Speaker Bios

Schedule of Events

Friday 11/18

3:00

Registration Opens

To the right of lobby

Hospitality Opens

Room 265

4:00

Games Room Opens

Wimbledon A

 

4:00-5:15

Masters | Music of Love and Life

Before playing each song on the keyboard, Marty Nemko — I’ll read an engaging phrase from the song and ask the audience, “Does this have any meaning for you?”

Wimbledon B | Meet the Mensans: Ice Breaker Activity

“Lighthearted sharing of responses to prompts followed by a collaborative reading of Woody Allen’s ‘The Whore of Mensa

5:30-6:30

Wine Reception

On the Patio

Hospitality Closed

Hospitality Service closes for the Wine Reception and reopens at 6:30pm

5:45

Hospitality | Closes reopens at 7:3-

6:30-8:00

Dinner on Your Own

Hotel restaurant hours:….Dinner ( Bar area)….5:00pm – 10:00 pm     Local Restaurant list will be available at the registration desk,

8:15-9:30

Triple Crown | The Greatest Bay Aera Joke-Off ever!

Peter Antoniak — Bring you latest jokes for an hour of structured and un-structured laughter and merriment.

Wimbledon B | Cards against Humanity

Judy& Bernie Unger — Cards Against Humanity calls itself “A game for horrible people”. The moreperverted your sense of humor, the more fun the game is for everybody………………….. At the start of the game each player takes 10 white cards from the deck. These cards have random phrases on them like . “Wizard Music”, or “a bird wearing a hat”…………………. Some one takes the role of the card Czar. They will pick a card from the black deck it will have a question or incomplete phrase which the Czar will read out loud. ……… Each player than plays a card that they think is the funniest answer.

9:45 -11:00

Wimbledon B | Oh Hell!

James Lewis — A strategy card game where sticking it to your opponents is half the fun! Very easy to learn, 3 to 20 players can participate. Play it for a while, and when the cards don’t go your way, you’ll find yourself saying “Oh Hell!”

Saturday 11/19

7:00-8:45

Walk to Muirwood Park the vicinity of

7:30

Hospitality | Coffee Service

..

8:00

Hospitality | Continental Breakfast

9:00-10:15

Triple Crown | Conspiracy theories: Mistrust, misinformation, and mitigation

Joe Pierre — This talk discusses the causes of conspiracy theory belief and how we might address them as individuals and as a society.

Masters | Tales from the Trails - My Time on the Pacific Crest Trail

Soren Christian — On May 8th, 2019, I drove to the Mexican border outside of Campo, CA, and set out along the Pacific Crest Trail. 148 days, 2,653 miles, 4 rattlesnakes, 2 bears, and countless raging rivers and snowy passes later, I crossed from Washington into Canada on October 2nd, thereby completing my thru-hike of the PCT. In this talk, I will share stories and insights from my time on trail, both in terms of what life is like on the trail and what I learned about myself in the process.

10:30-11:45

Triple Crown | Quantum Physics in Space, Biology, and Beyond

Melanie Swan — This talk provides a theoretical overview of contemporary developments in quantum science and a practical summary of their application in space and biology. Quantum science (at the scale of atoms, ions and photons, and subatomic particles) includes the subfields of quantum matter (novel phases of matter that emerge at zero-temperature) and quantum information (beyond Moore’s law quantum computation). Scientists deploy the Quantum Mindset to operate successfully in the domain, namely by having a facility with the quantum properties of symmetry, topology, superposition, entanglement, and interference. Quantum science is being applied in high-complexity fields such as space and biology. Neuroscience quantum physics applications include quantum genomics, Chern-Simons biology, molecular knotting, AdS/neuroscience, and neuronal gauge theory. Quantum physics in space is likewise facilitating the reach to beyond-Earth geographies as over 600 humans have been to space, thirteen FAA-permitted U.S. spaceports exist, the sixth Blue Origin space tourist mission launched in May 2022, and SpaceX reports 155 successful rocket launches. A vision for our quantum future is presented. No background required.

Masters | Beekeeping

Andy Crews — Andy will talk about how honeybees differ from other bee species and describe his experiences with swarms and how they are part of the honeybee life cycle.

Stadium| Gonzo Trivia

Mark Jackman — Our popular Gonzo Trivia! returns with its usual potpourri of devilishly difficult questions, and answers that make you go “Ah!” Pub and gameshow styles are combined (the scoring awards more points for knowing things that others don’t!) for pro-grade trivia crafted to be both challenging and enlightening. Come as a team, or just show up yourself and we’ll place you with a team as they form. (Note: For safety reasons, live goose-identification round no longer included.

12:00-1:15

Lunch

Banquet Room

1:30-2:45

Triple Crown | Sub-quarks, Anti-matter and Red Shift

John Caywood — “A diagrammatic illustration of: 1) Why I postulate the existence of sub-quarks………… 2) The new quarks allowed by sub-quarks………… 3) An error I found in the beta decay currently in the standard model………… 4) A postulate of how distant objects in the universe create a redshifted photon………… 5) A postulate illustrating Dirac’s anti-matter is located……………… 6) A revised solar power cycle accounting for the spin of each particle…………………… Although the ideas are physics theory, the program will step the audience thru a progressive path to the conclusion which requires only a math understanding of squaring a variable and taking a square root of a variable. This is easy enough for a college educated audience.”

Masters | USS Midway Museum

The Museum is not only a historically important aircraft carrier in US History, but also a magical place for visitors to be inspired by our Docents how US Navy projection of power ashore can be sent anywhere in the world. We Docents try to educate as well as entertain our guests about what Naval Aviation really was and is today. It is a fun place to volunteer and helps us give back to our visitors both military, civilian and foreign; a one on one story telling adventure about ourselves, combat and the ship itself! We bring the Midway Magic alive.

Stadium | When You're Feeling Irrelevant

Marty Nemko — Even Mensans can feel like they don’t matter enough. This session should be of help.

3:00-4:15

Triple Crown | What Hath Covid Wrought?

Elna Tynes — A look at the demographic, econo.mic, and financial effects on the American over-50 generation due to the Covid pandemic.. It has altered how older people live, how their life expectations have been lowered, and how the federal.and state governments have reacted.

Masters | Stock Market Trivia

Fred Fudd | It would include such topics as: The cannabis stock that issued stock certificates made out of marijuana plants The stock that traded for over a million dollars a share How a stock symbol may affect the company’s stock price The company that paid millions of dollars for a domain name The stock that owned a rock with George Washington’s graffiti on it The first woman stockbroker who was also the first woman presidential candidate The chocolate chip cookie stock market correlation and much more

Stadium | Lightning Talks

Andy Lampenfeld — This is an opportunity for participants to speak briefly on any subject . . . to a guaranteed-intelligent audience.

4:30-5:45

Triple Crown | Forensic Linguistics: Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say?

Joseph Devney — Language can be used to conceal or deceive, and politics can provide motive. Using video from a real-life event in the 2012 primary season, this talk demonstrates how a linguist analyzes language to determine what is really being said. An innocent-sounding conversation may have violated election law.

Masters | Endogenous aldehydes - An under-appreciated cause of disease, morbidity, and mortality

Michael Ott — People know that inflammation is involved in various chronic diseases, that protein glycation is involved with diabetes, and that protein aggregates are involved in various neurological diseases (such as amyloid beta aggregates in Alzheimer’s disease). But the role of aldehydes in these diseases has been under appreciated. Inflammation produces aldehydes (the chemical breakdown products from the lipid peroxidation that is produced by inflammation). Aldehyde molecules bind to proteins resulting in protein glycation. Glycated proteins produce protein aggregates (Advance Glycation Endproducts – “AGEs”) that are proinflammatory, thereby establishing the feedback cycle known as chronic inflammation. Because these protein aggregates can accumulate with time, once the inflammation is initiated (e.g. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy from a sports injury) the localized AGEs from the chronic inflammation can take years to accumulate before the disease is diagnosed (e.g. ALS or Alzheimers from the sports injury). In addition to chronic inflammation and pain, AGEs contribute to diabeties, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, Alzheimers, ALS, Parkinson’s, CTE, Lewy Body disease, MS, age-related brown pigment spots in skin, and reduced life expectancy. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_glycation_end-product Although they list the AGE related diseases, their only mention of aldehydes is the mention of methylglyoxyl (an aldehyde) as a major precursor of AGE formation. Similarly, the Wikipedia page on inflammation makes no mention of aldehydes, nor dies the page on diabetes. These are representative of the medical literature in general, which is largely unaware of the fundamental role of aldehydes in numerous diseases. My program will teach a simple dietary approach to eliminate the toxicity of endogenously produced aldehydes.

Stadium | Steve Andersen The Eldersinger

Steve Andersen — Solo vocal and guitar presentation of folk music, mostly original compositions but covers are not excluded. Material is intended to be relevant to life, love, society, morality, and politics

Wimbledon B | Trivia

James Lewis — Here’s your chance to show off some of that useless information you’ve attained and retained over the years. 90 fascinating trivia questions covering a wide variety of topics, including something that you’re an expert on. You’ll be given the questions in writing, and take turns choosing one to answer. Quick recall isn’t necessary, just a general font of knowledge. Show up on time or you may miss a turn.

6:00 – 7:00

Optional Dinner

Banquet Room

7:00 – 8:00

Banquet Room | Keynote

Alex Pentland — Web 3.0, NFTs, and Metaverse: Oh MY! ………………………………………………………………………………. People hear all buzz from start-ups doing Web 3.0, NFTs (non fungible tokens), and the Metaverse, and think “here goes the hype cycle again”, but this obscures the reason this technology is important for social stability and security,, and that both big corporations and trading nations are aggressively deploying Web 3.0 platforms as part of a very serious geopolitical struggle for power and control

8:30-9:45 

Triple Crown | History of Chocolate and Chocolate Tasting

“Michael Eager — Chocolate has a rich history, starting with its discovery in Central America, becoming a Spanish state secret, and eventual development into a popular beverage, flavoring, and food”

Wimbledon B | Cards against Humanity

Judy& Bernie Unger — Cards Against Humanity calls itself “A game for horrible people”. The moreperverted your sense of humor, the more fun the game is for everybody………………….. At the start of the game each player takes 10 white cards from the deck. These cards have random phrases on them like . “Wizard Music”, or “a bird wearing a hat”…………………. Some one takes the role of the card Czar. They will pick a card from the black deck it will have a question or incomplete phrase which the Czar will read out loud. ……… Each player than plays a card that they think is the funniest answer.

10:00-11:30

Stadium | Joke off

Ed Marshall — Ha ha. Jokes from the audience. If you’ve ben to one of Ed’s Joke Offs, you know how much fun they are. Sit in the audience and enjoy the fun or tell your own jokes.

Sunday 11/20

7:00-8:45

Walk to the icinity of Muirwood Park

“Roberta Maguire.  

9:30-10:45

Triple Crown | On Becoming a Spacefaring Society

Ejner Fulsang — Currently working on the fourth book of a six-book hard SciFi series called The Galactican Series. The volumes are loosely connected and depict the generational evolution that a society will have to make in order to become a true spacefaring society. This would be similar to The Expanse but taking us out to the nearby stars. This talk addresses the science and technology behind the series. It focuses on propulsion, space habitats, mission architecture, and genetic modifications necessary to become a space-adapted human. All concepts presented are plausible.

Masters | Current Hot Topics in Bioethics

Rita Charles — Focus will be on the ethical, legal, and social dimensions of current research and bioethical considerations currently in the news. I hope to have updates on Theranos and current Covid-19 concerns. Incremental progress toward developing ethical guidelines on the conduct of stem cell research continue to find new dilemmas; in the acquisition of biological materials, in the use of animals for preclinical research, the ethics involved in clinical trials, the creation of chimeric animals, and in the move to safely translate research into human applications. More recent ethical issues involving Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic proteins and human transplants will be mentioned.

Wimbledon B | Scattergories

James Lewis – Right off the top of your head, name a restaurant, fruit, toy, Halloween costume, and weapon. And make sure they all begin with the same letter. If “C” is the letter, you might answer Chinese, Cantaloupe, Cap Gun, Clown, and Catapult. But be unique. If your response is the same as an opponent’s, you score nothing! 144 different categories and 20 letters chosen randomly give lots of possibilities.

11:00-11:45

Optional Brunch

Banquet Room

11:45 -1:00

Banquet Room | Keynote

Seth Shostak — Science Looks for the Aliens ………………………………………………………………………. Are we alone in the universe? The scientific hunt for extraterrestrial life is now into its sixth decade, and we still haven’t discovered any cosmic company. Could all this mean that finding clever beings beyond Earth, even if it exists, is a project for the ages – one that might take centuries or longer?

 

 

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