Nerd Nite Brighton

We have some festive Nerd Nite fun for you so forgo your work Christmas do (it’s always rubbish and you wonder why you go) and head on over to the Caroline of Brunswick to celebrate the holiday season with your favourite nerdy friends.

This month

1. Scar Trek: A voyage into the worlds of wound healing, repair and regeneration – Prof Anthony Metcalfe

Scarring following wounding is a major medical problem. In burns, traumatic wounds or surgery that leads to extensive tissue loss scarring often results in adverse medical consequences including loss of function, restriction of movement (particularly because of contractures over joints), restriction of growth, poor aesthetics and adverse psychological effects.

Tony is Director of Research at the Blond McIndoe Research Foundation and a Professor of Burns and Wound Healing Research and founding member of the Brighton Centre for Regenerative Medicine. In this talk, Tony will discuss some of the new technologies being developed to repair wounds and scars left by burns, trauma or surgical interventions.

2. I’m not an expert but I love naked mole rats – Dr Steve Cross

A couple of years ago Steve accidentally became interested in naked mole rats, the greatest animal ever discovered. This talk will explain how they are both the potential medical saviours of humanity and badly-behaved social media users.

Dr Steve Cross is a science comedian and the founder of Bright Club and Science Showoff. Amongst the stupid things he has done in his career are printing out the entire human genome, buying 500 diet books and trying to MC after 10 whiskies and no dinner.

3. Star Wars: The Science Awakens – Dr Zeeshan Khawaja

What would actually happen if you tried to make the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs? Could Bear Grylls Solo use a tauntaun? Could you attract the Millenium Falcon? We’ll almost certainly not answer any important questions but frankly after the new trailer who cares – let’s once more visit a galaxy far, far away.

Zeeshan Khawaja has seen the new trailer for Star Wars VII too many times and still thinks that he is not too old for Yoda. In the mean time he is a cardiologist in Brighton having previously been studying for his PhD in coronary physiology and computational modelling at King’s College London which have little if anything to do with tractor beams.
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With free cake, tunes and big prize quizzes and a double act hosting in the shape of Drs Jane Hume and Alice Roueche, what more could you want?

£4 for regular nerds and £3 for you lucky student/65+ nerds. Get your tickets here

We sold out well in advance last month as the venue only just holds 65 so please please please get them early through the link below to avoid disappointment. (We get very sheepish, embarrassed and sad when we have to turn people away at the door…)

Doors at 7.30pm for 8pm start

Looking forward to seeing you there!

The nights are hitting us earlier and those summer smiles are starting to look a bit downturned. Even an extra an hour in bed doesn’t seem to make up for it. Why not give yourself a little winter pep and swing by for three more scintillating talks, quizzes, music, drinks with friends and all the cake you can eat at our next instalment. We’re joined by some emissaries from London’s big hitter museums as well as a heavyweight from our very own University of Sussex.

This month:

1. Punk Science: The Gameshow – Jonathan Milton

Jon is part of the Science Museum’s resident comedy team Punk Science and will be presenting a sneak preview of their latest show. The theme is based around The Science Museum’s new gallery “Information Age.” You might have seen the Queen tweeting from the opening. It’s up to the lucky contestants who will be selected at random to compete in science themed games and brain-melting quizzes to win big prizes and that is a fact.

Featuring Punk Science’s trademark blend of science, comedy and music now with added gameshow-flavoured cheese. In Punk Science: The Gameshow, nobody goes away empty headed…

Do pop up and see them as part of the Science Museum’s Lates programme later this month and in January.

2. Hearing colours and tasting words: the kaleidoscopic world of synaesthesia – Jamie Ward

People with synaesthesia experience the ordinary world in extraordinary ways. For some people each letter has its own distinct colour; for others, words have tastes or music is an animated spectacle. In this talk Jamie will explain what causes synaesthesia and how we can study it scientifically. He will discuss how it can often be advantageous and what it reveals about the workings of the typical mind and brain.

Jamie Ward is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on synaesthesia and his research methods draw on experimental psychology and human neuroscience.

3. How to protect yourself from a 17th century witch – Meriel Jeater

Meriel Jeater from the Museum of London, explains some of the charms against witchcraft used in the 17th century, from strangled chickens to bottles filled with urine and nail clippings. Find out how to keep a witch’s imp out of your chimney and other useful tips.

Meriel has been a curator at the Museum of London for 14 years, working in the Archaeology Collections Department (450,000 BC – AD 1700). She works mainly on the Roman, medieval, Tudor and 17th century collections but has been known to delve into prehistory when required.
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Tickets from here at the usual £4 for regular nerds and £3 for students/65+ nerds

Can’t wait to see you there!

We’re back on September 19th for some more seaside nerdery. This month:

Economagic: the tricks of the economic illusionists – Dr Rob Levy

How do you saw a deficit in half? How do you pull a recovery out of a hat? How can you stick real steel swords into your own economy and still have it alive and kicking in time for the next election? UCL Economagician Rob Levy takes you behind the scenes at Number 11 Downing Street, revealing the secrets behind these amazing conjuring tricks and demystifies some of the phoney baloney around the UK’s magical new growth figures.

Rob Levy is an economist at UCL. He knows how to moonwalk, clap in triplets and solve mathematical equations. He is not machine; he is man. He will fight you; he will win.

The hidden power of social capital – Dr Mick Taylor

In an age of rapid data transfer, global finance and the insatiable demand for ever-increasing returns on capital, we often reduce our view of the world to one of numbers. If something can’t be measured or counted we often deem it unimportant. This has resulted in some of the most fundamental aspects of human society being ignored or underestimated, things such as shared identity, trust and reciprocity.

Social capital holds much untapped power. This talk explores how technology can be used to co-create and leverage social capital to enable individuals and enterprises to collaborate and build the thriving, resilient and sustainable economies and communities we need to face the uncertainty of tomorrow’s world.

Mick is a former teacher of mathematics with a PhD in mathematical epidemiology, studying how changes in social structures and human behaviour can lead to different outcomes in the event of a disease outbreak. Mick is fascinated by human systems, particular in monetary systems and how the design of our money supply impacts on all aspects of human life.

My manager and other animals – Mr Richard Robinson

Deep down, we’re just like animals. Some of us are selfish like apes. Some are chaotic like ants. . . And somehow the two clash and coalesce in ‘antagonistic harmony’. My Manager & Other Animals examines the evolutionary psychology of work, focusing on the office, workshop, corporation or government department, and the complex and fascinating evolutionary tactics that have developed to deal with working life.

Richard Robinson is a puppeteer and worked on television series like Spitting Image. Before his puppeteering career, he was a busker. In the mid-1990s, after years taking his children to the Science Museum and related educational events he found a new outlet as a science busker, visiting schools and festivals with science cabaret acts. He has written nearly twenty books on science. His SCIENCE MAGIC books were shortlisted for the Royal Society’s science book prize 2000. He is the curator of our very own Brighton Science Festival.

No cake this month. ONLY JOKING! and there’ll be music and quizzes too!

Tickets on sale here

£4 Regular Nerds, £3 NUS/65+ Nerds

Upstairs at the Caroline Of Brunswick – Doors at 7.30pm

See you on the 21st!

If you’ve been keeping an eye on the news in the last few weeks then you’ll have seen how the world is a pretty depressing place right now.

We can’t fix the world but our three great speakers this month will be reminding us that, whilst we do terrible thinngs to each other, humans are capable of some amazing feats and achievements.

Innerspace: Miniaturisation in medicine – Dr James Cockburn

James qualified in medicine from Imperial College, London in 2000 before undertaking general medical training at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals. He completed postgraduate research in vascular biology at King’s College London before specialising as cardiologist. He is currently Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Sussex County Hospital here in Brighton fixing broken hearts.

Medical technology has advanced at an incredible pace with diagnostic tools and treatments existing today that would have been hailed as science-fiction in the past. James will tell us about how miniaturisation has been key to these advances using his specialty of interventional cardiology as an example.

The science of hypnosis: Myths and facts – Prof Zoltan Dienes

Hypnosis is a valuable clinical tool, but much information on TV, the net, in print, and indeed sometimes taught in non-academic hypnosis classes is misleading. This is unfortunate because while there are still many things we do not know about hypnosis and there are still unresolved controversies, there is clear evidence settling some common questions about the nature of hypnosis. In his talk Zoltan will debunk some myths and indicate what we do know and what we don’t.

Zoltan is Professor of Psychology at the University of Sussex. He has published over 100 scientific papers on the nature of unconscious processes, and written two books, one on unconscious (implicit) learning and the other on the philosophy of science and statistics. He runs a hypnosis lab at the University, where anyone can be screened for their hypnotisability.

Integrating Taste into Interactive Technologies: Science or Science-Fiction? – Dr Marianna Obrist

Despite the fact that interactive technologies have permeated our environment and have become an essential part of our everyday life, the way we interact with them is still limited. Interactive systems stimulate dominantly our senses of vision and hearing, partly our sense of touch (e.g., vibration in mobile phones), while our senses of taste and smell are widely neglected and under-exploited in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. In this talk, Marianna Obrist will talk about her research on multi-sensory experiences for interactive technologies with a special focus on the integration of taste into future interactive technologies.

Marianna Obrist is a Lecturer in Interaction Design at the University of Sussex at the School of Engineering and Informatics. She joined Sussex after spending two years as a Marie Curie Fellow at the Culture Lab of the School of Computing Science in Newcastle University. Before that Marianna was an Assistant Professor for Human-Computer Interaction and Usability at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Salzburg, Austria. The focal point of her research is to create a rich and systematic understanding on users experiences with interactive technologies. Recently she investigates the design spectrum for touch, taste, and smell experiences for interactive technologies. More details are available here: http://obrist.info/ and http://multisensory.info/

We wouldn’t forget the cake and the quizzes and the music of course.

Tickets on sale here

£4 Regular Nerds, £3 NUS/65+ Nerds

Upstairs at the Caroline Of Brunswick – Doors at 7.30pm

See you on the 21st!

The sun is blazing, the temperature is rising. Brighton buzzes with people from wide and far visiting for a bit of coastal excitement.

Well thank God for us. Get away from the heaving crowds of annoying, raucous sun worshippers and come down for another night of nerdery.

This month:

1. Keeping the peace in a social-spider colony – Professor Jonathan Bacon

Jonathan is Professor of Neuroscience in the School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, UK. His first degree was at Cambridge and after a year teaching in Jamaica he took an MSc and a PhD at Manchester. He joined the University of Sussex in 1984, where he was awarded the 1987 President’s Medal of the Society for Experimental Biology, and was the Dean of Life Sciences from 2002-2009. His research interests include the behaviour, development and evolution of insects as well as the foraging behaviour of Pharaoh’s ants and honey bees.

In his Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin records his surprise at seeing the social spider Parawixia bistriata in Argentina in 1832 living so amicably in close proximity with conspecifics. Jonathan will explain tonight how, almost two centuries later, the application of game theory to behavioural observations has revealed these spiders’ behavioural strategies that keep the peace, and prevent these dangerous well-armed carnivores from getting into costly confrontations with their neighbours.

2. Neutrinos: The Deep Secrets of Nature’s Ghosts – Dr Lisa Falk

Lisa is a Senior Lecturer in Elementary Particle Physics at the University of Sussex. She gained her MSc and PhD in Sweden including a fellowship at CERN before taking a lectureship at Sussex. At Nerd Nite she will share her passion for the neutrino, a weird particle that can zip through the entire Earth, and even across our galaxy, without leaving a trace. It flip-flops from one type to another in flight, and may hold the key to why the Universe contains matter but no antimatter. Catching and studying this tiniest of particles requires experimental apparatus the size of Olympic swimming pools, typically built in old mines and other exotic locations deep underground. How many neutrinos do you think you will get to know in your lifetime?

3. Ethical Hacking – Marios Kyriacou

Marios has been an information security consultant for over 10 years specialising in ethical hacking. He works for a large information security organisation where he heads the ethical hacking practice. Marios performs infrastructure and website hacking, and social engineering (the art of extracting information from people).
In his talk Marios will explain hacking and what’s actually involved in this – is it really the way it’s done in the movies? He’ll tell tales of his exploits (no pun intended) in hacking organisations. He’ll also talk about the approaches organisations are taking to secure your information. There may even be time for a quick hacking demo.

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Cake and quizzes and rock and roll as usual! You know the drill…

And if all of that is not enough, Dr Jane Hume returns as special guest host!

Tickets from here

Doors at 7.30pm, start at 8pm.

Upstairs at the Caroline Of Brunswick, 39 Ditchling Road, Brighton BN1 4SB

*cough* *cough* *splutter* *splutter*

The air quality is TERRIBLE today!

Fortunately the nerd quality is just getting better and better. We sure hope you’ll be joining us for our next nerd nite. Talks this month:

1. The wonderful world of whisky – Prof David Goldsmith

David Goldsmith is a kidney doctor based in London and has over 25 years experience in looking after patients with kidney disease. His extensive career includes over 380 publications and his research interests include high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and inflammation and calcification syndromes in kidney patients.

Being the true polymath that he is, David will not be talking about his expertise with kidneys this evening. He will not be telling us about digital photography, the bridges of London nor Victorian architecture. Instead he will be giving us an insight into his other keen interest: whisky.

2. Everything is changing? Hunting for the changing constant – Dr Matthias Keller

Mathias is senior lecturer in physics and astronomy at the University of Sussex. Matthias gained his PhD in 2004 at the Ludwigs-Maximilians University in Munich, investigating quantum optics with trapped calcium ions. After gaining his PhD, he moved to the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics to continue his research into the physics of molecular ions and quantum electrodynamics in ion traps. He joined the University of Sussex in 2007, initially as an Advanced Research Fellow before taking up a full lectureship.  Some fundamental constants which govern our universe may not be constant but change in time and/or space. Matthias and his team conduct experiments to look into changes of one important constant – the proton:electron mass ratio.

3. Waste is just a resource in the wrong place – Cat Fletcher

Cat Fletcher is a waste activist and all round resource goddess. She is a founding member and Head of Media for Freegle (UK’s biggest online reuse network with 1.6+ million members), has voluntarily run the Brighton group for 7 years which has redistributed over 1,000 tonnes of goods locally. Cat is currently working on the Brighton Waste House with the University of Brighton and as the Reuse Manager for Brighton and Hove city council amongst other things…..she’s got a head full of facts, figures and solutions to inspire waste prevention! Read more about her here.

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Free cake, music, quizzing, etc as per usual.

Tickets £4 for regular nerds and £3 for NUS/65+ nerds – Tickets are on sale from here and we strongly advise buying in advance!

Remember to pop by our facebook page and follow us on twitter

Upstairs at the Caroline of Brunswick

See you there!

“Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battlestation!”

Emperor Palpatine

Palpatine may as well have been talking about Nerd Nite Brighton because we are indeed armed and operational for our next evening on Thursday March 20th. Though we’re a bit more pleasant than the Sith.

This month:

1. The Amoral Molecule – Anil Seth

2.Practical privacy in an era of mass surveillance (or Who’s watching your ass?) – Chris Pinchen

Chris Pinchen is co-founder of the Chokepoint Project, a non-profit organisation that collects, analyses and reports on data relating to network neutrality and civil rights in the digital domain. He was a resident at the Lighthouse Studio in Brighton focusing on surveillance, censorship & privacy issues. Chris recently organised Brighton CryptoFestival, has been involved with CryptoParties in Berlin, Luxembourg and Brighton and contributed to the CryptoParty Handbook. He is a a member of the supporters council of the Open Rights Group and organises locally in Brighton.

Blog: cataspanglish, Twitter: @cataspanglish , PGP: 0x2C3196C5

3. Should the Death Star be a Listed Building? – Duncan Phillips 

Our Grand Moff Tarkin for tonight is Duncan Phillips. Despite being unable to speak fluent Latin or operate any type of TV recording device, Duncan has so far managed to stay alive long enough to become a Building Surveyor with expertise in Listed Buildings. His Nerd status is firmly proven by having become Chartered in two unrelated subjects and having established an Institute which now has 2000 members. In his spare time he is passionate about music, particularly early 1970’s Genesis, and is an endurance athlete currently doing 100 mile ultra-marathons and previously having done Double Iron Man triathlon, and other ridiculous stuff such as trying to swim the Channel, after having first run 87 miles from London. He is the only person ever to have completed the London to Brighton Veteran Car Race by running it, instead of driving. Duncan loves a good curry and Old Thumper ale from Ringwoods.His talk tonight will be about none other than the Death Star. The word ‘awesome’ was invented solely for the purpose of describing it. Buildings are Listed for a reason. Currently, English Heritage doesn’t recognise ‘being awesome’ as one of those reasons but perhaps one day it will. In the meantime, there are other criteria which need to be met and this presentation will assess whether the Death Star meets the standards required.

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Free cake, music, quizzing, etc as per usual.

Tickets £4 for regular nerds and £3 for NUS/65+ nerds – Tickets are on sale from here and we strongly advise buying in advance! We very sadly had to raise shields and turn people away last month 🙁

Remember to pop by our facebook page and follow us on twitter

Upstairs at the Caroline of Brunswick

See you there!

Exciting times are upon us!

The UK is in the midst of apocalyptic weather as a result of the jetstream going bonkers. However here on our battered coast the Brighton Science Festival has just kicked off and we’re going bonkers over that.

Us folks at Nerd Nite Brighton are very pleased to be able to present a traditional biology/chemistry/physics theme for our next event as part of the marvellous science festival.

We are delighted to welcome:

1. Dr Stephan Huber – The cosmic asymmetry of matter and antimatter

Stephan joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sussex as a lecturer in theoretical particle physics in 2006.   Before that he was a research fellow in the theory division of CERN, Geneva. His research focuses on particle physics and attempts to understand the physics which sets the Higgs boson mass. He works on models with supersymmetry and extra space dimensions. Tonight he’ll be talking on his other research interest – cosmology. Stephan will tell us about his search for the origin of the cosmic matter/antimatter asymmetry, especially in relation to cosmic phase transitions.

2. Dr John Turner – The world through a grain of sand: art and architecture at the atomic level

Here at Nerd Nite Brighton towers we can’t believe how quickly the year has disappeared. We’re hoping to leave 2013 with a bang so come by for our festive finale.

This month:

Death by Christmas – Anna Leeke

Anna loves Christmas more than anything. She loves everything associated with Christmas and will be spending the next few weeks in a state of perpetual excitement as the holiday draws closer. However she is keenly aware that with great festivity comes great danger. Tonight she will be highlighting how even the most loved of holidays should warrant caution and her talk will focus on the increased risk of morbidity and mortality that Christmas can bring.

Telling stories with games – Kate Howland

Kate is a Lecturer in Interaction Design at the University of Sussex. Her research focuses on designing and understanding people’s use of digital technologies that support creative and social activities. At Nerd Nite she’ll be talking about narrative in video games and discussing her PhD research on the design of software to support young people in creating their own narrative-based games. She has yet to find a viable project to justify the time she spends looking at photos of cats online.

Surviving a robot invasion – Partha Das

Partha has spent a lifetime cowering in fear at the possibility of a threat to humanity from a merciless robot aggressor. He feels that global societies in their current configuration are ill prepared for such an invasion. Tonight he will outline the nature of such a threat and what you and your loved ones can do to ensure your survival during a robocalypse.

We’re very pleased to introduce Dr Jane Hume who will be our special guest host and compere for the night:

Jane enjoys amateurishly making things from wood, meat, fabric and light bulbs though has yet to realise her dreams of combining all these ingredients into a single creation (ideally a working swan robot). Funding this elaborate pastime by furtive work as the scarlet pimpernel of doctors, she is currently looking into the practicalities of a new career in vintage lie-detector machine dealing. She can’t play the accordion properly, nor any other musical instrument.

There will be quizzing, music and of course free cake. We’re looking forward to saying goodbye to 2013 with you!

Tickets available from here

Like the facebook and follow the twitter!

 

Upstairs at the Caroline of Brunswick

£4 regular nerds and £3 student nerds
Doors 7.30pm for an 8pm start

Tickets from HERE

And if you’ve been a naughty nerd and haven’t been already, please pop by the facebook page and follow us on twitter.