Archive for the ‘Event’ Category

Pandemic Portraits and Transplantation

Event poster - 17th December. Pandemic Portraits, Transplants. Nerd Nite Brighton Online.

We are back, bringing more evidence-based entertainment to you in the comfort of your own living room. We have two more nerdishly passionate speakers, the usual nerdy news and quiz, and some festive surprises.

BYOMPABW (bring your own mince pies and mulled wine). Be there and be square!

Our speakers this month are:

Dr. Hannah Maple – “But my mum says I’m cool” – Why being a transplant surgeon is the best job in the world

Nick Sayers – #NickDrawsNationals: Drawing portraits of life during a global pandemic

£4 Regular nerds

£3 Unemployed/furloughed/skint/students

Tickets from Eventbrite

All proceeds will go to a different local charity each month. This month we are supporting Clock Tower Sanctury. The Clock Tower Sanctuary was founded in 1998 by a group of concerned people who wanted to do something about the rising homelessness in the city. Ever since then, it’s been their mission to work with young homeless people to help them to move from crisis to stability.

Our speakers this month:

Hannah Maple

Hannah Maple somehow managed to become a transplant surgeon, despite being a) from Crawley and b) a woman. She graduated from Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ medical school in 2007 and currently works as a transplant registrar at Guy’s Hospital, London. She is known as the ‘pink and fluffy one’ due to her interest in health psychology and love of cats and penguins. She was awarded a PhD in 2015 for her thesis which attempted to measure how living kidney donors benefit psychologically from their donation. Hannah is also a Lecturer in Transplant & General Surgery and Vice-Chair of ELPAT (Ethical Legal and Psychosocial Aspects of organ Transplantation arm of ESOT. She is a world expert in the practice of altruistic kidney donation (where someone donates a kidney to someone they do not know) and is branching out into the complex mystical world of medication non-adherence. In her spare time she likes to think about what she would do in her spare time, if she had any. Twitter: @TransplantMaple

Nick Sayers

Nick Sayers is a science-inspired artist based in Brighton. In 2020 he embarked on two Covid-19 art projects: first drawing portraits of neighbours on his street while talking about life during the pandemic, and then doing the same by Zoom video chat, with people in countries around the world. In pre-pandemic life, he has made drawing machines from bicycles, six-month-exposure pinhole cameras from beer cans, geodesic shelter domes from estate agent signs, and has Cycled The Solar System in Goa. He has shown his work internationally at art and science events in countries including Azerbaijan, Canada, Greece, Egypt, India, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and USA. Twitter: @NickSayers

Crashing galaxies and conspiracy theories

Event poster. Reads Thursday 19th November 2020. Crashing galaxies - Conspiracies. Nerd Nite Brighton Online. Image includes our glasses logo with galaxies in the lenses.
NNB67: Crashing galaxies and conspiracy theories, 19th November 2020

Facebook event

Tickets from Eventbrite (£4 Regular nerds / £3 Concessions)

Nerd Nite Brighton is back! Evidence-based entertainment in the comfort of your own living room. We have two nerdishly passionate speakers, nerdy news and our fabulous quiz. It’s BYOCAB (bring your own cake and beer). Be there and be square!

Hosted by Dr Mick Taylor, our speakers this month are:

Dr Jillian Scudder: The Galaxy is crashing. (Don’t worry.)

Ben Bailey: We Are All Conspiracy Theorists Now

All proceeds from our online events will go to a different local charity each month. This month we are supporting Impact InitiativesEstablished 40 years ago, Impact Initiatives aims to give individuals and communities the support they need to improve their quality of life and feel a part of a wider community. From social activities or after school care to advocacy or counselling, employment support or housing they support people of all ages.

Our speakers this month:

Jillian Scudder

Jillian is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Oberlin College, in Oberlin, Ohio. Her research focuses on how and why galaxies form stars, and the physics of how galaxies collide. She has a popular astronomy book in paperback: Astroquizzical: a beginner’s guide to the cosmos. Twitter @Jillian_Scudder.

Ben Bailey

It’s been a great year for conspiracy theories. What used to be a fringe hobby for eccentrics and an amusing sideshow for sceptics is now a driver of world events. Join Ben as he surfaces for air after spending months lost in an ever-expanding warren of insane rabbit holes. What happened? And who can he really trust? Naturally, he’s had no choice but to deliver his findings in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.

Ben is a journalist and musician who sometimes gives talks on nerdy topics. He is probably on several blacklists and is almost certainly considered a threat to national security, but he could also just be a government shill. No one really knows, not even him.

A joke image - a mocked up Zoom window showing various famous nerds joining the meeting, including Albert Einstein and Ada Lovelace.
Nerds on Zoom, Nerds on Zoom

*POSTPONED* Nerd Nite 67: Sci-Fi, Winemaking, Decarbonising

19th March 2020 poster

Venue: Rialto Theatre

Facebook event

It’s our last NNB for a little while so join us for three more fascinating talks:

Ben Bailey: Science Fiction and the End of the World

Apocalyptic narratives are nothing new, but these days it feels like sci-fi is on a constant downer. Join journalist Ben Bailey for a time-bending tour of the future, visiting every lawless wasteland, corporate dystopia and futuristic fascist state that has ever been conjured up in the name of entertainment. This talk attempts a scientific experiment on science fiction itself, using a succession of dubious calculations to pinpoint the exact moment the world will end. There will also be graphs.

Richard Warren: Decarbonising Industry

The UK has set itself the legally binding target of achieving net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. Too slow for some, wildly ambitious and eye wateringly expensive for others, perhaps the one thing most people can agree on, is we still have very little idea of how we’re going to get there. The good news, is that many of the technological answers to these problems are already with us or are in rapid development. The bad news is that there are also significant economic and political challenges, and these are far more tricky nuts to crack.

Industrial emissions, those emitted in the process of manufacturing all the goods we require for everyday living, are a case in point. Many of the low-carbon options available to industry add huge costs to production processes, but companies must still compete in a global market place where production costs are the number one decider of competitiveness and success. Squaring this circle, reducing industrial emissions whilst maintaining an industrial base, is one of the foremost challenges Government must get to grips with in the next decade.

Richard Warren is Head of Policy & External Affairs at UK Steel, the representative body for the UK’s steel industry. In this talk he will discuss the challenges the steel industry faces in decarbonising over the next 30 years, what Government needs to do, and perhaps most importantly, why you should care.

Collette O’Leary: Winemaking

Collette O’Leary is estate manager and winemaker at Henners, a 7 acre vineyard in Herstmonceux, East Sussex. Collette graduated from Plumpton College in 2014, and was previously assistant winemaker at Bluebell Vineyard Estate.

Hosted by Partha Das