Name: Twins, Fat‑Tailed Dunnarts & Distilling Spirits
Start: 2026-05-18T18:30:00
End: 2026-05-18T21:00:00
Location: Barwon Club Hotel

What can twins reveal about human health and disease? Why do marsupial babies arrive looking like tiny, translucent jelly‑beans? And how does science shape the flavour of award‑winning spirits?
A night that jumps from genetics to joeys to gin—exploring how biology and biochemistry shape life in all its forms.

Dice, Drift and Development: Lessons from Twin Research

Jeff Craig (Jeffrey Craig is a Professor at Deakin, Deputy Director of Twins Research Australia and Patron of the Australian Multiple Birth Association. His twin research explores how genes, environment and chance shape health and development from before birth.)

Why are identical twins never truly identical? This talk explores how chance, developmental drift and early-life biology help shape health from the very start of life. Using insights from twin research, including studies before and after birth, I’ll show how small early differences can have lasting effects — not just for twins, but for all of us.

Fighting Colonial Legacies With the Marsupial Uterus

Meagan Ruppert (Meagan is a PhD student in the Pask Lab in Zoology at the UniMelb. With a love for animals and fascination with female reproductive biology, she aims to help with conservation by studying what marsupials need to support a healthy pregnancy)

Marsupials are the main mammals in Australia, and they're in danger. We have the highest mammalian extinction rate in the world. They are commonly written about as very primitive in comparison to European mammals, especially because their fetal-like newborns require long development times in the pouch. If we flip this idea, we can appreciate the unique reproductive innovations of the marsupial and figure out what we need to help preserve Australian creatures found nowhere else in the world.

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Other Geelong events

Other Barwon Club Hotel events

20 May

Geelong

Wine, Sperm & Mangroves

19 May

Geelong

Buildings, Viruses & Sex

Tickets	Price	Qty
Standard	$15.00
Donation		Keep Pint of Science going