Two Talks: Popping the Science Bubble - Livestream

Moss Animals? The Secret Lives of Overlooked Sea Creatures

If you’ve ever been to a kelp-encrusted beach or a rocky tidepool, you have probably seen a bryozoan, but few even realize these odd little creatures are living beings. Although easily overlooked, these “moss animals” have survived 450 million tumultuous years through change and innovation. Coral’s less famous roommate, bryozoans are colonial animals made up of many tiny individuals sharing a skeleton. Come learn about the advantages of this odd lifestyle and the never-ending mysteries of their evolution.

Speaker: Maya Samuels-Fair

Quantum chemistry in modern service to X-ray science

X-Rays are useful to chemists as much as they are to doctors and dentists. X-Rays can be used to quickly analyze which elements on the periodic table compose a substance because each element interacts with a unique energy of X-Ray radiation. Brighter and better X-Ray sources, such as the Advanced Light Source at Berkeley National Lab, are allowing for a wider range of exciting experiments. I’d like to share my research with you in computationally modeling X-Ray-matter interactions - a task difficult enough to require the power of a supercomputer.

Speaker: Scott Garner