On Tuesday 20th November we will have museum curator and regular PubSci host Paolo Viscardi talking about museum collections and their value to science, society and species survival.
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Tagged Brixton, Brixton Ritzy, cafe sci, cafe scientifique, event, geek, Geeks and Nerds, London, Pub, Pubsci, Science, Science Communication, Science in Society, science in the pub, social
On Tuesday 16th October we will have a PubSci special celebrating women in STEM hosted by Dr Rebekah Higgitt.
Ada Lovelace Day is about sharing stories of women in STEM subjects who have been inspirational. Ada was born in 1815 and became a mathematician, writer and arguably the world’s first computer programmer over 100 years before the first electronic computer was invented. Talk about being ahead of her time!
We will celebrate by having a variety of women at different stages of their STEM careers talking about what they do, their experiences as a female in STEM and the female figures that have inspired them. Then the floor will open for the usual exchange of ideas and quaffing of appropriately alcoholic beverages until time is called at the bar.
Join us at the Brixton Ritzy Upstairs Bar from 18:45ish for food, drink and a chat, ready for an 19:30 start.
Oh yes, and as always entry is free!
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Tagged Ada Lovelace, cafe sci, Pub, Pubsci, Science, Science Communication, Science in Society, science in the pub, social, women in science
On Tuesday 18th September we will have PubSci regular Dr. John Hamilton guiding us on a tour of why physicists always bang on about symmetry, and how it fits in to theoretical physics.
You may have encountered John if you’ve been to PubSci before, he’s the one who has clearly explained the answers to really interesting questions like “what are the LHC and the Higgs Boson all about?” and “what does it mean if neutrinos travel faster than the speed of light?”
John will be talking mainly about symmetry, touching on singularities and string theory (and why it’s probably wrong) along with all sorts of exciting concepts that we’ve heard about thanks to the enthusiastic outpourings of Prof. Brian Cox.
In short, it’ll be an evening of really complicated science made really interesting and understandable. Plus beer.
So why not join us at the Brixton Ritzy Upstairs Bar from 18:45ish for food, drink and a chat, ready for an 19:45ish start?
Oh yes, and as always it’s free!
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Tagged Beer, Brixton, Brixton Ritzy, Drink, geek, Geeks and Nerds, Higgs Boson, Large Hadron Collider, London, Physics, Pub, Pubsci, Science, Science Communication, science in the pub, social, Standard Model, String theory
On Tuesday 17th July Tuesday 24th July we will be finding out more about dinosaur behaviour with Dr. David Hone.
Understanding the diet and feeding habits of long extinct species is a challenge, but it can provide an insight into predator-prey relationships, ecosystem structure and animal behaviour in past environments.
Majungatholus atopus feeding. Artwork by Demetrios M. Vital
Dave is the founder of Ask A Biologist, he runs an excellent blog and he is one of the latest additions to the Guardian’s science blogging stable. He is also an active vertebrate palaeontologist involved in some really interesting research on dinosaurs, pterosaurs and birds. That means he isn’t just reporting on this topic – you’ll be hearing about the research, results and the fossils from the source.
Why not join him for an insight into the science used to explore the feeding habits of the mighty meat-eating dinosaurs – you may never see T. rex and Velociraptor in quite the same way again!
The talk will start around 7:45pm, but the venue (Upstairs at the Ritzy) will be open from 6pm for those who want food, a drink and a bit of geeky chat. Hope to see you there!
Oh yes, and it’s FREE!
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Tagged Brixton, Brixton Ritzy, cafe sci, cafe scientifique, Dinosaur, Earth Sciences, geek, Geeks and Nerds, Mesozoic, Paleontology, Pub, Pubsci, Science, science in the pub, social, Velociraptor, Vertebrates
For December’s Science In The Pub there will be a science-themed pub quiz hosted by Kash Farooq and James Longstaff. The usual PubSci hosts Paolo and James get a night off – as they will be taking part in the quiz.
And, thanks to our good friends at the British Science Association, there will be some appropriately geeky/sciencey prizes that we will dish out as we see fit!
We suggest that you form teams of 3 or 4 people. Don’t worry if you don’t have have enough people – just turn up. We’re a friendly bunch and we’re sure we can get everyone into a team.
It might also be a good idea to “mix disciplines” when forming a team – each round will have questions from various areas of science. We’ve been busy thinking up questions for a few weeks now and have come up with a fairly wide variety.
To give you a clue of the sort of questions to expect, here are the categories we came up when we were thinking up questions:
See you on Tuesday 6th December from 7:30, upstairs at the Brixton Ritzy!
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Tagged Astronomy, Beer, British Science Association, Brixton, Geeks and Nerds, London, Pub, pubquiz, Pubsci, Quiz, Science, science in the pub, social
At 7:30pm on Tuesday 1st November 2011 (just a few days before Bonfire Night), we will be exploring the science of FIRE with Fire & Explosion scientist Claire Benson ‘Burner’.
This is your chance to find out about how and why forensic scientists undertake fire investigation, with details about everything from charring to explosive combustion.
Here’s a taster:
All of this excitement is free and can be had over a pint of beer, or perhaps some flaming sambucas if you really want to get into the mood.
Usual venue upstairs at the Brixton Rizty – hope to see you there!
(N.B. This video contains some of the greatest dance moves ever seen)
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Tagged Bonfire Night, Brixton, cafe sci, cafe scientifique, event, explosion, fire, Forensic science, geek, Geeks and Nerds, Guy Fawkes Night, Pub, Pubsci, Science, Science Communication, Science in Society, science in the pub, sitp, social
On 29th September 2011 a very exciting event will be taking place – the 21st Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.
For those who aren’t aware of the Ig Nobel Prizes, they celebrate the best of research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.
Past winners have carried out research on swearing as a response to pain, the microbiological laboratory hazard of bearded men and fellatio in fruitbats.
We don’t know who the winners for this year will be yet, but at 7:30pm Tuesday 4th October, Upstairs at the Ritzy in Brixton, be prepared to discuss and debate the finer points of the kind of science that brought us levitating frogs and homosexual necrophiliac mallards (which we have discussed before).
And of course, we will be running another live experiment. Hope to see you there!
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Tagged Annals of Improbable Research, Brixton, cafe sci, cafe scientifique, event, experiment, geek, Geeks and Nerds, Ig Nobel Prize, Pub, Pubsci, Science, science in the pub, social
On Tuesday 6th September Upstairs at the Brixton Ritzy starting at 7:30pm (although you can come earlier if you like) our Designated Scientist Alice Sheppard of Galaxy Zoo will give you a glimpse into the world of Astronomy and Citizen Science over a pint of something nice.
This will be followed by a live experiment and probably a debate (if previous months are anything to go by)!
Galaxy Zoo
Astronomy has been the subject of wonder and speculation for as long as historical records exist (and probably for longer than that). As with all science, people got some things right and – even with the best methods available – some things wrong.
Since 2007 Alice Sheppard has run the Galaxy Zoo Forum, the discussion area for an online astronomy project with 300,000 members worldwide. Galaxy Zoo has so far produced 21 papers, whose authors and acknowledged contributors include several ‘ordinary’ citizens. Some of the findings were a direct result of questions or collections of objects created by users, who became “Citizen Scientists”.
Alice takes us through some of the best and worst of astronomical history and what ancient and modern mistakes have been made. We will hear about the questions people have brought to Galaxy Zoo, the ways in which biases have been found and dealt with by the scientists and participants, the beautiful and inspiring projects created by untrained people and the scientific thinking they have learned to apply for themselves.
We also take a look at citizen science in general, how Galaxy Zoo has taught large numbers of people to understand and use science and we will explore what this might mean for engaging the wider public.
By day Alice is an office superviser at a charity for disabled people; by night she writes about science and astronomy
The Experiment
After the talk you will get the chance (or be forcibly coerced) to be involved in a live experiment.
The Debate
A chance to discuss the most recent issues in science, if you have something to get off your chest about science, now is the time to do it.
See you on Tuesday!
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Tagged Astronomy, Brixton, cafe sci, cafe scientifique, Citizen science, Debate, event, experiment, GalaxyZoo, geek, Geeks and Nerds, Pub, Pubsci, science in the pub, sitp
On Tuesday 2nd August Upstairs at the Brixton Ritzy (starting at 7:30pm although you can come earlier if you like) we’re going to give you a glimpse into the seedier side of sex in nature, with PubSci founder James Robson providing an entertaining talk on the subject.
Then we plan to open the floor to discussion about the role of observation in science, using an Ig Nobel-winning paper (pdf) on homosexual necrophilia in Mallards to get the conversation started.
Ducks are dirty rapists
As usual there will also be an experiment, this one is topical and will involve beer.
Sex, beer and science – what’s not to love? Unless of course you’re Brian Foy and his wife, who experienced the phenomenon of a normally vector-borne virus being transmitted sexually after some fieldwork… at least they got a paper out of it (pdf).
See you on Tuesday!
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Tagged Beer, Brixton, cafe sci, cafe scientifique, Drink, experiment, Food, geek, Geeks and Nerds, James Robson, Mallard, Necrophilia, Pub, Pubsci, Recreation, Science, science in the pub, Sexuality, social
The June PubSci was a somewhat chaotic event as we tried an open-mic night. An edited podcast of the evening is available to hear at the Pod Delusion.
Our experiment for the evening was a simple reaction experiment that was meant to test the hypothesis that people’s reactions (measured by catching a ruler) would improve after one drink and then get progressively worse as they consumed more alcohol. Unfortunately the nature of the experiment made it difficult to keep track of exactly what was going on at times.
One factor that we failed to consider was the rate at which alcohol is metabolised (one unit per hour on average) so give the rate of alcohol consumption I’m not sure that many of our experimental subjects had actually increased their blood alcohol substantially over the course of the evening (sensible drinkers – who’d have thunk it?).
As a result, the averaged data from the evening looked like this (34 started the experiment of which 3 did not drink alcohol and 11 only had one drink, so were not included in the analysis, results are based on 20 drinkers – 9 female, 11 male) :
Not exactly unequivocal results, but at least they don’t contradict the experimental hypothesis.
Experiment aside, the open-mic format proved to be good fun and rather entertaining, but for July we plan to have a more structured evening hosted by our Designated Scientist Lizzie Crouch.
Lizzie is a self-confessed science geek who has spent 3 years working as a science researcher in factual television and is now studying Science Communication at Imperial College. She’s back from the Cheltenham Science Festival with a great booze-related experiment to get ideas (& the beers) flowing.
We’ll be starting at 7:30pm on Tuesday 5th July at the usual venue, Upstairs at the Ritzy. Come and join us for a free and informal evening of scientific thinking and peer-reviewed drinking.
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Tagged Alcohol, Brixton, cafe sci, cafe scientifique, event, experiment, geek, Geeks and Nerds, Open mike, Pod Delusion, Pub, Pubsci, Science, Science Communication, science in the pub, sitp, social
PubSci 