#2 Nerd Nite Hamilton – 16th October, 2023
Nerd Nite Hamilton is back this October with a Halloween treat! We have 4 incredible talks lined up, exploring local history, famous ghostly (Hamilton) encounters, cutting-edge research on bats, and what neuroscience says about the benefits of horror movies for our mental health.
Talk #1: Spirits Having Stayed: Lost Between Cootes Paradise and Eternal Paradise
Tonight, I will cover a few brief stories on well-documented hauntings around Dundas – and some not so well-known. I have always been fascinated with ghosts, spirits, spectres, or whatever you want to call them in the afterlife for as long as I can remember. My family’s history is checkered with spooky experiences, including a few of my own. Throughout my twenty-four years living in Dundas, I have picked up a few Valley Town ghost tales, but I really went full-speed in 2000, when I was asked to conduct my very first Ghost Walk and Scavenger Haunt for the Dundas Museum & Archives. By the conclusion of those Walks on Halloween night 2000 (with a full moon and everything!), I had a whole casketful of stories! Tonight, I will enlighten you all about a few of these souls caught between Cootes and Eternal Paradise and perhaps after tonight, you will be encouraged to go spectre-seeking yourself – unless they find you first!
Speaker Info: Stan Nowak is a co-founder, first and current President of the Dundas Valley Historical Society and has lived in Dundas with wife Sally since 1999. Stan has also served on the Dundas Community Council as Heritage Rep since 2006 and has written contributions to nine books on Dundas heritage. Stan is also strongly opposed to the proposed development slated for 71 Main Street and would like to sincerely thank all who are involved in this battle for the preservation of our small-town ambience!
Talk #2: Horror Movies Can Be Good For Your Mental Health
Starting from new views of brain function, I will explore a few of the many reasons why we might be attracted to horrifying materials (e.g. books, movies, games, etc.). The answer turns out to be complex – with some forms of attraction leading to significant benefits for agents like us, while others are less adaptive and even potentially dangerous. Casting a light on the computational mechanisms underlying our experience of, and attraction to, horror can help tease apart these varying modes of attraction, and so help us better understand the value and dangers of horror.
Speaker Info: Mark Miller, Ph.D. is a philosopher and cognitive scientist. His research explores what recent advances in neuroscience can tell us about happiness and well-being, and what it means to live well in our increasingly technologically-mediated world. Mark is currently the senior research fellow at Monash University’s Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies, and a research fellow in the Psychology Department at the University of Toronto.
Talk #3: Haunted Hamilton
History, Ghosts & Haunted Places, Mobsters, Murderers & Femme-Fatales… HAMILTON has it ALL! Stephanie “Spooky Steph” Dumbreck will share some of Hamilton’s most famous haunted places. She will also share what it was like to spend the night at the Lizzie Borden house, stand in front of the infamous Amityville house, and even take bus loads of paranormal enthusiasts on overnight bus trips to haunted places all across America including jails, asylums and old forts! We will then open the floor for personal ghost stories and experiences.
Speaker Info: Stephanie “Spooky Steph” Lechiak is Founder & Owner of Haunted Hamilton, a strangely unique business that has operated Haunted Tours and Bus Trips to spooky locations all over Canada and the US for the past 17 years. Stephanie has devoted her career to educating, enthralling and entertaining guests young and old in all aspects of the paranormal. An Award-Winning Columnist (urbanicity magazine), an avid history enthusiast, Paranormal Investigator, TV personality, Radio Show Host, Event Planner, artist, and most of all, “Spooky Steph” (as she’s known to her fans) is just a girl devoted to exploring the unknown in search of that missing piece… why are we all here and where do we go after we die?
Talk #4: Development of Hearing and Echolocation in Bats
Did you know that bats are the world’s only flying mammals and that female bats give birth to live young and nurse their pups with milk, just like humans? Come see what baby bats look like at birth and how pups grow, develop, learn how to fly, and echolocate. Also learn how the hearing develops so pups can use echolocation to orient and find food. Enjoy a presentation by Paul Faure, a professor from McMaster University, who studies bats and founded Canada’s first and only captive breeding colony of bats for research
Speaker Info: Paul Faure Ph.D. is a neuroethologist. His research interests are in animal bioacoustics (echolocation calls and other vocalizations ), neural mechanisms of hearing (electrophysiology) and acoustically-evoked behaviour (e.g. acoustic startle response), and integrative physiology (i.e. hormones and reproduction, cutaneous wound healing).
Event takes place 7-9pm at Shawn & Eds Brewery Co. As always it will be pay-what-you-can at the door, with all money going to our local Routes Youth Centre. Be there and be square!