Nerd Nite SF #88: Shark Die-Offs, Clever Animal Adaptations, and Bots!
Wednesday, 9/20/2017
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets
We’re late, but we’re great…white sharks, that is! Plus, lots and lots of weird animals and bots. Sean Van Sommeran of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation will talk tagging, tracking, and stranding of great white sharks in the Bay Area. Wired magazine science writer Matt Simon will guide us through the many clever animal adaptations that evolution has produced over the millennia, from the horrifying to the downright hilarious: think flatworms fencing with their penises, ants being mind-controlled by a fungus, pearlfish swimming up sea cucumber butts, and axolotls mating! And Mark Stephen Meadows will chat you up about bots and avatars. Add stiff drinks, themed tunes, and you. Voilà, a nerd cocktail! Be there and be square!
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Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
Tickets here: https://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/1526483?utm_medium=bks
We’re late, but we’re great…white sharks, that is! Plus, lots and lots of weird animals. Sean van Sommeran of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation will talk about mass die-offs of sharks (and other creatures) in the Bay. Wired magazine science writer Matt Simon will guide us through the many clever animal adaptations that evolution has produced over the millennia, from the horrifying to the downright hilarious: think flatworms fencing with their penises, ants being mind-controlled by a fungus, pearlfish swimming up sea cucumber butts, and axolotls mating! And Mark Stephen Meadows will chat you up about bots and avatars. Add stiff drinks, themed tunes, and you. Voilà, a nerd cocktail! Be there and be square!
“Bad Bot. Good Bot.” by Mark Stephen Meadows
You’re authenticated on Facebook but chatbots aren’t. Bots can spam, scam, phish, spoof, and abuse more effectively than people. What we need are license plates for these things. If we bolt a voice onto a bot we make an assistant, so let’s look at what assistants (Siri, Alexa, Cortana) collect, what’s done with that data, and how they can share it in ML dialogue markets. Then let’s bolt a face onto the assistant and look at the future of multi-modal avatars for video chat, VR, and AR. Oh, and ethics.
Mark Stephen Meadows is an author, inventor, artist, and CEO of Botanic Technologies. With 20 years experience in real-time 3D (VR/AR/etc), 15 years experience in NLP/AI, and 5 in robotics he’s designed and developed artificial intelligence applications with companies as diverse as Microsoft, Sony, Xerox-PARC, Stanford Research Institute, LucasArts, Oracle, and others. He leads the vision of Botanic by inventing new methods of computer-human interaction, developing the hearts and minds of highly social avatars and graphical bots.
“Zombie Ants, Penis Fencing, and Fish That Swim Up Sea Cucumber Butts: The Animal Kingdom Is Legit” by Matt Simon
At this very moment, two flatworms in the sea have extended their needle-like penises and started fencing with them, each worm trying to stab the other and inject sperm through the skin. Meanwhile, in South America, a fungus has invaded an ant’s mind and driven it out of the colony to a precise spot in the rainforest. Oh, and the eel-like pearlfish has swum up a sea cucumber’s butt and eaten its internal organs, including the gonads.
Believe it or not, these are all clever adaptations to the everyday problems of life. Join Wired magazine science writer Matt Simon as he guides you through the many solutions that evolution has produced over the millennia, from the horrifying to the downright hilarious, and sometimes both at the same time.
Matt Simon is a science writer at Wired magazine, where he focuses on robotics and biology. He’s the author of The Wasp That Brainwashed the Caterpillar (Penguin, 2016) and of a forthcoming book about parasites that mind-control their hosts, out next fall. He’s one of the few people on the planet to witness the fabled mating ritual of the axolotl salamander, a tale he’ll tell at Nerd Nite SF.
“Sharks & Epizootic Mass Die-Off Update” by Sean Van Sommeran
Sean Van Sommeran established the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation in 1990 to kick off the ‘shark conservation, education and research’ movement.
Based in Monterey Bay, the PSRF has a stranding rescue and collecting unit that coordinates response to toxic spills, injured and trapped sharks and rays and mass stranding events and epizootic die offs and combating poachers throughout the state of California and Bay Areas.
Currently focused on white shark, basking shark and mass stranding response projects, there is much to tell and talk about and question and answer discussions are always informative and from primary sources and well documented.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Wednesday, 8/16/2017
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets
We need you now Wednesday night. We need you more than ever. And if you only hold your beer tight, we’ll never be dumb together. A total eclipse…of the smart! Yes, folks, we have arthropods and their bacterial friends, as explained by a microbiologist. We have a genuine philosopher waxing twisted about environmental ethics. And we’ll also play the climate change blame game, along with Grilled Cheese Guy, DJ Alpha Bravo, and maybe the library, too! As Bonnie Tyler would say: Forever’s gonna start Wednesday night, so be there and be square!
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“Climate Change and Data-Driven Blame/Solutions” by Saul Griffith
Take a brutally honest look at our climate change hypocrisies with a surprisingly optimistic outcome. Blaming yourself, blaming the government, blaming big business, blaming your neighbours, blaming wall street. No matter who the target of your ire is, get the right data to be angry—and the most accurate prognosis yet for actually just solving climate change. You might call it “Ode to the Planet Fucking Hypocrite,” if you want to be edgy.
Saul has multiple degrees in materials science and mechanical engineering, and is an inventor, columnist, children’s book author, technical advisor to Make and Popular Mechanics magazines, and co-founder of several companies. Coincidentally, this year he contracted Lyme disease.
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“Blood and Guts: Ticks and Their Bacterial Friends” by Dr. Seemay Chou
Microbes inhabiting the guts of blood-sucking arthropods can be passed from animal to animal during feeding, at times resulting in bubonic plague (fleas), malaria (mosquitoes), and Lyme disease (ticks). Although generally unwelcome, only a few arthropod species are actually capable of transmitting dangerous microbes to humans. For example, the Lyme disease bacterium is spread through the bite of a single tick species, despite dozens of other ticks encountering it in the wild. Seemay will talk about different ecological and molecular factors that underlie these tick-bacteria relationships and how her research group is trying to use this information to break the cycle of infection.
Seemay is a microbiologist and assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics at UCSF.
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“Ethics After the End of the World” by Sam Mickey
Climate change, pollution, mass extinction—an ecological emergency is upon us. People have heard the facts, but the emergency continues to intensify. This is an ethical problem: What should be done? Typical answers like “protect nature” and “save the world” clearly haven’t been working. Could our ideas of “nature” and “the world” be part of the problem? Presenting a twisted ethics for coexisting in an ecological emergency, Sam suggests that the world ended, there is no nature, and the best guide for knowing how to respond to things is the profound anxiety that comes with not knowing how to respond to things.
Sam teaches at the University of San Francisco. He has a PhD in philosophy and religion and has authored and edited several books on environmental ethics, including On the Verge of a Planetary Civilization: A Philosophy of Integral Ecology.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Food: Delicious hot goop between crispy slices of bread, brought to you by the scientist of the sammie, Grilled Cheese Guy.
Plus: The San Francisco Public Library will be on hand to dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.
Wednesday, 7/19/2017
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets here
Brace yourself for a roller coaster of an evening as we learn about the ups and downs of fertility science, speed through the history of Disneyland, and ride the twists and turns of credit card security! Plus adult drinks, delicious bao, DJ, and librarians. And you don’t even need to be *this* tall to enjoy the ride. Be there and be square!
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“Can Your Fertility Save Your Life?” by Dr. Paul Turek
Infertility has typically been thought of as an unfortunate circumstance of life but not much more. In fact, infertility can impact quality of life and productivity. It’s also viewed as a biomarker for health issues, including cancer. And infertility may actually be the “ultimate” medical disease of a species: If present, then reproduction is hampered and species health is threatened. Think of Clive Owen in Children of Men. So, it may not be farfetched to consider one’s fertility status as the “fifth vital sign” of health.
Dr. Turek is Director of The Turek Clinic (www.TheTurekClinic.com), former Professor at UCSF, blogger on men’s health issues (www.TurekonMensHealth.com), and founder of a volunteer medical clinic powered by retired physicians for the working uninsured in San Francisco (www.ClinicbytheBay.org). He recently received an NIH grant to develop an artificial testicle to make sperm in a dish.
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“Growing Up in the Happiest Place on Earth: A Brief History of Disneyland” by Dr. Jeffrey Silverman
Disneyland, the Happiest Place on Earth, has welcomed over 650 million guests since it opened and is one of the most popular theme parks in the world. Jeff will give a brief history of Disneyland and recount some of the most unbelievable (but true!) stories from its over sixty year history. He’ll also share some personal experiences from his hundreds of visits to Disneyland, as well as the summer he spent working there.
Dr. Jeffrey Silverman has a PhD in Astrophysics from UC Berkeley and used to study exploding stars. He’s currently a data scientist at Samba TV where, among other things, he tries to calculate how many people watch ESPN and The Disney Channel. Jeff grew up in Anaheim, CA about a mile away from Disneyland, where he spent much of his childhood. He’s also presented at multiple Nerd Nites!
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“How Your New Credit Card is Like Wonder Woman” by Debra J. Farber
Your payment cards are embedded with microchips that, like Wonder Woman’s bulletproof bracelets and shield, protect you from evildoers! But how do these super-powered EMV cards stop fraudsters, identity thieves, and black hats in their tracks, exactly? And what about security measures in other payment platforms, like phones, wearables, Amazon Echo, cryptocurrencies, and soon our cars and refrigerators? This lively talk will make you feel like Wonder Woman: filled with a sense of power, grace, wisdom, and wonder.
Debra J. Farber is a data privacy and security consultant with 15 years’ experience, and CEO and Principal Consultant at Farber Strategies Inc. Most recently, Debra served as Sr. Director, Global Public Policy (Privacy & Security) at Visa.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Food: Delicious pork-belly bao and other bun goodness from Cross Hatch Eatery.
Plus: The San Francisco Public Library will be on hand to dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.
Wednesday, 6/21/2017
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets here
Watch out! Caution is the watchword this month, lest you trigger a fandom war, cause an accident, or find yourself on the wrong side of a parole hearing. Best if you play it safe and just hang out at Nerd Nite and sip drinks, eat tamales, listen to the DJ, and converse with librarians. All while we hear talks from a clinical psychologist, a NASA scientist, and a defense attorney. Be there and be square! (And be careful!)
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“I Will Go Down with This Ship! What Fandom ‘Shipping Wars’ Can Tell us About Sexuality and Gender in Popular Culture” by Kaela Joseph
Why do you want your favorite television and movie characters to be in relationships together? Why does there have to be so much sexual tension between characters who are identified as straight? Why do fandoms get so angry about “ships” on Tumblr? Wonder no more! Dr. Kaela Joseph is here to help you understand sex in the subtext of popular media, and how “shipping wars” (conflicts about which characters should be paired together) can help us better understand sexuality and gender from a cultural perspective.
Kaela is a clinical psychologist and researcher whose specializes is in human sexuality. An avid fan of sci-fi/horror/fantasy genres, Kaela uses principles of feminist and LGBTQ affirmative psychology to expand the field of fandom studies.
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“Careful!” by Steve Casner
As doctors work busily to extend our lives, more people each year are figuring out ways to cut them short. Yes, after 100 years of steady improvement, accidental deaths are on the rise. Are we turning into incompetent schlubs who can’t be trusted with scissors? No! We’re filling our world with new hazards that are thwarting our old methods of avoiding them. ‘Keeping an eye on that’ doesn’t work when our attention is being pulled in many directions, and it sure won’t work with nanotechnology. Upgrade to the new version of careful and live a while longer!
Steve Casner is the author of Careful: A User’s Guide to Our Injury-Prone Minds. A NASA scientist by day, Casner also flies jets and helicopters, rides motorcycles and skateboards, and has surprisingly few scars.
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“Rhetoric of Rehabilitation: A History of California’s Parole Hearings” by Jared Rudolph
Parole represents the state’s belief in rehabilitation, and that their officials can assess whether someone has been rehabilitated. Throughout California’s history, the use of parole has waxed and waned with the theories guiding our criminal justice system. Today, parole is on the rise: In the last four years, there have been more releases through the parole hearings system than in the forty years prior.
How did we get here? What does our history of parole mean for the current moment in criminal justice? What is the process like? Is rehabilitation possible, and does it matter whether it is?
Jared Rudolph is a criminal defense attorney and the founder of Prisoner Reentry Network, a non-profit that supports successful transitions from incarceration to the community. If you’re arrested, he suggests you shut up so you don’t talk yourself into prison.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Food: Delicious hot plates of goodness from Alicia’s Tamales los Mayas.
Plus: The San Francisco Public Library will be on hand to dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.
Wednesday, 5/17/2017
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets here
Attention! You’ve just been drafted to fight in the war on science! Bring your best facts, sharpest mechanical pencils, and plenty of terabytes to our nerdy boot camp, where an award-winning journalist will make us do drills on science communication, a historian and rogu(ish) ex-park ranger will march us over the Golden Gate Bridge, and a drinking water delivery expert will keep us hydrated with submersible robots. With the usual aides-de-camp–Rickshaw bartenders, Grilled Cheese Guy, SFPL, and Alpha Bravo on the airwaves–we cannot lose. Be there and be square!
“Winning the War on Science” by Erika Check Hayden
Is there really a war on science? What are the rules of engagement for those who communicate about science in an age when facts seem to be under attack? Award-winning science journalist Erika Check Hayden will draw on her experience covering events–from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to the 2014 Ebola outbreak–to answer these questions. Come prepared to share your examples of good and bad science communication and to engage in a thoughtful discussion about how to move forward in engaging the public on science.
Erika is director of the Science Communication Program at UC Santa Cruz and was a reporter at Nature for 15 years, where she focused on covering infectious diseases and genetics and won multiple awards from the Association of Health Care Journalists.
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“Golden Gate Bridge: A Most Misunderstood Landmark” by John Martini
Why isn’t the Golden Gate Bridge painted gold? Is there really a dead body buried in the concrete? Why does it take seven years to paint it from one end to the other? You mean it’s cheaper to cross the bridge now than when it opened? The Golden Gate Bridge is San Francisco’s most iconic landmark, except perhaps for Alcatraz, but, just like the Rock, it’s surrounded by myths and misconceptions. In this talk commemorating the Bridge’s 80th birthday, historian John Martini will share little-known stories of its construction and operations, and possibly explain how a 25¢ toll ballooned into $7.50.
John is a native San Franciscan and lifelong researcher into the history of California and the American West. He worked as a ranger for more than 25 years at national parks around the country and is now an independent consultant specializing in historical research. He appears regularly on PBS, History Channel, A&E Network, and National Geographic Channel.
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“Waterworld: The Hunt for What Lies Beneath” by Adam Tank
Many pipes delivering drinking water were installed in the late 1800s. They are now well beyond their remaining useful life, and many are cracking, breaking, and leaking trillions of gallons of water underground. In fact, 30% of all clean water is lost in distribution before it reaches our homes. Fortunately, historical pipeline data, coupled with advanced acoustic, satellite, and robotic technology, is emerging that enables us to find & fix these problem pipes without digging up streets.
Adam is the founder of a Bay Area startup building submersible robots for the repair of buried water pipes. He previously ran General Electric’s Digital Water division, focused on creating software solutions for water utilities all over the world. He tweets about things water and non-water related @artank.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Food: Delicious hot goop between crispy slices of bread, brought to you by the scientist of the sammie, Grilled Cheese Guy.
Plus: The San Francisco Public Library will be on hand to dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.
Wednesday, 4/19/17
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @ Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets here
If your brain is feeling a bit taxed (wocka wocka), we’ll happily grant you an extension—or you may file early for 2017, to the Rickshaw Stop bar, where experts will be on hand to guide you through Schedule V(odka) and Form B(eer). Don’t forget to take a deduction on the entrance fee you paid, which this month covers edu-tainment on a biologist’s run for the US Senate, the investigation of death in all its grisliness, and how those interweb pipes get plumbed. With DJ Alpha Bravo spinning, Cross Hatch Eatery serving, and SFPL librarians getting you checked in so you can check stuff out: Be there and be square!
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“A Scientist in the Senate?” by Michael Eisen
In early 2017, Dr. Eisen announced his intention to run to represent the state of California in the US Senate elections of 2018 under the slogan “Liberty, Equality, Reality.” But what really happens when a scientist decides to leave behind grad students, hard-won grants, a labful of fruit flies, and academic independence at a top university? Let’s just say that the laboratory of politics will be chock full of confounding variables! Come hear what it takes to march the March for Science all the way from UC Berkeley to a seat on Capitol Hill.
Michael Eisen is a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on understanding how the DNA in an animal embryo creates a complex organism by switching genes on and off in a choreographed pattern during embryonic development. Outside the lab, Dr. Eisen has fought for decades to liberate the results of scientific research from behind paywalls.
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“The Body Never Lies: Autopsy and the Working Stiff” by Dr. Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchell
Dr. Judy Melinek performs autopsies for a living. Her husband, T.J. Mitchell, is a writer. Together they will answer everything you dare ask a medical examiner, give you a tour of the morgue, take you through a scene investigation and autopsy, and explore the science of gunshot wounds in a real-life, true-death case study. Drink up and gird yourselves for graphic photos! (They will also have signed and dedicated paperbacks for sale and will answer your questions about forensics, writing narrative nonfiction, dumb ways to die, and anything else!)
Judy and T.J. are co-authors of the New York Times bestseller Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner, which recounts Judy’s training in death investigation and explores death by knife, gun, train, drunk boyfriend, crazy girlfriend, flammable perfume, bad diet, bad medicine, bad luck, and gravity—among other things.
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“World Wide WHOA: How the Internet Actually Gets to Your Door” by Luke Mazza
Learn the history of telecommunications, from Alexander Graham Bell to today’s modern (and not-so-modern) internet. How do Internet Service Providers (ISPs) really work, anyway? Let’s take a virtual tour through data centers, down manholes, and up telephone poles to explore the internet infrastructure as it exists today—and the fiber future being built!
Luke is the support development trainer at Sonic. He’s also really, really good at ping pong.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Food: Delicious pork-belly bao and other bun goodness from Cross Hatch Eatery.
Plus: The San Francisco Public Library will be on hand to dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.