London Fortean Society

8pm (doors 7.30pm) Thursday 28 May 2015 £3 / £2 concessions. Advanced tickets available (10% admin fee) The Vaults Bar, Dirty Dicks , 202 Bishopsgate, City of London EC2M 4NR Bus / train / tube: Liverpool Street Facebook event page .  What’s the easiest way to tell species apart? Check their genitals. Researching private parts was long considered taboo, but scientists are now beginning to understand that the wild diversity of sex organs across species can tell us a lot about evolution.  Menno Schilthuize invites the audience to join him as he uncovers the ways the shapes and functions of genitalia have been molded by complex Darwinian struggles: penises that have lost their spines but evolved appendages to displace sperm; female orgasms that select or reject semen from males, in turn subtly modifying the females’ genital shape.  We learn why spiders masturbate into miniature webs, discover she-dungflies that store sperm from attractive males in their

London Fortean Society in association with Conway Hall presents The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day David J Hand This event has now sold out.   Tuesday 19 May 2015 7.30pm Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL Tube: Holborn / Directions .  The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day   event Facebook page. Coincidences happen, incredibly unlikely things occur, and the apparently miraculous comes about. The improbability principle says that such extraordinarily improbable events are commonplace. It shows that this is not a contradiction, but that we should expect identical lottery numbers to come up more than once, lightning to strike twice, and financial crashes to occur. Professor David J. Hand is Senior Research Investigator and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College, London. His applications interests include psychology, physics, and the retai