Nerd Nite Philly

Posts Tagged ‘Mutter Museum’

Are you fine folks ready for the final Nerd Nite of 2014? We sure hope so, since we have an extra special lineup planned. And you won’t be able to get another dose of nerdy action at Frankford Hall until February! We’ll be at Frankford Hall the first Wednesday of the month so mark your calendars now: February 4, March 4, April 1, you get the picture.

Now without further ado, the topics for the final 2014 Nerd Nite:

“From Picked to Pickled: True Tales of the Mütter Museum” by Anna Dhody

“Charles Dickens and the Haunting of Christmas” by Edward Pettit

For a time in the 19th Century, when readers bought the Christmas issue of a magazine, they did not expect to be regaled with tales of good will to all men and visions of sugar plumb fairies. Instead they expected it to contain a tale or two that would chill their very souls— a tale they would read aloud around their hearth on Christmas Eve with the wind whistling down their chimneys and the world outside still and silent.  Ghosts and spirits would rise from the pages and haunt their dreams.  And the man responsible for the Christmas Ghost Story tradition: Charles Dickens.

Edward G Pettit is a Philadelphia writer, professor, book reviewer, film presenter, public lecturer  and all around literary provocateur.  He is known as the Philly Poe Guy, but also recently served as the Charles Dickens Ambassador for the Free Library of Philadelphia’s yearlong Bicentenary celebration of the author’s birth in 2012 and wrote the Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion’s 2013 murder mystery play, Twisted, in which he played Dickens.  Pettit will be reading one of Dickens’s Christmas books, The Cricket on the Hearth at the Maxwell Mansion on December 13.

And Christina Love presents “Join the DarkSide: Dark Matter Matters”

Dark matter makes up over 80% of all the matter in the universe. We don’t know what it is. We can indirectly see dark matter by the gravity that it produces, but we have yet to directly detect it. There are three ways that researchers are currently looking for dark matter: particle detectors, particle accelerators, and excess particles.

Bio: Christina Love received her PhD from Temple University where her work focused on the direct detection of dark matter with the DarkSide Collaboration and she completed her postdoctoral work at the Transportation Security Laboratory working on the detection of explosives for aviation security. She is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Physics at Drexel University where she works on education and outreach. For example, she is the founder of Start Talking Science, an event where researchers present non technical posters to the general public.

And a special holiday treat for everyone: Nerd Nite veteran Ben Leach will be mixing up our usual entertainment segment with a special Price Is Right style contest featuring the 1984 Sears Wish Book! It’s going to be incredible retro fun!

The logistics:

Wednesday, December 3
Doors open at 4pm. Show starts at 7:30pm
$5 cover gets you admission plus happy hour specials all night
Frankford Hall, 1210 Frankford Ave.
Philadelphia, PA 19125

Yo Nerds!

Are you ready for the October edition of Nerd Nite Philly? 
We have a little something for everyone ranging from the history of beer to the science of being scared 
and a wild card with a talk about conjoined twins by an expert from the Mutter Museum. But there’s more! 
Friend of Nerd Nite, David Darwin, will be once again performing his One Man Sideshow act for 
our entertainment.

Without further ado, the discussions at hand:

"Beer, Brats, and Bavaria: A History of Oktoberfest" by John Ceccatti

The first Oktoberfest was celebrated in 1810 to honor the marriage of the Bavarian Crown Prince. The early
festivities included a horse race and a display of local agricultural products. Munich brewers joined the
event later in the 19th century, although the malty amber lager they served likely emerged much earlier 
in response to the Reinheitsgebot, the 16th-century Bavarian brewing law that prohibited brewing during 
the warm summer months. To comply, Bavarians brewed a stronger beer in March – Märzen in German – that was 
stored in cool caves and would be drinkable all the way to October. As this year’s Oktoberfest draws to 
a close, it seemed like an opportune moment to explore the connection between beer and history in Bavaria. 
 
About John: John Ceccatti, a lecturer in the history of science at the University of Pennsylvania, studies 
the history of the German brewing industry. Although he has visited Oktoberfest in the past, he would rather 
enjoy German gemütlichkeit in Munich’s famed englischer Garten or at the Andechs monastery in the 
Bavarian countryside.


Tom Knabe will talk about The Science of Fear: Why Haunted Houses Scare Us

Millions of people attend haunted attractions every year for the thrill of being scared. But what causes 
us to be fearfully startled? Tom Knabe, Creative Director for Fright Factory haunted attraction in 
South Philadelphia, has been in the industry for 9+ years and will go over many of the classic and modern 
scenarios haunted attractions use to maximize fear levels.


"Conjoined Twins: Together Forever?" by Marcy Engleman

They say twins are close, but conjoined twins take that to the extreme. Monsters, freaks of nature, 
abominations: all things people have thought about conjoined, or “Siamese” twins. How do conjoined twins 
happen? This talk will highlight these amazing people throughout history, their origins, lives, and for 
some, separation.

About Marcy: Marcy Engleman is the Museum Educator at the Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of 
Philadelphia. She is proudly a committee member of the Museum Educators Roundtable. Marcy graduated from Penn 
State University with a BS in Wildlife and Fisheries Science and at home, she maintains her own personal zoo 
of reptiles and a bird. Marcy is the mother of twin girls.

Plus Entertainment by David Darwin!

The logistics:
Wednesday, October 1
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

Be there and be square!

Love,
The Nerd Nite Philly Squad