Tectonic Plates: Alamance County's Science Cafe

02/12/2026

Gene Grimley shared a wonderful story of his role in the discovery of cisplatin a few decades ago. Tens of thousands of lives have been saved by cisplatin-based chemotherapy since their discovery

11/12/2025

Johnny Randall's shared this delightful presentation on North Carolina's invasive plants at Tectonic Plates on 11 Nov 2025: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FWRu2GnnNyugYDAbsKv6ENRKz0LE6pWS/view?usp=sharing

09/10/2025

Brian Kennedy guided us yesterday night through the amazing and mostly hidden worlds of deep sea ecosystems

01/17/2025

If you enjoyed Tuesday's event with Megan Millard, here is a link to their website:
Animal Park at the Conservators Center - https://animalparknc.org/
• You can see the species that currently reside at the Park on that main page, find blog posts (including a recent one about enrichment!) at the bottom, and find links to make reservations or donate.
• The orange "VISIT" button at the top will take you to a page (https://animalparknc.org/tours/) showing all of the events and tour types currently available.
• And for those immediately interested in the Tree Toss event, here's the direct link for that: https://animalparknc.org/tours/events/tree-toss/ (FYI, it will take place on Sat Jan 25th b/c of the rainy forecast this weekend.)

Join us for Tree Toss at the Animal Park! Make gifts for our animals and enjoy watching them interact with their presents and donated holiday trees.

10/29/2024

Elon News Network created a 1.5min video highlighting Wendell Ivory's amazing event on forensic biology.

Breaking news and analysis on Elon University, campus life, Elon Phoenix athletics, entertainment, student government, the arts, Burlington, N.C. and more. In-depth Elon University, Elon, N.C., and Burlington, N.C. news coverage including education, crime, weather and government.

12/14/2023

Amanda Venable from the NC Crime Lab showed us how to identify drugs, fingerprints, and more.

11/15/2023

Lee Atkinson shared an inspiring story last night at Tectonic Plates. As the world shut down in Sp'24, Lee and other local makers opened up to design and manufacture sorely-needed face shields for Cone Health workers. Lee said, "There was a hunger in people's hearts to do something."

After a few frenzied weeks of donated time, ingenuity, and grass roots coordination, Lee provided 1400 high-quality face shields to a grateful community.

09/15/2023

At our Sep '23 event we learned about POCUS (Point-Of-Care UltraSound). Here a Tectonic Plates attendee views the inside of her wrist using mobile technology that is an order of magnitude cheaper than the stationary ultrasound devices in most hospitals. Thanks for such an amazing event, Cindy Bennett and your grad students.

10/12/2022

Video link to our program honoring Thomas Gaither, biologist who studied slime mold and civil rights activist - leader of the Friendship Nine who originated the "Jail no Bail" strategy
https://elon.zoom.us/rec/share/Jb9QY3QmYDKg9bpKZAu12pO1SwCU0mVIixOn-BDjBTpMjt6YkHkJhBgPPKjPL4X1.b8h4XUG67qQ3wX-m
Passcode:

05/12/2022

Interested in the origin of COVID-19? Alfred Simkin recommends the following references:

The most similar virus to Covid-19:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.581569/full

The lab leak hypothesis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory

A summary of the origins of Covid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19

The raccoon dog hypothesis:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00584-8

Report authors say that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 jumped to people from animals sold at the market on two occasions in late 2019 — but some scientists want more definitive evidence.