After hours of wonder and discovery at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH)

The ANMH may close their doors to the public at 5:30PM, but that doesn’t mean the party stops, with evening events lined up throughout each month. TheCelebrityCafe.com was lucky enough to attend three of these highlighting events over the past few weeks.

Beyond Planet EarthEvents: Cosmic Cocktails and Space Arcade

The American Museum of Natural History knew just how to kick the New Year off right—with a party in the Rose Center for Earth and Space. The Museum provided history buffs and party goers with cosmic cocktails, appetizers and custom indie space arcade games from Brooklyn's DIY arcade, Babycastles for this event. Attendees were free to do as they wished, floating around from floor to floor frantically figuring out what to check out first.

In the Cullman Hall of Universe, attendees enjoyed the music of special guest One Ring Zero, as they belted out hits from their album Planets, a tribute to the solar system. Two young women in particular were enjoying themselves, dancing around dressed in the band’s astronaut costumes they had been wearing for the performance. Other attendees chose to stay glued to the video game screens, with a drink in one hand and a game stick in the other. One intriguing game was located in a dark room with a giant screen featuring pairs playing motion-censored games of stop ‘n’ go, which was quite entertaining to observe.

At one point or another, attendees made their way to the top floor to see Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration, which allowed exclusive access to a space exhibition where fanatics could play various types of space games, view remnants of space and figures, take a picture as an astronaut and even smell the Moon—which isn't very pleasant. One of the most exciting parts was entering the Dome, where attendees were able to have control of a custom, multi-player interactive table, deflecting asteroids, flying over Mars and shooting stars.

SciCafe: The Virus Hunters

On the first Wednesday of every month, the AMNH hosts a FREE after-hour series called SciCafe in the Wallach Orientation Center (4th floor), which features experts in the field of science discussing cutting-edge scientific topics. Many biologists, scientists, students and science lovers gathered for the February SciCafe event that spotlighted virologist Nathan Wolfe, founder and CEO of the Global Viral Forecasting (GVF) Initiative and one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, and computational biologist and associate at Ohio State University, Daniel Janies.

Both Wolfe and Janies led an interesting discussion regarding their efforts to trace infections in animals before they reach humans. Along with colleagues and Museum researchers, Janies created the Supramap, ‘a web application for integrating genetic, evolutionary, geospatial and temporal data.’ Using this application and the GVF Iniative, Wolfe and Janies are working in twenty three sites around the world hoping to develop a means to analyze and share diverse types of data on pathogens, creating ‘weather maps,’ for the trace of diseases as they spread.

Wolfe goes on to discuss how there is a level of connectivity between humans and animal populations, leading more viruses to spread globally and create new, potentially deadly ones.

“There are three times more chickens alive then humans,” said Wolfe. “This is the Holy Grail—can we create a science where we do much better than the past in catching viruses before they spread.”

The most fascinating element of their discussion was their identification of new microbes by collecting 200,000 human and 60,000 animal samples, which documented viral jumps from animals to humans. According to Wolfe, H1N1 and H5N1 (newly introduced) are amazingly deadly.

“H1N1 has touched more people than Facebook; it’s a pandemic,” expressed Wolfe. “About 7,000 died from terrorist acts, but 100,000 died from H1N1.”

Wolfe continues to convey that at this point they have to take genetic information, like a blueprint to a building, and create a new virus because without sequencers to read the them, they can only study them by creation.

“There is nothing that goes on without risk,” said Wolfe confidently.

The next SciCafe, “From Poison to Panacea: Using Snake Venom to Combat Cancer,” will be held on Wednesday, March 7th.

Adventures in the Global Kitchen-- Aphrodisiacs: Myth or Reality

The Global Kitchen is a unique monthly series of talks and tastings led by cookbook authors, grill masters, and other culinary connoisseurs. With Valentine’s Day drawing near, what better topic—and hands-on experience-- to cover this month then food, drinks and some other surprising discoveries, that bring love and passion to relationships with food historian/writer and noted lecturer, Francine Segan.

As soon as attendees took their seats in the Linder Theater, plates of tastings from pasta to chocolate to red wine were passed out, some of which included ingredients that later shocked the audience (i.e. red wine pasta with prunes instead of tomatoes). With her tantalizing language and quirky, yet raunchy jokes and riddles, Segan made it impossible to not to blush. Segan spent the hour telling stories about her findings in cookbooks, how aphrodisiacs originated and tracked foods/drinks used throughout the ages for romance, such as how Cleopatra ate figs for desire and Hercules ate them for strength and stamina.

Segan raised the question of whether or not it was a myth or reality that there are foods that ‘send blood to all the right places.’ Because the word ‘aphrodisiac’ came from the Greek Goddess of Love Aphrodite who came from the sea, it was commonly believed that seafood, especially oysters, were ‘special’ evocative food. The genuine comfort that Segan provided her audience with and her thorough explanations and descriptions of each food/drink and why it was believed to be an aphrodisiac was beyond insightful.

Here is a list of some aphrodisiacs among the many that Segan provided—both the delicious and the disgusting:

• Liquorish- it was believed that because spices tingled the tongue they also tingled ‘other body parts’; believed to heighten male sexual arousal when paired with donuts
• Cucumbers and Good & Plenty candy- the smell of these were believed to heighten female arousal
• Fruits, especially Raspberries & Strawberries- these were considered aphrodisiacs because of their shape, juices and because they were closely associated with Adam & Eve.
• Honey- the most potent; in Ancient Rome it was believed that if pierced by Cupid’s golden arrow dipped in honey would cause arousal because ‘there is never sweetness without pain.’
• Garlic- is one of Segan’s favorites; it was believed to increase sexual ability and strength, which is why pyramid builders in Egyptian times and Romans when fighting consumed tons of it.
• Long-shaped foods & Animal Appendages- it was believed that things that were long and shaped like the male genitalia were aphrodisiacs such as, carrots (grown by King Henry VIII), bananas, asparagus, celery, deer antlers and rhinoceros horns.
• Frog Saliva- closely resembled semen and frog eggs symbolized fertility.
• Truffles- it was believed to induce mystique and luxury
• Champagne and Sparkling Red Wine- it was believed that because the bubbles touched a woman’s lips first it stimulated seduction
• Hot Chocolate- its thickness, sweetness and creamy texture was believed to also stimulate seduction.

So, are aphrodisiacs a myth or reality? That was one question Segan was still unable to answer by the end of the discussion, but she definitely made us believers.

The next Global Kitchen will be held on Thursday, March 1st with David Lang and Lucky Peach

In honor of Valentine’s Day, ANMH is hosting an event at the Hayden Planetarium Space Theater on February 14th, with a cocktail hour complete with open bar, champagne, chocolate and passed hors d’ oeuvres accompanied by the music of Josh Rutner Quartet. So if you don’t have any plans yet and are looking for some “romance under the stars,” head to the Museum next week!