Wednesday, 9/18/2019
Doors at 7pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @Van Ness
$10, all ages
Tickets here!
Grab a drink, feast with Miss Arepita, enjoy vinyl spun by DJAB, and see the wonders of the world. Be there and be square!
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“Mindsuckers: Tales of the Most Badass Bugs on the Planet” by Anand Varma
The stuff of nightmares: Parasites that hijack their host bodies. They control their minds. Force them to become their bodyguards, steer them into their burrows where the will be devoured alive, or compel them into the mouths of predators. How can they do this? Why? These parasites will change how you think about the evolution of life on Earth.
Anand started photographing natural history subjects while studying biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He uses photography to reveal the invisible details around us with the goal of sparking a sense of wonder about our world. He is a regular contributor to National Geographic Magazine. https://www.varmaphoto.com/
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“The Bigfoot of Octopuses” by Richard Ross
In the 1980s, accounts emerged of an octopus that behaved so unlike anything previously observed of octopuses—beak-to-beak mating, food sharing by mates, den sharing, strategic hunting, and the ability to stay alive through multiple spawns. The cephalopod research community deemed these early observations unbelievable, and attempts to publish a behavioral study by Panamanian marine biologist Arcadio Rodaniche were not successful, except for two tantalizing paragraphs that appeared in a notes section of a journal. For decades, these two paragraphs fascinated octopus enthusiasts but were largely still thought to be fantasy.
In 2012, Richard Ross of the California Academy of Sciences and Roy Caldwell of the University of California, Berkeley, were able to obtain live specimens and verify those early observations, and then publish their findings with Rodaniche as co-author. This talk will cover the unique behaviors of the larger Pacific striped octopus and the story of the rediscovery of this amazing animal—plus how it felt to finally get the bigfoot of octopus in the lab for study!
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“The Carbon Footprint of Superheroes” by Miles Traer
Our noble heroes are always ready to take action to save the world. But holy polluters, Batman! Those superpowers and super-gadgets can have super-carbon footprints! Geologist Miles Traer does the math on just how much CO2 our favorite so-called heroes produce. Avengers, disassemble?
Miles is a geologist and educator at Stanford University and creator of the award-winning Generation Anthropocene (https://www.genanthro.com/) podcast. He studies landscape evolution on Earth, Mars, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Explore Miles’s research and pop-sci articles at www.milestraer.com.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match our presenters’ themes. Follow the set list on Twitter @djalphabravo
Food: Amazing arepas from Miss Arepita!
Wednesday, 8/21/2019
Doors at 7pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @Van Ness
$10, all ages
Tickets here
Flutter on down to the Rickshaw Stop for lots of “oooohs” and “aaaaahs”, as we’ve rustled up some talks on coloration, vowels, and cattle raids! We promise you’ll never look at butterflies, lips, and milk the same way again. So come learn with us, drink up, binge on bao, and listen to vinyl spun by DJAB. Be there and be square!
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“The Science of Color: How Butterflies Paint their Wings” by Aaron Pomerantz
How is butterfly color created? In this lecture, Aaron Pomerantz takes us on a journey through the Amazon rainforest, where interesting observations about butterfly color and patterns lead him to use imaging and genetics to decode butterfly color.
Aaron is currently in a Ph.D. program in the Integrative Biology department in Dr. Nipam Patel’s lab at UC Berkeley, and is interested in how butterflies are able to produce such an incredible array of colors through the use of pigments and structural coloration.
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“Vowels: Using Math to Explain Why the Brits Sound Fancy” by Jack Danger
Were you taught the vowels “A”, “E”, “I”, “O”, and “U” ? Yeah, that’s not English, that’s Latin. In English we have twelve vowels. TWELVE. But we don’t have letters for them so we don’t talk about them. In this talk we’ll dive down our own throats and find the mechanisms that generate sound. Then we’ll plot that sound on a cartesian axis and visualize it. By the end of this talk you’ll speak in a sexy Australian accent, you’ll know how to pronounce ‘about’ like a Canadian (it’s not ‘aboot’), and you’ll realize that your parents may have raised you with one of the hardest languages on Earth.
Jack has a degree in Linguistics and at age 18 legally changed his middle name to “Danger” on a dare.
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“The Cattle Raids of Creely” by Elizabeth Creely
We don’t think of SF as a cow-town, but in the late 1800s they were certainly a common sight, and fresh milk was a dietary staple. It was also regularly adulterated with chemicals, contaminated water, and other foulness. Armed with six-shooters and lactometers, Edward Creely, SF’s official veterinary surgeon, and James P. Dockery, SF’s first Milk Inspector, waged a war on toxic milk, raiding pastures and dumping thousands of gallons onto the streets. Learn about these daring dairy deeds and the rise of modern public health policy in SF.
Elizabeth is a fourth-generation Irish Californian, Mission-based writer, public historian, and speaker who loves talking about dairies and the Irish. She’s the grandniece of Edward Creely.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match our presenters’ themes. Follow the set list on Twitter @djalphabravo
Food: Delicious bao from Cross Hatch Eatery.
Drinking unusual beer, riding in cable cars and ridding oneself of dangerous levels of radioactive elements–three things that are absolutely wonderful. (Well, if you hate the taste of beer and think cable cars are overrated, at least we can agree on the third one!) So, pause your binge-watching of Chernobyl and come learn with us, drink up, get some reading recs from the SFPL, snarf gooey grilled cheese from the GCG, and listen to vinyl tunes from DJAB. Be there and be square!
Wednesday, 7/17/2019
Doors at 7pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @Van Ness
$10, all ages
Tickets here
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“Radioactive and Heavy Metals – The Good, the Bad, or the Ugly?” by Rebecca Abergel
Exposure to heavily radioactive elements after a nuclear accident is a terrifying thought. But radioactive elements – including some that were created and added to the periodic table by scientists here in the Bay Area – can be used in beneficial medical treatments that work like “nuclear bullets” to target diseased tissue and cancer cells. We’ve also developed chemical tools to remove unwanted radioactive contaminants from our bodies and our environment.
Learn about these from Rebecca, an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley and Heavy Element Chemistry Group Leader at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her research focuses on investigating the fundamental coordination chemistry and biochemistry of heavy and f-elements.
(This talk brought to you by the 150th anniversary of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements!)
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“Pale Lager: How Innovation and Politics Enabled Its Domination, and How They Will Lead to Its Fall” by Daniel Gadala-Maria
In the last century, American beer has been dominated by pale lager and often been likened to sex in a canoe…fucking close to water. Yet pale lagers also dominate globally: 92% of all beer fits into this narrow category. Beer has existed since prehistory, but pale lagers are younger than the U.S.A. So how the hell did we get here??? We’ll discuss the innovations and politics–some brilliant and some abhorrent–that have played a key role, starting with beer riots in the Czech Republic. But take heart! We’ll also cover how these same forces are now helping create a world that embraces and supports more diversity in beer!
Daniel Gadala-Maria was a biologist who, after a decade of study and beer-related side-gigs, turned his hobby into his profession; he’s now a brewer at Marin Brewing Co. and a beertender at The Monk’s Kettle.
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“The Tenacious Life of San Francisco’s Cable Cars” by Strephon Taylor
Before our modern transportation systems, U.S. cities were about as big as a person could easily walk. As technology advanced after the Civil War, the horse-drawn omnibus became the preferred method of mass transit and cities began growing. But after witnessing a horse-drawn streetcar accident, Andrew Smith Hallidie, a San Francisco resident, put his knowledge of Gold Rush ore mining using steel rope into action: On Clay Street in 1873, the first successful cable car gripped popular imagination and thus began our ride through history.
Since 2010, Strephon has been producing his own movies and music through November Fire Recordings. Most of the projects are celebrations of Halloween, sci-fi, and horror… and San Francisco: “Remembering Playland,” “Sutro’s: The Palace at Lands End,” “The Cliff House and Sutro Heights,” and now “San Francisco Cable Cars.” He has also shared wacky, spooky tales of San Francisco as the character Slob on “Creepy KOFY Movie Time.”
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match our presenters’ themes. Follow the set list on Twitter @djalphabravo
Food: 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.
June gloom increasing your sense of doom? Follow our nerdy beacon to the Rickshaw, where we’ll dig down through decades of fill to SF’s foundations, confound the flat-earthers by imagining a donut-shaped world, and watch cells do the splits. Just add music, alcoholic beverages, and Miss Arepita and boom–the gloom has left the room. Be there and be square!
Wednesday, 6/19/2019
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$10, all ages
Tickets
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“How Did We Get HERE?!?” by Chris Carlsson
Leveling sand dunes, blasting hills, and filling in the bay began a century-long city building project that literally expanded San Francisco’s presence on the Pacific Rim. Workers and employers battled through decades of economic booms and busts, culminating in an epic 1934 waterfront strike that deeply altered class relations before World War II. Bicycling erupted here at the end of the 19th and 20th centuries to alter urban lives everywhere. Countless thousands came here to reinvent themselves and to push the boundaries of politics, art, music, literature, sexuality, gender, technology, and more. Shaping San Francisco’s Chris Carlsson unpacks the city’s forgotten and flushed histories to illuminate the complicated and contested foundations that undergird our lives.
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“Out-of-This-World Geometry” by Emily Clader
We lead a three-dimensional life on the surface of a massive sphere, but with the help of mathematics, we can imagine an infinitude of other possible worlds. How would life be different if we existed in four dimensions? If rulers measured distance differently? If the Earth were a donut? We’ll shore up our imagination with a little topology to find out.
Emily is a professor of mathematics at San Francisco State University. Her research focuses on problems in algebraic geometry motivated by theoretical physics.
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“Cells Making Cells: How Cells do the Devil’s Dance” by Blake Riggs
The lights are low, the mood is set, the time is right. Slowly, cells start a ritualistic movement that indicates it is ready, time to divide. What does that moment, when cells make new cells, look like? We will explore how cells divide, what goes into making new cells and how the deed gets done. We will focus on some of the kinkier and bizarre aspects of cell division including some of the unanswered questions about the different bits and bobs involved in division and the generation of cell diversity.
Blake is an associate professor of biology at San Francisco State University and has been nationally recognized for his mentoring, including receiving the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award for excellence in teaching and research.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the set list on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Food: Miss Arepita – delicious Venezuelan street fare.
An anthropological archaeologist, a disease ecologist, and a mime walk into a bar, and after a few drinks—wait, sorry, we’ve definitely done this joke before, and the mime does NOT like to talk about it. Ba-dum-bump tss! But seriously, folks, you really need to walk into the Rickshaw on the third Wednesday of May for drinks, music, momos, and an incredible line-up of experts on Lyme disease, miming, and the Americas’ first settlers—plus more bad jokes natch. Be there and be square!
Wednesday, 5/15/2019
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$10, all ages
Tickets here
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“A Bloody Meal with a Twist of Lyme (Disease, That Is!)” by Andrea Swei
There are many things to be worried about in today’s world: climate change, parking tickets, an ebola outbreak…but a disease that can be transmitted only by a small, non-flying bug shouldn’t be one of them. And yet Lyme disease, caused by a tick-transmitted bacteria, is one of the biggest and most rapidly emerging threats to Americans. How can this be? Dr. Andrea Swei is a vector and disease ecologist at San Francisco State University who has been studying this complex and interesting disease for over two decades. She will share how Lyme has emerged and how studying lizards and bobcats in the wild can help us understand where and when this disease can come out of the woods to bite us.
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“How to Get Stuck in a Box: A Former Mime Speaks” by Mark Schaeffer
How does a silent performer make audiences laugh and cry? Where did mimes come from, why do they wear white makeup, and why does everybody hate them? What are the secrets to making walls, ropes, and mantelpieces invisibly appear? In addition to learning a bit about the history and culture of this oft-maligned art form, you’ll get a demonstration (with audience participation!) of how the classic illusions are done.
Mark founded and directed the Princeton Mime Company as an undergrad in the 1970s. He has worked variously as a writer, editor, producer, animator, designer, web developer, therapeutic bodyworker, and community college professor. Now retired, he volunteers his time supporting the arts and retouching animal photos for the East Bay SPCA.
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“Finding the First Americans” by Todd Braje
Two decades ago, most archaeologists believed they knew when and how the Americas were first settled. But discoveries in Chile and the American West have fundamentally changed everything we thought we understood. Today, there are more questions than answers, which has stimulated new ideas and reinvigorated once-marginal theories. Find out about the researchers at the Cal Academy who are looking under the sea—at kelp forests and marine resources—as part of the largest scientific effort ever undertaken to identify submerged archaeological sites along California’s Pacific coast.
Todd is an archaeologist and Irvine Chair of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences. His research includes fieldwork at some of the Pacific coast’s oldest sites, occupied by Pleistocene maritime voyagers, and at some of the youngest, occupied by Chinese immigrants during the California Gold Rush. His most recent book is Shellfish for the Celestial Empire: The Rise and Fall of Commercial Abalone Fishing in California.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the set list on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Food: Delicious Himalayan grub from new-to-us Cafe Zambala!
This month features AIs learning from people, robots learning from insects, and people learning from fungi! You get to learn all that from a computer scientist, a roboticist, and a mycologist. And you can learn the art of award-winning sammies from GrilledCheezGuy, a new drink from the Rickshaw Stop bartenders, and a new song from DJ Alpha Bravo while you’re at it. Be there and be square!
Wednesday, 4/17/2019
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell Street @Van Ness
$10, all ages
Tickets here
“Do as I Say, Not as I Do: Can We Avoid Imparting Human Biases to Computers?” by Cynthia Lee
As the AI revolution is poised to impact nearly every facet of life, concerns are mounting about how training computers to think like us can amplify some of the worst parts of ourselves. Is our training data teaching machines to adopt human biases on race, gender, age, and more? We’ll look at concrete examples of these issues, as well as consider how we got here, starting with basic questions of who decides who gets to see themselves as “a computer person,” and how early experiences shape our perceptions of our relationship to technology.
Cynthia is a Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at Stanford. She has a PhD in high-performance computing from UC San Diego and also taught there before moving to Stanford. Her industry work experience includes NASA Ames and startups.
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“Swarm Robotics: How to Build an Ant Farm” by Iain Brookshaw
Robots, those complex autonomous machines, are just not all that exciting. Thousands of them? Better, but still insufficiently terrifying. But what if we make them *swarm* like insects in vast hives of robotic bugs? Now we’re talking!
We’ll learn how to mimic ants, bees and termites in autonomous machines. See why building robotic insects is a good idea, how artificial swarms work, and how a giant, terrifying ball of ants can be used as the basis for solving some of the hard problems in robotics. So let’s build an ant farm (some assembly required)!
Iain earned his PhD in Robotic Engineering at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia in 2016, and is very proud of the swarm of four robot ants he built so long ago. After a stint as a postdoc at UMD and USC, he now builds robots in SF for a living, which is so much more interesting than academic papers.
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“Fungal in the Jungle” by Jessie Uehling
More details on Jessie’s talk is coming, but we can tell you she’s traveled across two continents exploring the diversity and beauty of the fungal denizens of the tropical rainforest. Jessie is a mycologist and evolutionary geneticist captivated by how symbioses – mutually benefical relationships between different organisms – are established, maintained, and evolve over time. By studying fungus and their plant hosts from rainforests in South America and Africa, she looks for patterns to better understand the evolutionary history of the fungus among us.
Jessie is currently a postdoc at UC Berkeley but is off to an Associate Professorship in the Botany and Plant Pathology Dept at Oregon State University soon.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the set list on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Food: Glorious grilled cheese from the one and only GrilledCheezGuy.
Wednesday, 9/18/2019
