В баре Siberia прошел рекордно посещаемый вечер лекций о летучих мышах

The sweltering sunshine was still out in full force when the first few excited patrons arrived at Siberia on the last Thursday in July, before the St. Claude Avenue metal bar had even opened its doors for the night. As people fanned themselves in the shade and lined up on the sidewalk, an employee carefully listed the evening’s schedule on a chalkboard. “Bats,” she wrote. “Bats really turned them out,” said Claire Ellis, who had claimed prime real estate on a centrally located barstool as people streamed into the bar moments later. She was there for “obvious reasons, as a goth.” Bats may be the name of an edgy punk band somewhere, but Ellis was talking about the flying, nocturnal mammals. The winged creatures were the topic of the night for Science Time, a free event that’s been bringing metal heads, goths, nerds and anyone who loves a happy hour special and a good PowerPoint presentation to the bar nearly once a month for the past year. It started as an experiment for Siberia’s science-loving staff, but Science Time has become an antidote to social media scrolling and a meet-up for like-minded brainiacs across the city to learn and present their own research — while enjoying a discounted alcoholic beverage. While Siberia staff agreed bat night brought record-breaking attendance, other topics also have garnered surprisingly large audiences, from presentations on blood spatter analysis to antibiotic resistance and gene editing. “This is basically an opportunity for the people in STEM to present their research to the masses,” bartender Anastassia Kosmopoulos told the crowd at bat night. “The people want graphs!" The people’s science The idea for Science Time came from Sara Evers, a Siberia bartender who on July 30 poured drinks for the bat-loving masses decked out in T-shirts and dresses featuring UFOs, stars, moons and Edward Cullen. Evers said she frequented a similar science-themed happy hour back when she lived in Philadelphia and missed it when she moved to New Orleans. “I guess since I couldn’t find it, I decided to make it,” Evers said. Fortunately, Siberia is something of a haven for science lovers. The sound guy’s girlfriend is a biologist, part-owner Charley Cameron is a geologist who also dabbles in grant writing, and Kosmopoulos is a naval architect by day. The metal music scene in general tends to attract the analytically minded, as Kosmopoulos pointed out. When Evers pitched the idea a little over a year ago, the team at Siberia decided it was worth a shot. Their staff alone could lead the first few lectures, and Kosmopoulos presented on the implosion of OceanGate’s Titan submersible. But, perhaps unsurprisingly for a bar that has always doubled as a kind of community center, Science Time quickly attracted larger crowds than anyone expected. To Kosmopoulos, it speaks to the appetite for accurate information from trusted sources. “People really want to know about this stuff,” Kosmopoulos said. Frickin’ bats It was Carissa Thiel’s bat expertise that drew crowds to Siberia last month. A wildlife biologist, Thiel was thrown into the world of bats through her work with environmental consulting and contracting company Mendez Group, work that often involves removing bats from buildings or helping crews find ways to work around habitats. She recently helped launch a statewide bat working group aiming to fill data gaps for local and coastal bat species. She was getting drinks with colleagues after the Southeastern Bat Diversity Network conference in March when she met some of the Siberia staff and heard about Science Time. She’d done other public speaking and educational events before, but never quite like this one. Thiel described her presentation as “bats at large,” hitting on the shocking size variations across the world and debunking common myths. Most bat species don’t drink blood, for example, and the few that do don’t really consume it like a vampire. “They lap up the blood — which is cuter,” she said to laughs. But Thiel also got into the specifics of Louisiana’s bats, some of which are known to live within the folds of Spanish moss in lieu of caves, and most of which are our allies in the battle against mosquitoes and other pests. The packed bar was near silent throughout Thiel’s lecture, save for frequent oohs and ahhs, a rarity for a place that generally gives out free ear plugs. Bat night was a first for attendees Mary Bordelon and Shaye Patton, who said they saw an advertisement for Science Time on social media and couldn’t resist the chance for weekday whimsy. “I saw science and I saw bats and I saw happy hour,” Bordelon said. “And I was like, what could be better?” “I’d rather do that than brain rot,” Patton agreed.