Nerd Nite SF #17: Open Source, B-Horror Science and Toxoplasma!

Nerd Nite SF guarantees to give you the creeps this month as our speakers expound on the creeping trend of open source and data, what's creeping into the brains of cat ladies, and how the B-horror movie creeps up and down the subject of science. Be there and be creepy, um, square!

"Sharing Is Caring: How Open Source and Open Data Are Changing the World" by Curtis Chambers

Systems from the largest companies to the leanest startups owe their code foundations to open software. Chambers will show how accessible software liberates companies from reinventing the digital wheel, and how open source and open data are spreading to other realms.

Curtis is the engineering manager at www.uber.com, where he spends his days building the future of transportation using open source and open data.

"Creepy KOFY Science from the B-Movie Black Lagoon" by Scott Weitze

Rubber masks! Low production values! Red dye #5! Every Saturday night Creepy KOFY Movie Time brings SF the best of the worst horror movies. But is drinking jaguar blood really a good idea? Could zombies exist? Aren't we all just a little bit werewolf? Scott Weitze will talk about what B-horror movies get wrong (and right) about science.

Scott appears as the science expert on Creepy KOFY Movie Time, effectively contradicting any credibility for his work on sustainable biotechnology instrumentation and teaching genetics at SFSU.

"Leashed to Your Pussy: Toxoplasma gondii and Mind Control" by Patrick House

Toxoplasma gondii uses the cat as its host by infecting rodent brains and making them attracted to their feline predators. It is also lying dormant in the brains of over 2 billion humans, where it might be changing their behaviors, too. House unravels the story of one of the most successful challenges to free will humanity has ever faced.

Patrick is getting a Ph.D. in neuroscience at Stanford, studying Toxoplasma gondii infection and the brain.