--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--March 12, 2012Contact: Tatiana Brailovskaya, Director of Communications,
Cracking the Ocean Code:Bigelow Café Scientifique Film Screening on March 28
WEST BOOTHBAY HARBOR, ME – Bigelow Laboratory is hosting a free screening of the film Cracking the Ocean Code as its first Café Scientifique of 2012 on Wednesday, March 28 at 6 p.m. in the Boothbay Harbor Opera House, 86 Townsend Avenue in Boothbay Harbor. Senior Research Scientist Dr. Ramunas Stepanauskas, director of the Laboratory’s Single Cell Genomics Center, will join filmmaker and Compass Light Productions executive director David Conover to lead a discussion about the film and the science behind it.Originally produced for The Discovery Science Channel, the 60-minute film is the story of genome pioneer J. Craig Venter's sailing expedition around the world aboard the 95-foot Sorcerer II to collect and map the ocean's microbial DNA. The documentary follows Venter and his crew from Nova Scotia to the Galapagos Islands to Antarctica in search of new life forms and genetic resources that may help solve major energy and climate change challenges.
Bigelow Laboratory's research ranges from microbial oceanography to the large-scale ocean processes that affect global environmental conditions. Recognized as a leader in Maine’s emerging innovation economy, the Laboratory is spurring significant economic growth in the state through construction of a new Ocean Science and Education Campus in East Boothbay. The Laboratory’s Single Cell Genomics Center, the first facility of its kind in the world, makes state-of-the-art single cell genomics technology available for research in microbial ecology, evolution, bioprospecting, and human health.
Based in Camden, Maine, Compass Light produces documentary films about the natural world for a range of venues including broadcast, theater, and Internet.
The Laboratory’s regular summer series of Café Scientifique “science conversations” will begin in early July in the Opera House at Boothbay Harbor. All of the Laboratory’s Café Scientifique talks are free and open to the public, with beer, wine, and sodas available for purchase.
Photo: Aboard the Sorcerer II. Photo courtesy of CAMERA (Community cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Microbial Ecology Research and Analysis. © 2011 California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.)
