Tag Archives: flies

Announcing the Return of PubSCi

Apologies for the radio silence – it’s been a peculiar year – but PubSci is back!

Following the same format as our Virtual PubSci in June 2020, we are pleased to announced the return of PubSci as a regular, live, online event (until we can meet again in a real pub).

Friday is the new Wednesday

As we now have a PubSci in New Zealand (run by former London PubSci-er, Hannah), we have scheduled our first few online events for Friday evenings so our friends in the antipodes can join us on a Saturday morning. This might vary in the future, depending on speaker availability. Events will be hosted live on Zoom and streamed on the PubSci YouTube channel, where they will remain for at least 28 days.


We are delighted to begin our new season on Friday 26th February with our good friend Paolo Viscardi, co-founder of PubSci and Curator of Zoology at the National Museum of Ireland, on Dismantling the Dead Zoo.

We continue the zoological theme on Friday 26th March with PubSci favourite Dr Erica McAlister, Senior Keeper of Diptera (flies) at London’s Natural History Museum and author of nonfiction bestsellers, The Secret Life of Flies and The Inside Out of Flies.


Scheduled start time is 7pm. You’ll need to register in advance to watch the Zoom events (to prevent Zoom-bombing) but anybody can watch the YouTube streams. Full event details will be published shortly on all the usual channels, where you will also find instructions on how to attend.

Thank you for your patience. It’s good to be back.

Richard and all at PubSci

Dr Erica McAlister – The Secret Life of Flies

On Wednesday 6th September we’re absolutely delighted to have Dr Erica McAlister joining us, with a talk relating to her excellent new book The Secret Life of Flies.

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Erica is a Senior Curator at NHM London and she’s a bit of an entomological megastar, dominating the airwaves with her humour and passion for tiny animals that most people think of as disgusting. Flies are seen as the nuisance species of the planet – hated, demonised and blamed for the worst of human suffering. But Erica will explore whether this is really the case (and once you hear about what some of them get up to you might still think they’re disgusting, but for very different reasons).

If you fancy picking up a copy of Erica’s book there will be copies available on the night and she’ll be happy to sign them for you.

Join us upstairs at the Old King’s Head, near London Bridge station. Doors open at 6pm for a 7pm start and as usual the event is free, but we will have a whip-round to cover costs – we hope to see you there!