Tomorrow's meeting of the Prince George's Audubon Society and the Patuxent Bird Club will feature Dr. Marilyn Fogel, a senior scientist at the Carnegie Institute of Washington, giving a talk called "Stable-isotope Ecology and its Use in Ornithology": Stable-isotope ecology is the new science of measuring the ratios of different isotopes of the same element in plant and animal tissue. Isotopes of an element are chemically the same but have slightly different weights.  The relative amounts of 2 isotopes vary from place to place in the air and water, and as they work their way up the food chain and become deposited in animal tissue they track where the organism has been and what kind of plants it has eaten. And when preserved bird tissue can be recovered, it can tell us how the climate and vegetation have changed, and about the spread and evolution of birds (and people) over time, in the even newer discipline of paleo-archeology."

Your IQ is guaranteed* to be at least 10 points higher by the end of the program.  You don't want to miss it!

Where?  The College Park Airport Annex
When?  Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at 7:30 p.m.

See http://www.pgaudubon.org for directions to meeting location.  Light refreshments will (weather permitting) be served.

Lynette Fullerton

*About that guarantee.  Um, well, of course we can't guarantee that.  That would be silly.  But you can probably, after tomorrow night, find ways to slip in casual comments about isotopes and paleo-archeology and everybody will think you're pretty darn smart.