Monday, June 30, the 20th Nerd Nite East Bay kicked off with a lecture on bees given by Hilary Sardinas. “I think they’re very charismatic,” the researcher who seeks habitat restoration for native bees explained.

Nerd Nite East Bay launched originally at the Bay Area Science Festival, a ten-day festival that takes place at the end of October.  Originally, the event took place at the Stork Club, a music venue on Telegraph Avenue.

Every last Monday night of the month, amid saucy fries, draft beers, and random, mismatched chairs, a just-as random lecture can be enjoyed at the New Parkway in Uptown Oakland.  The event begins at 8 p.m.

Those who arrive early can enjoy the show in a bistro-style room, with round tables and the speaker at the front of the room.  Those who arrive later sit in the next room over, in a theatre-style room, with the lecture live-streamed onto a large screen.

Sardinas explained the origin of bees, bee nesting, and her own personal research, and received intermittent chuckles from the audience.  She even brought a breed chamber—a mesh covered dome to measure the number of bees breeding in a specific spot.

When the New Parkway opened at the end of 2012, Nerd Nite moved to 474 24th Street. This current venue both accommodates a larger audience and also facilitates a greater feeling of community, according to Rick Karnesky, a member of the Nerd Nite team.

The next lecture, given by two development psychologists from the Cognitive Development Lab at UC Berkeley Caren Walker and Sophie Bridgers made an analogy, for the audience, which compared a child to a scientist.

“What have you accomplished in the last two years? Be realistic,” Walker and Bridgers asked the audience. Walker and Bridgers then explained the learning developments that happen from birth to two years in babies.  Using a video—amid numerous technical difficulties—to demonstrate to the audience how young children use the scientific method to evaluate problems and then solve them.

“We are not…” Walker and Bridgers explain of their research, “just in the baby-surprising business.”
“The best lectures show speaker passion,” Karnesky says. It is just passion that can cure almost all wounds.”
Given by Recreational Adult Dodgeball founders Hunter Huston and Adam Howe, the final talk explained kneepads, strategy, and throwing as a team in the many-ages game. Dodgeball, they explained, “is the new Zumba.”

Other lectures are more hypo geographic, but NerdNite tries to stay local.  The focus, Karnesky explains, is on local people involved in the community.  “It is really amazing to come together to talk about what you do professionally in a nonthreatening context over drinks,” says Karnesky.

Nerd Nite East Bay takes place every last Monday of the month at the New Parkway, 474 24th Street.  Doors open at 7p.m. and the first speaker begins at 8 p.m.  The cost is $8.