--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—
June 16, 2009
Contact: Tatiana Brailovskaya, Director of Communications, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences; brlvsk@bigelow.org; 207.633.9633
Bigelow Laboratory’s Café Scientifique Series Begins Its Seventh Summer Season with Coral Reef Climate Research
WEST BOOTHBAY HARBOR, ME—Dr. Graham Shimmield, Executive Director of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, will launch the Laboratory’s seventh summer Café Scientifique season at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23, with a conversation in the Boothbay Opera House about “The Riddle of the Reefs: Using Massive Corals to Decipher the History of El Nino Events in the Equatorial Pacific.” Shimmield, a marine geochemist, will begin the evening with an informal 20-minute presentation, followed by discussion.
The Laboratory’s science cafés offer the public the opportunity for lively conversations with scientists about current research discoveries and related issues, including the latest news from experts in the field. The 2009 Café Scientifique series will be held Tuesday evenings between June 23 and August 25, from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Opera House, 86 Townsend Avenue in Boothbay Harbor. The cafés are free and open to the public. A cash bar is available. In keeping with the Laboratory’s focus on global ocean science, general themes for discussion relate to the ocean environment and its relationship to global ecosystems.
The Café Scientifique movement began in 1998 in England, and spread quickly throughout Europe and the United States, giving people the opportunity to get together to learn more about the latest ideas in science directly from the scientists, There are now over 150 cafes in over 40 countries holding regular get-togethers to bring science into our conversations and into our culture.
Established in 1974, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences is a center for global ocean research. An independent, nonprofit research institution, the Laboratory is supported by federal research grants and private funds. The laboratory’s research focus ranges from microbial oceanography -- examining biological productivity in the world’s oceans at the molecular level -- to the large-scale biogeochemical processes that drive interactions between ocean ecosystems and global environmental conditions. These programs have taken Bigelow scientists around the world to every ocean and the polar seas.
(Photo: Coral reefs in the Hawaiian Islands. Photo by Dr. Dwayne Meadows, NOAA/NMFS/OPR. Courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.)