Secret Science Club: Not Just for Geeks

April 24, 2007 — -- Not since that 1980's pop hit "She Blinded Me With Science" has it been this cool to be uncool.

Once a month, gaggles of beer-guzzling geeks gather at bars across the United States to throw back a few cold ones, rock out to some good tunes and talk science.

They call themselves the Secret Science Club in New York or Cafe Scientifique in Washington D.C., but, in truth, these groups are all ploys to get scientists to socialize. So, once a month, scores of physics fans, chem connoisseurs, biology buffs and even your run-of-the-mill reporter pile into pubs from New York to Seattle to listen to lectures that answer such questions as "What happens to your body if you get sucked into a black hole?" or "Do oceans have a sex life?"

"The Secret Science Club is a monthly science soiree. What we do is we invite scientists to come here and lecture," said Margaret Mittelbach, co-organizer of New York City's Secret Science Club.

If listening to a lecture on science doesn't exactly constitute a rockin' Wednesday night in your book, think again. This geek squad is anything but.

"We're just here in a bar answering those questions that people have about the natural world and interesting phenomena," Mittelbach said. "And what we found is that people are really interested in this. We've hit a nerve somehow."

Now in its eighth month, New York's Secret Science Club 's secret is out.

"We really wanted to make science not be a secret," said the club's second organizer Michael Crewdson. "I think it's filled a need because, from the very beginning, it's been crowded and it's just been building."

In fact, across the country, this "science in bars" experiment isn't run by scientists at all. "No one here is wearing a lab coat and no one here is wearing a pocket protector either," said Elisa Hertz, an assessment director for the City University of New York and a Secret Science Club regular.

"People have a hunger to know," said Mary Hanson, the director of Cafe Scientifique outside Washington, D.C. "[Science in bars] takes the intimidation out of science. This is where you can come to get your inner geek on."