The University of Michigan branch of the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM) and the Center for the Study of Complex Systems (CSCS) announce
The Origin of Life is a symposium free and open to the public
Friday, April 5, 2013; 9:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.
340 West Hall
Registration is not required.
For more information, please visit http://lsa.umich.edu/cscs.
The Ann Arbor Science & Skeptics are having a meet-up on Saturday, March 23rd from 1:00 to 3:30pm at the downtown public library. We’ll be located in the Freespace Room on the third floor (go upstairs, turn right and go down the hallway, enter a larger room and the Freespace room is to your right). We will have a sign located outside the doorway.
We will be screening a critically acclaimed documentary called The Revisionaries, which describes the controversial actions of the 2009-2010 Texas Board of Education that mandated science textbooks to introduce language that would weaken the theory of evolution by natural selection.
The first part of the event will be a few brief announcements, and then we’ll start the screening at approximately 1:30pm. And after the film, we’re hoping to have an audio conference call with Revisionaries director, Scott Thurman.
There is no charge for this meet-up, but we are accepting donations for the 2013 Scientists Fair.
If interested, I had the privilege of interviewing Thurman about the making of the film on the Critical Wit podcast (audio). You can listen to the short 20-minute conversation here.
RSVP here.
I just wanted to remind everyone that the Michigan Skeptics Association meet-up is this Saturday. It should be a fun conversation about evolution. (details). Like this group on Facebook if you’re interested in science and skepticism.
Next Tuesday (November 13th), the Ann Arbor section of the Optical Society of America is having an event, in which members of the public can make their own color holograms. (13Nov2012_AAOSA_Meeting). You can like this group on Facebook to find out more fun, future events. 
The Michigan Skeptics Association is having a special get-together on Saturday, November 10th. Special guest researcher from the Beacon Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, Dr. Zachary Blount, will be discussing his paper that was recently published in Nature magazine.
From the MI Skeptic website: His paper details how he and his team documented the step-by-step process in which organisms evolve new functions. Blount and his teammates analyzed 29 genomes from different generations to find the mutational pieces of the puzzle. We were lucky to have a system that allowed us to do so.”
The Michigan Skeptics Association meet at C.J.’s Brewing Company, located in Compuware Arena on Beck Road, just off of M-14. You can find out more about the event, location, and time by RSVP’ing at MI Skeptic’s Meetup event, Facebook event or Google Plus event.
The Ann Arbor Science & Skeptics are having a meet-up on Saturday, October 27th from 4:00 to 7:00pm at the Colonial Lanes/Cubs A.C. restaurant. We’ll be in the back room located down the short hallway past the bar.
Our special guest will be Dr. Tom Shellberg, retired professor of biology at Henry Ford Community College. Tom is the author of Choosy Women and Cheating Men: Evolution and Human Behavior. He has also written a paper for Human Ethology Bulletin (page 9). He was also featured on an episode of Atheists Speak Up! which is produced by the Michigan Atheists (youtube).
The first part of the event will be for general socializing and ordering refreshments. After which, there will be some announcements, and then there will be an informal conversation about evolution, natural selection, and human behavior.
As a courtesy to the host and restaurant staff, please RSVP for you and other guests that you are bringing, so that I can provide an accurate tally. Thanks!
*picture of Tom Shellberg taken from Michigan Atheists: Atheists Speak Up
RSVP here.
The Ann Arbor Science & Skeptics will be having our October ‘Skeptics in the Pub’ on Wednesday, October 3, at the Colonial Lanes/Cubs A.C. restaurant from 6:00 to 8:00pm. We’ll be in the back room located down the short hallway past the bar. We will be having a speaker for this meet-up, Dr. Jeffrey Boone, to discuss the impact of gene sequencing on biological science.
BIO: Jeffrey L. Boore, Ph.D., is CEO of Genome Project Solutions, Inc. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of California Berkeley. He holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in Biology from Penn State University. He retired at the rank of Lt Colonel after more than 20 years in the US Air Force and Air National Guard. He was previously Head of Evolutionary Genomics (and currently a guest researcher) at the DOE Joint Genome Institute (Berkeley National Laboratory) where he was instrumental in guiding the transition from human genome sequencing to being a comparative genomics facility and in establishing the “Community Sequencing Program“, which allocates $20 million per year to genomics projects. Dr. Boore has led 22 grant-funded projects totaling over $12 million, overseen numerous whole genome sequencing projects, authored over 100 scientific publications, delivered over 230 scientific presentations, and served on numerous advisory boards and panels, including those to the National Science Foundation, US Department of Agriculture, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, and National Institutes of Health.
Colonial Lanes is located on South Industrial (off of Eisenhower). As you walk up to the building, the entrance to the restaurant part of the establishment is on the left.
RSVP here.