Nerd Nite Philly

Greetings Nerds!

Are you ready for an extra-brainy Nerd Nite? Join us on Wednesday, June 11 for our next edition of Nerd Nite, featuring talks on that very special super computer we all have inside our heads. This special Nerd Nite in collaboration with the Franklin Institute’s Science After Hours program features a little something for everyone: software to visualize the brain, skull collecting, and a review of brainy characters in popular culture. Want more? We’ll have local video game developers Cipher Prime on hand for some brain games for your entertainment.

Check back soon for more details, but in the meantime…

The line up:

The particulars:

Wednesday, June 11

Doors open at 4pm. Show starts at 7:30pm

$5 cover gets you happy hour specials all night plus admission to this fantastic night

Frankford Hall, 1210 Frankford Ave.

Philadelphia, PA 19125

Yo nerds!

Wednesday, May 14th is our next Nerd Nite, and this time around we’ve got what is probably the most diverse lineup we have ever had. See for yourself!:

Jennifer Vess, “Presidential Hair: Collect Them All!”

The Academy of Natural Sciences has a unique collection in the archives that includes locks of hair from the first twelve Presidents of the United States.  Why?  For centuries locks of hair played a role in remembrance and mourning, and eventually science.  The talk will (hopefully) take everyone beyond the ‘ew’ factor felt by most people today concerning human hair no longer attached to a human head and get into the weird and wonderful world of souvenirs, Victorian memorials and microscopes.

Bio: Jennifer Vess is the Brooke Dolan Archivist at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University.  She has spent the last ten years in the world of museums moving from museum education to collections care and exhibition development.

Simon Joseph, “Bear Flags and Bad Puns”

From the man who brought you the the History of and behind the Flag(s) of Germany comes a new ill-advised venture into the world of Vexillology. In this talk, Simon Joseph will travel the world looking at interesting flags that you probably have never heard of. Well… at least travel Europe and North America. And maybe some boring flags. And maybe some that you have heard of. At the very least, there’ll be bears involved… somehow.

Bio: Simon M. “the Cannibal” Joseph has never invaded a country for profit or personal gain, and definitely did not start the Russo-Japanese War. A merry-maker and gregarious fellow, he’s wasted many bar napkins explaining what mixed-member proportional representation is, showing how to draw the flag of the UK, and creating terrible coats of arms (with blazon!) for unsuspecting victims.

Chris Cummins, “The Secret World of Spider-Man”

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can…which apparently sometimes involves using a giant robot to fight monsters and utilizing his super powers to help a Yeti who loves to steal ice cream return home. Confused? You aren’t the only one! In this speech, Chris Cummins will talk about some of Spider-Man’s weirdest adventures in comic books and on television. He will also take a look at some of the strangest Spidey merchandise you’ve never seen before.

Bio: Chris Cummins is a writer and comic book historian whose work regularly appears on Den of Geek US, Geekadelphia, and Topless Robot. He’s also the creator of the websites Hibernation Sickness and What’s Dave Kendall Wearing? and the host of the upcoming Sci-Fi Explosion event at PhilaMOCA. Most importantly, he’s also one of the Nerd Nite Philly co-bosses. Whee!

Plus music by Sidewalk Atlas!

Wednesday, May 14.

Doors open at 4pm. Show starts at 7:30pm. $5.

Frankford Hall

1210 Frankford Ave.

Philadelphia, PA 19125

215-634-3338

Nerd Nite Brunch: Body vs. Booze
A Nerd Nite that is held during the day? GAMECHANGER!

Yes friends, we are teaming up with the Philadelphia Science Festival for a special Nerd Nite Brunch event focusing on booze and its wonderful/detrimental effects upon the body! Along with a great brunch menu from Frankford Hall and some fun giveaways and activities, there will also be the following talks:

Aman Goyal, Julie Lyzinski Nettleton and Noelle Melartin, “The Not So Happy Drunk”
There are a lot of misconceptions about the effects of alcohol on the brain and body. Think of this talk as an “Alcohol 101” on how to maximize the fun of drinking while minimizing the negative consequences.

Aman Goyal, Julie Lyzinski Nettleton and Noelle Melartin all work for the Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Program Initiatives. They bring their combined years of education, experience and expertise to this Nerd Nite for what promises to be a fascinating speech.

Ava Forte Vitali, “Lore, Legend, Lush: Drinking in Ancient Egypt”

Trained archaeologist and art historian Ava Forte Vitali  is a Featured Lecturer at the Morbid Anatomy Library and Museum in Brooklyn, New York. Her series, “Death and the Occult in the Ancient World” aims to bridge the gap between the educated, academic community and the eager, interested public. She has excavated in both Egypt and Turkey, and completed her Master’s Degree at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, where she focused on domestic cult in Ancient Egypt. She currently works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in collections management for Greek and Roman Art.

Dr. Michael Oshinsky, PhD, “Drunk Rats and Your Hangover”
Dr. Oshinsky will be discussing how alcohol is broken down by the body and how this leads to the nasty symptoms of a hangover. Using animal models of migraine, he discovered the cause of the dreaded hangover headache and a scientific basis for its treatment.

Michael Oshinsky, PhD, combines a passion for science with a desire to help migraine sufferers. Dr. Oshinsky is currently an associate professor in the Department of Neurology at the Thomas Jefferson University, where he works closely with doctors at the Jefferson Headache Center to study the most complicated areas of headache medicine. Dr. Oshinsky’s research focuses on understanding migraine and chronic headache. Using animal models of migraine, he has developed methods for studying the mechanism of action of migraine treatments and hangover headache. In his spare time, Dr. Oshinsky enjoys spending time with his children, whom he tries to “inspire to make a difference.

Plus: Music by Los Festingos!

The particulars:
Sunday, April 27th
Frankford Hall
1210 Frankford Ave.
Show starts at noon.
$5 cover gets you admission and happy hour specials.

See you on Sunday!

Yo Nerds!

Spring has sprung and the nerds are out in abundance! So revel in the fact that winter is finally a cold, bleak memory and head inside at Frankford Hall to celebrate the season of renewal with these three awesomely diverse talks:

Gigi Naglak: “Not Your History Teacher’s Thomas Jefferson”
Thomas Jefferson is known the world over as a polymath, founding father of the United States, brilliant statesman and scientist, and deep Enlightenment-era thinker whose ruminations on democracy shook up an entire world order. He was a complex man whose commitment to the “inalienable rights” of human equality was belied by the hundreds of slaves he owned in his lifetime. This talk is about none of that serious stuff.

Bio: Gigi Naglak is the new curator of museum education at the American Philosophical Society. When not investigating the 18^th and 19^th centuries with visitors from around the world, she is often dancing with fans and making dick jokes as one half of Chlamydia dell’Arte: A Sex-Ed Burlesque.

Deanna Day: “A Short Biography of the Medicine Cabinet”
Although the bathroom medicine cabinet is ubiquitous today in the American home, this architectural innovation has only existed for less than a century.  In this talk, I will share the medicine cabinet’s strange biography, including how it has created gender conflicts, what it tells us about changing healthcare politics, and why it became a lightning rod for snooping neighbors and friends.

Bio: Deanna Day is a historian and writer living in Philadelphia.  She is currently finishing her doctorate in the History & Sociology of Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania, where she works in the areas of medical technology and women’s health.  More of her work can be found at deannaday.net.

Ben Leach: “Poster Child: How Other Countries Created a New Spin on Classic Movie Poster Designs”
For generations, movie posters served as our first impressions of what might have become life-changing experiences, and many posters are considered works of art in their own right. However, when it came time to market these films to other countries, certain countries decided to take it upon themselves to create something different and so far removed from the original design to reflect their own culture and tastes in film. Without leaving Frankford Hall, Ben will take you to Thailand, Ghana, and Poland, where the art of movie posters is quite different than anything you ever saw at the Ritz or AMC. From the emphasis on horror in Thailand to the folk art nature of advertising in Ghana to the insanity of a modern art movement in Poland, you may find yourself demanding that theaters display their movie posters’ foreign counterparts!

Bio: Ben Leach is a New Jersey-based science and medical writer. However, he is also a collector of the eclectic and unusual, especially if it’s something that relates to his childhood from the 1980s and 1990s, and it’s a rare weekend when he hasn’t checked a flea market or yard sale. He has been a published author on collectibles since he was 19, with work appearing in a bunch of once well-received magazines that don’t exist anymore because PRINT IS DYING. Currently, he operates a website dedicated to antiques and collectibles with his family called The Collector Gene. Last year, he spent 20 minutes at Nerd Nite talking about Mr. T.

Plus: Music by Beta Test!

The particulars:

Wednesday, April 9th
Frankford Hall
1210 Frankford Ave.
Show starts at 7:30pm
$5 cover gets you admission and happy hour specials all evening

P.S.: Be sure to join us at Frankford Hall on Sunday, April 27th at noon as we team up with the Philadelphia Science Festival for our Nerd Nite Brunch: Body vs. Booze event!

Yo Nerds,

Are you ready for a special edition Nerd Nite? On Wednesday, March 12, we’re teaming up with the Franklin Institute to bring you some special talks highlighting life and death in that storied ancient city of Pompeii PLUS a talk by a local geologist who will talk about current volcanic research to tie everything into the 21st century. To shake things up a little bit, we’ll be trying out some nerdy quizzo in between speakers with special prizes from the Franklin and Frankford Hall. Without further ado, the talks at hand:

Dr. Brian Rose: Dining and Lovemaking in Pompeii

The destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 CE allows us to reconstruct extensively the nature of daily life in an Early Imperial Roman town, especially the residents’ attitudes toward food and sex. Dr. Rose presents an overview of those attitudes by examining the archaeological discoveries in both cities, including the wall paintings, mosaics, dining rooms, and food remains. The discussion also includes cookbooks and dinner parties as well as prostitution and same-sex relationships.

Bio: Brian Rose is the James B. Pritchard Professor of Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania and Deputy Director of the University’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He has been excavating at Troy since 1988, where he has been Head of Post-Bronze Age Excavations at the site for nearly two decades, and is also co-director of the Gordion Excavations in central Turkey. He excavated at Aphrodisias for five years, and his survey project in the Granicus River Valley focused on recording and mapping the Greco-Persian tombs that dominate the area.

Dr. Janet Monge: Herculaneum: The Archaeology of Catastrophe—Life and Death in a Roman Resort Town

On a hot summer day in the bustling Bay of Naples, Mt. Vesuvius explodes and rains down superheated gas and lava onto the nearby towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Some inhabitants of Herculaneum escaped into beach caves used to store boats for the heavy marine traffic into the cove. Their deaths by heat shock, which instantly killed its victims by vaporizing their soft tissues while preserving their hard bony skeletons under layers of volcanic ash, affords a unique opportunity to study life and death among the ancient Romans in ways that are truly unique in the study of the bioarchaeology of the ancient world.

Bio: Janet Monge has done fieldwork in many locations in Europe, Kenya and Australia. Her primary interest is in the development of methodologies to preserve and broadcast datasets to the physical anthropology community using Computed Tomography, traditional radiology, and human dental micro-anatomy as well as in the distribution of the highest quality castings of human fossils to Universities and Museums all over the world. She teaches courses in Forensic Anthropology and has been engaged in many forensic case studies involving skeletal, burned, mutilated and mummified human remain.

Laura Guertin: How Volcanoes Make Our Lives Exciting – Even on the East Coast

Come hear about the latest volcanic activity in Hawaii and Iceland, the volcanic threat of Yellowstone and the Canary Islands, and the future models of volcanoes forming along the Jersey Shore, and see how well you sleep tonight…

Bio: Laura Guertin, or “Dr. G” as her students refer to her, is a marine geologist and teaches at Penn State Brandywine. She is a passionate educator that cares deeply about increasing the scientific and geographic literacy of students pursuing non-science degrees. Dr. G loves the outdoors, visiting natural National Parks, geocaching/Earthcaching, and is a #NASASocial alum. Find her on Twitter @guertin and on the web http://about.me/drlauraguertin

Plus! Quizzo with prizes from Frankford Hall, the Franklin Institute, the Penn Museum, and the Philadelphia Science Festival

The details:

Wednesday, March 12

Doors at 7:00PM, show starts at 7:30pm

$5 cover gets you admission plus happy hour specials all evening