May ChiMe Activ­ity Bulletin Dead­line. Last day for these submissions to the May ChiMe. Interested in organizing and hosting a virtual or in-person event? There’s bound to be an activity or a restaurant you want to try, but you just want some other people to experience it with you. So invite your fellow Mensans. Find out how by visiting our guide to hosting events.

May ChiMe Editorial and Ad­vertising Dead­lines. Last day for editorial submissions to the May ChiMe. Please submit original ar­ticles, insights, puzzles, brain teasers, photographs, or short poems. Your fellow Chicago Area Mensa members would love to hear from you.

British Mensa : Introducing Inclusion – SMART Planning 1:30 PM. Following Lenna Cumberbatch's Talking Point article Inclusion is Good for Everyone (March/April 2026 IQ, pp 36-37), this interactive session will support attendees in achieving their own inclusion journey. Lenna will explore core inclusion concepts and language, and there will also be an opportunity for you to develop your own SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) inclusion objective. There's also homework! Come prepared with an inclusion objective you would like to achieve (work or personal) and we'll workshop as many as we can in small groups.

For the full write-up, registration instructions and how to become a guest on the British Mensa website, visit the American Mensa event. The talk is free for members to attend. The Zoom link will be sent to all registrants the week commencing 30 March.
Virtual Event!!

SFRM : Patterns of the Paranormal 4:30 PM. In the vast expanse of the unknown, patterns of the paranormal often emerge, challenging our understanding of the world around us. From near-death experiences to telepathy and psychokinesis, the paranormal encompasses a wide range of mysterious phenomena that defy conventional explanation. In this article, we will delve into the realm of the paranormal, exploring the patterns that have perplexed and fascinated humanity for centuries. Many scientific discoveries have been made by identifying patterns in seemingly unrelated observations. These patterns serve as the breadcrumbs that lead researchers to new insights and understanding. When it comes to the paranormal, these patterns can be elusive yet tantalizing, hinting at realms beyond our current comprehension. Human behavior is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that defies easy categorization. While physical sciences often rely on mathematical laws and theories to explain natural phenomena, human behavior is far from predictable. This unpredictability makes it challenging to identify consistent patterns in behavior, leading to debates between reductionists and proponents of a more holistic view.

Dan Punzak is a 51-year member of Mensa, a Life member, and LocSec of Sangamon Valley Mensa. He holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and recently attended his 60-year reunion. He retired from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. He is a member of the M_etaphysical SIG and several organizations seeking a deeper understanding of exceptional human experiences, among them the International Association of Near-Death Studies (IANDS). He has had numerous articles and book reviews in the newsletter of IANDS or the peer reviewed Journal of Near-Death Studies. He has spoken about near-death experiences at several AGs and attended over 25 AGs.

For more details, visit the M-Wisely's Cafe. To register, visit San Francisco Regional Mensa (SFRM)’s registration signup.
Virtual Event!!

MWW : Nonfiction Book Discussion 4:30 PM CST. Please join us in discussing The Technological Republic by Alexander Karp. We generally discuss what we liked about the book or found challenging. We also discuss what we would like more or less of, what format we read the book in, and whether it was a recent read.

Can't make it this month? The next books will be Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity by Peter Attia (May 20), and Fixing Fairness: 4 Tenets to Transform Diversity Backlash into Progress for All by Lily Zheng (June 17). See the full write-up and find contact info on the American Mensa Event.
Virtual Event!!

Mind Games® 2026 starts today. The event is being held today through Sunday, April 19th, at the Hilton Washington Dulles Airport located at 13869 Park Center Rd. in Herndon, Virginia. Visit the website for all the details. The registration cap has been met and if you register now, you’ll be waitlisted.

SFRM : The Role of the Amygdala in Social Thinking: Your ‘Lizard Brain’ Talking 4:30 PM. New findings from human brain mapping studies show that when we think about other people, we recruit a network of brain regions that includes an evolutionarily ancient structure called the amygdala. The amygdala works with parts of the brain that have expanded dramatically in recent human evolution, including regions called the “default network” that are used for introspective thinking. This has arguably been key to our ability to coordinate extremely large social groups and civilization.

Dr. Braga will talk about the evolution of the human brain, the functions of the default network, and then describe how the amygdala may be selectively talking to the parts of the brain involved in social thinking. Dr. Rodrigo Braga is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Rodrigo earned his PhD at Imperial College London, before training as a postdoc at Harvard and Stanford Universities. Rodrigo's research focuses on the organization of the brain, including how brain networks in expanded parts of the human brain support cognitive functions that humans excel at, including language and social reasoning. Rodrigo also studies neurological conditions including neurodegenerative diseases, epilepsy, and stroke. In his spare time, Rodrigo performs as a musician and singer. He received a BS from the University of Edinburgh (2006), a MRes from Imperial College London (2010), and a PhD from Imperial College LondonK (2014).

For more details, visit the SFRM Zoom RSVPs FB Group or the SFRM List of Presentations. To register, visit San Francisco Regional Mensa (SFRM)’s registration signup.
Virtual Event!!

Irish Mensa Lecture and Discussion: Why Do We Laugh? 1 PM. Irish Mensa meets virtually on the third Monday of each month at 7 PM Irish Time; a discussion then follows the lecture.

Laughter is an incredibly powerful and yet mysterious emotion. We laugh with delight, but also surprise. We laugh at jokes, but also at embarrassment. Why? What subconscious signal is laughter intended to display? Why do we laugh when someone tickles us and what should we make of the fact that rodents do it too? And why is it that people's sense of humor differs wildly and yet some drugs can send us all into fits of the giggles, even if there is nothing to laugh at?

Professor of Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham, and (interim) Chief Scientist at the UK Health Security Agency, Robin May was appointed Gresham Professor of Physic in May 2022. Between July 2020 and September 2025 he served as Chief Scientific Adviser at the Food Standards Agency (FSA). Professor May continues his work on Infectious Disease at the University of Birmingham. A Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Wolfson Royal Society Research Merit Fellow and Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, Professor May specializes in research into human infectious diseases, with a particular focus on how pathogens survive and replicate within host organisms.

For the full write-up and to join, visit the American Mensa Event. One does not have to register early for the event—simply click on this Zoom link about 15 to 30 minutes before the session starts to both register and join.
Virtual Event!!

June ChiMe Activ­ity Bulletin Dead­line. Last day for these submissions to the June ChiMe. For GOBS-subsidized June events, you must submit your event information by today. Interested in organizing and hosting a virtual or in-person event? There’s bound to be an activity or a restaurant you want to try, but you just want some other people to experience it with you. So invite your fellow Mensans. Find out how by visiting our guide to hosting events.
Earlier Deadline!!

GOBS Request Deadline Noon. Today is the last day to submit a request for GOBS funds to be approved at this Saturday’s Business Meeting for any planned, eligible event, activity, or class taking place after Saturday, April 25th through Tuesday, May 19th and, optionally, later; to be eligible, events involving CAM members must be published in the issue of ChiMe corresponding to the month in which they occur.

Best Night for Lyrids Meteor Shower . Viewing. The meteor shower will be hitting its peaks with as many as 18 meteors per hour late evening until dawn. The moonlight may be an issue. See the viewing tips at In-The-Sky.org.
Public Event!!

St. Louis Area Mensa (SLAM) A Mad Laboratory Mini RG 9 AM. The RG is being held today until 9 PM at Brentwood Recreation Center at 2505 S. Brentwood Blvd. in St. Louis, Missouri. The $60 registration fee includes: puzzles, games, and informative speakers plus breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and beverages. There is no extra charge for walk-ins, although registering in advance helps ensure there's enough food & beverages. Visit the Saint Louis website or the American Mensa website for all the details.

Theodore Talk: Language Processing in the Brain Across Diverse Languages and Speakers 2:30 PM. A staggering 7,000 languages are spoken and signed worldwide, and most people speak two or more. Yet, neuroscience research has largely focused on monolingual speakers of just a few dozen languages, leaving our understanding of the language system incomplete and potentially biased. In this talk, Saima Malik-Moraleda, who received her PhD in Neurobiology and Behavior from Harvard University, will present a more comprehensive view of how the brain processes language by examining both diverse languages and diverse speaker populations using precision fMRI.

Malik-Moraleda will examine whether the core properties of the left-lateralized language network—its anatomical organization, hemispheric bias, selectivity for linguistic input, and strong internal connectivity—generalize beyond English to dozens of typologically diverse natural languages. She will also probe constructed languages (e.g., Esperanto, Klingon, Na'vi, High Valyrian, Dothraki) to ask what makes a language, a ‘language’, and will present data from polyglots (speakers of five or more languages) to examine how multiple languages of varying proficiency engage the language network.

Finally, she will explore how language and executive function tasks are processed in monolingual versus bilingual speakers, highlighting both shared and distinct patterns. Taken together, these findings suggest that the brain's language network is remarkably robust and universal, with activity that varies systematically with proficiency rather than language identity.

The list of all the Theodore talks will be on the American Mensa Event Calendar. Provided you register for the live talk, you will receive a link to a recording of the event. Closed captioning enabled.
Virtual Event!!