Hello lovely nerds!
Our team is in need of new nerds! As a member of the team, you’d be helping us organise our monthly events- finding speakers, promoting the events, and helping the nights run smoothly. If this is of interest to you, please check out the job description and drop us a line: .
NERD NITE MARCH- UPDATE
Unfortunately due to everything that’s going on we’ve decided to cancel the March event at Backyard Bar. We are sorry for the disappointment, but it’s not all over; we’re hard at work with our speakers figuring out how to run the event as a livestream. We’ll have the same talks, questions and a chance to chat with fellow nerds and we’d love for you to join us. Our goal is to recreate the spirit of Nerd Nite – i.e learning and drinking – but online. We’ll be in touch soon with more details. We might be asking you to wear thematically appropriate hats, design a cocktail to drink during the talks or we might run a dry t-shirt competition. Online participation – as with in person interaction – will be entirely voluntary.
Please follow us on Facebook, Twitter or our mailing list for details on this and future events: https://london.nerdnite.com/contact/. We’ll let you know about April’s event in the coming weeks.
See you online, and keep washing your hands!
The Nerd Nite London team
NERD NITE LONDON, WHERE IT’S HIP TO BE SQUARE.
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. This March we’re finding out why drugs aren’t all bad, what life is like when you can’t recognise faces and how swearing can be good for you.
Be there and be square.
Address: The Backyard Comedy Club, 231 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 0EL
Details: March 18th, 2020
Tickets: Early Nerd Tickets £6, General Admission £7.50, Extra-generous donation to Shine Trust £10
Doors Open At 7pm, Event Starts: 7.30pm.
Bar Opens At 5pm.
Talk Yourself Better
Pharmaceutical drugs have a bad rap. Critics often ask the question: ‘Why can’t depressed people just have therapy instead?’ This talk will provide the answer and explain why psychotropic drugs are still a much-needed and valid treatment. It will also explore the downsides of meds, and discuss the importance of advocating for yourself and doing your own research.
Ariane Sherine was a journalist (Guardian, Sunday Times) and created the Atheist Bus Campaign (the ‘Probably No God’ ads on buses) before having a full-scale nervous breakdown. These days she’s on three psychotropic drugs, and what she doesn’t know about them could be written on the side of an olanzapine tablet.
I Always Forget A Face
Face blindness (a.k.a. Prosopagnosia) affects 2% of the population – and most of those who have it may not actually know that they do. If you’ve ever found yourself embarrassed by not remembering who someone is, it could be you. I’ll be giving examples, showing you how to tell if you have it, what you can do about it, and explaining how I nearly bought the wrong blonde in a pub her dinner.
Until he had a stroke 4 years ago, Bruce had never heard of Prosopagnosia. Since acquiring it, he’s been the subject of several research studies and is a now an active member of Face Blind UK. Please say who you are when you meet him, otherwise he won’t have a clue. Favourite item of clothing? Name badges.
Swearing is Good for You
With f-bombs and footnotes, Dr Emma Byrne will arm you with the science of swearing. Learn how to use it to kill pain, bond teams, and deal with all the shit going on right now. Armed with copious research receipts, she’ll make the case that you – yes you – really should give a fuck. This is a follow-up to Emma’s 2018 Nerd Nite talk featuring new material on gender, civility, and protest
Dr Emma Byrne is an AI researcher and computational neuroscientist. Her work includes building a robot to do genomics research, and an agent to play video games, making hundreds of doctoral students redundant at a stroke. She’s the author of ‘Swearing is Good for You’ and regularly appears on national and international radio on the subjects of swearing and robotics.
All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. this year we are partnering with The Shine Trust to help foster a new generation of nerds.
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. for more information about The Shine Trust visit www.shinetrust.org.uk
NERD NITE LONDON, WHERE IT’S HIP TO BE SQUARE.
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. This February, we’ll be learning about the lost letters of the English alphabet, discover the secrets of better building design and bust some data mining myths.
Be there and be square.
Address: The Backyard Comedy Club, 231 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 0EL
Details: February 19, 2020
Tickets: Early Nerd Tickets £6, General Admission £7.50, Extra-generous donation to Shine Trust £10 Tickets available here
Doors Open At 7pm, Event Starts: 7.30pm.
Bar Opens At 5pm.
WHERE’S ETHEL? LOST LETTERS FROM THE ENGLISH ALPHABET
Our alphabet has 26 letters. But there were more. What were they? Where did they come from? What happened to them? And why is ye olde not quite as it seems? Lydia Thornley has been on a voyage of typographic nerdery to find out.
Bio: Lydia Thornley is a graphic designer, creative director and illustrator. She once cited nosiness as a core design skill, takes on projects on the basis of the question “Is it interesting?” and loves an opportunity to research something in unnecessary detail. This is her third Nerd Nite London talk.
REMBRANDT’S ALGORITHM: HOW DECODING CENTURIES WORTH OF PAINTINGS MIGHT HELP US DESIGN BETTER BUILDINGS
Over time, we’ve got better at predicting what buildings will look like before they’ve been built – we use models, renders, and we scan materials. But scientists and engineers are still struggling to convey what a space will feel like. When it comes to feelings, art is where it’s at – might Rembrandt or Van Gogh hold some of the answers we’ve been looking for? In his talk, Reinier will tell you why engineers should be visiting museums instead of running experiments.
Bio: Reinier Zeldenrust is a part of Foster + Partners’ Specialist Modelling Group, a diverse group of nerds, nestled within an architecture firm. These days, he spends most of his time searching for the best ways to mix daylight and artificial light. Always looking for inspiration in unlikely places, he has previously given Nerd Nite Talks on Animal Architecture and Living on Mars. He tweets @rdzeldenrust.
HAL 9000; a shadowy tech cabal; Marvin the paranoid android. They are all mining your personal data to manipulate the next election. This talk will discuss the use — and abuse — of personal data in political campaigns. Jens Koed Madsen take the audience through examples of how data can generate psychologically and personally specified political ads, while also diving into the hype and caution against some hyperbole that often surrounds these methods.
Bio: Jens Koed Madsen is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford. He explores the psychology of persuasion, complex information systems, system sustainability, and micro-targeting. He gives assurance that he will not data-mine you while you are in the audience and your computer is unattended. He tweets at @jenskoedmadsen.
All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. this year we are partnering with The Shine Trust to help foster a new generation of nerds.
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. for more information about The Shine Trust visit www.shinetrust.org.uk
NERD NITE LONDON, WHERE IT’S HIP TO BE SQUARE.
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. This January we learn about the science skills of pigeons, whether uranium is more ballet or disco, and why we should add space junk to our list of things to worry about. Be there and be square.
Address: The Backyard Comedy Club, 231 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 0EL
Details: 15 January 2020
Tickets: Early Nerd Tickets £6, General Admission £7.50. Extra-generous donation to Shine Trust £10. Tickets available here
Doors Open At 7pm, Event Starts: 7.30pm. Bar Opens At 5pm.
Citizen Scientists of the Sky
Today you’ve probably seen upwards of a hundred pigeons on the streets of London. And you’ve probably ignored them. But did you know that these beautiful birds with superior powers of navigation are also esteemed avian academics who deserve our respect? Could these “rats with wings” even do a better job than scientists? Find out how science has evolved over the centuries to a world where we can all be involved in research (including pigeons) and how we’ve got to the stage where playing games on your phone during your commute has the potential to cure HIV.
Jenny Chapman is a keen amateur ornithologist and unapologetic pigeon fancier with an interest in how science and society interact and overlap (and try to get on, but occasionally argue about who is going to put the bins out). She has a degree in Biology, a Masters in Evolutionary Genetics and splits her time between hula hooping and environmental activism.
Space Junk – The Threat Hanging Over Our Heads
Outer space can often feel completely disconnected from daily life but in fact we rely on satellites everyday. Whilst space is big, it’s getting crowded with an increasing amount of space junk orbiting the Earth. This talk looks at why you should be worried about space junk and what we can do to solve it.
Harriet Brettle is a business analyst at Astroscale where she is working to develop a commercial solution to the threat of space debris. She is a co-founder of the London Space Network, organising monthly networking events to strengthen the UK space community.
Dance like an Electron: Using the electrons and energy levels in a selection of elements to choreograph a dance
Each element has a different number of electrons dancing around in it, corresponding to its number in the periodic table. As the number of electrons get bigger, the element needs more energy levels to make space for these hyperactive subatomic particles, and some of those energy levels or orbitals get rather crowded – like a packed dance floor around 3 a.m. We’re going to look at the way that electrons move around the nucleus of a selection of elements and create our own Nerd Dance Troupes.
Kay Scorah is a lapsed biochemist and advertising person, leadership and communications consultant, inventor of the Essex Road Recipe project, writer of a blog (warning, not for the easily offended) and occasional standup and theatre performer. She has run her own business, havemorefUnlimited for 32 years.
All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. this year we are partnering with The Shine Trust to help foster a new generation of nerds.
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. for more information about The Shine Trust visit www.shinetrust.org.uk
NERD NITE LONDON, WHERE IT’S HIP TO BE SQUARE.
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. This November we ask is monogamy dead? How we can use maths to plan better parties? And how was King Shulgi different from the rest of the Third Dynasty of Ur?
Address: The Backyard Comedy Club, 231 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 0EL
Details: 20 November 2019
Tickets: Early Nerd Tickets £6, General Admission £7.50. Tickets available here
Doors Open At 7pm, Event Starts: 7.30pm. Bar Opens At 5pm.
Is Monogamy Dead?
In many surveys, around 50 percent of people confess to cheating. So, if you’re in a monogamous relationship and you’re not cheating … you’d better look closely at your partner! Comedian, writer and broadcaster Rosie Wilby unpacks some of the surprising results of her own survey that she conducted as research for her first book Is Monogamy Dead? Are we all a bit more polyamorous than we admit? She also discusses new relationship terminology and ponders why lesbians divorce at a much faster rate than gay men.
Rosie Wilby is an award-winning comedian who has appeared many times on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Woman’s Hour and Four Thought, TV programmes including Good Morning Britain and at festivals including Latitude and Glastonbury. Her book Is Monogamy Dead? was shortlisted for the Diva Literary Awards 2017 and longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2018. Rosie also presents The Breakup Monologues podcast, which has been recommended by Chortle, The Observer, Metro and Time Out. Twitter: @rosiewilby Insta: @breakupmonologues
Your New Favourite Ancient Tyrant
All kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur were the same, right? Wrong. King Shulgi wasn’t like the rest. They just made ziggurats and huge libraries of cuneiform clay tablets. Okay, Shulgi did all of that too, but he did something else besides – and 1500 years before the ancient Greeks.
Andy Riley is an Emmy-winning comedy writer whose credits include Year of The Rabbit, Veep, Black Books, Armstrong and Miller, Little Britain, Tracey Ullman’s Show and Smack The Pony. He’s also a cartoonist whose books include the Bunny Suicides series and Great Lies to Tell Small Kids (all for grownups) and the King Flashypants series (for children).
Let’s have a maths party
Not everyone would immediately think of maths as a key component of party planning. This talk looks at how mathematical thinking can be applied to help solve problems in our everyday life, including the planning of weddings and special occasions.
Zoe Griffiths is a mathematician who began her career talking about maths as a classroom maths teacher. She is now a maths communicator, presenting to audiences in schools and at science festivals with Think Maths. Zoe dabbles in comedy and recently performed at Robin Ince’s Christmas variety show ‘Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People’. Twitter: @ZoeLGriffiths
All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. this year we are partnering with The Shine Trust to help foster a new generation of nerds.
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. for more information about The Shine Trust visit www.shinetrust.org.uk
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. This October we’ll discover how to engage everyone in
economics, why coal hole covers are beautiful and what’s underneath Chicago. Be there and be square
Building a citizens’ economy: engaging the public on complex and controversial policy
Engaging the public on technocratic issues, such as data, artificial intelligence and economic policy faces two challenges; one, how best to ensure we understand informed public perspectives? two, how best to ensure public values influence practical outcomes and change? This talk provides examples about how most effectively to create a citizens’ economy.
Reema Patel is a Head of Public Engagement at the Ada Lovelace Institute, an organisation seeking to ensure that data & AI work for people and society. She is an experienced policy professional who has led various citizen engagement and participation initiatives on complex and controversial policy areas in the UK, including the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) Citizens’ Economic Council, which successfully worked with and influenced the Bank of England’s public engagement strategy.
The Beauty of Victorian Coal-Hole Covers
Coal-hole covers are a remnant of a gone-by era when a great amount of detail went into the design of the most utilitarian street furniture objects like access covers. Often overlooked under our feet, these decorative cast iron circular manhole covers offer a fascinating glimpse into the past and come in many different designs. Some are very common, while others are extremely rare. This talk will present a unique photographic survey of all the coal-hole cover designs in one London district conducted by a local history fanatic in Stoke Newington.
Amir Dotan is a weekend Stoke Newington historian who researches the area’s past as a serious hobby and shares his work online at www.StokeNewingtonHistory.com. He previously presented in a Nerd Nite his survey and analysis of the businesses that traded along Stoke Newington Church Street since 1847.
The raising of Chicago
The fascinating story of a pioneer who lifted an entire city on jackscrews, in order to make it less filthy. How we got from the poop-covered streets of the past to the squeaky clean urban environment of today, and how the secret “second city” that exists beneath your feet was first conceived.
Mike Dioletis is a former mechanical engineering student from Athens who left to pursue his passion in media. He currently writes and hosts a science show on Greek YouTube called “What the fact?”. A happy college dropout if I ever saw one.
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. This September we’re back to kick off our Autumn season with three great speakers, talking about London’s hidden Black history, an amazing composer you’ve probably never heard of, and how we humans have been meddling with nature for centuries. Be there and be square
DOORS OPEN AT 7PM, EVENT STARTS: 7.30PM
BAR OPENS AT 5PM.
How much of London’s streets do you notice on your daily commute? This presentation will provide evidence of 2,000 years of the African/Caribbean presence in London, contributing to some of the most popular institutions and architecture over centuries before Africans were enslaved.
Tony Warner (@BlackHistWalker)is director of Black History Walks and creator of the Black History bus tours and river cruises. Tony has been an activist for educational reforms for many years, believing that including contributions made by Africans to the curriculum improve the fullness history and raise the self and racial esteem of young people. He has designed history courses for schools, the met police and a host of public sector organisations.
In 2015 Elena Mazzon realised that, in years of piano training, she had never played a woman’s music.Incredulous, she delved into a long research that brought to the surface a whole underworld of great, female composers, of whom, unfortunately, we are not told about. Amongst all those women, why Clara Schumann? In this presentation, Elena will explore her journey in “discovering” Clara Schumann, shedding some light on a fascinating and controversial woman and posing questions that we still haven’t answered in the 21st Century.
Clara marked Elena’s debut as a writer. The play has been performed in London, Los Angeles, Italy and Iceland. In 2019, to celebrate Clara Schumann’s Bicentenary, Elena adapted Clara to a radio-play version. Elena trained as an actress in Italy and she’s been living in London since 2006. She also studied Classical Piano and holds an MA degree in English and German literature.
We’ve been shaping animals for years. Even before we figured out how it all worked, we’ve been selectively breeding animals so that each new generation looked, functioned and behaved increasingly how we’d like them to. We now know that we’ve been influencing the genetic composition of these animals to create these changes. Join us for an overview of selective breeding, and a look at some of the (simpler) genetic interactions that enable us to alter animal populations.
Praveen is not a geneticist, nor is he a genius, but he is a generous practitioner of the art of procrastination. He has spent, and continues to spend time he doesn’t have, on trying to understand the delights of animals and plants (but not minerals), and how we humans interact with them.
Nerd Nite London at Stoke Newington Literary Festival – June 8th 2019
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: Library Gallery, 184 Stoke Newington Church Street, N160JS
Details: Saturday June 8th 2019, Event starts at 8.30pm
Tickets: Tickets: £6. Tickets available here
Nerd Nite London is delighted to return to Stoke Newington Literary Festival – join us to learn about the history buried in the shores of the Thames, who won the transfermium wars, and how pigeons helped one man rekindle a sense of home – all while drinking beer. Be there and be square.
The art of seeking: Mudlarking in the Thames
Long heralded as a city treasure herself, expert mudlarker Lara Maiklem is uniquely trained in the art of seeking. Tirelessly trekking across miles of the Thames’ muddy shores, where others only see the detritus of city life, Lara unearths evidence of England’s captivating, if sometimes murky, history, with some objects dating back to 43 AD, when London was but an outpost of the Roman Empire. From medieval mail worn by warriors on English battlefields to nineteenth-century glass marbles mass-produced for the nation’s first soda bottles. Lara will reveal to us the objects we leave in our wake, and the stories they can reveal if only we take a moment to look
Superheavy
Welcome to the world of the superheavy elements: a realm where scientists use giant machines and spend years trying to make a single atom of mysterious artefacts that have never existed on Earth.
From the first elements past uranium and their role in the atomic bomb to the latest discoveries stretching our chemical world, Kit Chapman will reveal the hidden stories lurking at the edges of the periodic table. Why did the US Air Force fly planes into mushroom clouds? Who won the transfermium wars? How did an earthquake help give Japan its first element? And what happened when Superman almost spilled nuclear secrets?
Rat of the sky or symbol of peace?
As a boy, Jon Day was fascinated by pigeons, which he used to rescue from the streets of London. Twenty years later he moved away from the city centre to the suburbs to start a family. But in moving house, he began to lose a sense of what it meant to feel at home.
Returning to his childhood obsession with the birds, he built a coop in his garden and joined a local pigeon racing club. Over the next few years, as he made a home with his young family in Leyton, he learned to train and race his pigeons, hoping that they might teach him to feel homed.
Having lived closely with humans for tens of thousands of years, pigeons have become powerful symbols of peace and domesticity. But they are also much-maligned, and nowadays most people think of these birds, if they do so at all, as vermin.
All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. During Stoke Newington Literary Festival, all proceeds go towards literacy projects in Hackney. 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.
Nerd Nite London – Be there and be square
Discover hidden rivers under your feet, learn why English is so hard to read, and marvel at forgotten Disney propoganda at Nerd Nite London on 17th April 2019.
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, Backyard Comedy Club, 231 Cambridge Heath Rd, Bethnal Green, London E2 0EL
Details: Wednesday 17th April 2019, Starts at 7.30 pm, Tickets £7.50. Early nerd tickets £6 (limited availability).
London’s Hidden Rivers
London’s natural streams and rivers long ago disappeared below ground, though you can still find evidence of them if you know where to look. But London has another man-made river system as well. Part was built 400 years ago by Britain’s first modern business corporation, one of the most profitable companies in history. More was built by rapacious 19th century capitalists. Nick Higham reveals their legacy, from stunning architecture to manhole covers, steam engines to wildlife and nature reserves.
Nick Higham used to be a BBC correspondent. He’s writing a history of London’s water supply: a niche topic, but not as dry as it sounds
Rules of English Orthography: Their Our Know Rules
English: where the sounds are made up and the letters don’t matter! English has a very inconsistent sound-to-letter correspondence making it outrageously difficult to read and spell unfamiliar words (and sometimes familiar ones!). This isn’t an issue in other languages like Spanish or Italian, so why is it in English? This talk will explore the structure the English spelling system and how it came to be so unpredictable. I make no guarantees except to guarantee you will know why guarantee is spelled guarantee by the end of the talk.
Catherine is originally from upstate New York (where there are more cows than people) and she is currently completing a PhD in cognitive neuroscience at Brunel University London. Her work mainly focuses on the cognitive processes of bilingual reading and dyslexia.
The Greatest Disney Movie You’ve Never Seen
Princesses? No. Talking mice? No. Songs? No? A massive octopus devouring Japan? Yes! During World War II Walt Disney released a film unlike any you’ve ever seen. Instead of building on the success of his popular and award-winning children’s films, Uncle Walt put all of his resources into making propaganda to support the war effort. The pinnacle of this patriotic fervour was his entirely self-financed 1943 feature Victory Through Air Power. Find out what inspired Disney to make this bizarre movie and its surprising impact on military history.
Ever since his first trip to the cinema aged 4 (Superman II at the ABC Bournemouth, thanks for asking) Nigel has been watching too many movies. Every Tuesday he co-runs the Tufnell Park Film Club, now enjoying its seventh year, and can’t visit a new city without finding out where its oldest and/or picture palace is located. He previously spoke at Nerd Nite about Helen, Georgia, the small American town that would look more at home in the Alps than the Appalachians. By day Nigel works for the digital education company FutureLearn. You can follow him on Twitter @nigelcsmith
All proceeds from Nerd Nite London go to charity. This year we are partnering with the Shine Trust to help foster a new generation of nerds. 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. For more information about the Shine Trust visit www.shinetrust.org.uk