Latest news & updates
FINAL DECK50 PERFORMANCE: MEETING MENDEL IN ENGLISH
Dec 15th, 2022, Vienna
We end an year of exciting events at the Deck50 with a final -- and English-- performance of Meet Mendel with performer Severin Bachmayer.
OPENING CEREMONY OF MENDEL'S GREENHOUSE
Nov 12th, 2022, Brno
The new Mendel's Greenhouse, built on the original site, is now open to the public! Barbara Fischer attended the ceremony, representing our project.
MENDEL DAYS 2022
Nov 2-3rd, 2022, Vienna
The theme of this year's Mendel Days was "Mendel and the world." Lynn Chiu presented our science engagement projects at the Deck50 in the workshop "Teaching Genetics and Mendel."
Oct 13-14th, 2022, Klosterneuburg
Hosted by the KLI in Klosterneuburg, we held our Symposium “Mendel's Legacy in Science and Society”. It centered on science education, history, genetics and science philosophy and featured many interdisciplinary discussions. We cannot thank the speakers enough for their amazing talks, and over these two days it became obvious to us that every attendant, organizer and speaker would take away quite a bit from the event, be it knowledge or insight into a different perspective.
SCHOOL WORKSHOPS AT THE DECK 50, NHM WIEN
Oct-Dec, 2022, Vienna
More than 20 "Riddles of Inheritance" school workshops and Meet a Scientist: Meet Mendel events were carried out by instructors at the Deck50, NHM Wien. They taught school classes from all over Austria about the complex interplay between different forms of inheritance and environmental factors, how to make Chromosomes visible under a microscope, and what it was like to be both a monk and a scientist at the same time.
CELEBRATING GREGOR JOHANN MENDEL'S BIRTHDAY AT THE MENDEL FESTIVAL
July 22nd-24th, 2022, Brno
On the 20th (or 22nd, according to some sources!), our beloved Abbot GJ Mendel finally turned 200 and the Mendel Festival began. Our personal highlight was attending a special tour of the Mendel Muesum with director Blanka Křížová and "meeting" Gregor himself in his study (naturally, our own Mendel impersonators were in complete awe).
ATTENDING THE MENDEL GENETICS CONFERENCE
July 20th-22nd, 2022, Brno
Our project partners from the Augustinian abbey and the Mendel Museum hosted the Mendel Genetics Conference this year on Mendel's birthday. Scientists and historians from all over the world gave talks about the history of genetics and Mendel's life, but also on current research in medicinal, plant, animal, human and microorganism genetics. We presented our part of the GJM200 project at the poster session.
DEBUTING THE "MEET A SCIENTIST" SCHOOL WORKSHOP AT DECK50
June 1st, 2022 Deck50-NHM Wien
Today, the "Meet a Scientist" performance made its (second) debut, this time for the actual target audience: A class of teenage students. It was a definite success! The audience did not look at their phones every few seconds, on the contrary, they were quite attentive. Moreover, their knowlegde, philosophical adeptness and capability of scientific thinking really makes us hopeful for the future of our society.
OPENING CEREMONY OF THE GENETICS EXHIBITION HALL AT THE MENDEL MUSEUM
May 30th, 2022, Brno
Barbara and Lynn were invited to the opening ceremony of the brand-new exhibition hall on genetics at the Mendel Museum, our project partner. Before the opening ceremony, we participated in a project workshop to discuss how we could further our collaborations with the Mendel Museum and the city of Brno.
TRAINING WORKSHOP AT THE DECK50
May 24th, 2022, Deck 50-NHM Wien
In anticipation of the school workshops at Deck50 in June, September and October, we had a fun test run with the staff of the Natural History Museum. Drawing on their experience from previous science workshops for schools, they gave us invaluable feedback and we worked out the last kinks of our “The Riddles of Inheritance” school workshop together.
LONG NIGHT OF RESEARCH AT DECK50
May 20th, 2022, Deck50-NHM Wien
On the Austrian Long Night of Research (Lange Nacht der Forschung 2022), we debuted our first "Meet a Scientist: Meet Mendel" performance for the general public. Gernot Ensinger took the lead to introduce the audience to Mendel's life, work, and legacy.
EUROPATAG "VIENNA GOES EUROPE"
May 7th, 2022, Vienna
As part of Europe Day 2022, we were one of the four EU projects to present what we’re about. Together with our collaborators from the St. Thomas’s Abbey, we set up a booth and talked to people about Mendel’s life and legacy. We also set up a microscope so anyone interested could take a look at chromosomes, the carriers of genetic information, and planted some pea plants together with festival visitors and Saturday shoppers for them to take home, raise and harvest (and maybe even try to replicate Mendel’s work?).
FACULTY DAY AT THE FACULTY OF LIFE SCIENCES, UNIVIE
April 28th, 2022, University of Vienna
The giant pea visited University of Vienna for the 2022 Faculty Day of the Faculty of Life Sciences. Our project partners at Mendel Museum brought many great gifts that day, including Mendel coffee cups and Mendel sparkling wine made in Czechia! We had the chance to introduce our project to the Dean and toast to a great year of projects with our colleagues at the evolutionary biology department.
WORKSHOPS WITH THE SCICOMM AND PEDAGOGY TEAM OF NHM WIEN
Mar-April, 2022, Vienna
Throughout March and April, we met with the science communication and science pedagogy team of the Natural History Museum of Vienna to present and workshop our program proposals as well as schedule the school workshops.
WELCOMING GERNOT ENSINGER TO THE TEAM!
Mar 14th, 2022, Vienna
On this day, we interviewed and hired Gernot Ensinger, neuroscience master student and actor, as one of our "Meet a Scientist: Meet Mendel" performers.
BOKU MENDEL SYMPOSIUM & MENDEL WALK
Mar 10-11th, 2022, BOKU, Vienna
On March 10th, our project partners at BOKU hosted a virtual "Mendel Walk Vienna: On Gregor Mendel's Viennese footsteps" of Vienna sites related to Mendel's student life at University of Vienna. Barbara gave a talk at the event. We also attended the symposium on the following day "200 years Gregor Mendel: of peas, cows and people" organized by our project partners at BOKU. The giant pea (7 meters in diameter!) traveled to Vienna for the first time!
GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY OF MENDEL'S NEW GREENHOUSE
Feb 24th, 2022, Brno
Lynn represented the project at the official ground-breaking ceremony of Mendel's greenhouse. We now own one of the blessed hammers of GJM200.
ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING WITH THE KLI
Feb 15th, 2022, Klosterneuburg
In anticipation of our October symposium "Mendel's Legacy in Science and Society" at the KLI, we met with the Eva Lackner to discuss the logistics and organizational details.
FILMING DAY WITH MARIA PINTO (SEA&ME)
Feb 8th, 2022, Brno
We are collaborating with marine biologist and science communicator Maria Pinto (Sea&Me) to develop short public videos on the legacy of GJ Mendel in science and society. Our project partner, the Mendel Museum at Brno, kindly supported our trip to film key sites at the St. Augustine Abbey and the Mendel Museum. We got to see the famous 1856 manuscript!
WELCOMING SEVERIN BACHMAYER TO THE TEAM!
Feb 2nd, 2022, Vienna
On this day, we interviewed and hired Severin Bachmayer, a master student in evolutionary biology, to the team as our student assistant.
GRAPHIC DESIGN WITH KATHRIN GUSENBAUER
Jan 31st, 2022, Vienna
We are collaborating with graphic designer and STS scholar Kathrin Gusenbauer (Irrlicht Impressions) on the "corporate design" of our project (including logo, color scheme, background images, etc). Kathrin proposed a full design set based on our responses to a design questionnaire. The results were stunning!
KICKOFF MEETING WITH OUR SCIENCE COMMUNICATION TEAM
Nov 11th, 2021, Vienna
We value talent and expertise in science communication. On this day, we welcomed graphic designer Kathrin Gusenbauer, science communicator Maria Pinto, and videographer Magdalena Fischer to the team!
MENDEL DAYS 2021 AT THE MENDEL MUSEUM
Nov 3rd-4th, 2021, Brno
Project co-organizers Barbara Fischer, Philipp Mitteroecker and Lynn Chiu attended the 2021 Mendel Days event organized by Masaryk University, with Barbara giving a talk on Mendel's Viennese influences. After a tour of the Mendel Museum, we kicked off our first official workshop with project partners across the border. A surprise press conference revealed a keystone project of the Masaryk University: the archaeological excavation and exhumation of Gregor J. Mendel himself.
The Mendel Days recordings can be found here.
OPENING DAY OF DECK50
Sept 30th, 2021, Deck50-NHM Wien
Delayed by the pandemic, Deck50 finally launched in late 2021! Here we are having a toast with the Head of the Science Communication Iris Ott and Head of Deck50 Ines Méhu-Blantar. We were informed that we were the first externally-funded project to launch programs at the Deck50.