Pyramids and Proteins
Though my dad is big news in scienceland, I’ll have to come clean and answer all those who wonder—no, it’s not genetic. I was pretty poor at science throughout school (at the expense of being preturnaturally good at coming up with punny essay titles instead), but my affection for all things scientific runs deep, counter to my aptitude. (Nurture instead of nature, I guess.)
So, to me, any attempts to deliver science through mediums I understand far better, like, say, art or entertainment, are always quite welcome. Last night at Harbourfront Centre here in Toronto, I was happy to attend “Teaching Tech: Performance Lectures on art and Science by Amos Latteier and Susan Bustos”.
Mr. Latteier gave a persuasive talk on ants and how ant functioning can be seen as an inspiration for human societies. His main thrust—besides simply delivering to the audience his fairly contagious enthusiasm for ants—was that it’s impressive and mind-expanding to think about how much can be done by ants through organized physicality, whereas we tend to generally write them off as, well, ant-brained. Through the example of the ant, Latteier explained, we should be excited and motivated to participate in our world in a less mentally limited, perhaps more adventurously and trustingly physical manner. Perhaps we could even regurgitate meals for one another, who knows?