Purely scientific fun
The curious gather at the Mission Theater for monthly Science Pub event
Notice of a Science Pub event piqued my curiosity as I walked past the Mission Theater’s marquee on Northwest Glisan Street. Once a month, the curious gather here for pop-up science lectures featuring different speakers and led by OMSI staff. The event is all-ages and costs $8. English majors are welcome, too.
In fact, “the program is 16 years old,” explained Melanie, an OMSI staff member. “We were hosting Science Pubs at the Mission for seven years before the pandemic.” They just started up again this month and usually sell out. Some people Zoom in from home.
Here’s how it works: A team from OMSI selects the subject, fielding suggestions from attendees. Subjects of keen interest to Portlanders are mushrooms, foraging and dogs.
Portland State University professor Dr. Scott Burns is a regular on the Science Pub circuit and a fan favorite, Melanie said. “He’s amazing. A great speaker.” Burns will appear at the Kennedy School March 24 to discuss the dynamic ecology of Portland. Sign up here.
Meanwhile, at the Mission Theater, the first hour from 6-7 p.m. is mostly about people arriving and standing in line for a beverage or slice of pizza. But learning is already happening as multiple choice questions scroll across a screen:
Q. What’s the biggest type of penguin? A. Emperor penguin
Q. What element makes stainless steel stainless? A. Chromium
Q. A wolf’s attempted kills are successful how many times? A. One in 10.
True or false? “Moment” is a poetic term, with no precise, official or historic definition. Read on for the answer.
If you think that the assembled crowd would be mainly shaggy nerds of the XY chromosome, you’d be wrong. Couples young and old were in the crowd, and on this night anyway, more women than men.
Tuesday night’s topic was “Decoding Dog,” led by Brie Blakeman, director of Noble Woof Dog Training.
But first, an OMSI rep kicked things off with dog-themed trivia. We had sheets of paper and pencils to mark our answers, and there would be prizes for scores of a perfect 10. At the end, we exchanged papers with the person next to us. Both she and I felt fairly confident until we scored only 6 out of 10.
Then the speaker came on. Behind her podium stood a stuffed dog. Blakeman ran through a bunch of PowerPoint slides that were alternately humorous, touching and enlightening. I began to have the uneasy feeling I really never knew my dog, Fergie, despite my deep and constant sympathy for her.
“We don’t speak the same language,” Blakeman said. “We treat them like fuzzy children.” She explained how there are two states at work in a dog: distress (fear, separation) and eustress (positive stress as when playing, sniffing on a walk), and she ran through a host of unhelpful labels that human use to explain dog behavior.
The main goal, she continued, is keep your dog in what she calls the Green Zone. This is a happy place where their face is relaxed, eyes are soft and almond-shaped, and there are no signs of tension in their bodies. This is the parasympathetic state, there’s often slow blinking and the dog’s breathing is deep and regular. Dogs learn best in this state.
A Q and A at the end of Blakeman’s lecture touched on topics like excited greeters and separation anxiety.
The answer to the aforementioned true or false question about the concept of a “moment”? The answer is false. Moment is a medieval unit of time, historically defined as as 1/40 hour or 1.5 minutes.
The next Science Pub at the Mission Theater will be on Tuesday, April 7. Doors open at 6 pm, and the lecture is from 7-9 pm.
April’s Science Pub topic is “Addressing Climate Change with Beavers,” led by Meg Waller, who works for a Portland-based restoration company called Bark. Waller is currently at work on a project aimed at enticing beavers into new areas of Mount Hood.
Follow the link to learn more about OMSI’s Science Pubs: https://omsi.edu/whats-on/
Want to know about all upcoming events? Click around to join OMSI’s Science Pub newsletter.
It's a shame that we never heard of this inspiring event despite living in the Pearl District for 14 years.Scott Burns is a star and makes geology come alive like no one else I've ever known.
So what about the hysterical dogs who are left in cars and at home alone while people work or do errands, or whatever. That's hours and hours. (Car windows open, hopefully).