‘Brain candy,’ with beer
Science left the lab Monday night and found a warm welcome — along with some frothy pints — in the backroom at The Burren, an Irish pub in Somerville. David Haig, the George Putnam Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, took the stage for the graduate student-sponsored outreach program, sharing the science of body heat on a not-so-cold winter night. “I love it. This is awesome,” said John Chamberlain, a Medford native who joined other science enthusiasts to hear Haig’s presentation. “You get to talk to scientists, pick their brains. It gets your own mind thinking about this stuff. If you’re a nerd like us, it’s brain candy … and there’s beer.” Haig spent about 20 minutes discussing the science behind the practice by warm-blooded mammals and birds of huddling together to maintain heat. He took the audience on a globe-spanning tour, from the bare Antarctic ice, where emperor penguins huddle for months...