SCIENCE GOES PUBLIC! – Episode 10
"A baked fish, a pickled herring and a crab roll are sitting in the sauna…” What sounds like a joke is actually the invitation to an event on a topic that doesn’t readily invite jokes: The consequences of climate change for North Sea fisheries. "SCIENCE GOES PUBLIC!" is a format for reaching wider audiences that presents “dry” science topics in pubs in varied and humorous ways. The tenth instalment of this popular series runs from 10 March to 14 April 2022.
Twenty lectures, each no more than thirty minutes long, show the fascinating world of science – broken down into facts and anecdotes that are easy for lay people to understand. Afterwards there will be an opportunity for exchange between the audience and the scientists. Venue: selected pubs in Bremen and Bremerhaven.
"SCIENCE GOES PUBLIC!" originated in Bremerhaven, from an idea developed in 2005 in the context of the "City of Science” initiative – a successful idea, as it turned out. Since 2017, Bremen has also participated. Pubs hosting past events include Gastfeld, Gondi and 1st Class Suicide in Bremen's Neustadt district and Das Rüssel, Hangover and Kapovaz in Bremerhaven. The organisers are Erlebnis Bremerhaven GmbH on behalf of the Pier of Science network in Bremerhaven and Wirtschaftsförderung Bremen GmbH in Bremen.
This year, organisers have once again succeeded in convincing engaging scientists to give humorous lectures. Shivesh Kumar and Christoph Stoeffler from the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence will report on the new generation of modern robots, and Kirsten Tracht from the Bremen Institute for Structural Mechanics and Production Systems will explain how beetles and the bottoms of their feet inspire engineers in designing technology for gripping sensitive components.
But scientific topics aren’t the only ones on the programme. What happened to the thousands of people who, after the Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) in 1938 and before the start of World War II in 1939, suddenly emigrated or fled from the German Reich to places they didn’t know? On hand to talk about this will be Susanne Kiel from the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven.
As serious as the topics are, there will be no lack of humour and fun – as evidenced by some of the event titles verging on bad jokes, like “Beguiling even without bowels" (7 April at Tequila in Bremen).
