. Mary Meyer, Professor and Extension Horticulturist at the University of Minnesota will talk about the 10 Plants that Changed Minnesota, website: http://top10plantsmn.org/

Café Scientifique with Peter Moe, "A "100+ Years of Cold-Hardy Apples and Grape Breeding" Hosted by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, and recorded at the School of the Wise II Bistro & Wine Bar on 07-10-13. Peter Moe, director of operations and research at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, will share insights and information on more than a century of cold-hardy apples—honeycrisp too, and grape breeding.

Café Scientifique with the director of the Bell Museum, Dr Susan Weller, "A Bug's-Eye View of the Garden" Hosted by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, and recorded at the Golden Nugget on 06-12-13. Susan Weller is the director of the Bell Museum and is an expert in Entomology.

Café Scientifique with Dr Paul Weiblen, "Under the Surface: A Geologist's Take on Sulfide Mining Near the BWCAW" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 05-21-13. "Paul Weiblen is a Professor Emeritus in Geology & Geophysics, University of Minnesota."

Café Scientifique with Paul Porter, "From Buenos Aires to Peru: An Up-Close Look at Agroecology in South America" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 03-19-13. "Paul Porter is a cycle-trekker, adventurer, and Professor in Agronomy & Plant Genetics at the University of Minnesota."

Café Scientifique with Mark Seeley "Climate Change & Drought in Minnesota" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 03-19-13.

Café Scientifique with Jay Bell, "The Dirt Beneath Our Feet: A History of Soils & Societies" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 02-19-13. **I've decided to stick with the higher-bitate**

Café Scientifique with John Sheehan, "How to Ethically Feed and Fuel Nine Billion People (in 4 Easy Steps)" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 01-15-13. **Sorry for the larger filesize, because of audio issues, we went with a higher bitrate**

Café Scientifique with Sarah Komperud and David Hahn, "The Visible Universe: An Audience-Driven Tour of the Cosmos" Recorded at the Bryant Lake Bowl on 12-18-12. Here is the description offered for the talk: "Join astronomer Parke Kunkle and Bell Museum planetarium educators Sarah Komperud and David Hahn on a virtual journey to the edge of the known universe. We’re bringing the Bell ExploraDome's dynamic Uniview visualization software back to Bryant Lake Bowl for this one-of-a-kind...