Science meets science fiction at the second annual The Future Is Here Festival, May 16-18 in Washington, D.C., where world-renowned experts deliver presentations about cutting-edge of science and technology. And like the cherry on top, the festival includes the national premiere of X-Men Days of Future Past, followed by a Q&A with Sir Patrick Stewart (Professor Xavier).

Other presenters of note include science fiction writers David Brin and Kim Stanley Robinson; Brian Greene, cosmologist, superstring and multiverse theorist; Adam Steltzner, NASA’s “rock and roll engineer”; actor George Takei; Stewart Brand, de-extinction expert and founder of The Long Now Foundation; Sara Seager, MIT Professor of Planetary Science and Physics; and The Mythbusters, from the Science Channel program.

The gathering is sponsored by Smithsonian Magazine with the support of UC San Diego’s Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, Nerd Nite, Smithsonian Grand Challenges Consortia and the Smithsonian Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation.

Nerd Nite hosts the Sunday program, which is filled with imaginative science topics and closes with a bit of levity — Shyaporn Theerakulstit‘s presentation “Godzilla: History, Biology and Behavior of Hyper-Evolved Theropod Kaiju” —

Tsunami, earthquake, hurricane and typhoon all rolled in one, Godzilla, “King of the Monsters,” has both plagued and benefited humanity for over half a century. By examining the origins and zoology of this force of nature, people and nations will be better equipped to deal with the awesome destructive power of our radioactive visitor from the Cretaceous.