One April evening in Manhattan, Emily Costa asks a deep (pun intended) question: Do sea sponges have nervous systems?
Her two guests onstage at Caveat, a cabaret theater in the Lower East Side, are reasonably well-equipped to answer. Both Devon Collins and Chloe Lopez-Lee have Ph.D.s in neuroscience. So does Noah Guiberson, one of Costa’s co-hosts on “Facts Machine,” a podcast and monthly live show that combines comedy, trivia and scientific deep dives organized around a new topic each episode. This evening, the subject is “Piece of Mind,” the program all about brains.
Still, the scientists hesitate before guessing. Yes, they decide; sea sponges have nervous systems.
They’re wrong, Costa tells the crowd. The 2014 Northeastern University graduate then launches into a semi-scripted mini lesson about sea sponges, “the unbothered queens of the sea.”
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Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University
