Online: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/j/95599572800?pwd=RVNJWWY5d0hBS1I4SVE1QXRlTEV2QT09
Meeting ID: 955 9957 2800
Password: 939397
6:30 PM
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| Last month’s Virtual Nerd Nite TOTALLY RULED, so we’re bringing it back to your Zoompage on May 9th with a brand new talk, an all-time favorite, and a very special presentation by Co-Boss Kali Holder. DO NOT MISS IT. Just do your optics a favor and scope this lineup: |
“The Stickiest of the Icky: Collecting Animal Semen for Fun and Profit” by Ian Booth
Summary: The common wisdom holds that it is wrong to jack off a pet or cock-tease a farm animal. But one person’s bestiality is another person’s treasure, and animal semen is a major player in the global economy and conservation efforts. I’ll take you on a whirlwind tour of the human relationship with animal sperm, ranging from the profitable (more than $200 million in exports of bull semen last year) to the environmental (the peregrine falcon, saved by a sex hat), with stop offs at the just plain weird. If you’ve ever enjoyed a pork chop, cheese, or a trip to the zoo, you’ve benefited from this sticky business.
Bio: Ian’s experience with sperm goes all the way back to mid-1984, when he was one. He eventually got much bigger, lost the tail, and left North Carolina for the Peace Corps. He would go on to become a Jeopardy! champion and the only person ever chased out of not one, but two 19th century naval fiction fan clubs.
“On Nipple Toothed Pachyderms: American degeneracy and the fossil record of elephants” by Advait Jukar
Summary: What do fossils have to do with the spirit of America? Were the French right about a degenerate fauna in the west? What the heck are nipple teeth? I will be answering these questions and will take you on a journey through the fascinating fossil history of elephants and their kin.
Bio: Advait is a Deep Time Fellow at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and studied the structure of ancient ecosystems, megafaunal extinctions, and the evolution of elephants and horses. Before Advait studied fossils, he studied mildly toxic frogs on a mountain in Korea.