nerdnite – DC

Saturday March 13th, 2010 from 6pm to 10pm at DC9. Let us help you set your inner nerd free, with an evening full of fun factoids, music, and beer.

Where: DC9, 1940 9th St NW
When: 6PM (doors), 6:30PM (event)

Cost: $10 Upstairs, $discounted Downstairs

Advance tickets for the upstairs room will be available and DC9 will sell a limited amount of tickets at the door for the upstairs room and discounted tickets for the downstairs room.

For Tix: http://www.ticketalternative.com/Events/10636.aspx

A portion of the proceeds from the night’s event will go to Martha’s Table, Inc http://www.marthastable.org/

Presentation #1: On the fly: the scariest, cutest, most well known and least understood thing on two wings
By Shelah Morita

Description: Ever think the world would be a better place without flies? Who needs mosquitoes anyway? Well, you do. Inspiring fear, disgust, and usually symbols of death and decay in literature and art, the diversity of body form and lifestyle in flies has been largely misrepresented by a few, common species. I’ll show you how flies are anything but common, how to identify a ‘true fly,’ and why you should be thanking blood-sucking flies for that chocolate martini.
Bio: Shelah is a research collaborator in the Department of Entomology at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, where she studies fly evolution, insect systematics and blood-sucking pollinators.

Presentation #2: Is Sarah Palin white?
By Tracy Duvall

Description: No matter how funky Justin Timberlake is, races are not genetic categories. As the great sociologists Rodgers and Hammerstein averred, “You’ve got to be carefully taught.” Hurray for education in the USA! Racial stereotypes seem to be one of the few things that almost every American learns, making race socially but not genetically ‘real.’ We’ll consider all that, including who can jump.
Bio: Tracy has held such lofty positions as assistant curator of ethnohistory and assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona. He committed the career version of suicide by quitting to teach high school, only to become a college professor again.

Presentation #3: Sex on the brain? Scientific studies show intelligence IS sexy!
By Jason Keagy

Description: Brains and sex. Nerds have dreamed that someday somehow the first would lead to the other. I will present various evolutionary scenarios under which bigger brain power will lead to passing on the most genes, the evolutionary equivalent of becoming a millionaire. Then, using data from my research on bowerbirds in Australia and evolutionary psychologists’ research on humans, I will show how at least in some species, brainier males get more babes and brainier females regret their mate choice decisions the least the next morning.
Bio: Jason is a doctoral candidate in the Behavior, Ecology, Evolution and Systematics Program at the University of Maryland who is writing his dissertation and will soon be in need of a job. He is on a mission to use science to convince girls that his intelligence makes him sexy. When he’s not watching bowerbird porn or pouring over scientific papers about what are the best pick-up lines, he engages in activities that may lead to the premature end of his brain like mountain biking or marathon running.

Musical interludes by Poor but Sexy