Throw horns for history and rush the stage* for statistics riffs at the bar show where the nerds are the rock stars and smart is punk af.
Cue it up: Three experts. Dozens of cheeky slides. A bar full of former gifted kids gone feral who love special interest deep dives. This is Nerd Nite DC.
*okay maybe just do this in spirit. Nerds are wild creatures who can be easily spooked by sudden movements.
Nerd Nite DC has been DC’s favorite irreverent lecture series since 2009.
Your host this month is Nerd Nite legend Rae Pendergrass, joined by our three wildly entertaining and wickedly smart speakers who are all postdoc fellows with the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, giving three must-see talks:
— Dr. Sarah Leventhal, “Jurassic Park-émon: Gotta Catch ‘Em All!”
Where did Pokémon developers come up with the subset of critters known as Fossil Pokémon (which are obtained by reviving their fossils)? Some, like Aerodactyl and Omanyte, are pretty similar to real-life prehistoric creatures whose fossils we’ve seen in museums. But others (Lileep, anyone??) are far less obvious. A real-life paleontologist pulls back the curtain on the inspirations for some of our favorite ‘mons!
Sarah is a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History! In her spare time she loves playing Pokémon games, collecting Pokémon cards, and baking cookies (that are not yet Pokémon shaped – but she’s getting there).
— Dr. James Mulqueeney, “How a Sea Creature Became a Love Symbol”
What do The Birth of Venus, medieval pilgrims, and your Valentine’s Day decorations have in common? This talk explores the surprising cultural history of the scallop, tracing how a humble shellfish became an enduring icon of love, beauty, and symbolism.
James Mulqueeney is a paleobiologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History who spends his days studying evolution, extinction, and what dead marine animals can tell us about life on Earth. Somehow, this has led him to giving public talks about the romantic history of scallops.
— Dr. Kat Turk, “Earth Had a Dune Phase (Except the Worms Were Cannibals With Donut-Shaped Brains)
500 million years before David Lynch soft launched Twin Peaks in space, Earth’s apex predators were cannibalistic, goo-secreting “penis worms” that breathed through their butts and had brains wrapped around their throats. While probably not facilitators of interstellar travel, these weird worms and their hot new behaviors were potentially responsible for such important paradigm shifts as to usher in our modern “age of animals” — thus setting the stage for everything from dinosaurs to buzzsaw sharks to eight-foot-long millipedes to even, yes, you.
Dr. Kat Turk received a PhD against her will and once ran the world’s largest living colony of penis worms out of a German parking lot. Becoming a Bene Gesserit wasn’t a super feasible option in this economy so she is instead currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where she spends most of her time irradiating rocks for both business and pleasure.
DOORS 6PM | 21+
Nerd Nite DC https://dc.nerdnite.com/ https://www.facebook.com/NerdNiteDC/ https://www.instagram.com/nerdnite_dc/
Doors open at 6, show at 6:30. Talks are 15 minutes with a 5 minute Q&A, and during the breaks, you can play along in our “alternate talk titles” competition to try to win a free drink on us. It’s rowdy, interactive, and the most fun you’ll have learning something all month.
The show is on the second floor of DC9 and is mostly standing room with limited seating available on a first-come, first served basis.
Nerd Nite DC is produced by Rae Pendergrass, navi, and Diva Darling.
Throw horns for history and rush the stage* for statistics riffs at the bar show where the nerds are the rock stars and smart is punk af.
Cue it up: Three experts. Dozens of cheeky slides. A bar full of former gifted kids gone feral who love special interest deep dives. This is Nerd Nite DC.
*okay maybe just do this in spirit. Nerds are wild creatures who can be easily spooked by sudden movements.
Nerd Nite DC has been DC’s favorite irreverent lecture series since 2009.
Your host this month is the iconic navi, joined by our three wildly entertaining and wickedly smart speakers with three must-see talks that feel eerily appropriate for our dystopian times (but we promise will still make you laugh!):
– Brandon Ingram: “Everything in Your House Wants to Kill You: An Introduction to Fire Safety
Ever wonder that things in your house secretly want to kill you? Spoiler: it’s all of them. We’ll be learning about some of the most common fire dangers in the home and how you can protect yourself from them.
Brandon is a full-time fire protection engineer and part-time sketch comedian. When he’s not keeping architects from accidentally burning you alive, he’s writing/performing with Rails Comedy and running a bootleg comedy club out of his living room.
– Lindsey Dennis, “Go Jars: Financial Planning from Squirrels for Women and the Paranoid in General”
Go Jars. Mad Money. Cash Stash. Hiding money around your house for emergencies or out of paranoia is a time honored tradition – at least in a family descended from a bootlegger.
Lindsey is an attorney from the PNW from a matriarchal family of single moms. Lindsey is not a financial planner (they went to law school, do not listen to them for actual financial or life advice) but is a fan of finding things they forgot they put places and hoarding jars.
– Abby McClain, “The Meaning of Life is Death & Friendship”
Why do we drop everything for our friends when they’re going through a breakup, or seek comfort in community after a loved one dies? Humans are chemically wired to rely on friendship in times of stress, and when someone in our social network dies, that mechanism helps us compensate for the loss. Nonhuman animals rely on social bonds much like humans to help raise their young, defend from predators and the science says that social bonds help animals live longer, just like they do for us. But do animals know what death is? Or what it means for the friends to die? We’ll take you behind the scenes on the science of loss, comparative thanatology, and what we know about death in the social lives of our closest relatives.
Abby is a PhD Candidate at George Washington University studying wild chimpanzee behavior. She’s interested in how death and loss in social groups can inform what we know about social bonds in nonhuman species and does fieldwork at Gombe National Park, Tanzania.
Doors open at 6, show at 6:30. Talks are 15 minutes with a 5 minute Q&A, and during the breaks, you can play along in our “alternate talk titles” competition to try to win a free drink on us. It’s rowdy, interactive, and the most fun you’ll have learning something all month.
The show is on the second floor of DC9 and is mostly standing room with limited seating available on a first-come, first served basis.
Nerd Nite DC is produced by Rae Pendergrass, navi, and Diva Darling.
Throw horns for history and rush the stage* for statistics riffs at the bar show where the nerds are the rock stars and smart is punk af.
Cue it up: Three experts. Dozens of cheeky slides. A bar full of former gifted kids gone feral who love special interest deep dives. This is Nerd Nite DC.
*okay maybe just do this in spirit. Nerds are wild creatures who can be easily spooked by sudden movements.
Nerd Nite DC has been DC’s favorite irreverent lecture series since 2009.
Your host this month is the incomparable Rae Pendergrass, joined by our three wildly entertaining and wickedly smart speakers with three must-see talks:
– Dave Coleman, “Your Eyes Are Lying Pieces of Sh*t”
Human perception. What you think you see isn’t actually what your eyes are seeing — there’s a whole lot of editing that happens in the visual cortex that you’re unaware of. In reality, your brain is guessing at colors it can’t see, filling in details it expects to see, and in general gaslighting you like the narcissistic little specialized sensory organs they are. Wait– are you even really seeing the slides for this talk…?
Dave is a boring project manager by day and a slightly less boring nerd by night. He’s got three kids and knows how escrow works.
– Dr. Candice Wiswell, “Hangry: An Evolutionary Love Story”
Your brain might not even know you’re hungry, but it’s already out there picking fights on your behalf. This talk is about what’s actually happening between your gut and your mood, why some brains are catastrophically bad at getting the memo, and why every tech bro who told you to skip breakfast owes you an apology.
Candice Wiswell has a PhD in Cognitive-Behavioral Neuroscience and is a neurodivergent writer who coaches other neurodivergent writers for a living. This talk is equal parts research rabbit hole and personal experience — she was probably hangry when she wrote it.
– Elli Wunder, “Alcibiades: F*ckboi of Athens”
A broad biography of the man who had an outsized role in the fall of the Greek empire. A man who was so pretty, so rich, and so clever he managed to betray every great power of his time and still got begged to return home. It’s frankly disgusting.
Elli is a naval architect by day, aspirational diplomatic historian by twilight.
Doors open at 6, show at 6:30. Talks are 15 minutes with a 5 minute Q&A, and during the breaks, you can play along in our “alternate talk titles” competition to try to win a free drink on us. It’s rowdy, interactive, and the most fun you’ll have learning something all month.
The show is on the second floor of DC9 and is mostly standing room with limited seating available on a first-come, first served basis.
Nerd Nite DC is produced by Rae Pendergrass, navi, and Diva Darling.
