One of my family’s favorite events is March Mammal Madness. Every spring, a bunch of science nerds create a 64-item bracket, mostly consisting of animals (originally, only mammals), but also sometimes plants, bacteria, and other life forms. They assign each a seed, determine which animal’s habitat an encounter would take place in, and then create a probabilistic model to determine the likelihood that each would win in a fight, or would run away. Then they roll the dice, and write up science-based narratives, including citations, of how the encounter went, to match the weighted, but randomized outcome.
They post these narratives on Bluesky, and much like certain other March Madnesses, people all over the world tune into see how their bracket is doing and cheer on their favorite creatures.
This is all kind of boring to explain, but fun to experience. Here’s a favorite example, from a longer battle between a Nile Crocodile and fan-favorite Honey Badger (the crocodile won):
My family does dramatic readings of the battles as they unfold. We learn all kinds of cool things (and regardless of how our brackets are doing, the #mmmadness slogan is, “If you are learning, you are winning!” and like… we win a lot). Some catchphrases from the battles have become part of our familect. We’ll spot sedges in the wild and one of us will shout, “#sedgesHaveEdges!” After a particularly violent scene in one of our evening read-alouds, someone will invariably say, “That one should have been rated C for Carnage.”
Artists from all over the world draw their responses to the battles, either creating drawings of the combatants or the fights. The Digital Media Creatives team at Bridgewater College does this in real time, and one evening, I managed to secure an invitation for myself and Petra to go hang out with them as they were working. Petra brought the iPad and drew along with them, contributing a couple items. She was thrilled to get to hang out with the college students and see their process. They were extremely kind to her.
All of which is to say, we are huge fans of March Mammal Madness in general, and its founder, Dr. Katie Hinde, in particular. When we heard that she would be visiting Bridgewater College to give a lecture, we put it on the calendar immediately. This was not an event to miss.
I was a little concerned about taking young teens to a long college lecture, but they were into it from the beginning. Dr. Hinde’s particular area of research right now is lactation (this is why her Bluesky handle is @mammalsSuck). Her brilliant lecture started millions of years ago, tracked the evolutionary development of mammals, and ultimately connected to parental leave policies (or lack of them). It was a sweeping, carefully constructed, concrete piece of science brilliance. The kids were at the edges of their seats (not sedges).
I want them to experience these kinds of events—a deep dive into something they didn’t know much about, connecting lots of different threads together, presented with passion, kindness, and humor, by an extremely brilliant person. I want them to get inspired and stay curious. I am beyond grateful that Dr. Hinde made the trek to Virginia to share her work with us.
Afterward, we thanked her for the lecture, and for her work on March Mammal Madness. “We won last year,” we told her. “Our brackets did terribly, but we learned a lot!” Petra, particularly, was a little star-struck. As we were about to leave, Dr. Hinde asked if we wanted to get a picture. I’m so grateful that she asked; Petra would never have suggested it herself, and would have refused if I did, but I love that I have this image, of this moment, of this brilliance.
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