Nerd Nite

When

Wednesday August 9, 2023: 7:00pm to 9:00pm  Add to Calendar /   Add to Google Calendar

Where

LIVE (102 S 1st St)

For Whom

Adults 21+

Description

Gather ‘round for an evening of informed and informal talks from a friendly neighborhood expert! We’ll have three speakers, each presenting on a different topic and sharing interesting facts that you never knew you never knew! Past Nerd Nite speakers have led deep dives into topics from the legacy of Louis Pasteur, to the origin of elements, to how a trumpet works, to a dissection of romance novel tropes. So bring a friend, grab a drink, and enjoy an evening among fellow nerds. Be there and be square!

Speakers:

We’ll start things off learning to Recreate a Functioning Ecosystem in Your Neighborhood. So the world is falling to pieces, eh? Let’s grab those pieces and put’m back together. William Kirst of Adapt will show you how.

William is the founder of Adapt Community Supported Ecology and Adapt Landscapes. He’s fairly optimistic that we humans can do this.

Get ready to dive into the world of bacteriology and microorganisms! In Killer Klebsiella: The Bacterium You Need to Know About, Lavinia Unverdorben will teach you enough to become an “honorary microbiologist” before exploring the dangerous yet fascinating bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae.

Lavinia is a PhD student at UofM studying risk factors associated with bacterial gut colonization and infection. When not in the lab, you can find Lavinia at a local CrossFit gym or hanging out with her cat, Teddy.

We’ll close out the night with Finding Exoplanets, Fixing the Drake Equation. Jim Ottaviani will show how we detect exoplanets and share what we have found so far. As a bonus, he’ll also touch on “The Drake Equation: the most famous way to estimate if ETs are really out there. It’s old enough to get Social Security and could use an update. Let’s fix it together!

Jim is a NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory Solar System Ambassador (SSA), a comic book writer, a retired librarian, and a former nuclear engineer.