Welcome to our 32nd annual π Day! Help us celebrate this never-ending number (3.14159 . . .) and Einstein's birthday as well. On the afternoon of Thursday, March 14, 2019, visit us for Community Pi Day, participate in π-related activities, and enjoy a piece of pie. Founded at the Exploratorium by our own Prince of ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Pay what you wish
The Star-Formation History of the Universe revealed by gamma raysThe light emitted by all galaxies across the history of the Universe is encoded in the intensity of the extragalactic background light (EBL), the diffuse cosmic radiation field at ultraviolet, optical, and infrared wavelengths. The EBL is a source of opacity for high-energy γ rays via the photon-photon interaction, leaving ...
The many phases of massive galaxies In past years, large and deep photometric and spectroscopic surveys have significantly advanced our understanding of galaxy growth, from the most active time in the universe (z~2) to the present day. In particular, the evolution in stellar mass, star formation rate, and structure of complete galaxy samples have provided independent ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Grid Voltage Regulation with Distributed Energy ResourcesUtilities manage voltage drop along feeder circuits that can extend tens of miles. According to industry standards, a utility is obligated to keep the voltage at each service within 5% of its rated values. It usually accomplishes this using distributed capacitor banks and voltage regulators - automatically adjustable load-tap - ...
Feeling a little irrational? How about transcendental? Excited to taste some math puns? Don’t miss the Exploratorium’s favorite holiday - after all, we made it up - and make sure to taste some savory, sweet, and mathematically specific baked goods at Pairings: Pie. Mmmmm, circle constants!
Where: San FranciscoCost: $19.95 door, $0.00 with A.D. membership
AI NightLifeAn electric and eclectic night awaits as NightLife investigates artificial intelligence and the ways in which it’s already transforming our world. Explore immersive experiences, AI, blockchains, and other technological innovations that will shape our future with interactive projects by students at the California College of the Arts and other Bay Area ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $15 General, $12 Members
Trying to decide how you're going to celebrate Pi Day (3.14) this year? Avoid the congested airports and typical math holiday madness, and join us instead for Ask a Scientist's Pi Day Puzzle Party a boisterous math and logic puzzle competition, hosted by Juliana Gallin and Wes Carroll. You can compete solo or ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: free
Linguistics: making sense from noiseLanguage is a ubiquitous part of our lives, yet most of us give little conscious thought to the many linguistic choices we make every day. Why do we sound the way we do, and choose the words we say? How do other people perceive our speech? What’s so difficult about ...
WHAT: Australia’s Psychic Detectives and Psychic “Predictionsâ€Just how many crimes have so-called Psychic Detectives solved in Australia? How do their claims stack up against the results? Do Police really call upon the paranormal to find missing people? Join Australian Skeptic Richard Saunders as he examines some famous crimes and the ...
Single-Cell BioMEMS Tools for Monitoring Cancer ImmunotherapyI will begin with discussing a novel bioMEMS device technology for single-cell immune function profiling, in particular, the co-detection of 40+ cytokines/chemokines at the level of single cells, representing the highest multiplexing recorded to date for a single-cell protein secretion assay. I will describe how this microdevice called ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Lectures & Lasers - Space in your Face!: Food in SpaceSpace in Your Face! is a variety show combining science and art to yield a highly immersive and engaging event. Hosted by astrobiologist Julia DeMarines. Lecture is at 7:00
Pine Flat History with Author and Local Historian Joe Pelanconi - CANCELEDCome and enjoy this casual walk through Pine Flat with Joe Pelanconi, author of Quicksilver Mining in Sonoma County: Pine Flat Prospect Fever. You’ll learn about the mercury-mining boom-town of the mid-1870’s and some of the personalities involved. Joe tells some great stories based on his research, and his book about Pine ...
Where: GeyservilleCost: $20 suggested donation
Habitat Restoration: Marin StablesSprinkle or shine, meet your friends and family at Marin Stables for a day of habitat restoration. Have a fun morning pulling broom and then enjoy Cowboy Chili with all the fixin’s at noon! Meeting location Marin Stables, end of Wood Lane, off Porteous Ave in Fairfax. Family friendly.Please bring ...
Where: FairfaxCost: Free
Guided Nature WalkExperience the beauty and rich natural history of this 535-acre preserve. Our guided nature walks are on Saturdays throughout fall and spring. Participants are divided into small groups and paired with a trained Bouverie volunteer to explore the mixed evergreen forest and flower-carpeted oak woodland. Guided Nature Walks begin at 10:00am ...
Calling All Eco-Explorers! Youth ages 5-15 will be up to their elbows in FREE, hands-on activities. Learning through fun interactive, nature science experiences and regional field trips, your kids will find out all about the Bay Area ecosystem and become the next generation of Citizen Scientists! We have extended Welcome ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
Are red dwarf planets habitable?Much recent news about exoplanets has concerned the discovery of earth-sized planets in the “habitable zone†of “red dwarf†stars. This is partly because such planets are more easily found around small stars, and partly because most stars are red dwarfs. Can planets in the habitable zone around a red ...
MSI takes to the tidepools for a treasure hunt of nature's beautiful intertidal secrets. We'll spend our time taking advantage of the low tide to reach the outer edges of Bean Hollow.
Where: PescaderoCost: $20
San Francisco City Star Party @ Point Lobos, San Francisco, CACome join us for our monthly San Francisco City Star Party. SFAA members provide telescopes for your viewing pleasure. Be sure to check the SFAA website for the latest updates…bad weather or overcast skies will cancel!
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Jazz Under the StarsCome peer through our telescopes and see craters on the Moon, the visible planets, star clusters, and more while we listen to CSM's very own KCSM Jazz 91 FM. Dress warmly. Free parking in Marie Curie Lot 5. Directions are available on the Maps, Directions & Parking page.
Where: San MateoCost: Free
Sunday, 03/17/19
Sea Star Wasting Syndrome: An Unfolding StorySea star wasting syndrome has taken a heavy toll on Monterey Bay’s sea star populations in the last five years. Among the hardest hit species were the ochre stars, iconic tidepool residents and important keystone predators. Researchers are searching for potential culprits, documenting the spread of this disease, and tracking ...
Electrical transport and spectroscopy studies of the delafossite layered metalsThe delafossites, named after the French crystallographer Gabriel Delafosse, are triangular lattice layered materials with general formula ABO2. The family includes insulators, large gap semiconductors and a few astonishingly high conductivity metals. I will describe our group’s work on the latter, focusing on three aspects of our recent research. Firstly, ...
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have emerged as essential tools for the deployment of applied technologies such as self-driving cars, security, robotics and even consumer electronics. The fundamental physical and biological sciences, however, have not fully embraced AI/ML to leverage these tools for what they can offer in advanced data ...
When a Symmetry BreaksWhat is common among a magnet, a flounder, a rack of laundry, your heart on the left of your body, and the Higgs boson? The concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking is ubiquitous among many natural phenomena. I'll describe the basic concept and its applications. In particular, the original concepts from ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Big Screen Science: Jurassic ParkHold onto your butts, it’s the epic movie 65 million years in the making! After the film Kishore Hari (@sciencequiche) and Jeffrey Silverman (@J_M_Silverman) will discuss the science behind all those rampaging dinos, including which ones were portrayed accurately and which ones actually had feathers. They'll also talk about what ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16
My Dinner with AlbertA staged reading of a new one-act play that imagines a meeting between Albert Einstein and George W. Bush. Equal parts The Twilight Zone and Waiting for Godot, the comically tragic encounter is getting its first public reading at The Dragon Theatre in Redwood City.
The human body is colonized by trillions of microorganisms that exert a profound influence on human biology, in part by providing functional capabilities that extend beyond those of host cells. In particular, there is growing evidence linking chemical processes carried out by the microbial inhabitants of the gastrointestinal tract to ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Developing a Standard Model of Galaxies In this presentation Peter Capak will argue that a combination of large galaxy surveys and the latest machine learning techniques are allowing astrophysicists to develop a robust statistical model of the extra-galactic universe. If optimally constructed, this model would encapsulate all available information on the likelihood of observing a given ...
Proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) reactions play a vital role in a wide range of chemical and biological processes. This talk will focus on recent advances in the theory of PCET and applications to catalysis and energy conversion. The quantum mechanical effects of the active electrons and transferring proton, as well ...
Ariel Waldman set out to Antarctica in August 2018 to reveal the "Microbial Serengeti" that lives beneath the ice finding a complex ecosystem of micro-organisms, including tardigrades, that thrive in this polar desert. Her observations will amaze you and enrich your understanding of Antarctic ecology.  Register at the weblink.
Entanglement in Quantum Solids and the Second Quantum RevolutionQuantum entanglement is the origin of both the weirdness associated with  quantum systems and the power of many proposed quantum technologies. While largely studied in the the context of a few particles, recent work has emphasized its importance in macroscopic systems, such as electronic solids with many interacting particles. I ...
Dr. Prasant Mohapatra is serving as the Vice Chancellor for Research at University of California, Davis. He is also a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and served as the Dean and Vice-Provost of Graduate Studies at University of California, Davis during 2016-18. He served as an Associate Chancellor ...
Although economic costs of environmental regulations are widely debated, there is limited empirical evidence on the magnitude of these economic costs and the extent to which these costs persist over time. This paper quantifies the short-run and long-run efficiency costs of air quality regulations on the U.S. electricity production sector. ...
Reconstructing past global temperatures is complicated by changes in instrumentation, measurement practices, spatial coverage, and other factors. This has led to a number of divergent estimates of the warming over the 20th and early 21st century, with particularly large differences around the WW2 era and over the past decade. This ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Deep knockoffs machines for replicable selectionsModel-X knockoffs is a new statistical tool that reliably selects which of the many potentially explanatory variables of interest (e.g. the absence or not of a mutation) are indeed truly associated with the response under study (e.g. the risk of getting a specific form of cancer). This framework can deal ...
Starting in the 1970s, decades of effort went into building human-designed rules for providing automatic maneuver guidance to pilots to avoid mid-air collisions. The resulting system was later mandated worldwide on all large aircraft and significantly improved the safety of the airspace. Recent work has investigated the feasibility of using ...
Where: Mountain ViewCost: $15 - $35
Mama’s Last Hug: What Animal Emotions Reveal About HumansNew York Times best-selling author and primatologist Frans de Waal explores the fascinating world of animal and human emotions. His new book, Mama’s Last Hug, opens with the dramatic farewell between Mama, a dying fifty-nine-year-old chimpanzee matriarch, and biologist Jan van Hooff. This heartfelt final meeting of two longtime friends, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 General, $50 Premium
Part II - From Sorcerer's Apprentice to Mad ScientistCurrent computing and communications networks are complex entities that have evolved piecemeal, layer upon layer, running multiple standards, and proprietary products. As a result, they often are brittle, inflexible, expensive to operate, and insecure. This talk will describe a patented and patent pending software overlay that makes them robust, flexible, ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
Sea Change - Plastic Straws to Local LawsJoin an engaging panel on solutions to plastic pollution and learn about Berkeley's groundbreaking Single Use Foodware and Litter Reduction Ordinance.Plastic Pollution Coalition presents the film, STRAWS, plus additional short videos, followed by a panel discussion about solutions to plastic pollution and Berkeley’s groundbreaking Single Use Foodware and Litter Reduction ...
Dr. Marchis presents Another Pale Blue Dot: Inside the SETI Institute’s Search for Exoplanets, a talk on the search for planets beyond our solar system - referred to as exoplanets. In only two decades, scientists have gone from the mere speculation about exoplanets to being able to observe them through a variety ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Mushroom Hunter’s Kitchen with Chad HyattThe standard lore surrounding mushroom cookery is full of poor advice. Even widely held notions about which wild mushrooms are good or bad to eat need updating. Chef Chad Hyatt will challenge some of the myths that have become accepted teachings about how to handle and cook mushrooms, with samples to taste. ...
Where: Mill ValleyCost: Free
Nerd Nite SF #106: Daring Debutantes, Giant Insects, & Gaming Mice!“Heiress adventurers, battling giant insects, and video games†might sound like the pitch for a new Tomb Raider game, but it’s actually what awaits you beyond the Rickshaw Stop’s doors. A local history sleuth weaves the tale of the Bay Area’s own Lara Croft, an evolutionary ecologist will send us ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $10
Quantization NoiseFor years, rumors have been circulating about quantization noise: (a) The noise is additive and white and uncorrelated with the signal being quantized, and (b) The noise is uniformly distributed between plus and minus half a quanta, having zero mean and a mean square of one twelveth the square of ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Fungal Fun in New ZealandBAMS Co-Founder Debbie Viess brings you along as she travels across North Island, New Zealand, seeking funga, flora and fauna native to that island continent, and discovers some surprising parallels with CA, as well as wholly unique New Zealand organisms and habitats.
