Join us for this premiere screening of Mass Extinction: Life at the Brink and a discussion featuring experts from the film, including Dr. Kirk Johnson, Sant Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History; Sean B. Carroll, Senior Vice President for Science Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and one of the the film's Executive Producers; Tony Barnosky, Paleobiologist; and Elizabeth Hadley, Conservation Biologist. The discussion will be moderated by Charles Poe, Vice President Production at the Smithsonian Channel.

Film background:

It’s a mystery on a global scale: five times in Earth’s past, life has been nearly extinguished, the vast majority of plants and animal species annihilated in a geologic instant. What triggered these dramatic events? And what might they tell us about the fate of our world? Mass Extinction: Life at the Brink joins scientists around the globe in search of answers to two of the most dramatic extinctions--the K/T Extinction, which ended the age of dinosaurs, and the P/T Extinction, which 252 million years ago wiped out nearly 90 percent of all Earth’s species. These early mass extinctions could hold clues for what may be happening today--are we on the brink of a sixth?

Presented by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History with the Smithsonian Channel, Environmental Film Festival, and Tangled Bank Studios.