Friends, Nerds, countrymen, it has been far too long since we’ve seen each other! Between our usual May hiatus and the weather (which I’m still giving the silent treatment because of last month), it’s been a WHOLE SEASON since we’ve enthusiastically geeked out about a potpourri of subjects. All I can say is “thank goodness the second Thursday is early in July!!!” Specifically, Thursday, July 9 — see you at LIVE (102 S First St.) at 7pm (doors at 6:30). Also, ALL THREE of our rained out Nerd Nite speakers have been rescheduled for the fall, so stay tuned for those talks you’ve been long-awaiting!

But first, on with our regularly scheduled July program, beginning with checking out American history with Landon Myers for Unimaginable Election Shenanigans: Voting in Early America. While modern elections are the most secure in our history, voting in early America was rife with election fraud. We’ll dive into the history of voting in the United States in the 19th century, from stuffed ballot boxes, counterfeit ballots, and the tools developed to combat fraud.

Landon is the Program Manager for the Initiative for Democracy & Civic Empowerment at the University of Michigan. He is fascinated by the mechanics of elections and has been collecting antique voting machines, ballot boxes, and other election materials for more than five years.

Now, for some more local history… our favorite narrator of the quirky tales in Ann Arbor’s past Rich Retyi is back to tell us about Foxy Truesport: U-M’s Turn-of-the-Century Professor of Lovemaking. “Learn Sly Cupid’s Tricks; Students at Ann Arbor Take Lessons in Love Making,” read a headline on the front page of the Chicago Tribune in 1903. A Salt Lake Tribune article read, “Fifty times a day, Professor Trueblood is forced to kneel to some maiden and show his pupils the right way to declare their devotion to their sweethearts…” Hear the story of one of the most celebrated orators of the early 20th century, an Olympic bronze medalist, and a class at U-M that scandalized an unscandalous man and propelled another into an historic career in filmmaking and advertising. Prepare to be shocked! 

Rich is the communications and marketing manager at the Ann Arbor District Library and the author of The Book of Ann Arbor: An Extremely Serious History Book. 

Finally, long time Nerd Nite alum Kayla Peck is coming back from out of state to teach us, Yes, we sequenced that! Stories of people, pathogens, and poo. Have you ever seen something and thought to yourself, I wonder if we have sequenced that? The answer would be…. yes, yes we have. DNA sequencing has become one of science’s most powerful and surprisingly versatile tools spanning everything from oncology to infectious disease to pets and their…. productivity. Come discover how scientists leverage sequencing to learn more about the world around us.

Kayla is a biologist who used to be a jack of all trades but now is a master of DNA sequencing. She has honed her sequencing prowess at companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific, Illumina, and Roche. When she’s not thinking about the letters A, T, C, and G, she can be found playing competitive Scrabble, watching time travel films, visiting breweries, or rowing.