Secret Science Club: The Perfect Swarm

When:Tuesday May 18, 2010
Time:8pm
Where:The Bell House
149 7th St.
between 2nd and 3rd avenues
Brooklyn,NY
718.643.6510
Cost:Free

From the site:

A predator approaches a school of fish, and—seemingly in one motion—the fish dart to safety. A flock of pigeons wheel over Brooklyn rooftops, their movements orchestrated as if by a conductor’s baton. What’s at the root of these mysterious behaviors?

Biologist and mathematician Iain Couzin of Princeton’s Collective Animal Behavior Lab discusses swarming locusts, marching army ants, and even crowds of bugged-out Homo sapiens. He asks:
–How did collective animal behavior evolve and what are the fundamental principles underlying this behavior?
–What enables groups of animals to move in unison?
–How does individual behavior influence group dynamics?
–Can crowds of species (even humans) undergo dramatic “personality” changes?

Dr. Couzin is Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Adjunct Faculty in the Program of Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. He is a member of the Faculty of 1000 Biology and the recipient of a Searle Scholar Award in 2008 and the Mohammed Dahleh Award in 2009.

Before and After
–Groove to synchronized tunes
–Stick around for the “orderly” Q&A
—Flock don’t run to try our cocktail of the night, the Herd Mentality