Lectures on Tap- Learning Without a Brain: How Intelligence Begins Small
About this Event
📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email
🧠 Lecture: "Learning Without a Brain: How Intelligence Begins Small"
🎤 Speaker: Dr. Deepa Rajan
Join us for a mind-bending evening as Dr. Deepa Rajan explores one of biology’s strangest questions: How can a single cell learn without a brain? We tend to link learning and intelligence with complex nervous systems, yet evidence shows that even single-celled organisms can make decisions and adapt based on experience.
Dr. Rajan will introduce you to Stentor coeruleus, a single-celled, pond-dwelling organism that exhibits habituation—a simple yet powerful form of learning where responses change after repeated stimuli. She will share new discoveries about the molecular pathways these cells use to form “memories,” revealing surprising parallels to how humans store memories.
By tracing learning down to its smallest building blocks, this lecture sheds light on the deep origins of intelligence itself.
Dr. Rajan holds a PhD in Cell Biology from UCSF and was a Fulbright Scholar at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, where she studied how pollinators use chemical cues to find food. Her research has taken her from the Himalayas to the Amazon, and now to the ponds of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.
Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌
Agenda
6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.
6:55 PM – Host introduction
7:00 PM – Lecture begins
7:45 PM – Audience Q&A
8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round
8:30 PM – Wrap up.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 39.19
