An Easter talk in July? It isn’t the climate, but because we’re mad.
At July’s Nerd Nite East Bay, Alice Handley will tell us why the days on our calendar fall when they do, Dan Miller will address climate change and some of the technological and policy changes that may address it, and Sharon Osterweil will talk about the history o’ crazy.
And, as usual, DJ Ion the Prize, Rebecca, and Rick will eat the carbon-neutral chocolate bunnies.
Be there and be square.
Monday 7/28
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
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GREAT MOMENTS IN PEDANTRY: THE MODERN GIRL’S (OR GUY’S) GUIDE TO THE SEVENTH CENTURY EASTER CONTROVERSY by Alice Handley
Easter is about bunnies and chocolate and the risen Christ—and also about all sorts of very delicious medieval European theological backbiting and wrangling. The Easter controversy happened when theology, astronomy, and politics collided in the early Christian Church to create what St. Eusebius would have undoubtedly called “a hot mess.” Learn about the centuries-long struggle to define a single date and how this argument played out across church and state in Europe and the Near East—as well as how it affected the calendar we use today.
Alice Handley received a BA in History from UC Berkeley and then an M.Phil. from The University of Cambridge but then decided to get out of the fast-paced, high-stakes, big-money world of Early Medieval History to focus on things that other people on earth might conceivably care about. Currently, she writes words on the internet for a living and resides in Oakland.
HOW TO FIX CLIMATE CHANGE FOR FREE by Dan Miller
Climate change is obviously one of the greatest challenges facing civilization, yet governments (and the public) are mostly ignoring the problem. Why is that? And how bad might it get and how soon? Dan will discuss some technologies that could help the problem, and finish up by describing of a climate policy that will greatly reduce carbon pollution, boost the GDP, and create over 2 million jobs.
Dan Miller is Managing Director of The Roda Group, a Berkeley venture capital group he co-founded that is focused on cleantech. Dan is a former board member of biofuel manufacturer Solazyme, and he was previously the president of Ask Jeeves, Inc., both former Roda Group affiliate companies. Dan co-founded TCSI corporation, which became a leading provider of telecommunications software. Before that, he designed communication satellite payloads at Hughes Aircraft (now Boeing) Space & Communications.
CRAZYMAKING: THE HISTORY OF MENTAL ILLNESS IN THE U.S. by Sharon Osterweil
How does a late 19th century outbreak of encephalitis affect the prognosis of people with schizophrenia today? What is an asylum and why is it different from a psychiatric hospital? Why are there so many homeless people who seem crazy? Why might my sibling/parent/friend with a serious mental illness take their medication so inconsistently? It’s tempting to think that with modern medicine, we clearly understand the causes and effects of various mental illnesses, but in fact, how mental illness is treated, who is mentally ill, and even what mental illness means has changed significantly over the past 300 years. By exploring the history of mental illness in the U.S., we’ll shed light in the darkest corners of the locked wards.
Sharon Osterweil currently works for Lifelong Medical Care—a high quality health care organization serving Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond—on a prevention-based case management pilot program. Before returning to her native Bay Area last year, she lived in New York and provided direct services at a supportive housing agency and later studied employment among adults with severe mental illness and histories of homelessness. She conducted research on employment for her MPH thesis at Pathways to Housing, the innovators of the Housing First model.
Come one! Come all! To the twentieth installment of Nerd Nite East Bay! Where Hillary Sardiñas will dig up our pollinators where they live! Where Caren Walker and Sophie Bridgers will speak to how children learn! Where Adam Howe and Hunter Huston will rally the adult dodge ball league! And where DJ Ion the Prize, Rebecca, and Rick will wax lyrical!
Be there and be square.
Monday 6/30
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
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THE REAL DIRT ON BEES by Hillary Sardiñas
Bees are incredibly important to agriculture. One out of three bites of food we eat comes from a bee-pollinated crop. Honey bees, with their queens, colonies, drones and honey stores, are usually what comes to mind when we think of bees. In fact, there are over 20,000 species of bees worldwide. They have a variety of life history strategies that are nothing like those of the honey bee. We’ll delve into the diversity of wild bees, particularly focusing on where they nest: in the dirt!
Hillary is a doctoral candidate in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on native bee nesting in agricultural regions, particularly whether creating natural habitat on farm edges can help bolster bee populations and boost crop yields. She can often be found buzzing around farms in the Central Valley helping growers make decisions about habitat management techniques. Hillary has also worked as a restoration ecologist in a variety of non-profits and governmental organizations around the Bay Area.
LITTLE LEARNING MACHINES: CHILD AS SCIENTIST AND SUPERCOMPUTER by Caren Walker and Sophie Bridgers
Historically, children were considered to be incompetent, irrational, short adults. Recently, however, there’s been a revolution in our scientific understanding of the minds of young children, transforming our interpretation of childhood and providing new insight into adult cognition as well. As adults, we have coherent, abstract and highly structured knowledge of the world. The foundations of this knowledge are constructed in childhood from the fragmented and concrete evidence of our senses. How do those seemingly useless (but adorable) creatures learn so much about the world so quickly and accurately? Our research shows that even the youngest babies have learning abilities that are more powerful than those of the smartest scientists and most advanced computers. In particular, we propose that children, like scientists, implicitly formulate hypotheses about how the world works, and test those hypotheses through their own exploration and play.
Caren Walker is an East Coast transplant, currently wrapping up her Ph.D. in Developmental Cognitive Science at the University of California, Berkeley. When she’s not contemplating the origins of abstract knowledge, she enjoys experimenting with the circus arts and spending time in nature. (However, Caren will be going on the job market next year, so if anyone asks: she spends ALL of her time in the lab).
Sophie Bridgers has lived in the East Bay her entire life but is brand new to the Nerd Nite community. She currently works as a lab manager for Dr. Alison Gopnik, but is betraying her Berkeley roots and heading to Stanford in the fall to get her Ph.D. in Cognitive Development. When she’s not collecting data for Caren’s studies, she spends her time in the dance studio (or with Caren, in nature).
GETTING AWAY WITH PHYSICAL ASSAULT AND ITS CATHARTIC EFFECTS: RECREATIONAL ADULT DODGEBALL by Adam Howe and Hunter Huston (RAD League)
Though most people only remember dodgeball as a childhood sport or zany comedy, it has actually become a thriving intramural activity for 20-30 somethings across the country. In this 30 minute presentation, RAD League dodgeball will guide you through the inner workings of this quirky sport while explaining the rules, strategies, and positions used in today’s modern game. So grab your favorite knee pads and headband as you won’t want to DODGE this unique discussion.
RAD League dodgeball was created with the sole purpose of bringing together different groups of people who know how to have a good time and love playing dodgeball. One year, four seasons, and over a hundred participants later, RAD League is going strong! Whether you are a grizzled vet or 1st time player, RAD league offers a fun experience for all. And while the goal on the court might be to eliminate your opponents, the social part of our league is to meet new people, and hang out with old friends.
Adam Howe was a founding member of RAD League and helps oversee the scheduling, roster relations, and event planning for RAD League. On top of RAD League Adam currently manages the Pyramid Alehouse in Berkeley, CA and has made Oakland his home for the past 6.5 years.
Hunter Huston is one of three co-founding members of RAD League and has been playing dodgeball competitively for over 6 years. He has also been coaching high school basketball and teaching for the last 4 years in Berkeley.
I don’t need a counting theorem to let you know that the three talks we feature this month will be nothing less than nerd-a-licious. First, Nathan Ilten will offer one of the cooler pieces of group theory to show how you can count things. Then Alexandra Krawicz shows us how we can design better approaches to harvesting energy from the sun. Chris van Luen close, who gave us an alternative for his talk: “Life as a Street Medic. Yes, this shit really does happen.”
DJ Citizen Zain is back again already! And Rick and Rebecca will provide resuscitation between talks. Be there and be square.
Monday 5/26
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
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HOW TO COUNT BETTER THAN A THREE-YEAR-OLD by Nathan Ilten
Mathematicians and young children have (at least) two things in common: they drool more than they should, and they love to count things. While children are often forced to rely on their fingers for counting, older mathematicians often have more sophisticated tools available. In this talk, we’ll examine one such tool: “The Lemma that is not Burnside’s”, first discovered by Augustin Cauchy in 1845. Not only does it have a confusing name, this lemma can be extremely useful when counting objects with some kind of symmetry. As an example, we’ll solve a problem that would make your three year old niece break down in tears: how many ways can you paint the faces of a cube using 97 different colors?
Nathan Ilten grew up counting with his fingers, but quickly learned to use his toes as well. After learning to count a bit higher, he got his PhD in mathematics from the Freie Universität in Berlin. When not spending his time working as a visiting assistant professor at UC Berkeley, Nathan can be found out on the Bay in a sailboat.
TAME THE SUN: MAKE FUELS VIA ARTIFICIAL PHOTOSYNTHESIS by Alexandra Krawicz
Plants are photoautotrophic, they do not depend on anyone to synthesize their “food” or give them energy to grow. Through a series of light driven reactions plants split water and fix carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis. Humans can mimic photosynthesis artificially, but are not as successful as plants. However if we become masters in mimicking plants we could use their “trade secrets” to become energy independent and produce carbon neutral and fully renewable solar energy. Our consumption of energy is growing at an exorbitant rate and since most energy comes from burning fossil fuels we continue to pollute the atmosphere we live in, and induce climate change. The goal of the work presented here is to mimic one part of the photosynthetic reaction. In nature, photosynthesis splits water into protons and oxygen and in the process releases electrons. These electrons are then used along with the protons to reduce CO2 and form sugars. We have developed a method for preparing an electrode composed of grafted molecular cobalt-containing hydrogen production catalysts onto visible light absorbing semiconductor p-type GaP(100) that can mimic the hydrogen production step. This construct is able to produce hydrogen (fuel) catalytically upon exposure to solar illumination. The preparation of the construct exploits UV-induced immobilization of vinylpyridine and subsequent surface-initiated photopolymerization to yield a covalently attached polymer with pendent pyridyl groups that bind to cobaloxime catalysts. Surface derivatization is characterized by several spectroscopic techniques and performance is assessed by electrochemical methods. The Co containing catalyst functionalized photocathode shows significantly enhanced photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance in aqueous conditions at neutral pH, compared to results obtained on GaP without attached cobalt complex, yielding a 2.4 mA cm-2 current density at a 310 mV underpotential, meaning that only solar light is driving the reaction and there is no applied bias. These results open new possibilities for re-engineering the catalytic constructs to improve their efficiency and durability.
Alexandra Krawicz is a Postdoctoral scholar at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and The Joint Center for Artificial Synthesis (JCAP). She joined JCAP in August 2012 as part of the Interface group to work on immobilization of molecular catalysts onto semiconductors for solar energy conversion. Currently she is working on developing
stable attachment strategies for molecular catalysts to photocathodes to create constructs for solar fuel production. Despite her best efforts, she is heterotrophic.
911….WHAT’S YOUR EMERGENCY? by Chris van Luen
Everyday we see ambulances speeding down the street with lights and sirens blaring. Have you wondered…what type of emergency are they going to? Is it the life threatening heart attack or car crash like we see in movies or on television? Well, you might be surprised at what the real answer is. Come join us as we take you on virtual ride-along with paramedics during a 24 hour period and get an idea of what life is really like as a paramedic on the street.
Chris van Luen is a veteran paramedic who has been working in Emergency Medical Services for over 25 years. As a young medic he served as a Helicopter Rescue Swimmer in the US Coast Guard for 13 years. In 1999 he returned home to the East Bay where he has since been working as a paramedic in Alameda County with several years working the streets of Oakland. He is a published author on topics relating to pre-hospital care, a paramedic instructor and has received multiple awards including Paramedic of the Year.
The next monthly installment of Nerd Nite East Bay brings many firsts: our first food science talk, the first talk (on modern education methods) based on audience suggestions in our facebook group, and our first talk about comic books. Megan Fisklements will dig through the two billion pounds of almonds California produces each year and distill the most nutritious and entertaining information about your nuts. Aaron Vanderwerff comes out of the shop to let us know how he’s teaching our young about making. Finally, Grace Gipson will show how we paint our superheroes of color in comics and graphic novels.
As usual, DJ Citizen Zain, Rick, and Rebecca will do their best to get the nuts & bolts together. Be there and be square.
Monday 4/28
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
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BLANCHING KINETICS OF YOUR NUTS, AND OTHER DELICIOUS ITEMS, EXPLAINED TO YOU BY A FOOD SCIENTIST by Megan Fisklements
There are so many delicious foods out there, and almonds are one of them. But every few decades, the skins mysteriously loosen and fall off uncontrollably! Let me share with you my graduate research trying to shed light on this mystery of the slippery skins. Have you ever wondered what almond skins are made of? Or how they form during almond development? And how do they ever come off? Come with me on an adventure of plant anatomy, methods-MacGyvering, kinetics modeling, and Gary Larson comics. On the way, you’ll peak into the bizarre, joyful world of food nerds, and shed new light on common food products you’ve probably already eaten.
Megan earned her Ph.D. from UC Davis in the Food Science & Technology department, and has been working in food product development ever since. When not experimenting in the lab, she is a devoted keeper of sourdough and an anarchist quilter.
FROM KINDERGARTEN DANGER DAY TO LED TUTUS: MAKING IN SCHOOLS by Aaron Vanderwerff
Why would you hand a bunch of five-year-olds saws?
Design and making (including crafts, electronics, woodworking and programming) give context to students’ learning, develop persistence and creativity, and expose students to new career paths. Making is being integrated into the curriculum both as a support to other subjects and as an end in itself. Kindergarteners with saws and hot glue guns develop into high school students who can imagine and create their own independent projects, everything from electric trucks to LED tutus.
Aaron has been teaching kids to make for years – even without knowing that was what he was doing. He has taught chemistry, physics and robotics in East Bay high schools, and is currently the coordinator of the Creativity Lab at Lighthouse Community Charter School in Oakland, where he works with teachers to integrate making into their classes.
BEWARE OF THE STORM: COMICS AND POP CULTURE STUDIES BREAKING THE COLOR AND GENDER LINES IN COMIC BOOKS by Grace Gipson
Historically, comic books have often been dismissed as less relevant and inferior pop culture texts. However, academic scholars are now re-considering and re-introducing the discussion of comic books [and graphic novels] as complex texts deserving of serious scholarly study. Even though specific research on comic book characters [particularly those of black and brown distinction] has begun to emerge there still remains a need to fill the gap, which includes further examination of these superhero characters of color. These complex characters and their stories offer an opportunity to move beyond the surface narrative of the comic book pages. One might say the most fascinating aspect about the comic book world is that this particular medium has a way of strategically telling a variety of narratives from a diverse group of characters. Superheroes have played a significant role in “presenting idealized projections of ourselves as physically powerful, amazing and fantastic versions of ourselves; as well as serving as a roadway to escapist fantasy or funhouse mirror reflections of our desires to create bigger-than-life personas that can exert our will and power in the world” (Nama, 2009). Overall, the superhero plays a huge role, both positively and adversely, in the formation of our thoughts, beliefs, and ideas within popular culture.
Grace Gipson aka Quiet Storm is a Bay Area and Nerd Nite neo that hails from Champaign, IL by way of the Atlanta, GA who by day is a current nerdy doctoral student at UC Berkeley in African American & African Diaspora Studies with research interests in Popular Culture Studies, Film/Media Studies, presentations of Race/Gender in African American Film and Comic Books, Black Gender & Sexuality Studies, Race, and Media. By night, Grace is a mutant-android international scholar at the Berkeley Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters (also known as the Xavier Institute). Her big sister is one of the most well-known X-Men, Storm (Ororo Monroe). And as a student of the human and mutant world, Grace aims to promote academic excellency and the co-existence of nerds, androids, mutants, and humans. All in all, as a researcher of comic books, Grace attributes much of her work to her fascination of the well-known Marvel series X-Men (particularly Storm). So with these last words spoken by her big sis Storm, “Enter freely, and of your own will.”
We ring in the the 90th day of the year and the 125th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower with three fantastic talks. First, Michael Schiess and Larry Zartarian from the Pacific Pinball Museum will touch on the technology, aesthetics, and historical context of the best coin-operated games ever. Then, Robert Kolasinski is back to deliver the talk we rescheduled during Nerd Nite #14 on missed on the largest and most promising international effort at producing fusion energy in the future. Finally, Shivani Garg Patel will tell us about surgery in the field.
DJ Ion the Prize, Rick, and Rebecca will Launch Those Geese.
Monday 3/31
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
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EARLY PINBALL ART by Michael Schiess and Larry Zartarian (Pacific Pinball Museum)
Our discussion will focus on the development of art used on pinball machines from the 1930s through the late 40s. The evolution of the games technology and the purpose of the art in attracting players. The differences between the styles of the 2 main artists and their roles in defining the genre. We will highlight pinball art as reflections of popular culture during the times they were introduced and enjoyed by the public. We will be discussing the role of the museum in presenting and preserving the art of pinball and lastly, the museum’s goals for establishing a permanent institution for pinball.
Michael Schiessis the Founder of Lucky Ju Ju Pinball and the Founder and current Executive Director of the Pacific Pinball Museum. He invented and built the Visible Pinball Machine, Pinbowl, Lil Ju Ju and other pinball accessories and art projects. He does freelance work for the Exploratorium.
Larry Zartarian is President and Treasurer of the Board of Directors, a collector of ’40s, ’50s and ’60s rare pinball machines. He has worked with PPM for the past 8 years, and served as Board President for 6 years. He leads the board in its drive to improve all the museum’s programs. As an ambassador of pinball, who loves to introduce new people to the game, he has loaned his entire collection of rare pinball games — among the most significant in the world — to PPM. His professional background in investing and unparalleled understanding of the games complements the museum leadership. During his copious amounts of spare time, Larry is an investment adviser at Rand and Associates in San Francisco.
THE ITER PROJECT: THE WAY TOWARD MAGNETIC FUSION ENERGY by Robert Kolasinski
ITER is a physics experiment under construction at the Cadarache facility in southern France. With seven contributing international partners including the U.S., its overall goal is to demonstrate many aspects of magnetic fusion energy for the first time after it becomes operational in 2020. The ITER reactor will use a 78-ft diameter toroid-shaped vacuum chamber known as a tokamak to generate an intense plasma of deuterium and tritium ions. Using superconducting electromagnetic coils, researchers will attempt to confine the plasma for long enough to exceed breakeven, the point where the energy released by fusion reactions equals the input heating. If successful, ITER will generate over 400 MW of fusion power and could serve as a pathway toward a future large-scale energy source. As one might expect, developing reactor materials that withstand such intense plasmas is enormously difficult, but researchers from around the world are working to develop innovative new technologies to address these unique challenges. In the meantime, Iron Man enthusiasts hoping for a reactor design that can power their home-built exoskeleton armor may have to wait until a more compact version of ITER can be developed.
Rob Kolasinski is a surface scientist in the Hydrogen and Metallurgical Science Department at Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore. His interest in plasmas began during grad student at Caltech, when a friend who convinced him to take a class on space propulsion. Seduced by the glamorous world of plasmas, Rob decided to collaborate with the nearby Jet Propulsion Laboratory to study plasma-surface effects in ion thrusters for his thesis. He would eventually receive a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, but not before the hard-living celebrity culture of JPL and southern CA had taken its toll. Needing a place to recuperate and “disappear” from the public eye for a while, Rob then took a position at Sandia. Here he continued his study of plasma science, but now related to magnetic fusion energy. His research interests also include a variety of other topics, including fundamental surface science and hydrogen in materials.
SOLVING AN UNKNOWN PROBLEM: GLOBAL SURGERY by Shivani Garg Patel
Dr. Paul Farmer calls global surgery “the neglected step child of global health.” In our discussion we will examine the impact of global surgery that is all too often not discussed in the broader global health dialogue. Millions are suffering from treatable conditions but lack the funds to seek treatment. We will dive into the types of essential surgeries and their impact on the global burden of disease and individual suffering. There are hundreds of organizations working to bridge the gap of access to basic surgical care for those who cannot afford treatment. We’ll discuss these organizations, review emerging efforts to shine a light on the field and highlight the resources required to enable people to receive treatment to treatable conditions.
Shivani Garg Patel is Co-founder of Samahope, a crowdfunding site for doctors providing critical medical treatments for the world’s poorest. She is a former Microsoft product manager, McKinsey consultant turned social entrepreneur. Her technology-driven social innovation work spans the Grameen Foundation, World Bank and World Health Organization. Her work with Samahope is inspired partly by her time in college leading a non-profit that provided free medical and social services to the low-income population of Berkeley. Shivani has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a B.A. in Cognitive Science from U.C. Berkeley and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. She also spent 3 months studying Shakespeare at Oxford University.
After a great time at Chabot, we return to the New Parkway for the the 2^4th regular installment of Nerd Nite East Bay… Now with a lower packing density! Joel Sipe discusses how Hollywood gets fires wrong, Byron Dote from Sweet Maria’s Coffee will show how a cherry becomes black gold, and Vincent Tanguay will teach us about hypervelocity launchers.
DJ Citizen Zain, Rick, and Rebecca will ensure that Joel won’t yell fire too loudly.
Monday 2/24
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
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EXPLOSIONS, BACKDRAFTS, AND SPRINKLERS: HOW HOLLYWOOD GETS FIRE SCIENCE WRONG by Joel Sipe
Fires and explosions are key elements in most Hollywood blockbusters, yet they are often absurdly misrepresented, much to the chagrin of fire scientists (yes, fire scientists are a real thing). The movie Backdraft is notoriously inaccurate, but finding films with correct portrayals of fires, explosions, or fire protection systems is surprisingly difficult. Spoiler alert: car gas tanks don’t really explode when you shoot them with a handgun. Come learn about the real fire science behind some common Hollywood goofs.
Joel Sipe, Ph.D, is a Senior Engineer at Exponent Failure Analysis Inc. where he investigates fires, explosions, and thermal issues related to consumer product fire safety and skin burns. From an early age, Joel had an obsession with all things having to do with fire. His friends think it’s more than a little suspicious that he always knows where the fire started…
HOME COFFEE ROASTING: ON THE CHEAP WITH TOOLS YOU PROBABLY ALREADY HAVE by Byron Dote
Learn about where coffee comes from and the stages it goes through before it ends as a hot beverage. We will show you how simple the roasting process can be and discuss the different methods used for home roasting. Get up close and personal with a live demonstration of roasting coffee with an electric popcorn popper.
Sweet Maria’s Coffee is an online information and retail source for home coffee roasting. We are based out of West Oakland, and enjoy sharing our passion with Bay Area coffee lovers.
Byron Dote is the marketing guy and merchandise buyer at Sweet Maria’s Coffee. He’s been with the company for 3 years. Before that, he worked in the photo marketing and film production industries. Byron loves living in Oakland, hanging out with his dogs, listening to good music, eating ice cream, yelping Mexican restaurants and drinking excellent coffee.
HYPERVELOCITY LAUNCHERS: HOW TO LAUNCH A PROJECTILE AT 10 MILES/SECOND? (THAT’S RIGHT, PER SECOND) by Vincent Tanguay
The above video is from Vincent’s NNSF talk in 2015.
From bows and arrows to rail guns, man has been perfecting tools to launch projectiles at ever greater speeds for tens of thousands of years. Launching projectiles at hypervelocity is routine today and these launchers are very useful for science. While they have enabled major breakthroughs (think access to space), scientists always need more speed! We’ll discuss what hypervelocity is, its applications, and the various technologies that make it possible. Of course, we’ll talk about their limitations and how to push the frontier of possibilities. Somehow, we’ll manage to include some explosions in there – hopefully we get it right!
Vincent Tanguay, Ph.D., has a background in explosives and detonations and formerly worked as a scientist for a Canadian National Lab. When not busy blowing stuff up, he was developing an explosive-driven hypervelocity launcher.
Nerd Nite East Bay is back from our short hibernation for our first show of 2014! We’ll announce a new field trip opportunity at this show, which features three great talks. First, Nerd Nite San Francisco alum Bradley Voytek will guide you through how scientists properly (and, sometimes, improperly) leverage and present some of the vast amounts of data available. Then Chabot’s Benjamin Burress will point us to where we might expect to find life off this planet. Finally, KQED’s Lisa Aliferis will tell you what you need to know about Obamacare.
DJ Ion the Prize spins the tunes.
Rick and Rebecca will try to make sure you can register in advance…unlike. um. you know.
Monday 1/27
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
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DATA SCIENCE!?: I’M (STATISTICALLY) A DEAD, CHRISTIAN, CHINESE DUDE by Bradley Voytek
90% of all digital data didn’t exist two years ago. Researchers are leveraging “big data” to uncover new insights into human behavior, intelligence, and culture. But what does this data deluge really tell us, and how can it lead us astray?
Bradley Voytek is a Nerd Nite alum, thrice-named Time Person of the year (1960, 2006 and 2011, split prize), professor of computational cognitive science and neuroscience at UC San Diego, director of the Cognitive and Neural Dynamics Lab, Data Evangelist for Uber, and world’s zombie brain expert.
EARTH TO UNIVERSE: IS ANYONE ALIVE OUT THERE? by Benjamin Burress
Prior to only a couple of decades ago, the solar system outside of the Earth seemed quite a barren frontier, and the idea of extra-solar planets was only a twinkle in the eye of those who expected they were out there. Today, not only have we found wet and wild hydrological features in several places in the solar system, we have found and confirmed the presence of planets orbiting other stars–lots of them. And most recently, by virtue of NASA’s late great Kepler mission, we’ve not only begun to zero in on the Holy Grail of exoplanets–Earth-sized worlds at Earth-like distances from their stars, places we might hope to find signs of life–we’ve found that Holy Grails of this type may well be very common in the galaxy.
Benjamin Burress has been a staff astronomer at Chabot Space & Science Center since July 1999. He graduated from Sonoma State University in 1985 with a bachelor’s degree in physics (and minor in astronomy), after which he signed on for a two-year stint in the Peace Corps, where he taught physics and mathematics in the African nation of Cameroon. From 1989-96 he served on the crew of NASA’s Kuiper Airborne Observatory at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA. From 1996-99, he was Head Observer at the Naval Prototype Optical Interferometer program at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ.
OBAMACARE EXPLAINED: A GUIDE FOR CALIFORNIANS by Lisa Aliferis
Look folks, you’re risking financial catastrophe if you don’t have health insurance. It’s the law for most people to have insurance or pay a fine. Sure, the Affordable Care Act is not perfect, but it provides access for to insurance for many people currently denied. Come find out the highlights of what you need to know.
Lisa Aliferis is the Editor of State of Health, a health blog at KQED News. She focuses on health policy, public health and health disparities. Aliferis has twenty years’ experience producing health reports for television as well as health-related videos for nonprofit clients. Earlier, she worked in the health unit at Dateline NBC. And she has health insurance!
Let’s all be thankful for the last Nerd Nite East bay of 2013! As usual, we present you with three diverse talks: Will Johnson will describe the entire universe…or at least those parts that can be crammed into a single page of equations. Anna Lieb will hopefully reveal that the reason my weight keeps increasing may be due to the shrinking kilogram. Finally, Donnelly Gillen will unlock some secrets of early surrealistic art.
DJ Citizen Zain and Rick and Rebecca will keep the turkeys at bay.
Monday 11/25
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
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DESCRIBING EVERYTHING by Will Johnson
How much math does it take to describe how everything can interact and behave? How many assumptions do you have to make to do this? And is it even reasonable to expect math to be able to describe all the rules of our reality? Come and find out about one of sciences most lofty goals: to describe everything.
Will studied high energy experimental particle physics at Fermi National Accelerator Lab while a grad student at UC Davis; he failed to find Supersymmetry. Now he detects nefarious nuclear devices and builds fusion reactors at Sandia National Lab.
THE FICKLE KILOGRAM by Anna Lieb
How much mass is there in a kilogram? It depends on when you ask the question! The SI unit of mass, based on a lump of metal locked in a vault in Paris, is getting smaller by the century. Why does this matter? What can we do? To understand the perilous past and uncertain future of SI units is to go from French Revolution-era politics to fundamental constants of nature, and to peer inside the quantum mechanical machinery that drives one of the world’s most unconventional clocks.
Anna Lieb is a PhD student in Applied Mathematics at UC Berkeley, where she works on computational fluid dynamics and optimization. In her spare time, she is often found cooking, trail running, cycling, or, on occasion, getting lost on account of her unreliable sense of direction.
THE SCUOLA METAPHYSICA: FAR AHEAD OF ITS TIME? by Donnelly Gillen
When is an art movement not really an art movement? The scuola metaphysica, or metaphysical school of early 20th century Italy, wasn’t an organized group of artists who viewed each other’s work and shared ideas. In fact it’s more useful to think of the “school” as a state of mind, or a way of seeing, rather than a movement. This talk will focus on the work and philosophy of Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), a Grecian born Italian, who was the genesis of the metaphysical art movement. Comparing De Chirico’s work to that of contemporary movements, we’ll get a visual comparison highlighting how he attempted to use paint and canvas to express his philosophical manifesto. Unfortunately for De Chirico and the other metaphysicians, their approach may have been too subtle; their visual messages proved elusive for the public. But now that modern and contemporary art have thoroughly deconstructed classical painterly traditions, the public (that means you!) may be ready to discern and appreciate the more subtle variations and distortions of traditional painting evident in De Chirico and his brothers’ work.
Donnelly Gillen is a lawyer by trade who spent her college years nerding-out on art history. She jumped at the chance speak at Nerd Nite and reawaken her brain to the world of modern art and to hopefully teach her peers a little something or two in the process. When not practicing law she is usually busy riding horses, going to indie concerts, swimming in the bay, or drinking too much wine.
Put on your birthday hats: Nerd Nite East bay is 1 year old! To celebrate the Bay Area Science Festival, we bring you a night of science and technology talks. Paul Constantine will let us know why the supercomputers of the future will be smarter and less malignant than HAL 9000. Then Wild Oakland’s Constance Taylor will take us on a tour of Lake Merritt’s flora and fauna, including the sharks! Finally, Damon Tighe informs us of the latest and greatest in DNA sequencing technologies. Be there and be square!
Get blinded with science by DJ Ion the Prize and hosts Rick and Rebecca!
Monday 10/28
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
Tickets
FB event
g+ event
WHEN WILL SUPERCOMPUTERS TAKE OVER THE WORLD? by Paul Constantine
The world’s biggest computers keep getting bigger, faster, and more powerful. In the last few decades, we’ve seen a consistent exponential increase in computing capability as measured by floating point operations per second, with many modern machines now operating at the petaflop scale—in other words, a thousand million million operations per second. This astonishing progress has inspired many futurists to posit the day when some beefy calculator with glowing red eye-like LEDs will become self-aware and take control of the world. In reality, scientists in our nation’s top research laboratories and universities harness this computing power daily to make scientific progress with sophisticated simulations—and no legitimate threat of Skynet. I will discuss some trends in supercomputers and survey the science being done with them.
Paul Constantine is an assistant professor in applied math and statistics at Colorado School of Mines. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford’s Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering in 2009 and was awarded the John von Neumann Fellowship in Computational Science at Sandia National Laboratories. His research interests in computational science include uncertainty quantification, where the goal is to devise and compute measures of confidence for big computer simulations. He’s also seen Terminator, like, twice.
THE SIX KINGDOMS OF LAKE MERRITT: LINNAEUS AT THE LOCH by Constance Taylor
It’s not actually a lake! All the squirrels are imports! And yes, there are sharks that patrol the waters of our beloved urban slough. We’ll go on a whirlwind tour of all six Linnaean kingdoms and learn how some of the animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, protists, and archaea fit together in this bioregion.
Established in 1870 as America’s first wildlife refuge, the area we know as Lake Merritt has changed dramatically over the past century and a half. From tidal estuary to… er… a more human-impacted tidal estuary, this beleaguered environment is still home to a surprising array of species. Hopefully on your post-Nerd Nite visits to Lake Merritt you’ll notice the red-shouldered hawks perched on buildings scouting for prey, bat rays crunching clams, the jellyfish blooping in the Glen Echo finger, the domestic fowland freshwater turtles people abandon at the lake, the cliff swallows swooping to catch insects to carry back to their mud nests at Laney College, and think about ancient life forms when you see (and smell) all that lovely mud.
Constance Taylor started an organization called Wild Oakland in 2012, a non-profit dedicated to providing free, local environmental education for adults. She likes to think of WO as an “urban ecological sampler”- topics covered on the walks have ranged from bird illustration techniques to insect identification to how the 7th Street flood control station works to keep Lake Merritt from flooding Oakland during heavy rains. She’s learned quite a bit about the social and natural history of Lake Merritt, but is always discovering new and surprising things about this oft-misunderstood ecosystem.
THE EVOLUTION OF DNA SEQUENCING TECHNOLOGIES by Damon Tighe
How exactly do you you sequence a whole freaking genome? Warm up your neurological thermal cycler and get ready for this medium level technical dive through the past ten years of DNA Sequencing technologies. We will start with the classic method of Sanger Terminator DNA Sequencing; the backbone of the Human Genome Project and make our way through contemporary technologies that now allow for the sequencing of a whole human genome in less then a week for an almost almost affordable cost. There will be a quick eye forward to some of the emerging technologies like the super sexy nanopore that biologists and physicists can both delight at. GATACA? Yeah, its almost here!
Damon Tighe works for Bio-Rad Laboratories where he supports educators across the western United States teaching biotechnology through hands on training and curriculum development. He grew up in the frog jumping capital of Calaveras county and attended Saint Mary’s College in Moraga. He taught high school in Portland, Oregon in between beer binges, but moved back to the bay for sobriety and to work on the Human Genome Project. He hung around for the free lab alcohol and worked on “Biofuel” related DNA Sequencing projects and deciphering the bugs in the ass side of a termite at Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Labs. He also pretends to run a small photography business in between foraging for mushrooms and manages an apartment complex in downtown Oakland.
September marks our twelfth installment of Nerd Nite East Bay (and our tenth at the New Parkway for those nerds celebrating the decimal calendar). We’re happy to have our friends from Oakland Public Library back again and will tease you with a bit of anniversary schwag. But, most importantly, we’ll have some excellent nerdy talks. We have NNSF alum Mark Rosin back. Last time, he used a few hundred inflated balloons and a fantastic bass amp to showoff resonance in a “rave for the blind”. This time, he’ll let you know why Venus is for lovers and why you’ll want to ski Pluto. Staci Dresher from the James Mintz group will give us the inside scoop on the world of private investigators. And Ryan Smith has been as busy as a beaver in preparing his sweet as sugar talk on the honeybee.
With DJ Citizen Zain and your hosts Rick and Rebecca. Be there and be square.
Monday 9/30
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
The New Parkway, 474 24th St, Oakland
(less than half-a-mile from the 19th St BART)
$8
All Ages
Tickets
FB event
g+ event
THE INTERGALACTIC TRAVEL BUREAU by Mark Rosin
Mars is for outdoorsy types. Jupiter is for the artistically inclined. Step right up to visit the World’s first Intergalactic Travel Bureau, and let us plan your vacation of a lifetime.
Mark Rosin is a physicist at UCLA, and the US director of Guerilla Science. We mix science with art, music and play.
TRENCHCOAT OPTIONAL: TRICKS OF A CORPORATE SLEUTH by Staci Dresher
This is not about finding cheating spouses or fake broken legs. Private investigators are trained to be creative when searching for facts in a highly privatized world. We get you to spill the beans during interviews without you even realizing it. We file creative public record requests to government agencies that can’t be traced back to our client. An investigation is like an onion, with new facts and leads discovered as each layer is pulled away. I’ll give you the insider’s scoop into this world. We’ll discuss the history of the private detective industry, from railroad robberies to corporate sleuthing, and what it takes to successfully interview a witness and vet a potential business partner.
Staci is a recovering litigator who jumped ship to become a private Jane in 2006. She studied international relations in college, politics in Bristol, England and traveled extensively throughout Latin America learning Spanish and volunteering before graduating from Hastings College of the Law and working as an Intellectual Property lawyer at two big law firms. Realizing that the fact-gathering aspect of the lawsuit was most exciting, she went from client to employee of the Mintz Group, where she’s partner and in-house counsel, managing anti-corruption, intellectual property and due-diligence investigations around the world.
SEX, WAX, AND POLLEN: THE HONEYBEE SUPER-ORGANISM by Ryan Smith
Ryan reprised this talk at Nerd Nite San Francisco. Video is above.
Bees are highly industrious dance fanatics who have a knack for mathematics and are obsessed with pleasing their queen. These goddesses of the garden have helped humans for thousands of years to make candles, get drunk, sweeten our lives, and most importantly: put food on our plates. But as global populations of honeybees are declining, we are scrambling to find out the roots of the imbalance. Let’s fly into the hive to understand the big story of this tiny bug and how we can keep the sweetness flowing.
Dr. Ryan Smith is a laser physicist, musician, and seasoned beekeeper. Now researching solar materials at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, he has also taught university courses, including “Physics for Future Presidents.” While his bee-keeping interests began in the Southeastern U.S., he is now an advocate on the sweet west coast.