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.
Wednesday, 3/15/17
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @ Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets here
This month we have a feast for your super-senses! First, we’ll turn our mightiest eyes and ears skyward in search of alien communications. Then we’ll learn how close we all are to becoming cyborgs, although it’s taken a lot more than six million dollars to get there. Lastly, we’ll zoom in on our cells, and what tells our bodies to age. Tantalize your tastebuds with tamales and cocktails, delight your eyes with library goodness, and please your ears with DJ Alpha Bravo. Be there and square!
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“Listening for Extraterrestrial Civilizations” by Danny Price
Breakthrough Listen eavesdrops on the universe, searching for radio signals and optical laser transmissions. While there have been previous searches for alien communications, this is by far the most comprehensive: Covering 10x the sky and 5x the radio spectrum, at 100x the speed. All this data presents an extraordinary software and data analysis challenge. We’ll hear from Danny Price, whose focus is on processing this data in real-time.
Danny Price is a research fellow working in Berkeley’s Breakthrough Listen lab on instrumentation and data analysis. Originally from Western Australia, Danny received his PhD in astrophysics from the University of Oxford in 2013, after which he moved to Harvard to work on digital signal processing (DSP) for a 21-cm cosmology experiment called LEDA, before joining the Breakthrough Listen lab.
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“Perception Hacking for Cyborgs (That Means You)” by Kara Platoni
Humanity has never been closer to machine than we are now — and it’s only about to get weirder as we increasingly bring technologies onto, and into, our bodies in our eternal quest to alter our perceptual experiences, give ourselves superpowers and (maybe) hack ourselves a sixth sense. From the bionic eye to the thought-controlled robotic limb; from augmented and virtual reality gadgets to biohacker implants, it’s time to consider what comes next in human evolution, and whether we can do it ourselves.
Kara is a science reporter who works the Nancy Drew beat, going anywhere there is a possibility of a weird adventure involving pirates, old clocks or (ideally) ghosts. For her book, We Have the Technology, she sofa-surfed through four countries and eight US states, visiting any lab, military base or biohacker basement that would let her get in on an experiment on the cutting edge of sensory science. She teaches narrative writing at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
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“Dispatches from the Mitochondria: Mutations, Aging, and Death” by Gregory Tranah, PhD
Dr. Tranah studies the genetics of aging and age-related traits, and is attempting to identify the genes associated with longevity. He’s also examining the role of mitochondrial DNA mutations in both pancreatic cancer and human energetics.
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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 eats 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, 2/15/17
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @ Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets here
This month we have a Trump regime-survival troika! First, yuck it up with a memory champ and a bunch of comedians. Then learn how to get out of the handcuffs you may find yourself in when your post-brunch protest turns riotous. Finally, make yourself nice and numb with some beers brewed with ancient yeast strains. It’s the least we could do for you fine eureka-staters. Oh, and SFPL, DJAB, and GCG will be there and square, too!
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Eureka! Science Comedy presents
“Memory of Champions” with Chester Santos
We’re giving you a special mini-version of one of our favorite local shows, Eureka!, an interactive science comedy show where scientists talk, comedians crack jokes, and audience members win prizes. “The International Man of Memory” Chester Santos, 2008 U.S. Memory Champion, will be in the house! Chester has helped thousands of people realize the benefits of an improved memory and sharper mind. And also joining hosts Allen Saakyan and Kevin Whittinghill will be some of the Bay Area’s funniest comedians. Expect to learn and laugh your ass off!
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“Handcuffs & Ravens” by Bob Hermes and Christine Bachman
Erotic game gone awry? Kidnapped by a crooked cop? Don’t fret – find out just how easy it is to bypass the inner workings of the modern-day handcuff! Bob and Christine will lock on to the history of handcuffs, unlock their inherent weaknesses, and show us how to escape them with nothing more than a bobby pin. Oh, and they’ll also crow about teaching some neighborhood ravens how to open locked boxes.
Bob is a network security engineer and Christine is a California-licensed locksmith. Through their business, Lockpick Extreme, they have taught thousands of people the art of lock-picking and handcuff escape.
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Fossil Fuels Brewing Co. and Schubros Brewing present
“Brewing With 45-Million-Year-Old Yeast” by Chip Lambert
While modern beer advertising suggests that its flavor comes from mountain spring water, golden fields of grain, and the freshest hops, in reality it’s the microbes that are the real heroes. Yeast cells slave away converting glucose to ethanol and carbon dioxide, and we beer-goggled consumers have next to no appreciation for the minute amounts of ester, aldehydes, and amyl-alcohols that make a beer eminently drinkable – or turn it into fertilizer. Fossil Fuels Brewing eschews the inbred strains most brewers use, instead isolating ancient yeast from the gut of a prehistoric bee trapped in 45-million-year-old amber. Drink up ancient times!
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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 eats from the scientist of the sammie, Grilled Cheez Guy.
Plus: The San Francisco Public Library will be on hand to dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.
Wednesday, 1/18/17
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @ Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets here
With Auld Lang Syne still reverberating in our ears, the first Nerd Nite SF of 2017 draws nigh. If your New Year’s resolution was to learn new things, meet interesting people, or kill more brain cells with beer then we have the event for you! A historian weaves a queer biography, a scientist (to the best of our knowledge, of the sane variety) manipulates genomes, and a physicist demonstrates how to listen to gravity waves. Come out for three fascinating talks, plus music, drinks, food, and your fellow nerds. Be there and be square!
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“Queer Compulsions: Race, Nation, and Sexuality in the Affairs of Yone Noguchi” by Amy Sueyoshi
In the 1890s Japanese Immigrant poet Yone Noguchi – better known today as the father of acclaimed artist Isamu Noguchi – wrote torrid letters of love to Bohemian Club founder Charles Warren Stoddard, as he impregnated Leonie Gilmour and proposed marriage to Alabama’s first historian Ethel Armes who was likely a lesbian. How could same-sex sexuality, infidelity, and interracial love exist openly and acceptably at the turn of the century in the midst of anti-miscegenation and sodomy laws?
Amy is the Associate Dean of College of Ethnic Studies and teaches at the intersection of race and sexuality. She’s founding co-curator of the GLBT History Museum and has a second book forthcoming titled, The Price of Leisure: White Pleasure and the Making of the American “Oriental.”
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“Gene Editing: Approaching the Age of GATTACA” by Ashley Libby
Our DNA controls our lives more than we realize. It not only influences our appearance and how our bodies function, but it can also cause things to go wrong. Many diseases are genetically linked to your DNA. Now imagine being able to change that. Envision a doctor telling you that they can simply “cut out” the gene that causes a disease. While this might seems like a scene out of a science fiction novel, it is closer to reality with the discovery of a gene-editing tool called CRISPR. What is CRISPR? Why are scientists so excited about it? How would we use it? Is it really safe? Come learn about the rapidly developing field of gene editing, what genes scientists want to delete, and what we should watch out for.
Ashley is a PhD student at UCSF and manipulates stem cell genomes on the daily.
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“Gravity Waves, Interference, and Quantum Mechanics: Opening up new windows to the large and small world” by Holger Müller
We can actually “hear” cosmic gravitational waves – ripples in spacetime created by neutron star binary systems, black holes, and echoes from the birth of the universe, and more – with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Holger will show with a live demo how we can use a modified laser pointer to generate audio and visualizations using laser interferometry, and will play audio from the real LIGO, while explaining what it all means.
Holger is Associate Professor of Physics at UC Berkeley, and his group develops experimental technology for incredibly precise measurements.
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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 bao by 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, 12/21/16
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @ Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets here
As is our hallowed nerdy tradition, our December show has NOTHING to do with the holidays and EVERYTHING to do with learning something new about something you never knew you should know. Got it? So come get it! Dude, we’ll get so meta about metadata with a software engineer and kick it with one of our audience faves (and nephew of DJ Alpha Bravo) rapping (maybe literally) about dinosaurs. With booze from our beloved Rickshaw ‘tenders, books from the SFPL, and bites from Alicia’s Tamales, be there and be square!
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“STOMPIN’ THROUGH TIME!!!” by Brian Engh
Explore a dinosaur-infested prehistoric ecology through the evidence left on a squishy, nasty old lakeshore! You may remember Brian from his 2015 talk, “Extreme Dinosaur Makeover,” in which he took us through the process of accurately reconstructing dinosaurs from bones on up. Well, this professional paleo artist and creature designer is back to edify and entertain you!
Brian is also a filmmaker, animator and rapper/beat-maker steeped in a lifelong fascination with natural history. His paleo illustrations can be seen in scientific papers, books, museum displays, and several outdoor interpretive fossil sites around Moab Utah, one of which is the focus of this talk. His various and assorted creative efforts are collected on his website http://www.DontMessWithDinosaurs.com.
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“Getting Meta with Your Data: How to see and be more than the sum of our parts” by Simon Bayangos
“Metadata” has entered the mainstream, but much of its meaning and value has been mislaid in the process. Metadata is just that—data that tells us about data. But most of our attempts to capture, comprehend, and control this information have tried to do it as if it were analog information. What if we could experience data the way we hear an orchestra or smell an amazing meal? What if we could interpret millions or even billions of pieces of information not as individual isolated stories but as a collective whole? And what if this information were not scientifically accumulated data on the physical world but rather the intertwined threads of our lives? Tonight we will see and hear metadata in ways few people have perceived it and learn about all the big and small, public and secret ways and places it is accumulated. Whoa, meta.
Simon’s never met a piece of data he couldn’t dig something interesting out of (a.k.a. Head of Engineering at Nuix – a forensic software company).
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“Hysterical Paroxysms: The Amazing History of the Vibrator” by Carol Queen, PhD
Your great-great-grandmother might have owned a vibrator, and the fascinating story of our favorite household helper is truly stranger than fiction. Learn all about their history with Good Vibrations’ Antique Vibrator Museum curator Carol Queen, PhD!
Carol is Good Vibrations‘ staff sexologist, curator of the Antique Vibrator Museum, and runs the Center for Sex & Culture.
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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: Alicia’s Tamales los Mayas will be upstairs serving hot plates of yum.
