Hey St. Louis people.
Last year I gave a lecture at the St. Louis Science Center on the Science of Avatar, based on the article I published here on AICN on the same subject [http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440], and my subsequent chat with James Cameron. [http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43923]
Earlier this year I wrote an article on the Science of Star Trek [http://www.aintitcool.com/node/49990], and I got a chance to talk to the writers of the Abrams version, Orci and Kurtzman, about it [http://www.aintitcool.com/node/50036]. And history is repeating itself again in that the St. Louis Science Center was kind enough to bring me back to give a lecture in conjunction with their new Star Trek exhibit. They will have costumes, props, replicas and exhibits from 45 years of Star Trek. I'm really excited to check out the replica of the bridge of the Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I walked around on such a thing when there was an attraction in Las Vegas years ago, and I nearly lost my damn fool geek mind. Here's an article from the St. Louis Beacon about the Exhibit:
My lecture will be What Would Life on Other Planets Look Like? Of course we don't know for sure, but I'll explore what we can and can't say on the subject based on what we know about biology, evolution, chemistry, physics, and astronomy. Would life be carbon-based? Would aliens be humanoid? Would they be much more intelligent than we are? How do the aliens in Star Trek fit in with our best scientific hypotheses?
The lecture is at 7 pm Thursday, Nov. 10. Here are the details:
http://www.slsc.org/Calendar/tabid/231/ModuleID/1010/ItemID/2325/mctl/EventDetails/Default.aspx
Hope to see you there.
-Andy "Copernicus" Howell
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/d_a_howell
