November 18th: Nerd Nite London- Brains!
Nerd Nite London is a monthly event where three speakers give 18-21 minute fun-yet-informative talks across all disciplines, while the audience drinks along.
Address: Nerd Nite, Paper Dress Vintage, 352a Mare Street, Hackney, E8 1HR
Details: Wednesday November 18th Tickets £7.50. Early nerd tickets £6 (limited availability). Tickets available here: https://billetto.co.uk/en/events/november-18th-nerd-nite-london-brains
Doors open 7pm
Forget how much your brain knows, how much do you actually know about your brain? In three informative and entertaining presentations we’ll learn about how the secret messengers of your body can control your brain, how your brain lies to you, how neuroscience has shaped our understanding of art, and how art has shaped neuroscience. Nerds, brains, beer. It’s going to be a great nerd nite.
This is your brain on art
What can a famous piece of music reveal about the diseased brain? What can a painting by Ingres tell us about how our brains perceive beauty? And how did a surrealist painting influence a Nobel-prize winning breakthrough? Join me as I explore the impact that our understanding of the brain has had on the way in which we perceive art, and perhaps more curiously, the influence that art has had on the emerging science of the brain.
Iain Mackie studied Neuroscience before entering the pharmaceutical industry to study the molecular pathology of neurodegenerative diseases. Swapping test-tubes for teenagers, he headed north to embark on initial teacher training at a comprehensive school in a former mining town (the former alma mater of Paul & Barry Chuckle). He is currently STEM & Bioscience Coordinator at a school in East London, where his workplace duties also include making sure the staffroom is suitably supplied with ketchup and moaning about the heating.
How your body controls your brain
Vikki will explore the secret messengers of the body that talk to your brain and manipulate how you feel. You’ll find out why cancer drugs are helping us understand depression, why it might not be your fault if you’re fat, and how you can help prevent social deprivation damaging a child’s health forever. Oh and she’ll also smash some eggs.
Vikki is a sport scientist who doesn’t know much about sport anymore. Instead her interests occupy the middle point of an obscure Venn diagram of psychology, immunology, exercise, and social justice. She spends most of her time either supporting students to link their academic knowledge to real world problems or procrastinating on Buzzfeed
How our brains lie to us
Julia will take us on a trip through the various ways in which our brains deceive us into believing that we can reliably form memories – particularly memories of our life experiences. In a turbulent overview of the rich world of the science of our personal past, she will discuss the neurological, perpetual, and social aspects of memory illusions. By the end of it she’ll have you questioning all your memories, and wondering whether you may not be who you think you are.
Julia Shaw is a memory scientist at London South Bank University who loves to dispel misconceptions and challenge notions of reality. In her ethically-borderline research she convinces people that they committed crimes that never actually happened. When she’s not hacking into peoples’ memories, she is ineffectively Tweeting, or pouring her heart into her upcoming popular science book “The Memory Illusion”, due to appear internationally in 2016 with Penguin Random House.
All proceeds from Nerd Nite go to charity. This month’s charity is MOAS- Migrant Offshore Aid Station. More information about Nerd Nite London can be found by following us on Twitter @nerdnitelondon, liking us on Facebook www.facebook.com/NerdNiteLondon or visiting www.london.nerdnite.com