Nerd Nite Toronto: The One-off

Tranzac Club – 292 Brunswick Ave, Toronto, ON M5S 2M7
Saturday, November 9, 2024
7:00 Doors open, 7:30 Start
Tickets available HERE – $20 including HST – We expect this event to sell out and are not selling at the door.

It’s high time to gather again. As evidenced by the name, this is a one-time return event. We’re bringing back two of our top speakers, Diana McCallum and Dan Riskin with new presentations. Also blasting from the past are your original Toronto Bosses, Lauren Shorser and Virve Aljas. Trivia to follow the presentations, presented by our two resident curmudgeons, Mathew Bertin and Tom Aylward-Nally. There are other surprises too, so… Be There and Be Square.

Presentation 1:
Sex Lives of Superheroes: A Scientific Look at How Superpowers Would Wreck Your Sex Life
Diana McCallum

Super powers sound like fun, until you try to move them into the bedroom. Diana McCallum scoured scientific journals, comic book canon and interviewed a slew of doctors for her book Sex Lives of Superheroes. Now she is here to tell you all the shocking ways that having super powers would ruin your sex life, including the dangers of Spider-Man’s radioactive semen, the impenetrability of Supergirl’s vaginal steel walls, and the fact that Wolverine’s sperm would be immortal, and why that’s very, very bad.

Diana McCallum is a writer and comedian who likes superheroes a normal amount. She is the co-creator of the web comic Texts From Superheroes, host of the Talk From Superheroes podcast and author of Sex Lives of Superheroes: Wolverine’s Immortal Sperm, Superman’s Porn Career, the Thing’s Thing, and Other Super-Sexual Matters Explained (available from Penguin Random House in November 2024).

Presentation 2:
Groups of Animals Are Amazing, So Why Are Human Groups So Dumb?
Dan Riskin, PhD

Why is it that a murmuration of starlings can swirl in the sky like they’ve been training their whole lives for this intricate dance, but humans can’t even merge on to the DVP without everything grinding to a halt? This talk is a showcase of some of the most amazing group behaviours in nature and an exploration of what seems to go wrong when people try to work together. You’ll laugh, you’ll learn, and you might even leave the room with a new perspective on the people around you.

Dan Riskin is a scientist, author, and TV science personality. He is best known as CTV’s Science and Technology Specialist, and as the former co-host of Daily Planet on The Discovery Channel. His free newsletter, The Bat Signal is available at https://FollowTheBatSignal.com.

Trivia with Mathew Bertin and Tom Aylward-Nally
We could ask them to be gentle, but where would be the fun in that?

Yes, there will be prizes.