Date: Wednesday, November 8th
Time: 8pm
Location: High Noon Saloon

First is Celeste Huff with All the Single Ladies: Let’s Celebrate Solitary Bees! “Solitary bees… these little ladies are everywhere. With over 20,000 species of bees worldwide, most of them (over 90%) actually fly solo. Celeste Huff, a graduate student in the UW Madison Department of Entomology, will be talking about the fascinating lives of solitary bees and ways you can help them thrive!”

Second is Bartje Wakker presenting Tantalizing Trees: Convergent Evolution, Naming, and Taxonomy in Trees! “What we call certain trees can be misleading – especially within the name ‘Cedar’. In reality, many trees that you might think are closely related, or even call the same name – are quite distant, and more closely related to other familiar plants including common vegetables or ornamental flowers. In this talk I – Bartje Wakker – will be trying to put how well known plants are (or aren’t) related to each other by covering some examples of this phenomenon, as well as what ‘convergent evolution’ is and why it leads to all of this – as well as a couple… personal gripes… on the naming of certain types of conifer trees.”

Last but not least, we welcome Ashleigh Gradel to the stage for A Qualitative Analysis of the Taco Bell Menu. “Do you like Taco Bell but struggle to figure out which form factor of beef, cheese, tortilla, and lettuce is the best for a given scenario? This presentation is for you: my name is Ashleigh Gradel, and I have three goals: (1) to provide a comprehensive, analytical, and fair review of the Taco Bell menu, (2) to abolish the Mexican Pizza, and (3) to get you ready for your next Taco Bell encounter. I’ve used my own expertise (and several expensable meals on work trips) to develop the Live:Más ratio to evaluate, definitively, the best (and worst!) of Taco Bell.”