Poster by Rebecca Cohen.
Nerd Nite East Bay 52: Bug Life Lessons, Best Ways to Die, Political Ad Art
Life Lessons From Bugs
Insights From Insects
Carpe Die-em
It’s Morning in America Again and Again and Again
NNEB 51: NorCal Neon, Sailor Moon, Stem Cell Trials
Poster by Rebecca Cohen.
Join Nerd Nite East Bay at Club 21 in Oakland on Monday March 27th for
NorCal Neon!
Stem Cell Clinical Trials!
Legacy of Sailor Moon!
Early bird tickets just $8, tickets $10 at the door. GET TICKETS HERE.
RSVP at: facebook.com/events/1386003228130408/
Mingle from 7-8PM with tasty food from The Lumpia Co. and good tunes from Rubberband Girl AKA Small Wonder, make LEDs accessories with Ann-Marie Benz, catch up with the Oakland Public Library, then grab a drink and a seat as the talks begin at 8PM.
From Advertising to Art
Survivors and Lost Icons of Neon in NorCal
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/
Super Senshi Sorority
How Sailor Moon Brought Girl Power to the Western World
Sailor Moon’s impact on American women and popular culture continues decades after its debut, in resilient and often surprising ways. Learn how a Japanese series about magical girls changed real lives in North America, and delve into the larger conclusions that Sailor Moon’s legacy reveals about women and popular culture.
Steven Savage wrote “Her Eternal Moonlight” with co-author Bonnie Walling, an exploration of why Sailor Moon endures so powerfully among women in North America. He is a Software Manager, Elder Geek, Wrangler of Engineers, and author of books on geek careers, culture, and creativity. He’s responsible for the infamous www.SeventhSanctum.com, blogs at www.StevenSavage.com, and has books available at www.InformoTron.com.
Out of the Mouths of Babes
Treating Autism with Baby Teeth and Blindness with Stem Cells
The first stem cell treatments are entering clinical trials, and California is leading the way. Learn about a breakthrough therapy that is helping retinitis pigmentosa patients regrow critical connections and see shapes, colors and even faces. Plus bring your mental floss for complicated experiments that drill down into the causes of autism using baby teeth as a surprising (and adorable) data set.
Karen Ring and Kevin McCormack represent California’s stem cell agency, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Karen communicates science to the masses as CIRM’s Website and Social Media manager after eight years of graduate and postdoctoral research. When not thinking about how awesome stem cells are, Karen likes to eat amazing food, reference Game of Thrones and climb tall walls. Kevin McCormack is CIRM’s Communications Director and believes in the importance of starting every conversation with “what does that mean?” Kevin got interested in the regenerative power of stem cells after heading a soccer ball too many times in his youth, which may also explain some of his recent music and fashion choices.
#50: Dongs, Derby, and Rocks
Poster by Rebecca Cohen.
Join Nerd Nite East Bay‘s 50th (!) show on Monday Feb 27th for
- The Personality of the Pet Rock!
- Roller Derby!
- The Evolution of the Penis!
Mingle from 7-8PM with games, tasty food from Grilled Cheese Guy and tunes from Citizen Zain, then grab a drink and a seat as the talks begin at 8PM.
Early bird tickets just $8, tickets $10 at the door.
Club 21, Oakland Facebook Tix
The Dong of Man
Hard Facts and Little Lies About The Human Penis
This month’s swell talk on the human penis has us pumped! Learn how pensises evolved, why sexual selection advanced this absurd appendage, and why it’s pretty great to not be a great ape. Get straight up phallus facts, and find out how little science knows about the female vagina compared to men’s mono-log.
Benji Kessler studies courtship behavior and the sensory systems of jumping spiders in the PhD program at UC-Berkeley. His work includes Googling things like “comparison between human and chimpanzee vaginas”, and he’ll happily write a limerick about your research.
Stone. Cold. Steve Austin?
The Surprising Personality of Pet Rocks
Find out why our brains see faces everywhere, and how this Anthropocene perspective actually gave personality to pet rocks. Learn how personification goes into the collection, presentation and disposal of rocks, and get flattened by morbid tales of people who disrespected “rocks as people” and ended up between a rock and a… bigger, harder rock.
Andrew Alden runs the Oakland Geology blog and is a former U.S. Geological Survey staffer. He has been writing and speaking about the geology of the solar system, Earth, California and Oakland for 20 years, was the founding geology expert at About.com, appeared in KQED Science and Bay Nature, and is writing a book on the geology and landscape of Oakland.
Skate or Die
Physics, Physicality and Survival in Roller Derby
Discover the hard hitting history of roller derby, and how Bay Area Derby has brought the skirmish on skates into the modern era. Learn how derby is also science on skates, where Newton’s laws, malicious math and a little change in body posture can be the difference between smashing and getting smashed!
Chewie, Moxxxie and Pie of Bay Area Derby bring flat track roller derby to arenas throughout the Bay. Emily “Chewie” Chu, Ph.D. is a Professor of Chemistry at CCSF, officiated roller derby with BAD and volunteers as a math and science instructor for Prison University Project at San Quentin. Melissa “Miss Moxxxie” Chamberlain co-founded BAD in 2004, skated and coached the SF ShEvil Dead, is the BAD Head Announcer and Editor in Chief of the legendary roller derby fanzine HELLARAD. Sherryann “Pie” Danna-Vandervort first laced up her skates with Gotham Girls Roller Derby in 2005. She is the head of BAD marketing and coach of the ShEvil Dead. Her time is spent thinking about how to break down derby drills, throwing kettlebells about, and long-winded rants about ‘the good ole days’.
Nerd Nite East Bay #49: Asteroid Law, Dragonflies, and Cognitive Dissonance
Poster by Rebecca Cohen.
Join Nerd Nite East Bay’s Expert Speakers on Monday Jan 30th for
Buying Your Own Moon Base!
Dragonfly Nymphs!
Your Brain on Calories and Cognitive Dissonance!
Mingle from 7-8PM with games of New Year’s Resolution Bingo for prizes, have savory pies from The Pie Shop and macaroons from Shades of Sugar while KALX’s own Rubberband Girl plays tunes, and grab a drink to enjoy as the talks begin at 8PM.
Experience your own cognitive dissonance by being there and being square. Early bird tickets just $8, tickets $10 at the door.
Club 21, Oakland Facebook Tix
Office Hours
We’re off in December, but welcome your feedback as we plan next year’s shows. Dropy by anytime. We’ll have a few pitchers of beer to share, give out some “thank you” tokens, & just look forward to chatting with you.
Friday 12/16/2016 6PM-9PM Telegraph Beer Garden, 2318 Telegaph, Oakland FREE fb
Nerd Nite East Bay #48: Stoicism, Supernovae, and Social Determinants of Health
Poster by Rebecca Cohen.
Ease out of post-Thanksgiving torpor with Nerd Nite East Bay. An evening of drinks and education begins with Seamus O’Donnell’s exploration of stoicism. Virtue is based on knowledge, so we continue with Astronomy on Tap’s Jeffrey Silverman’s discussion of dark energy. If we figure out what’s out there, perhaps we can figure what to do here: we conclude the evening with alumnerd Sharon Osterweil’s dive into the social determinants of health.
Starting at 7PM, we’ll have food from Miss Arepita, tunes from DJ Citizen Zain, and Detention Mad Libs by Ann-Marie.
Rick, Rebecca, and the Oakland Public Library pardon no turkeys.
Be there and be square.
This event is 21+.
Monday 11/28/2016 Doors (+food,drink,"Detention" preshow) at 7 pm, talks start at 8 pm and end by 10:30 pm Club 21, 2111 Franklin St, Oakland (two blocks from the 19th St BART) We will strive to allow some purchases at the door for $10 (cash or card), but we sometimes sell out. fb
Stoicism: How an Ancient Philosophy Can Turn Us All into Laughing Vulcans by Seamus O’Donnell
Philosophy is often thought of as the exclusive playground of philosophy students and their professors, but what about the rest of us nincompoops? In ancient Greece and Rome, those who studied different schools of philosophy did so in order to live their lives by a particular model. Stoicism was such a school, one that is highly misunderstood today. The model it offers promises us a way of living that is still applicable today: one that eliminates stress, anger, and the frustrations of modern life…it probably won’t deliver all its promises, but it certainly does take the edge off. What Stoicism can do is offer different perspectives, teach acceptance of imperfections, and demonstrate an updated Vulcan model for living: to live well and prosper.
Seamus O’Donnell is a paramedic that works in the Bay Area and got his degree in Politics (Not Political Science) from UC Santa Cruz. He occasionally considered graduate school, but hates paperwork. Getting into an ambulance, he had the intention to help people, drive fast, and look cool… but mostly he does paperwork. Drat.
Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Runaway Universe by Jeffrey Silverman
Some of the most energetic and fascinating objects in the Universe are exploding stars known as supernova. These colossal outbursts result from the deaths of stars and for a time can outshine the entire galaxy in which they’re found. Observations of distant supernova provided the first evidence that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up with time, rather than slowing down. This wholly unexpected phenomenon is likely due to a repulsive “dark energy” and has become one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in modern science.
For over a decade, Jeffrey Silverman used some of the biggest telescopes in the world to observe and study supernova, both as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin and as a graduate student at UC Berkeley, where he got his Ph.D. in 2011 working with Prof. Alex Filippenko. Jeff was born and raised in Anaheim, CA, just down the street from Disneyland, and has bounced between CA and TX his entire life. His latest move was from Austin back to the Bay Area to enter the wonderful world of tech as a data scientist. Jeff has given numerous public presentations (including ones at Nerd Nites in Austin and Houston) about astronomy and Disneyland and co-organizes Astronomy on Tap Bay Area, which is a free, recurring event that features accessible and engaging presentations by astronomers on a wide variety of topics.
An Apple a Day (and a High School Diploma) Keeps the Doctor Away by Sharon Osterweil
The social determinants of health are the conditions in which we are born, grow, live, work, and play. But why do they matter? It’s exciting to think that getting to the gym a few extra times a week will help us live longer—and it might—but our environment and the opportunities we were afforded by accident of birth are better predictors of lifespan than the rate at which we eat donuts. Learn about what your zip code says about your health.
Sharon Osterweil works in end-of-life care, using her knowledge of how to live longer, healthier lives to help terminally ill adults die with dignity. Previously, she worked on projects related to the social determinants of health, conducting home visits with vulnerable patients in the East Bay. She is a San Francisco native who defected to NY for several years before moving to Oakland.
Nerd Nite: Science at the Cinema [SOLD OUT]
Coming soon to a theater near you: Nerd Nite and the Bay Area Science Festival take over the Alamo Drafthouse for a special night of science, history, and booze! Celebrate the New Mission Theater’s 100th anniversary in all its newly restored glory, as we get a thrill out of cult film, put mosquitos under the microscope, learn how live performance is made from discarded 16mm film, and hear the gory details on old SF’s grizzly bear vs. wild bull fights—plus much more! Enjoy some of our favorite Nerd Nite alumni returning with all-new talks, while you sit back and enjoy the Alamo’s food and drink service. And did we mention cocktail robots will be taking over the bar? Be there and be square!
Due to circumstances outside of our control, the Alamo has rescinded their previous offer to host our cocktail robots. We deeply regret this and are working to make it right.
Presenters:
- Joshua Grannell (a.k.a Peaches Christ)
- Peter Conheim and Maximillian Godino of Wet Gate, 16mm Performance Ensemble
- Woody LaBounty and David Gallagher, Western Neighborhoods Project
- Katherine Petrin and Alfonso Felder of the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation
- UC Davis Biologist Walter Leal and KQED Deep Look
This event is 18+.
Wednesday 11/2/2016 Door+cocktail robotsat 7 pm, talks start at 8 pm and end by 10:30 pm Alamo Drafthouse's New Mission Theater, 2550 Mission St, SF (near 24th St BART) Advance tickets were $15+service fee. We sold out.
Nerd Nite East Bay #47: Spooktacular Lectures and Drinks
Don’t be scared. Nerd Nite East Bay may be a week earlier than normal this October, but we’ve got you covered with a Halloween-themed show. Strephon Taylor will show how Jack Pierce created Frankenstein. Then, Joe Chen from Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics will descibe Zombie research. Finally, Egan Hirvela will explore suspense horror in video games. Oh. And there will be a costume contest.
Starting at 7PM, we’ll have a last brilliant barrage of sound from DJ Ion the Prize, and Detention by Ann-Marie. Come dressed as your favorite scientist, or science experiment. Prizes will be awarded!
Rick, Rebecca, Sarah, and the Oakland Public Library will always pick “trick”.
Also: 10/24 is the last day to register vote and the non-partisan League of Women Voters of Oakland will be tabling all night.
Be there and be square.
This event is 21+.
Monday 10/24/2016 Door+drinks+detention at 7 pm, talks start at 8 pm and end by 10:30 pm Club 21, 2111 Franklin St, Oakland (two blocks from the 19th St BART) Advance tickets are $8 [or less for early nerds]. Your CC statement will denote these come from Drinkified Learning, LLC. We will strive to allow some purchases at the door for $10 (cash or card), but we sometimes sell out. tix fb
Jack Pierce the Maker of Monsters by Strephon Taylor
Jack P. Pierce was a true artisan. While it would be hard to imagine anyone in the Western world being unfamiliar with his work, practically no one knows of him. A love of Halloween and horror led filmmaker Strephon Taylor to pursue a decade of research on the man behind the creation of famous movie makeups such as Frankenstein and the Wolfman. In support of “Jack Pierce, The Maker of Monsters,” his presentation will provide uncommon and new details into the life of this behind-the-scenes movie great!
Strephon Taylor is an East Bay, CA native who cut his teeth in the arts world as a teenager fronting thrash metal band Sacrilege B.C., designing flyers, record covers, and logos for other bands, and designing foamcore wall displays to advertise the latest album releases from a Tower Records art department. November Fire was born later, celebrating all things horror and Halloween, and the business soon grew to include far more than just its signature black shirts with white graphics with a new production company releasing its own CDs and DVDs.
They Are Getting Closer…To Killing You, Eating You, and Turning You: Zombie Research Has Arrived by Joseph Chen
Stem cell research is advancing like never before, but so is the looming Zombie Apocalypse! In the past, injecting biologics (like home-grown stem cells) into the heads of brain-damaged people seemed like Sci Fi, but now that reality as arrived. But the brain-damaged individual that you’ve brought back…well, It’s looking at you funny…It’s drooling a little…It’s shuffling towards you menacingly…wait…stay back…Get Away From Me!!!…Aaarrrrrrgh!
Joe got his PhD from Rutgers University focusing on endocrine disruptors, did his postdoctoral training at UCSF where his work centered on identifying adult stem cells in the human endometrium, then moved on to the Gladstone Institutes of Virology and Immunology to work on HIV, and is now a Senior Investigator at Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, with a focus on emerging infectious diseases such as Zika, as well as using viruses as therapeutic agents.
What’s That Around the Corner? – A Look at Survival Horror in Video Games by Egan Hirvela
Since the early 80’s, horror survival been a popular sub-genre of video games. From the earliest text games to the ultra modern console and PC titles available today, fans can’t seem to get enough of jump scares, low ammunition and Things That Shouldn’t Be to run away from. This talk will look at the history of horror survival games, why they are compelling to players and how they differ than regular action games.
Egan Hirvela has been a video game designer for over two decades. He’s worked for many big companies over the years, and have worked on several AAA titles (namely Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Assassin’s Creed 3 and Guild Wars 2). Currently, he is also a Fellow speaker with Odd Salon. This will be his first Nerd Nite talk.
Nerd Nite East Bay #46: Liar, Liar, Hair & Drones on Fire
Poster via Jeanette Yu.
We’re not gonna lie: September’s Nerd Nite East Bay lineup allows a pretty awesome opportunity for you to grab a drink and learn about some pretty fascinating topics. Audience-favorite Patrick House will review the neuroscience basis…and legal consequences…of lies; Sarah Gold McBride will discuss the science…and historical pseudoscience…of hair; and Eric Cheng will discuss flying…and landing…drones on active volcanoes.
Starting at 7PM, We’ll have food from ToliverWorks, beats by DJ Citizen Zain, and Detention by Ann-Marie.
Rick, Rebecca, and the Oakland Public Library will be hanging from telephone wires.
NOTE: October’s Nerd Nite East Bay will be a week early, on 10/24, in honor of both the Bay Area Science Festival and Halloween.
Be there and be square.
This event is 21+.
Monday 9/26/2016 Doors (+food,drink,"Detention" preshow) at 7 pm, talks start at 8 pm and end by 10:30 pm Club 21, 2111 Franklin St, Oakland (two blocks from the 19th St BART) Advance tickets are $8. Your CC statement will denote these come from Drinkified Learning, LLC. We will strive to allow some purchases at the door for $10 (cash or card), but we sometimes sell out. tix fb
The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Everything But the Truth: The Legal and Scientific Implications of a Lie by Patrick House
People must constantly create, separate, manage, and keep track of fictional and non-fictional worlds, partly to avoid collisions between the two. A famous psychology study—“What Does Batman Think About Spongebob?”—revealed that kids only slowly understand that fictional worlds are branches of non-fictional ones. But the rules of how to create fictional worlds, even for adults, are messy and complicated. Why are we so bad at counterfactuals? What happens when the legal system is put in charge of telling non-fiction from fiction? (I.e. The totally bizarre legal complications when memoirs are found to be false.) What does it mean that many bookstores around the world don’t even have different categories for fiction and non-fiction? Does it, ultimately, matter?
Patrick House has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and a postdoc in genetics from Stanford. He studied that one cat parasite—you know the one—that makes mice less afraid of cats. He writes for The New Yorker and Slate and hopes, one day, to remake the 1982 horror film “Cat People”, on which he based all of his graduate research.
“Of A Perfect Hair”: A Cultural History of Science, Race, and Human Hair by Sarah Gold McBride
In the nineteenth century, Americans from different regions, racial groups, class backgrounds, and political inclinations shared a surprising belief: that hair exposed the truth about the person from whose body it grew. A careful examination of the color, texture, length, or shape of a person’s hair had the power to reliably reveal character and identity—whether, for example, that person was ambitious, courageous, or criminally inclined. One important way that Americans elaborated the meaning of hair was through scientific investigations of its structure and function. Yet the science of hair was never purely academic or objective. Like other contemporary pseudosciences, hair science had a social motive: to naturalize social hierarchies and power differentials. And in no realm of nineteenth-century life were the stakes higher than when it came to race, where the shape of a single strand of hair might mean the difference between enslavement and freedom.
Sarah Gold McBride is a Ph.D. Candidate in the History Department at UC Berkeley. She specializes in the social and cultural history of the United States. Her dissertation examines the meaning of hair in nineteenth century America, and its relationship to science, popular culture, identity, and power.
Flying Drones into Volcanoes by Eric Cheng
A couple years ago on a whim, Eric organized an exploratory trip to capture low-altitude drone footage of a volcano eruption in Iceland. Less than half a year later, the technology had improved so much that he and his team were able to live stream from the volcano on Good Morning America. In this talk, Eric will share how drones have unlocked a totally new perspective for everyday creators. Once the domain of innovators and makers, drone photography has become mainstream. Eric will share how to take advantage of the rapid pace of technological advances and show how these days anyone can live broadcast from a drone.
Eric Cheng is an award-winning photographer, technologist, drone expert, and author. He publishes Wetpixel.com, the leading underwater-photography community on the web, and writes about his aerial-imaging pursuits at skypixel.org. In October 2015, Peachpit published Eric’s first book, Aerial Photography and Videography Using Drones. He is currently at Facebook as Head of Immersive Media.
Nerd Nite East Bay #45: Snakes, Breast Massage, Adoption
Poster designed by Jeanette Yu.
In this month’s Nerd Nite, you will learn about the importance of certain slithering reptiles, about the benefits of breast massage, and about the history and practicality of adoption!
Doors/bar/food are at 7. Where do those delicious eats come from this month? Platecraft will bring the savory and Natty Cakes will bring the sweet. Ann-Marie Benz’s Detention (our social program before the talks) starts at 7 too. More on what she’ll have in store for you on our social medial channels.
As always: Rick, Rebecca, DJ Ion the Prize, and the Oakland Public Library will be wondering “Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?”
Be there and be square.
This event is 21+.
Monday 8/29/2016 Doors (+food,drink,"Detention" preshow) at 7 pm, talks start at 8 pm and end by 10:30 pm Club 21, 2111 Franklin St, Oakland (two blocks from the 19th St BART) Advance tickets are $8 or less with discounts offered in our social media channels. Any left for the door will be $10. Your CC statement will denote these come from Drinkified Learning, LLC. We will allow an extremely limited number of people to enter after we can estimate no shows for $10 (cash or card). tix fb
‘The Only Good Snake is a Dead Snake’ and Other Myths About our Reptilian Cousins by Alex Krohn
Alex will talk to us about his favorite animals: snakes. Snakes hold a unique place in many people’s hearts. From their deification in cultures across the world to the estimated 1.8 million snake bite envenomations per year, snakes have been revered, feared and vilified simultaneously for most of humankind’s existence. From a scientific perspective, we will clear up some common misunderstandings of snakes, learn about the beauty and importance of snakes in the wild, and discover how truly intimate the relationship between humans and snakes has been over millions of years of evolutionary time.
Alex is a herpetologist studying evolution at UC Berkeley for his PhD. He has published multiple scholarly articles on reptiles and amphibians, and regularly goes around the world looking for snakes in his free time.
Breasts: Handle With Care by Anna Sadovnikova
Boobs are really important! Feeding an infant only breast milk for the first 6 months of life has the single largest potential impact on child health of any preventive intervention! Even though 80% of new mothers in the US begin breastfeeding in the hospital, less than 20% make it to the the recommended six months. Many mothers stop breastfeeding because of plugged milk ducts, engorgement, and breast pain. Breast massage can alleviate, improve, or prevent all of the aforementioned complications, but there is no standardized, evidence-based resource for breast massage tips and tricks. Anna and the LiquidGoldConcept team have identified numerous breast massage techniques in from academic literature and YouTube. Join us to find out how, when, and why these techniques work.
Anna Sadovnikova is a MD/PhD/IBCLC student at UC Davis and the CEO and co-founder of LiquidGoldConcept. LiquidGoldConcept is developing a mobile health application, MomKit–The Breast Massage Toolkit, to teach health provider and empower mothers. Anna enjoys practicing yoga, taking naps, drinking coffee, eating, exploring the world with her husband, and, of course, taking about mammary glands to anyone and everyone who’ll listen.
The Stork Exchange by Jennifer Tharp
Jennifer Tharp is older than she looks. She finds that smearing vaseline on the mirror helps with that.
In her professional life, Jennifer advises startups and multinationals including eBay, Genentech, Cisco and Nikon on difficult governance problems. She is a recognized expert in project and program management, data privacy, agile development, strategic planning, cyber-security and corporate governance. She serves on the global board of directors of PMI, Project Management Institute, and that’s why she’s never here. She’s written the seminal (heh, i said seminal) text on sustainability and project management, and teaches random things at UC Berkeley.
But none of that has anything to do with why she’s here today. She found out that she was adopted as an adult and that turned her world upside down. She’s been working on trying to understand that, and she is excited to share some of the weird things she’s learned in the process.
With ongoing thanks to:
