This month we learn about the weird history of teeth, the science of joke telling, the challenges of urban chicken farming, and how YOU would do on the Nerd Nite stage! That’s right, in addition to two expert presentations, a lucky audience member will have the chance to deliver a short presentation using humor, gumption, and surprise power point slides!

• When: Thursday, March 26 – doors at 6:30pm, show at 7:00pm
• Where: The Oriental Theater
• Tickets: $5 online, $8 at the door – 18+

ONLINE TICKET SALES ARE CLOSED BUT PLENTY OF ADDITIONAL TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR!

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The Science of Joke Telling

by Brent Gill

How much planning goes in to a comic’s set? Through a series of jokes, Brent walks us through the science behind telling jokes. Yes! There is a science!

Speaker creds: Brent Gill knew he would be a performer the first time he felt the heat of a roomful of eyes on his bare genitalia onstage. (It’s a long story and a sealed court document). While merely a teenager, Brent was a steel worker by day and exotic dancer by night. His goal: Immortality. However, a lingering knee injury suffered during a particularly erotic shimmy to Ginuwine’s “Pony,” as well as an expanding waistline made it clear that Brent Gill’s dancing days neared an end. Initially his attempts at nude, comedic, interpretive dance failed, but he quickly found confidence behind the mic as a more traditional standup comedian. Though slightly less erotic than his previous endeavors, Brent’s onstage charisma and energy will leave audiences aroused and entranced. “Brent is a MUST SEE live act” says Urban Life magazine and the Boulder Weekly describes him as “the love child of Chris Farley and Winnie the Pooh.” He is a house comic at the Comedy Works and was a featured performer at the High Plains Comedy Festival, Laughing Devil Festival, Def Comedy Jam and Comcast. Find Brent at www.brenthillcomedy.com.

Why Your PCP Should Have a DMD

by Alexandra Basset

Perfect teeth have been a sign of wealth and poverty and a cherished aspect of attractiveness for thousands of years. However, few understand oral health disease and its effects, quickly regarding the dental visit as a chore instead of an educational adventure! There is an inherent mystery behind that strange orifice of your mouth, a expressive vessel – literally and figuratively – of your eating habits, stress level, genetic origins, and even your identity itself. Alexandra Bassett, DMD will discuss several common dental questions – ones, judging by the fact that she gets them at almost every cocktail party, you are all dying to know.

Speaker creds: Dr. Alexandra Bassett is a newly relocated dentist in the Denver area and a graduate of Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston. While in dental school, Dr. Bassett spent much of her time developing stronger community service initiatives in her school’s curriculum. She is a member of the American Dental Association, Colorado Dental Association, Metro Denver Dental Society, and the Colorado Prosthodontics Society. When she is not working as a professional smile enhancement and retention specialist, she is hitting the slopes, bagging peaks, sending routes, and trying to make people smile via less stressful methods, such as jokes.

Chicken Keeping for City Slickers

by Leah Charney
Chicken keeping: is it a passing fad or lasting lifestyle? Leah Charney, fake urban farmer, discusses the good, the bad, and the ugly of keeping chickens in the Mile High City. Can chicken poop change your life? Should my chickens wear saddles?

Speaker creds: Leah Charney is a food writer, story teller, chicken wrangler, and all around entertainer. For recipes, musings, and chicken videos, check out Leah’s blog Bacon and Other Bad Habits or follow her on Twitter at @TheLeahKitten.

Improvised Genius

by YOU!

Think you have what it takes to be a Nerd Nite speaker but just don’t know what to talk about? Well then we’ll make a presentation for you! Come test your nerd merits and give a totally improvised 5-minute presentation. We’ll bring the powerpoint, you bring the brain.

CANCELLED:

Cellular Automata: All the World’s a Grid

by Brian Hanson

“What if I told you that simple, repetitive, mindless graph-paper doodles can change the way you see the world? If you were my wife you’d say ‘put down the graph-paper and take out the trash.’ Bear with me, though! Cellular Automata are the simplest of computational programs: take a grid, use a fixed rule to color each box black or white, then rinse and repeat ad nauseam. Sounds simple, right? Not always… Using this seemingly simple system, I will reveal surprising insights into the mysteries of physics, biology, society, philosophy, and the very nature of our universe.”

Speaker creds: Brian Hanson is a resident physician at Rose Family Medicine. His qualifications include college multivariable calculus & computer science courses (within the past 12 years!), frequent conversations **with** intelligent siblings, an innate curiosity for the underlying patterns of nature, and his quest for the meaning of life.

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As always, a huge thanks to our primary sponsor Sexpot Comedy and to our photographer partners in crime From the Hip Photo!

Take a moment to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute updates and fun facts, and be the first to know event details by signing up for our email list (in the bar to the right).

Want to be a Nerd Nite speaker? Or know someone who should be? Let us know!

SNOW BE DAMNED! TONIGHT WE LEARN!

How do the Avengers represent our hopes and fears around science and technology? And how do you play a nearly century-old instrument that you never touch?

• When: Wednesday, February 25 – doors at 6:30pm, show at 7:00pm
• Where: The Oriental Theater
• Tickets: $5 online, $8 at the door – 18+

Embrace that inner early-bird and grab your tickets now!

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Why You’re Afraid of Science and Technology, as Explained by the Avengers

by Kyle MunKittrick

How are our collective hopes and fears about science and technology demonstrated in the characteristics of each Avenger? You might be surprised to find out!

Speaker creds: NYU educated bioethicist Kyle Munkittrick works by day to revolutionize health care, by night he a can be found oversharing his opinions and over analyzing science, philosophy, and culture on twitter @popbioethics. His longer writing can be found on Discover Magazine, Slate, and io9.

A Century of Electronic Music

by Victoria Lundy

The theremin was invented by a young Russian physicist named Lev Sergevich Termen (known in the West as Léon Theremin) in October 1920. It’s a electronically straightforward but musically difficult instrument, and it influenced everything that came after it. We’ll take a look at these early electronic instruments and see how we’ve come back to the theremin after it almost disappeared in the 20th century, only to experience a renaissance in the 21st. Victoria will demonstrate the basic principles of playing the instrument, give a short lesson, and play a few pieces demonstrating its versatility.

Speaker creds: Victoria Lundy has been playing theremin in the Denver experimental/underground/punk scene since the 90s. She was a member of the avant garde Carbon Dioxide Orchestra, who opened for the legendary Silver Apples in 1997; is a founding member of Denver’s acclaimed nerd rock band The Inactivists and has appeared all of their 6 CDs and EP, and as a guest player live and in recordings with other local artists. She also was a member of Jackson Induced Mutant Laboratory and performed with them at the 2011 Denver Noise Festival and at the 2013 Denver Post Underground Music Showcase with ambient project Pythian Whispers. Victoria has appeared at many venues in Denver as well as Boulder’s Dairy Center for the Performing Arts, and demonstrated the theremin at the World Science Fiction Convention. In the last year she’s participated in a series of musique concréte performances at the Walnut Room and DU Lamont School of Music, and concentrating on solo ambient work that explores the expressive qualities of the theremin.

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As always, a huge thanks to our primary sponsor Sexpot Comedy and to our photographer partners in crime From the Hip Photo!

Take a moment to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute updates and fun facts, and be the first to know event details by signing up for our email list (in the bar to the right).

Want to be a Nerd Nite speaker? Or know someone who should be? Let us know!

The holidays are over and the breaking of resolutions is well underway. So what better time to talk about the science of responsibility, marijuana, and dead bodies. Wait…what? Join us January 22 for a new year with new speakers and the same ol’ rowdy nerdery!

Plus we’re thrilled to announce a new partnership with Sexpot Comedy! These hilarious, Denver-based wunderkinds are the masters of all things entertaining in the Mile High City and look forward to bringing you the science of comedy throughout Nerd Nite in 2015. Keep an eye on our Nerd About Town calendar for other exciting Sexpot shows around town.

• When: Thursday, January 22 – doors at 6:30pm, show at 7:00pm
• Where: The Oriental Theater
• Tickets: $5 online, $8 at the door – 18+

Embrace that inner early-bird and grab your tickets now!

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What Makes a Responsible Person?

by Rachel Weston Rowell

The Responsibility Process is a model that explains how your brain responds to a problem. In an effort to allow you to cope with problems and move on quickly, your brain does a lot of work to give you someone or something else to pin your problem on. The process includes steps such as Blame (someone did this to me), Justify (the world/environment/situation did this to me), Shame (blame myself), and Obligation (the world/environment/situation I created is doing this to me). In our lives we spend a lot of time in Shame and Obligation. The issue with all of these responses is that they are coping, not growing and learning spaces. Only when we move to responsibility can we move beyond the problem. Rachel teaches us how to get there.

Speaker creds: Rachel did her undergrad and graduate work at UC Berkeley and CU Boulder respectively in communication and linguistics and now works for Rally Software in Boulder investigating what’s next for the ever-challenging work of building Lean and Agile teams. When she isn’t transforming engineering and business practices, Rachel does improv at the Bovine Metropolis Theater in Denver and volunteers for Code for America through the Code for Denver Brigade. That is, when she isn’t enjoying her very own at home hilarity: her husband and 3 year old daughter.

A Complete Guide to Marijuana

by Jake Browne

We all have an endocannabinoid system, but what is it and how did it get there? Why do some marijuana smell like a dead skunk and why do some people actually like that? Jake Browne, marijuana critic for the Denver Post, breaks down everything you never knew about marijuana, from the gene level to Cheech and Chong sized joints.

Speaker creds: Jake Browne is a Denver-based comedian, writer, and co-host of the Whiskey and Cigarettes podcast. He founded the HempBox, a subscription box focused on hemp consumer goods, in 2014; is co-host of Comics Against Civility, a Cards Against Humanity themed game show that runs monthly in Denver; and is a writer for CULTURE Magazine. He also happens to be a pot critic for The Denver Post. Check him out on Facebook and Twitter!

Inside the Mind of a Coroner

by Lora Thomas

We’ve all seen intense, case-solving, music montage scenes with coroners on CSI or The X-Files but what does a coroner actually do? Do you even want to know? We do! Lora explains the real world of dead bodies and how a hyper-sucessful cop becomes a coroner.

Speaker creds: Lora Thomas was elected Douglas County Coroner in 2010 and served until January 13, 2015. The county coroner is responsible for determining the cause and manner of death. Lora’s term was nothing if not eventful. She cut the budget by 33% while the caseload increased 45% and two former employees are now convicted felons! Wha?

Before being elected coroner, Lora Thomas worked with the Colorado State Patrol for 26 years, becoming the first woman captain and major in the organization.  She has earned an MBA, finance, and criminal justices degrees.

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Take a moment to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute updates and fun facts, and be the first to know event details by signing up for our email list (in the bar to the right).

See you soon!

p.s. Want to be a Nerd Nite speaker? Or know someone who should be? Let us know!

It’s the final Nerd Nite of 2014! 

• When: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 – doors at 6:30pm, show at 7:00pm
• Where: The Oriental Theater
• Tickets: $5 online, $8 at the door – 18+

How GPS Works: Just Ask Flavor Flav

by Andrew Novick

Many people, know what the Global Positioning System (GPS) does, but many people do not know how it does it. With the help of Flavor Flav and Public Enemy, I’ll venture to explain it. I’ll also explain hacking jamming, GPS toasters and why “GPS on TV” is usually flawed.

“Don’t believe the hype? Then you don’t know what TIME it is.” – Flav

Speaker Bio: Andrew Novick is a Denver native and a prolific provocateur of wackiness in town. Whether as a performer of music and/or PowerPoint presentations (Warlock Pinchers, GetYourGoing, respectively) or running themed events (PeepsBQ, Andrew Novick’s X-Treme Pancake Breakfast, Japanese Medical Punk Dance Party and Surgery Dinner, etc.), he tries to keep himself (and others!) busy. He is also an electrical engineer (measuring atomic clocks!) and an avid collector (www.isaveeverything.com). Andrew has been called the “world’s most recreational photographer” – snapping photos to fit into the countless themes of his visual vernacular.

Past art shows include: Candy, Cuts and Bruises (~2000), The Astounding Problem of Andrew Novick (2009), International Food Phenomena (2010); Objectophelia (group show, 2010), Window Dressing (2010), Super-Relative (with Samuel Schimek, 2010). Pieces in Andrew Novick’s latest collection, FOOD FACE have titles such as: “Meatballs!”, “Pizza Face” and “Eyeballs!”, which sound perhaps more horrifying than delicious. Recent art shows include Japan Popsplosion! (2104) And Unstill Life (2014), both of which showed digital prints on canvas of quickly curated shots of brightly-colored subjects. Andrew strives to show thinks all around us that are fun and interesting and usually provoke conversation and new ideas. He is also co-teaching a College class about FUN!

Speaker Bio: Zane is an assistant professor of anthropology at UC Denver. She is a world expert on human chins (that’s a thing) and studies the effects of stress on health in beautiful Aotearoa/New Zealand. She enjoys all the beer and outdoorsy things that Colorado has to offer.