Three presenters share a topic they are NERDY about while the audience shares a drink.

Join us for another fabulous Nerd Nite show! Speakers Chris, Nic and Ash will open new doors of understanding in their own nerdy way. Our shows have been selling out quick, so get in before all the tickets disappear!!

Be there. Be square.

Chris Freelance

Picking up good vibrations: how propagating waves become squeals, squawks, and symphonies. 

The ominous rumble of an earthquake. The roar of jet engines. The lyrical chirps of the early bird. The timbre of a familiar voice. The tones of a catchy 60s tune whose title has been cannibalised for a Nerd Nite talk! All are the result of propagating waves caused by vibrations. So how are these sound waves detected by animals? How have animals evolved to produce and use sounds for communication? How does human-generated noise impact this and what can we do about it? Come along to hear Dr Chris’ vocal chords produce sound waves that answer these questions with a healthy serving of microscope images, bad jokes, and quirky facts about insect sensory systems and animal mating behaviour thrown in! 

Bio: Dr Chris Freelance wears many hats: evolutionary biologist; research platform manager at The University of Melbourne; science communicator; photographer; violinist; and Lego nut. It wasn’t until nearly a decade into a career as a scientist he realised he could combine his interest in sensory systems with a love of nature and photography by using microscope techniques to examine the sensory systems of insects to learn more about how animals see, hear, and smell in different environments. (Alas he’s yet to find a way to work Lego into his job!) These insights contribute to a clearer understanding of the relationship between animal communication strategies and the environments in which they evolve, how this might be impacted by environmental change, and what this means for the future of those animal populations and the ecosystems they’re part of.   

Socials: @biologychris (Twitter/X)

Nic Dolby  - details to come

Ashleigh Kropp

How to live on air

Description: Bacteria are simply amazing. These tiny pockets of life cover every surface across the globe and have evolved to survive in the most hostile of climates. Usually when we think of bacteria, skin infections and 6-days-past-used-by chicken comes to mind. However, bacteria actually are far better at surviving than multiple cellular organisms like us. My research focuses on one of the most mundane but incredibly biodiverse places on the planet: the soil. Soil is everywhere and it is full of bacteria – in 1 gram of soil there is something like 40 million bacterial cells. In the soil these bacteria are employing some quirks to flourish, but also to survive. Frequently bacteria find themselves starving, struggling to survive in the absence of necessary nutrients (sugars), however, instead of dying, they rearrange their whole metabolism to eat air. Specifically, they ‘eat’ hydrogen and carbon monoxide gases, and turn this into energy that allows them to survive. Join me to tell you all about how they do this and why! 

Bio: Ashleigh is a late-stage PhD student at Monash University studying weird and wonderful soil bacteria. She is trying to understand how bacteria can survive starvation by eating air and the enzymes at the heart of this process. She hasn’t always been fascinated by bacteria but after many years of pursuing human biology and getting confused by all the cellular metabolic pathways, she decided that soil bacteria are actually more fascinating. In her spare time, Ash is a keen reality TV aficionado and cat mum.

Socials: @Ashleigh_Kropp (Twitter/X)