Learn the secrets underpinning beaver dams and wasps’ nests, the science behind sci-fi, and how philosophy can help you to find out if you’re a Cylon at Nerd Nite London on 17th September 2014.
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, 114-116 Curtain Rd, London, EC2A 3AH
Details: Wednesday 17th September 2014, Doors at 8 pm, Tickets £6. Early nerd tickets £5 (limited availability). Tickets available here: https://billetto.co.uk/nerdnitelondon-bf1b43-0cb695
Nerd Nite London gets into its new monthly stride with another great line up. If you want to know what ants’ nests can teach us about construction, whether The Day After Tomorrow is as prescient as it seems, and whether you’re Number 7 then Nerd Nite London is the place to be on Wednesday 17th September.
Nerd #1 Reinier Zeldenrust- Oops there goes another rubber tree plant
How do animals build? What are the secrets behind beaver dams, wasp nests and termite mounds? What does that tell us about how clever animals are and how they think? I will take you through some examples of clever (and not so clever) animal architecture and zoom in on termite mounds, and what lessons we can draw for our own buildings.
Bio: Reinier Zeldenrust is probably of the few people in the construction industry who gets excited about the combination of insects and buildings. After studying astrophysics, he shifted his focus to sustainable building design and he wrote his master’s thesis at Cambridge University on the topic of termite architecture and the opportunities for imitation by human builders and designers. He works as an Environmental Designer at Atelier Ten.
Nerd #2 Hugh Mortimer- the science of Hollywood
Science fiction has a lot to answer for, Bruce Willis for starters. Not all of the science that comes out of Hollywood is bad, some of it is good while other bits can be just downright ugly. This talk will look at the science behind the fiction and will explain how the fiction can in turn influence the science.
Hugh is a research scientist working at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory where he develops new technologies for planetary exploration, which essentially means that he plays around with cool stuff for a living. However in his spare time he acts as a scientific adviser for Hollywood and has worked on big budget movies such as Prometheus, and is always surprized when they actually listen to him.
Nerd #3 Ayesha Janjua – Battlestar Galactica and the essence of being human
Philosophers have argued for centuries about what it is to be human, and the essence of what distinguishes us from other living creatures. Arguments about abortion and animal rights are based in notions of a difference between homo sapiens and other sentient or living creatures. But what is it to be human? Using Battlestar Galalctica to illustrate some core philosophical concepts, Ayesha will show us how to prove that we’re alive.
Bio: Ayesha is a part-time philosopher, full-time nerd, and avid BSG fan.
All profits from the night go to charity. This month’s charity is Contact the Elderly. 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.nerdnite.com/london
Nerd Nite London is holding an end of the summer, end of the world special. It will be everything you love about Nerd Nite, but more apocalyptic. We’re at a new venue to usher in the end of days: 333 Mother Bar on Old Street. Be there, and be square. Tickets available here
Nerd Nite London is a bi-monthly event where three speakers give 18-21-minute fun-yet-informative talks across all disciplines – while the audience drinks along.
Nerd #1: Nathaniel Storey, How We Are All Going To Die
Since the humanity wandered out of the jungle viruses have been doing their very best to wipe us out, from the youth destroying Spanish flu to the organ melting hemorrhagic fevers, nature’s lethal creativity knows no bounds! If these weren’t dangerous enough, then why not try a genetically modified “super-flu” or perhaps a 30,000 year old virus brought back to life by scientists, either way our days our numbered, but with enough preparation we may be able to survive the next viral apocalypse!
Nathaniel is currently studying a phd in molecular genetics and virology at the University of Reading. He has looked into the dangers of floodwater bacteria, contamination of supermarket surfaces and contaminated drip feeds. His particular area of interest is the most abundant yet understudied organism on earth, viruses that kill bacteria.
Nerd #2: Jen Gupta, T-minus 4 billion years until almost certain doom
The human race is only 4 billion years away from almost certain doom. At this time, not only will the Sun come to the end of its life, our nearest spiral galaxy neighbour will be preparing to crash into our own Milky Way. I’ll explain more about these two inevitable astronomical events, with possible sidetracks into some of the other numerous ways that the Universe is trying to kill us.
Dr Jen Gupta is an astrophysicist and the SEPnet/Ogden Outreach Officer for the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth. For her PhD she studied Nature’s Death Ray Guns (aka blazars) – galaxies that are spewing out far more energy than can be accounted for by their stars – and now spends her days telling school children, members of the public, and anyone else who will listen about how awesome the Universe is.
Nerd #3: Stuart Barr: ‘How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse’.
Drawing on examples from film, TV, comics and possibly the Pentagon’s zombie attack plan, Stuart will explain what we should do when/ if zombies take over the earth, hint the top priority it isn’t going to be arguing about the relative merits of fast vs slow zombies or how the infected aren’t technically undead.
Described by Dr. Mark Kermode as ‘a very good blogger’ (honestly, it was on air) Stuart Barr’s writing has appeared in the official Walking Dead magazine, digital magazines Verite, the FrightFest E-Zine and Cult TV Times, and numerous websites including Dead Good (a site specialising in crime fiction), FrightFest and film review site Chris and Phil Presents (which hosts his occasional blog http://www.chrisandphilpresent.co.uk/blogs/spectacularoptical/).
Stuart watched his first zombie film at age six, but it was about Haitian voodoo zombies working in a Cornish tin mine and thus the wrong type for a zombie apocalypse.
Nerd #4: Dr Lewis Dartnell: The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch
Maybe it was an asteroid impact, a nuclear war, or a viral pandemic. Whatever the cause, the world as we know it is over and humanity must start again. Without the life-support system of modern civilisation, what can you do to ensure you thrive in the immediate aftermath. And what is the most crucial scientific and technological knowledge you’d need to avert another Dark Ages and accelerate the rebuilding of civilisation from the ground up?
Dr Lewis Dartnell (lewisdartnell.com) is a UK Space Agency research fellow at the University of Leicester. He also holds an STFC Science in Society Fellowship, and alongside his astrobiology research writes regular science articles in newspapers and magazines, and has appeared in TV shows such as BBC Stargazing Live, Wonders of the Universe and Horizon. ‘The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch’ (the-knowledge.org) is his third book.
All profits from the night go to charity. This month’s charity is Cancer Research UK. 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.nerdnite.com/london Tickets for this month’s event available here
Share one man’s passion for JG Ballard, another man’s passion for the naked mole rat, and learn about the origins of Christianity at Nerd Nite London on 16th July 2014.
Nerd Nite London is a bi-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, 114-116 Curtain Rd, London, EC2A 3AH
Details : Wednesday 16th July, Doors at 7.45pm, Tickets £6. Early nerd tickets £5 (limited availability).
Nerd Nite London is back with another fantastic line up of speakers. If you want to learn about why JG Ballard is the best sci-fi writer of the 20th century, glimpse the inner beauty of the naked mole rat, or understand the origins of Christianity, then come to Nerd Nite London on July 16th.
Nerd #1: Seb Collett- Why everyone should be reading JG Ballard
An exploration into the life and work of the seer of Shepperton; JG Ballard.
Seb Collett discovered JG Ballard when his brother gave him Super-Cannes for Christmas, innocently adding, “He’s the kind of writer I thought you’d be into”. This was followed by an obsession that ate up years of Seb’s life, and an eventual career change to teaching, which he was disappointed to find did not involve sharing these transgressive stories with children. After an evening spent at Nerd Night, Seb decided that he had finally found the right platform to preach to the unconverted.
Nerd #2: Steve Cross- The Future is Naked Mole Rat-shaped
Description: I have become totally obsessed with a hideous, hairless tube of mammal that lives underground in East Africa. I’ll tell you why Heterocephalus glaber is so incredible in scientific terms, as well as explore the aura that has sprung up around this new pop culture icon (at least among American teenagers).
Bio: Steve is Head of Public Engagement at UCL. Professionally he spends his time trying to help academics connect with real people, but at night he’s a science comedian and has been known to act as the professional agent for naked mole rats.
‘Flesh, blood and other stories. The origins of Christianity’.
Description: During the reign of Emperor Tiberius, many preachers were walking up and down Palestine announcing the kingdom of heaven. One of them became the focus of the most influential religion in the history of humanity. How and why did this man become so infamous? Among the many explanations that Antonio will examine, the fact that this man might have been the son of God is actually the least interesting reason.
Bio: Dr Antonio Sennis teaches medieval history at UCL. He’s spoken previously at Nerd Nite London, providing a guide on ‘how to become pope’.
Understand the facts behind the bitcoin hype, discover how Japanese women came to be the world’s first novelists and learn how maths can predict the life expectancy of your love life at Nerd Nite London on 21st May 2014.
Nerd Nite London is a bi-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, 114-116 Curtain Rd, London, EC2A 3AH Details : Wednesday 21st May 2014, Doors at 8 pm, Tickets £6. Early nerd tickets £5 (limited availability). Tickets:http://billetto.co.uk/nerdnitelondon
Nerd Nite London is back with another fantastic line up of speakers. If you want to know whether bitcoin is the currency of the future or another tech fad, find out what happened when Japan imported another country’s language, or learn how equations can help us to predict the future, then Nerd Nite London is the place to be on Wednesday 21st May.
Nerd #1 Jason Navon: Bitcoin or Bitcon? Should we be paying attention to the rise of the crypto-currency?
No self-respecting nerd can have avoided Bitcoin and the raft of rival crypto-currencies it’s spawned. In 2013 the attention was on its meteoric rise in price peaking at $1200 per bitcoin and the growing interest from libertarians, financiers and etailers. This year it’s been more about the woes: the collapse of a leading exchange, theft of coins and a large fall in price.
So is it a real phenomenon or just another digital dead-end? Jason will look at why it has the potential to offer radical change and the obstacles to be overcome if digital currencies are to live up to their potential.
Bio: Jason is a marketer and entrepreneur. After 10 years spent in digital agencies he set-up his first business in 2008 and last year co-founded a new communications agency Clarity. His wife and colleagues would describe him as a geek citing his interest (though some might call it an obsession) in bitcoin as evidence.
Nerd #2 Jane Harris: How the Japanese learnt to write
All of us learn to read and write and it changes our lives. But what happens when a whole nation imports its alphabet from a completely different country with a different culture and language? Find out how adopting someone else’s alphabet led to Japanese women writing the world’s first novels, ensured that tempura became an international hit and what it means for Japan today.
Bio: Jane works for disability charity Leonard Cheshire, which luckily has a branch in Japan. Before working in charities, she taught English in Japan. This included deceiving an entire village to believe that ‘next next Thursday’ is an acceptable alternative to ‘in a fortnight’. Sorry, Japanese village.
Nerd #3 David Karp: I Give It a Year
Wouldn’t it be nice to know how long your relationship is going to last? Or to have a better idea of just how many German tanks have invaded your neighbourhood? With the help of a crystal ball modern statistics, David will reveal the answer to these and other everyday questions! He can’t promise there won’t be any maths but mostly we’ll talk about how the intuitions behind these puzzles make everybody’s head hurt. A lucky few of you may go home with a goat.
Bio: David is a trader for a hedge fund in the City, where he alternately does interesting math to solve boring problems and boring math to solve interesting problems. A native of Philadelphia, he enjoys baseball, Bruce Springsteen, burgers, spaceships, road trips, and the American Dream. Actually.
All profits from the night go to charity. This month’s charity is the National Aids Trust. More information about Nerd Nite London can be found by following us on Twitter @nerdnitelondon or liking us on Facebook www.facebook.com/NerdNiteLondon
Discover what studying twins tell us about ourselves, why we see Mother Theresa in the ‘nun bun’ and what life will be like after oil at Nerd Nite London on 19 March 2014 Address: Nerd Nite, Paper Dress Vintage, 114-116 Curtain Rd, London, EC2A 3AH Details : Wednesday 19 March 2013, Doors at 8 pm, Tickets £6 Tickets: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/258523
Nerd Nite London is back with another fantastic line up of speakers. If you want to understand how studying twins reveals why we are who we are, why the human desire to find order in randomness allows us to see Mother Theresa in a cinnamon bun, and how we’ll avoid a Mad Max-style existence when we run out of oil, Nerd Nite London is the place to be on Wednesday 19th of March.
Nerd #1- Chris French- Meaning and Randomness: On Seeing (and Hearing) Things That Are Not There
One of the greatest strengths of the human species is our ability to detect meaningful patterns in the world around us – but there is a bizarre price to pay for this amazing ability. We sometimes think we perceive meaning in randomness, and see and hear things that aren’t really there. Professor Chris French will show how this pervasive phenomenon can cause people to hear phantom Satanic messages in rock music and see Mother Theresa’s face in a cinnamon bun.
Chris French is a professor of psychology and head of the anomalistic psychology research unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. What is anomalistic psychology? It is essentially the psychology of weird stuff – everything from alien abductions to zombies – but starting from the working hypothesis that such claims can best be explained in psychological, rather than parapsychological, terms.
Nerd #2- Tim Spector- Identically Different: Why you can change your genes
Why do you vote a certain way, remain faithful for twenty years, dislike sport or never put on weight? Based on cutting-edge discoveries that are pushing the frontiers of our knowledge of genetics, Professor Tim Spector will explain that nothing is completely hard-wired or pre-ordained. Using fascinating case studies of identical twins he’ll show how minor life events and the choices we make, as well as those made by our ancestors, fuse with our inherited genes to mould us into the individuals we are.
Tim Spector is professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London and director of the TwinsUK Registry, one of the world’s richest data collections on twins, covering 11,000 siblings. Since 1992 he has demonstrated the genetic basis of a wide range of common diseases, previously thought to be mainly due to ageing and environment, and currently has a highly coveted European Research Council Senior Investigator award to study Epigenetics.
Nerd #3- John Turner- The Black Leaf and Peak Oil
What will happens when the oil runs out? Will we descend into a Mad Max-style future? Burning fossil fuels is not rational, so we’re going to need to find a way to do it smarter if we are to keep doing what we are doing while dodging the downsides of burning up our planet’s resources. Dr. John Turner will provide insights into what might come next, and why ‘ plant power’ is unlikely to be the answer.
John is a physical inorganic chemist at the University of Sussex. He’s interested in why things are the way they are and why they are not something different. It’s all about the quantum mechanics. Probably.
Due to no fault of their own two of our speakers have had to cancel tonight (a very rare occurrence and a first for Nerd Nite London). Dr Gemma Angel will still be talking us through tattoos in the 19th Century and our own Louise Inman is stepping into the breach with a talk about Alan Turning. We are also planning to finish the evening off with a quiz to test how truly nerdy you all are – think Mastermind meets the Big Bang Theory. If you would like your money back we are happy to refund tickets, or we can exchange them for another event. Contact us at if you’d like an exchange or refund. We hope Hugh and Seb will be able to make it to speak at another Nerd Nite very soon. Our next event is March 19th.
Find out about the science behind Sci-fi f, discover who got inked in the 19th century and why everyone really should be reading JG Ballard at Nerd Nite London on 22nd January.
Nerd Nite London is a bi-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, 114-116 Curtain Rd, London, EC2A 3AH Details : Wednesday 22 Jan 2014 Doors at 8pm, early nerd tickets £5 and £6 afterwards www.wegottickets.com/NerdNiteLondon
The Science of Hollywood
Science fiction has a lot to answer for, Bruce Willis for starters. Not all of the science that comes out of Hollywood is bad, some of it is good while other bits can be just downright ugly. This talk will look at the science behind the fiction and will explain how the fiction can in turn influence the science.
Hugh is a research scientist working at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory where he develops new technologies for planetary exploration, which essentially means that he plays around with cool stuff for a living. However in his spare time he acts as a scientific adviser for Hollywood and has worked on big budget movies such as Prometheus, and is always surprized when they actually listen to him.
Tattoo Collecting in the 19th Century
Tattoos have been a source of fascination for criminologists and doctors since the late 19th century. Interpreting the hidden meaning of tattoos led some medical men to collect and preserve the tattooed skin of their subjects in prisons, hospitals, barracks and asylums. I’ll show you some examples of these unusual skin fragments, and explore some of the more interesting 19th century interpretations of tattoos.
Dr. Gemma Angel is a tattoo historian at UCL, specialising in tattoo preservation and collecting. She has spent the past 4 years researching a collection of 300 tattoos at the Science Museum in London. Before that she was a tattooist, a secondary school art teacher and a massage therapist.
Why everyone should be reading JG Ballard
An exploration into the life and work of the seer of Shepperton, JG Ballard.
Seb Collett discovered JG Ballard when his brother gave him Super-Cannes for Christmas, innocently adding, “He is the kind of writer I thought you’d be into”. This was followed by an obsession that ate up years of Seb’s life, and an eventual career change to teaching, which he was disappointed to find did not involve sharing these transgressive stories with children. After an evening spent at Nerd Nite, Seb decided that he had finally found the right platform to preach to the unconverted.
Nerd Nite London is back for its fifth event, on November 20 at the Paper Dress Vintage. Learn about the misuse of science in drug policy, the technology of skynet, and why australia is called australia. Come, drink, learn. http://www.wegottickets.com/NerdNiteLondon
Nerd #1: Steve Rolles ‘drugs – the messy intersection of politics and science in policy making’
Most people agree that the best type of policy making is evidence-based, but politicians seem reluctant to let the scientific facts speak for themselves. This presentation will give examples of some of the more egregious abuses of science in drug policy, and explain why science is such a poor friend to politicians when it comes to the war on drugs.
Bio: Steve is Senior Policy Analyst at Transform, the UK’s centre of expertise on drug policy. A proud father of two (he’ll show you photos if you ask), Steve has been trying to bring science and common sense to drug policy since before Meow Meow was a thing.
Nerd #2: Leila Johnston ‘The Technology of Terminator’
Predestination paradoxes, lock-picking, and really, Sarah, Kyle Reese? This whistle-stop tour around some of the weirder stuff in James Cameron’s naked time travelling sex films will ask some of the pressing questions, including who invented Skynet, how can someone as cool as Sarah Connor possibly have produced such an awful son, and what does the gibberish on the T-800’s heads-up display really say?
Bio: Leila is a writer, maker and broadcaster based in Sheffield. She is the founder of a new magazine and event series called Hack Circus, and co-creator of the popular geek comedy podcast Shift Run Stop. Her collection of photographs of IBM cash registers was featured in the national press in 2012 to endless mirthless punning. She writes about hacking for WIRED UK and dreams of one day being as amazing as Sarah Connor. @finalbullet
Nerd #3: Dan Walker-Smith ‘Why Australia is called Australia’
From Nike trainers to Trident Gum, Dan Walker Smith traces the contemporary world around us back to ancient myths. And in the sometimes tradition of nerd nite presenters keeping to topic, he will explain why Australia is called Australia.
Bio: Stand up, radio presenter, general man for all seasons. By day, Dan is a copywriter and journalist from London. He likes myths and folklore, travel and snowboarding.
All profits from the night will go to Movember, a charity which raises awareness for prostate and testicular cancer and mental health. You can find Nerd Nite London on Facebook at facebook.com/nerdnitelondon or on Twitter @nerdnitelondon. Tickets available at http://www.wegottickets.com/NerdNiteLondon
We’re back from our summer break, with an amazing back to school line up for Wednesday September 18th. Tickets on sale at http://www.wegottickets.com/event/236004
Nerd #1 Dr Antonio Sennis
Puffing the White Smoke: A Rough Guide To Becoming No. 1 at St. Peter’s
If you ever wondered what it takes to become Pope, then this talk is for you. Dwelling on his unrivalled knowledge of historical precedents, curial manoeuvres and priestly gossip, Dr Antonio Sennis, who teaches medieval history at UCL, will guide you through the long and perilous road that 265 men (and perhaps one woman) had to navigate to become the sovereign of Vatican City.
Nerd #2 Steve White
Now that is one big pile of shit: Jurassic Park and Dinosaurs
It’s 20 years since Steven Spielberg brought dinosaurs to life in Jurassic Park, and they’re about to come back in 3D. However, Steve White isn’t happy with the way the made the dinosaurs, especially the Rators or in his words ‘limp-wristed, bunny handed-plucked chickens’.
Steve White gave up a burgeoning career in genetics to go and work for Marvel UK, beginning his career as colourist on Care Bears and moving onto Transformers, Thundercats and The Real Ghostbusters. He is currently senior editor at Titan Comics working on, amongst other things, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. He is also an artist specialising in Natural History and paleoart, and has written a number of non-fiction children’s book.
Nerd #3: Rachael Reynold
Digital Transformations: How do you read a video game?
Can you imagine entering a classroom and being handed a joystick? Might sound strange but academics are beginning to examine the potential of video games in teaching. Rachael Reynold was part of a study which found how some (not all!) video games can help and encourage students to learn. Rachael is a freelance writer and media producer. She is also a gaming fanatic who believes that video games are an under appreciated art form. She loves the entire process of a video game, from concept to creation to critical analysis.
