Happy New Year from PubSci! We will be starting 2013 with another sciencey pub quiz on Tuesday 15th January.
Doors of the Upstairs Bar of the Brixton Ritzy will open at 7:30pm for an 8pm start, so bring your brains and gather your team members (max of 5 per team) for a mixed bag of science, pseudoscience and sci-fi questions.
We will be asking for £2 per person to go into the prize pot, so be prepared and spread the word – the more people that come, the bigger the the prize!
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.
Celebrating Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths)
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.
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?
On Tuesday 28th August we will be making the most of the new expanded floor space Upstairs at the Brixton Ritzy by holding a science pub quiz. Ten rounds of questions intended to put your general scientific knowledge to the test.
You won’t need to be Einstein to have some fun and maybe win some prizes, so why not join us for a fun evening of fun science facts and a light smattering of science fiction?
We suggest you try to arrive by 7pm to get food and drink ready for a 7:30pm start.Don’t worry if you don’t have a team to bring, there’s a friendly crowd and there will be other people happy to join forces. We look forward to seeing you on the night!
On Tuesday 17th JulyTuesday 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!
Anne-Maria is a Principal Lecturer in Bioscience and Forensic Biology at London South Bank University. One of her many activities (besides music and co-writing the definitive entry textbook on Ecology) has been to organise, chair and present at conferences for the British Science Association on the Muslim contribution to science.
Islamic heritage in the sciences is a fascinating area that has sometimes been the subject of a form of cultural amnesia – why not join us to find out more about the causes, consequences and cures?
Next CineSci6 screening: Memento 12 February, 2:30pm
The world doesn’t just disappear when you close your eyes. But for Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) it does. After witnessing the violent death of his wife, he is hell-bent on revenge, but the event has triggered short-term memory loss.
To get by, Shelby has to take Polaroid pictures and copious notes, even having memos tattooed on his body as reminders.
Christopher Nolan’s highly acclaimed and inventive thriller subverts movie narrative convention, as we follow Shelby trying to unravel the mystery surrounding his wife’s death, the last clear memory he has.
The film was inspired partly by case study of patient H. M., who developed severe anterograde amnesia after surgery to control his epileptic seizures. Many experts say that Memento has one of the most realistic and accurate depictions of anterograde amnesia in films.
These issues will be discussed after the screening by Hugo Spiers, who researches spatial cognition, memory and goal-directed behaviour at UCL, and Mo Costandi, blogger at Neurophilosophy, which appears on the Guardian Science blogs.
Make sure you come along, it’s the last CineSci6 for now, but we’ll have news of future screenings so keep checking the blog. For previous screening Q&As, you can listen to the podcasts brought to you by the Pod Delusion.
Paolo Viscardi will lead the celebrations with a talk on Darwin’s life, his evolutionary ideas and their lasting legacy. Then we can get down to the serious business of discussion about some of the issues raised over a beer.
Join us from 6pm if you want to get food, drink and conversation. The more formal bit won’t start until 7:30pm and the talk will probably kick off at 8pm. Oh, and as always, PubSci is free!