This month’s Laborastory session (the last one to be held at the Ciderhouse-check out our new venue here) included talks on the discoverer of electrolysis, the Bronte Sisters of the Botanical world, and a maverick con artist of sorts.
Prasanna Sritharan started off the evening with a talk on eccentric Eadweard Muybridge, the first to photograph a horse in the act of flying (also a pioneer in experiments combining chickens and torpedoes).
Kate Cranney went next with scientific illustrators Harriet and Helena Scott, the first female members of the Australian Entomological Society (the Australian Museum has an app for that here).
Dr Neil MacDonald then delivered a graphic (and hilarious) account of early experiments in anaesthesia (pubes and batons were involved).
Following a short refreshments break Dr Dave Gonsalvez then followed with a Italian anatomy professor Mondino de Liuzzi, a medieval surgeon with the best ever female to male surgery team ratio (a record that unfortunately, remains unchallenged in surgery today).
Tom Lang concluded the session with the rollicking adventures of Michael Faraday (Tesla was cool but guess what you need to test his theories-a Faraday cage).
Get the whole thing here and we’ll see you at the next session at the Spotted Mallard on Wednesday 9 July 2014.