Bridging the Nature-Culture Divide III: Saving Nature in a Humanized World ConferenceSan Francisco's Presidio is the location and focus of a conference that examines how stewardship decisions balance natural, cultural, and scenic values at one of the nation's premiere national parks. Leading thinkers and experts from the US and Canada will provoke discussion, push boundaries and inspire solutions.The Cultural Landscape Foundation ...
How will San Francisco address its sewer and stormwater systems' aging infrastructure? As a result of rigorous technical studies and community input collected through the Sewer System Improvement Program's Urban Watershed Assessment, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is working on a slate of recommended projects and programs. Come hear ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $10 General, Free for members
PLANNING AND CONTROL FOR NEXT GENERATION SPACE ROBOTSIn the first part of the talk, Dr. Marco Pavone will discuss the design of a hopping robot for the in-situ exploration of small Solar system bodies. The actuation of the robot relies on spinning three internal flywheels, which allows all subsystems to be packaged in one sealed enclosure and ...
Explore your creative urges and art-hop around the museum as NightLife curates an evening crawling with creativity.Lend your hand to a living, breathing mural wall with Paint Pens Collective and let your eyes wander at pop-up galleries by Roll Up Gallery and ArtSpan, all set against an awe-inspiring backdrop of ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $12 General, $10 Members
Positive Computing: Technologies for Compassion and Well-beingRafael A. Calvo is Director of the Positive Computing Lab at the University of Sydney. His work focuses on the design of systems that support psychological well-being in areas of mental health, medicine and education. He has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and has worked at Carnegie Mellon University, Universidad Nacional ...
Storyteller, explorer and photographer Daniel Fox brings you along on his journey into the wild. From grizzly bears in Alaska to crocodile-like caimans in Argentina, the images of his journeys bring the contours of the wilderness into stark relief and make clear the inherent connection between humans and the natural ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 General, $8 Members, $7 Student
Introduction to TMJ Disorders: Diagnosis and TreatmentTemporomandibular disorders or "TMD", often referred to as "TMJ", are disorders affecting the jaw joint and the muscles for chewing. They cause pain in daily life and restrict range of motion in the jaw. This talk will provide an introduction to the subject and will discuss the diagnosis and treatment for ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: Free
Racing with Copepods (Premier showing)Bazooka Mama Productions is proud to announce the premier of Racing with Copepods at The Randall Museum.Join us as we watch twelve middle school youth take a sailing course where they study the fastest of all animals: copepods. They connect with the natural marine world and meet Her Deepness, oceanographer Dr. ...
Join Exploratorium scientist Ron Hipschman for colorful explorations of the physical world.In 1960, the laser was known as "a solution looking for a problem." Now we can hardly imagine life without them. Learn what's special about laser light, how it's made, and how it's used in everything from DVD players ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free with admission
Friday, 01/23/15
LSST@SLAC: Tony Tyson: Understanding the LSST CCDsLike all detectors, our CCDs have "features" which should be understood if we are to maximize the science. I will review thick CCD detectors, their science justification, their care and feeding, modeling, lab measurements, and impact on Camera and other LSST subsystems including Data Management.
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
Biotic Games- Playing with Living CellsThe Riedel-Kruse Lab combines basic research and engineering approaches by working on biophysics of development and biotic games. Biotic games require biological process to run and could have a similar impact on society as conventional video games based on electronics; and we design and engineer biotic games specifically targeted at ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
In Treatment: Psychiatry and the Archives of Modern SexualityThis talk explores the encounter of sexual- and gender-variant people with psychiatry and psychoanalysis in mid-twentieth-century America and examines the role of psychiatric scrutiny and stigma in the making of modern sexuality. Focusing on the archive of St. Elizabeths Hospital, the federal hospital for the mentally ill in Washington, DC, ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Peer Effects and Interventions in Online Networks: Causal Inference with and without ExperimentsPeer effects (i.e., social interactions, interference, social influence, spillovers) are common in many settings of interest to social scientists, epidemiologists, system designers, and policy-makers. Researchers often aim to estimate these peer effects themselves and/or estimate what would happen under a global (i.e., network-wide) treatment that functions partially through peer effects. ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Institute of Transportation Studies Friday Seminar: Clean Transportation as the path to a Clean GridVehicles account for nearly 23% of global energy consumption, and global GHG emissions from vehicles will increase significantly by 2050. Transportation electrification is needed soon and at significant scale to meet climate targets and through the deployment of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) a unique opportunity exists to transform two major ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Night HikeHike under the beautiful crescent moon through the redwoods from twilight to moonlight on an easy 1-3 mile hike. After the hike, stay and explore other amazing objects in the night sky through our telescopes (weather permitting) or tour the Telescope Makers Workshop. Hike will take place rain or shine.**Advanced reservations ...
Where: OaklandCost: $12
Saturday, 01/24/15
The Bay Model Wants You!!! Become part of Sausalito's very own attraction known around the world! We have a variety of volunteer positions that are suited for people just like you! Greet visitors, lead tours, work with school groups, and more! Come and be a part of one of the largest working hydraulic models in ...
Local amateur mycologist and co-founder of the Bay Area Mycological Society, Debbie Viess, will share her fascination with the wonderful world of fungi: how and where to find them, and why it is so much fun, as well as scientifically important to study and collect them!Debbie will provide beautiful and ...
Where: Mountain ViewCost: Free
Jazz Under the StarsThis event is weather dependent. Latest weather updates.See the first quarter moon and more thru our telescopes, while listening to KCSM Jazz 91 FM. Dress warmly and come by anytime between 6 & 10 p.m. Free parking in Marie Curie Lot 5. Directions here.No food or drinks in the observatory. Children are ...
Where: San MateoCost: Free
Sunday, 01/25/15
Geology HikeTake a moderate 2-mile hike to discover the history and geology of the reservoir and surrounding area. See and touch a mix of ancient geologic evidence along the Calaveras-Hayward Fault and Diablo Range, including preserved volcanic lava. Dress in comfortable clothes that can get dirty and wear sturdy hiking shoes ...
This month we celebrate the animals that are the champions of the cold: Animals of the Arctic. We recommend teaming our free classroom program at 12 pm and 2 pm with a Docent-led tour at 11am, 1pm or 3pm for a truly immersive marine mammal experience.FREE Classroom Programs: Animals of the ...
Program presented at 11:00 AM, 2:00 and 3:30 PM.Join Exploratorium scientist Ron Hipschman for colorful explorations of the physical world.In 1960, the laser was known as "a solution looking for a problem." Now we can hardly imagine life without them. Learn what's special about laser light, how it's made, and ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free with admission
Monday, 01/26/15
Mini Monday Feathers, Fables & FurEncourage your young naturalist's curiosity at Mini Monday, a special day for children and their caregivers. Animal encounters, activities and crafts help connect your child to our natural world and all its wonders. Ages: 2-5 + AdultFee: $20 for the first child ($10 museum members), $6 for each additional child ...
Where: Walnut CreekCost: $20 for the first child ($10 museum members)
Caroline Farrior is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) located at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Caroline is a plant ecologist who studies how competition among plants and their access to resources shape the dominant plant strategies that drive landscape-level patterns such as forest structure, ...
Joe V. Selby, MD, MPH, is the first executive director of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). A family physician, clinical epidemiologist and health services researcher, he has dedicated his career to patient care, clinical research and administration. At PCORI, he works to identify and address strategic issues and opportunities ...
We will consider the political context of energy policy in Japan since the 1970s oil shocks. I will argue that political arrangements in Japan after World War II made it attractive for politicians to pursue energy conservation by making energy, particularly for automobile transportation and electricity usage, expensive for the ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Nerd Nite East Bay #26: Urban Farming, Pipe Organs, and Use-Based TaxesGrab a beer! We'll blast the tunes from the farms-to-the-roads in January's installment of Nerd Nite East Bay. Pilar Reber shares how she is growing the urban farming community, Don Crawley (an alumni from Nerd Nites Seattle, Vancouver, and Kansas City) will pull out all the stops in describing pipe ...
Where: OaklandCost: $8
Tuesday, 01/27/15
The Surprising State of the Earth after the Moon-Forming Giant ImpactIn the giant impact hypothesis, the Moon accretes from a disk around the proto-Earth. In the canonical model, the impact also sets the present-day angular momentum (AM). Alternatively, the Moon may form via a high AM giant impact and the present-day AM was established by a lunar orbital resonance. I ...
Reservoirs are at historic lows and the state is in the midst of a drought. In response, farmers and ranchers have changed their practices and what they're growing, while elected officials have enacted new laws and a water bond. If the drought persists, more changes are likely. Join us for a discussion ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $10 General, Free for members
Adventure Tuesday Club: Counting With CrittersA four-week class, for ages 4 to 5. Adult attendance is not required. Numbers are everywhere, especially in nature. "Count" on meeting some animal ambassadors.Register online with the link listed below.Class ID: CC-390
Some of the largest baleen whales-such as blue whales, fin whales and humpbacks-fall into a family called rorquals that use an unusual method of feeding. These whales feed on aggregations of zooplankton and fish by lunging with their mouths open wide to tremendous gape angles to force huge volumes of ...
Where: SausalitoCost: $5 Donation
Astronomy Lecture With Speaker – Dr. Henry P. Stapp, BerkeleyThis month's speaker is Dr. Henry Stapp. The topic will be the implications of Bell's theorem of nonlocality in quantum physics : faster-than-light spooky entanglements and how the mind and consciousness integrate with the cosmos around us.
Where: Walnut CreekCost: Free
Starting From the Bottom: The Hunt for New Physics at the Large Hadron ColliderThe Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the giant particle accelerator at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, will restart operations in 2015, at higher energies and intensities than ever before. In its first run, the LHC experiments ATLAS and CMS discovered the long-sought Higgs boson. Now, researchers are gearing up to ...
Materials research over the last three decades has led to significant advances in the manufacturing of new materials with tailored and unique properties for a variety of applications. These advances have come about mostly because of a highly influential National Research Council study titled "Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) for ...
Sarah Batterman studies nutrient and carbon cycling in terrestrial ecosystems, and is interested in how ecosystem patterns emerge from the properties of individual trees. Her Ph.D. research focused on symbiotic dinitrogen fixation in tropical forests. It found that nitrogen fixation can be constrained by an interaction of nitrogen and phosphorus ...
After 20 years of predictions that robots will work among us soon, the predictions are finally starting to come true. Investment in robotics is up, enabling start-ups to explore a range of use cases. Decreasing component costs will make it easier to make real business cases for the technology. Mobile ...
A glistening spaceship, with seven lonely years and billions of miles behind it, glides into orbit around a softly-hued, ringed planet. A flying-saucer shaped machine descends through a hazy atmosphere and lands on the surface of an alien moon, ten times farther from the Sun than the Earth. Fantastic though ...
Pluto on the Horizon: Anticipating our First Encounter with the Double PlanetThe more we learn about Pluto, the more interesting it becomes. In the last decade, four tiny moons have been discovered orbiting the central "binary planet," which consists of Pluto and its large moon Charon. Pluto itself has a thin atmosphere and shows signs of seasonal changes. Tantalizing evidence suggests ...
Where: Los Altos HillsCost: Free ($3 Parking)
Science and Reason with Skeptics in the Pub, West BayIf ye value critical thinking, and if ye scorn the flim-flam man, join us, your friends. Skeptics in the Pub is a group of like-minded people informally discussing the latest in science or pseudoscience over good eats & ale.Skeptics in the Pub is a monthly meeting for discussion of topics ...
Where: MillbraeCost: Free
The Art and Science of Violin MakingScience Café will explore the science of violin making –including the recent carefully designed studies of player preferences among old and new instruments, the use of x-ray CT scanning to understand iconic violins, approaches to material selection, and measurements with modern tools as an aid in the making process.Alan will ...
