SOLD OUT: Nerd Nite #12

Did you know that every time 176 nerds congregate in the same room, a nerd accidentally breaks his glasses? With your participation we can test this urban myth [that I just created] on April 3rd. As always three great speakers, fun, adventure, and of course beer.

When: April 3, 2014 (doors @ 7:30p, show @ 8)
Where: The Club (Citadel Theatre, 9828-101A Avenue Edmonton)
$15 in advance (SOLD OUT TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE)
$18 at the door
[Children 17 & Under Will Not Be Admitted]

The Cell that Founded Civilization
David Stuart

Some attribute Benjamin Franklin with declaring that “beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy.” Whoever said it, beer certainly makes me happy and it’s yeast that makes the production of beer and wine possible; so it only makes sense that yeast too makes me happy too. Yeast has been the foundation of the brewing industry for centuries. These resilient and adaptable microbial cells have found a myriad of uses including becoming the corner stone for a revolution in synthetic biology and the biofuel industry. So where does yeast come from? How does it do what it does? What else can we coax these marvelous microbes to do for us? Join me as we raise a glass to yeast and provide insight into how yeasts have been bred and engineered to become a workhorse for the brewing, and biotechnology industries.

Bio: David Stuart is an associate professor in the faculty of Medicine Department of Biochemistry at the University of Alberta. One part of his research laboratory is focused on engineering yeast for the production of biofuels and valuable compounds. Another part of his lab studies yeast meiosis to gain an understanding the process of by which human sperm and egg cells develop, and what goes wrong to cause birth defects. During his undergraduate studies at the University of Waterloo David discovered his passion for biochemistry and genetics along his love for beer. Both of these interests blossomed during his pursuit of a PhD at the University of Alberta and his work as a postdoctoral scientist in San Diego. In addition to his academic interest in yeast biology David is a home brewer and regularly experiments to produce new and different varieties of beer.

Sometimes a Glock is just a Glock: Girls, Guns & Action Movies
Cristina Stasia

Today, female action heroes are more likely to lick their guns suggestively than to shoot them. We have yet to see Bruce Willis do this. The first female action heroes did not hesistate to use firearms, because that’s what action heroes do: they shoot the bad guys and save the day. Today, the rebooted Charlie’s Angels don’t even use guns. Instead, they use their sexuality. We have also yet to see Bruce Willis do this. (Fingers crossed). Starting with Blaxploitation, I’ll take you through the different iterations of the female action hero, focusing on the ways she has gone from using firearms to using her hypersexualized body to save the day. This has serious implications for the action genre—and for understandings of female power and feminism.

Bio: Dr. Stasia received her Ph.D. in English from Syracuse University and is an award-winning instructor in the Women’s and Gender Studies department at the University of Alberta. Her publications include chapters on female action cinema, the politics of television remakes, the bisexual star text of Angelina Jolie, and third wave feminism and postfeminism. She recently completed a book manuscript titled Lipsticked and Loaded: Feminism, Femininity and the Female Action Hero. She argues that female power has become a pervasive but meaningless concept and charts the disempowerment of women through an analysis of female action movies from 1975-2005. While watching a particularly problematic action movie on a third date, she asked her date if he would mind if she took notes. He said no. She married him.

Sweet Child O’ Mine: The Complex Sugars of Human Milk
Christopher Cairo

There many reasons why breastfeeding is thought to benefit infants. The composition of human milk is surprisingly complex, and some of the major components of human milk are sugars. These aren’t just any sugars – but complex polymers of sugars (oligosaccharides) – and they do more than just give babies calories. Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs) protect infants from diseases, stimulate their immune systems, and likely help regulate the bacteria that colonize their guts. So how does milk do all this? I’ll talk about just how complex the composition of milk really is, and what the structures of HMOs are, as well as give examples of how these incredible molecules help keep infants healthy.

Bio: Chris did his undergraduate studies at the State University of New York-Albany and his graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Afterwards, he moved back to the east coast to take up a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School where he studied the biophysics of white blood cells binding to other cells. Chris is currently an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Alberta and a principal investigator in the Alberta Glycomics Centre. His research group studies how cells sense their environment at the molecular level with applications in cancer, diabetes, and inflammation.

SOLD OUT: Nerd Nite #11

Join us as we mark the 1052nd anniversary of the Byzantine conquest of Chandax! That interesting fact will not be discussed at Nerd Nite 11, but there’ll be plenty of delicious knowledge morsels that you won’t want to miss from our three great presenters. 

When: March 6, 2014 (doors @ 7:30p, show @ 8)
Where: The Club (Citadel Theatre, 9828-101A Avenue Edmonton)
$15 in advance (TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE SOLD OUT)
$18 at the door
[Children 17 & Under Will Not Be Admitted]

Cold Rock: the northern kind, not the ice cream kind
David Dockman

We all know that Canada is very well endowed-geographically-but it is way bigger than you would think. The northern tip of Canada, on Ellesmere Island, is a mere 769km from the north pole. From Edmonton, Canada’s most northern point is as distant as Havana, Cuba, is to the south! Join David on geologic adventure from magma generation deep within the earth to the sample collection of ancient volcanic eruptions on the beautifully barren Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. An island that survived being torn asunder when the earth decided that Russia and Canada were being naughty and needed to be separated by a little thing called the Arctic Ocean. That all sounds pretty flashy, but the real fun begins back in the lab, where geochemists wage war against crustal contamination, scrutinize rocks under microscopes, and, yes, even satisfy the geological architype by beating rocks with hammers.

Bio: Dave grew up in Airdrie, AB, where there are no rocks. He loved the Rockies and the Tyrell Museum as much as any self-respecting Albertan youngster, but followed the Engineering family tradition rather than a geological one. A die hard UofA student since 2004, Dave took the path that most struggling engineering students take by joining the Geology program! Finding it much more hands on and adventurous (who likes cantilevers and moments of inertia anyway?!). His geological passions have taken him to Alaska, Yukon, NWT, Nunavut, Northern BC, and even Hawaii’s active lava lake, Halema’u’ma’u. Dave is currently taking a Masters in Geochemistry at the University of Alberta. His friends won’t help him move anymore because every geologist picks up rocks as souvenirs.

Subtractive Synthesis
Marc-Julien Objois

Even if you haven’t heard of subtractive synthesis, you’ve definitely heard it. If a tune incorporates a synthesizer, chances are good that those synthesizers use certain basic waveforms and subtract frequencies in different ways to create interesting sounds. What do these waveforms look like? How do they sound, and how do they get bent and twisted into the music you love? You’ll have a chance to Name That Tune by identifying a song from its bass or lead synth line, and to Test Your Might by identifying the waveforms used in well-known hits.

Bio: Marc-Julien Objois is a bona fide hallway-tripping, thick-glasses-wearing, science-class-loving, French-Horn-playing nerd. His appreciation for science was shaped by a love of shows like Wonderstruck (by Bob McDonald), magic, electronic music instruments, and an insatiable need to know how things work. Armed with a Computer Engineering degree from the University of Alberta, he became a software developer, and in his spare time continued to explore the world of electronic music, had a brief life on stage with Rapid Fire Theatre, then switched from making music to photography because he’s actually good at that. Nerd credentials include being the President of the Greater Edmonton Skeptics Society and putting on the yearly science conference, LogiCON.

Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
Julielynn Wong

Star Trek Replicators, in the form of 3D printers, are here! NASA is planning on launching the first 3D printer in space this year. The European Space Agency’s AMAZE Project aims to develop the first metal 3D printer for space missions. Unleash your inner designer and discover how 3D printers are revolutionizing space travel and life here on Earth.

Bio: Julielynn Wong, MD, MPH, is a Harvard-educated, award-winning physician, scientist, and journalist. Dr. Wong is an academic lecturer at the University of Alberta and served on faculty at Singularity University where she taught design and 3D printing workshops through the Autodesk Innovation Lab. She was selected to train in space medicine at NASA Johnson Space Center and has tested 3D printers in 0-g. Miss Wong has reported for ABC World News, is a blog contributor to Forbes and the Huffington Post, and made numerous television appearances, including an Emmy-nominated series on Discovery Channel. Dr. Wong is a graduate of Queen’s University School of Medicine and is a recipient of the Harvard University Knox Fellowship, the Aerospace Medical Association Young Investigator Award, and the Canadian Medical Association Award for Young Leaders.

SOLD OUT: Nerd Nite #10

Nerd Nite in Edmonton has hit double digits! To celebrate our milestone tenth edition, we’re doing more of the exact same thing. Join us as three presenters expound on topics near and dear to their hearts in climate controlled comfort with a beer (or other delightful beverage) in your hand. It’s a new year so resolve to learn new things; we’re committed to making your life more Nerdy. Remember, there are 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don’t. Be there, be square.

When: January 9, 2014 (doors @ 7:30p, show @ 8)
Where: The Club (Citadel Theatre, 9828-101A Avenue Edmonton)
$15 in advance (TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE SOLD OUT)
$18 at the door
[Children 17 & Under Will Not Be Admitted]

On Our Obsession with Demon-Possession
Kirsten C. Uszkalo

She grunts, she blasphemes, and she vomits. Her body moves with astonishing strength, flexibility, and brutality. Details may differ—modern demoniacs vomit fewer pins, less straw, and very little lead—but do not let that fool you: the demoniac has not gone anywhere. Despite a decline in superstition over the last 400 years, the belief in demonic possession is on the rise. The demoniac is fictionalized on the big screen and the small; dispossessions happen in front of a live audiences at churches and hotels and are televised and pod-casted by deliverance ministries. Even the Vatican is joining in, running their own courses on exorcism. The demoniac is a woman possessed; but what possesses her may surprise you.

The demoniac does not suffer demon-possession, she suffers rage possession. The more she rages, the better she gets at it; the angrier she is, the more she looks possessed. Since Donald Hebbs fist postulated in 1949 that ‘cells that fire together, wire together’ we’ve known that from a neurological and biological basis, the more a behavior is repeated the more easily it can be repeated. By extension the demoniac’s experience is grounded in an extreme but normal experience of anger that, with each experience, make her look more possessed. Taking hints from what possesses today’s spiritually plagued, and borrowing concepts from cognitive science and neuroscience, this talk will look at what demon-possession can teach us about our own relationship with rage.

Bio: Kirsten C. Uszkalo, aka, ‘Dr. K,’ is an experienced editor, writer, teacher, and manager. She has helped generate three scholarly journals, over a dozen original classes, and a few new approaches to research. Somewhere between a historical/commercial/digital investigator, Captain Janeway, and a guerrilla neuroscientist, Uszkalo delights in chasing down hard to find facts, producing provocative reports, and chairing whatever committee she is on. She has been on T.V., taught at four renowned universities, done evaluative work for two governments, and had traversed the globe to present on e-learning, user experience, and data-mining. She has reconceived preternatural phenomenon, literary history, and timely trends that have sparked her interest. In general, she spends a great deal of time with her new kiddo and walking her two dogs.

Soil: Everything You Never Knew You Wanted To Know
Nina Craig

Have you ever stopped to think about the ground you stand on? Soils are the basis of our environment and provide many services – both those we can see, like growing our food (except “schmeat”), and those we can’t see, like filtering our water. Besides being useful, soils are just cool and interesting unto themselves; trust me. There are ten soil groups, or “orders” in Canada, each with a distinctly weird name like “Chernozem.” You will hear about each of these orders, how they are formed, what makes them unique, their uses, and how you can pick them out on the landscape without even picking up a shovel. You’ll never look at dirt the same way.

Bio: Nina grew up believing she would become a dentist, but after an unsuccessful attempt, she decided to join the world of service and retail. During this time, Nina realized working with people was for suckers and, as a long-time member of Kids for Saving Earth, decided to follow her passion for conserving and restoring the environment. She enrolled at the University of Alberta in the Conservation and Environmental Sciences program, where she discovered that soils were pretty much the coolest thing on Earth and that reclamation was a great way to protect and repair this amazing resource. Nina has a Master of Science from Virginia Tech and returned to Edmonton in 2012 to continue digging in beautiful, glaciated Alberta soils, and revel in the glory of 10-month winters as a a soil and land reclamation specialist.

How Outsiders Make Design Better
Myron Nebozuk

Design surrounds us: we can’t avoid it. Even mediocre and awful stuff is designed by someone putting in a college effort. Why is it that we take little or no notice of the many things that fill our homes, work places and social spaces? Instead, our attention goes to a select few things (and their celebrated creators). This presentation looks at the unique perspective that outsiders bring to the design process. Whether it be Jean Paul Gaultier or Thomas Heatherwick, outsiders reshape how we see and experience our world. This presentation looks at a handful of designers and the surprising methods they use to create inspiring and unforgettable work.

Bio: Myron is an architect with uber-geeky Manasc Isaac Architects. He comes by his outsider status honestly; he’s the son of immigrant parents and has an unpronounceable surname. Growing up, his only exposure to North American barbeque culture was through the Shake ‘n Bake variety. That ended badly. When he’s not trying to make the world a better place one building at a time, he immerses himself in the quirky but beautiful alternate universe created by Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys.