Science Soirée: Final NHM First Friday

The dino-riffic, smart-panel'd, DJ-soundtrack'd happening winds down for another year.

Stegosaurus never rocked a sweet pair of headphones — important fossil finds probably would have told us that by now — and Triceratops never stood still long enough to listen to a science-minded panel on a fascinating topic (spoiler alert: no humans were nearby to present the panel, back in Big T's day).

But those elements, dinosaurs and music and panels, weave together, with dash and panache, at each First Friday celebration.

The very popular, as in very, very popular Natural History Museum of Los Angeles happening does, indeed, flower on the first Friday of each month, flower like some prehistoric flower that the plant-loving Camptosaurus would have maybe munched, with glee.

Or, you know. It sometimes flowers on the second Friday, too, but you can count on it happening nearer to the beginning of the month.

However, First Fridays only happen during the first half of the year, which means they're drawing to their 2017 conclusion on Friday, June 9.

You've got time, though, to eye a Tyrannosaurus Rex (er, the skeleton, phew) and sip a cocktail and take in a DJ set and listen to tunes from Wild Belle if you nab a ticket as fast as a hungry herbivore munches an ancient flower.

We did write "very" twice earlier, before the word "popular," and we even italicized one of the "verys," signifying how this trendsetter-attracting to-do can fill up.

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And "trendsetter" isn't pejorative, in the least. Think how science has benefited by innovators out on the front edge, toiling in their labs, dreaming up important theorems.

Are you front edge? Rock it, with power, like you're forty feet tall and stomping through some prehistoric forest.

A food-themed behind-the-scenes tour, a "L.A. History on Your Plate" panel with Jonathan Gold, Bricia Lopez, and Josh Kun, and a pop-up dinner helmed by Chef David Wilcox are all on the final First Friday menu.

"Serving Up Science" is the supper-sweet theme, meaning food, of course, and of course food can be for the tum as well as the mind. First Fridays at the Natural History Museum handily covers both ends of the spectrum, every first Friday from January through June.

Now that it is June, best bid the science soirée farewell, at least for another half year. It's time to once again stomp away from the big-brain'd fun, T. Rex-style, with a cry and a sigh.

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