I’m starting up a ScienceCafé in Hamilton, and it’s always hard to get other people to volunteer to go first, so I did it myself! There were about a dozen participants for the first session, which was held at the Mulberry Street Coffeehouse on James Street North. Future meetings will be there on the last wednesday of the month at 7:30pm. The format was pretty loose but we started with a POP QUIZ (which was intended as a starting point for later discussion), then I gave a 20–30 minute overview of my research as it relates to Astrobiology. My powerpoint slides were almost exclusively photos, not text or graphs or figures, and I kept it very general. If I had been more prepared I would have brought the Sea Ice Porosity Demonstration –- maybe next time! We finished up with discussion of the questions on the POP QUIZ and wrapped up about 8:45.

The next session, on November 30, will feature Kirsten Bos, a graduate student in the Ancient DNA Centre at McMaster who has recently published a paper on resurrecting the plague genome. See you there!

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