Bigger, Better, and Still Not Enough Room

i-cfc89590271fc92816f8528191c2ef97-Alhabar_Fass-thumb-450x281-74131.jpg

No, the woman with the microphone is not crooning lounge songs to customers. That is Prof. Deborah Fass, and she is explaining the latest structural biology research in her lab.

i-4d59b7b6496fc2209789a5cddf14a9a6-Madaalhabar_Zajfman-thumb-450x300-74133.jpg

And this is Weizmann Institute president Prof. Daniel Zajfman in an official Science on Tap 2012 T shirt giving pub goers a talk on the economic and social importance of basic science.

No matter how big we make the yearly Science on Tap event, it is never big enough. Those who don't make their reservations in time are left out on the sidewalk straining to hear. People have been writing and calling begging us to expand it further next year, hold it twice a year, stagger the lectures so they can attend two.

i-6ec9f681d81da2971f864a22d6106757-Madaalhabar4-thumb-450x299-74135.jpg

Possibly best of all, the event and surrounding media coverage are causing reverberations. Other universities are coming up with original ways to bring academic subjects to the public, and journalists are taking note of the public interest in science. There have even been suggestions that we take the show on the road -- out of the country.

For now, however, you guys over there in London or wherever will have to do it yourselves.

More like this

Explain to a pub full of beer drinkers exactly what it is you do in your lab. That's the idea behind Science on Tap, which will be taking place again this year in bars, coffee shops and restaurants in the heart of Tel Aviv's entertainment district at the end of the month. A Science on Tap…
Are quantum physics more intelligible after a beer or two? That might be an illusion, but you wouldn't know it from the enthusiastic crowd who packed a Rehovot restaurant/pub last Thursday evening to hear a talk on the subject given by one of the Weizmann Institute's research students. Even those…
One Thursday evening near the end of July, people sitting outside a local ice cream parlor watched a neurobiology Ph.D. student wave his hand in front of his face in imitation of a robot learning to sense itself as separate from its surroundings. Despite the trains arriving at the station in the…
A few days ago, the heads of several Israeli academic institutes, including Weizmann Institute of Science President Prof. Daniel Zajfman, met with Israel’s president, Reuben Rivlin to discuss the possible effects of an academic boycott. Afterward, Prof. Zajfman was interviewed on the evening…