Feelings of malaise? Lethargy? Whether it’s scurvy or just boredom, we have the cure for you! Have your mind blown with a tale of atomic testing and neuroscience, recoil at the scope of the snakebite epidemic, and add a slice of lemon to your beer for the convoluted saga of scurvy. All this plus the musical stylings of DJ Alpha Bravo, grilled cheese sammies, and awesome people like you.
Wednesday, 11/15/2017
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets here
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“Nuclear Testing and Other Things That May or May Not Damage Your Brain” by Whitney Heavner
Prior to the 1960’s, scientists believed that the adult brain has no capacity for regeneration. A few classical experiments in 1965 changed everything. Yet, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America continues to link drugs, your brain, and fried eggs. Just how resilient is the human brain? Learn how above-ground nuclear arms testing helped us answer this question through carbon dating, and see how radioactive tracers in rodents show when a baby neuron has sealed its fate.
Whitney Heavner is a postdoctoral fellow in the Stanford biology department deciphering the genome’s blueprint for building the 100 billion neurons that make up your brain.
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“The Snakebite Epidemic” by Dr. Matthew Lewin
Worldwide, there are more than 5 million snakebites each year, killing as many as 100,000 people. An additional 400,000 suffer snakebite-related disability and disfigurement. This year, the WHO listed snakebite as one of the most significant—and neglected—medical crises facing the globe. Dr. Lewin has identified sPLA2 inhibitors as a potential treatment for a broad spectrum of snake venoms. His group has demonstrated potency against 28 snake venom sPLA2s from six continents and has conducted pre-clinical studies showing excellent survival prospects, which were recently published in the peer-reviewed journal, Toxins.
An emergency physician, neuroscientist, expedition doctor, and California Academy of Sciences Fellow, Dr. Matthew Lewin co-founded Ophirex, Inc. (“Ophi” is Greek for “snake”) with Mr. Jerry Harrison (of the Talking Heads) to focus on developing field treatments for snakebite. Ophirex (www.ophirex.com) is committed to providing sustainably-priced antidotes so that treatment for any snakebite can begin anywhere, anytime, by anyone.
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“Scurvy: Lost and Found. And Found. And… Found (Again)” by Laura Lanford
Do you think pirate talk was all “Avast, ye miserable scallywags!” and “Shiver me timbers!”? Likely you’d also hear mutters along the lines of “Ow, me teeth hurt!” and “Argh, me aching bones!” Life on the sea was more scurvy than it was swagger, in no small part because we kept losing the ubiquitous yet elusive cure for this dreaded vitamin deficiency. From the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn, from Greenland to Antarctica, come and hear tell of the convoluted tale of the Scourge of the Seas!
Laura Lanford is on loan from Nerd Nite Chicago. She talks a lot about a lot of things, mostly Extinction Level Events but sometimes medical esoterica as well.
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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 grilled cheese from the master of the sammie, Grilled Cheese Guy.
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Gray brains, bright lights, and dark matter – this Nerd Nite covers the spectrum! We’ll get a handle on comparative brain science from a neuroscientist, and then actually handle real brains. Then, two experts will illuminate the art, craft, and history of neon in the Bay Area. Finally, a physicist will help us see the light on dark matter. All this, plus the colorful DJ stylings of Alpha Bravo, drinks of all stripes, and a crowd of bright people like you. Be there and be square!
Wednesday, 10/18/2017
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets here
NOTE: We’ll have actual brains, including some human ones, for you to examine and even hold. We wanted to let you know in case you were uncomfortable with seeing organs.
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“Seeing Eye to I: Traveling the World with Brains in Your Luggage” by Patrick House
Neuroscientist Patrick House will give a neuroanatomy lecture using real brains but no actual anatomy. Anything easily looked up online will not be mentioned. He will also share stories of traveling with and shipping brain specimens around the world, adventures which provided an answer to a question he never knew he would have to answer: I.e. Does FedEx believe in a soul?
Patrick House is a neuroscientist and writer. He got his PhD in neuroscience from Stanford, studying that one parasite that makes mice not afraid of cats. He did a postdoc in ancient DNA searching for the same parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, in mummified cats, a task which he once described as “Like looking for a needle in a haystack oh but also the needle is broken into a thousand pieces and made of hay.” He has written on science and technology for The New Yorker and Slate and is writing a book on the role of elegance in neuroscience. He works at a startup developing brain-machine interfaces for treatment of neurologic disease.
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“From Advertising to Art: Survivors and Lost Icons of Neon in NorCal” by Randall Ann Homan and Al Barna
See beautiful pictures of neon survivors, mourn famous lost icons of the neon world, and get a visual tour of the best gas, glass, and electricity that the East Bay and SF has to offer. Learn about the science underlying neon and discover what decades of evolution in California’s neon art and advertising illuminates about our Neon Cities.
Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan are the authors and photographers of the book San Francisco Neon: Survivors and Lost Icons. They also give four different walking tours in San Francisco featuring the city’s fabulous collection of historic neon signs, with back alleys and back stories included. Details and pictures at http://neonbook.xyz
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“Looking for the Invisible” by Lucie Tvrznikova
Everything we see around us makes up only 5% of the total mass and energy in the universe. So what’s the rest? The rest is full of dark energy and dark matter, substances that scientists have not been able to detect directly. Still, we are confident they are out there. What exactly is dark matter? And how can we hope to detect it? Lucie will take us a mile underground to a former gold mine where the LUX and LZ detectors found their home looking for the elusive dark matter particles. We’ll learn how LUX taught us a lot about our universe without seeing anything at all, and how its big sister LZ will teach us even more.
Lucie Tvrznikova is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University in Experimental Physics and is currently at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, helping search for WIMPs.
October 31st is a day dedicated to the mysterious and unseen – Dark Matter Day! Wait, is it some other holiday, too? Regardless, the month of October features events around the world discussing research into dark matter. Learn more at http://darkmatterday.com
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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.
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.