Shah Selbe is an engineer and conservation technologist who works with communities, NGOs, and developing countries to identify and deploy technologies that can help with their greatest conservation challenges. His projects have integrated crowdsourcing, smartphone apps, drones, satellite data, and sensors to address such conservation issues as illegal poaching and ...
Where: Moss LandingCost: Free
Discovery Station: Corn and TeosinteDiscover fun facts about corn (Zea mays) and its ancestor Balsas teosinte. Learn how the people of Mesoamerica began the domestication of corn and the differences and similarities between teosinte and modern day corn. You will gain a new appreciation for corn, how it grows, and why without human intervention, ...
Activists and environmental defenders in the Global South promote transformations against dispossession in a variety of fields, from food to energy production. Ecological economic scholars argued in favor of an obvious alliance between environmental justice movements in the South and criticism of economic growth. Yet, collaborative research unveiled activists’ concerns ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Physics vs. Time TravelEveryone loves a good time travel story, but given what we know -- and don’t know -- about physics, is time travel in any way plausible? Using popular movies as a framework, Professor Ken Wharton will outline several distinct categories of consistent time travel stories, and discuss possible connections with ...
Where: Mountain ViewCost: Free
Purity and Pollution: Cannabis as Matter Out of PlaceEncounters between humans and psychoactive substances are loaded, often fraught, affairs. They are not just liminal moments of experience but are bound up with social dynamics of danger, pollution, purification, and transformation. Cannabis is no exception. Based on nine years of anthropological research, Dr. Polson will share observations on cannabis, ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Using AI in Marketing Analytics and Predictive ModelingWhen it comes to moving people and making deliveries, few companies are more widely spread and more widely recognized than Uber. Uber is part of the logistics fabric of more than 700 cities around the world, and whether it's a ride, a sandwich, or a package, they use technology to ...
Where: SunnyvaleCost: Free
Thursday, 09/05/19
Testing GR and the Massive Black Hole Paradigm with Infrared InterferometryAdaptive optics (AO) imaging and spectroscopy of the central star cluster in the Galactic Center over the past three decades have established that there is a concentration of 4 million solar masses associated with the compact radio source SgrA*, presumably a massive black hole. In 2017 we put into operation ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
MegaMapper: a spectroscopic instrument for the study of Inflation and Dark Energy MegaMapper is a proposed ground-based experiment to measure Inflation parameters and Dark Energy from galaxy redshifts at 2 < z <5. A 6.5-m Magellan telescope coupled with DESI spectrographs achieves a multiplexing of 20,000. MegaMapper would be located at Las Campanas Observatory to fully access LSST imaging for target selection.Speaker: ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Radar Technology, History and Future TrendsRadar Technology has been around for over 100 years and has made a huge impact in our lives. This presentation will review the history of Radar Technology from the origins of Electromagnetics to present day applications in our everyday lives. It will also cover future developments and trends as this ...
Where: Rohnert ParkCost: Free
The Next Frontier of Low-Mass Galaxy FormationSatellites of the Milky Way (MW) have long provided stringent tests of cosmic reionization, cold dark matter, and the physics of galaxy formation on the smallest scales. However, there is growing evidence that the MW satellites may not be broadly representative. Compared to the MW, satellite systems throughout the local ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
'Chasing the Thunder'"Chasing the Thunder" is a high-seas documentary about the Sea Shepherd’s epic 110-day, 10,000-mile chase of the “Thunder,†considered the world’s most notorious poaching vessel. Across two seas and three oceans, the marine activists hunted the fugitive fishing ship through massive ice floes, storms-tossed seas, a near collision and violent ...
Transforming, re-imagining, re-assembling, re-thinking, changing, combining: they’re all part of the art of the remix. Access your inner DJ, play around with mixing up all kinds of art, experience music that’s been rearranged, and discover remixed advances in science at After Dark: Remix.=============Rice in Remix: CRISPR Edition With Nicholas Karavolias7:30 ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: 17.95 advance, 19.95 door, AD members free
Cafe InquiryCenter for Inquiry San Francisco's monthly get together to talk about whatever interests us.
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
Fermented NightlifeWe’re breaking down the science of fermentation, showing you the chemical magic behind kombucha to chocolate and everything in-between.Fermentation transforms many of the foods you love, and we're inviting some of the Bay Area’s best purveyors of fermented foods to show you how.Learn about koji, the mold that gives many ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Varies
Searching for Life Beyond Earth The concept of the Habitable Zone (HZ) was once the only way to estimate the chances of a planet to support life. The past decades of exploration in the Solar System and the study of terrestrial extreme environments have shown that the subsurface and interior of several planets and ...
Where: NewarkCost: Free
Heavy Weather: Balancing Joy and DespairNearly half of all Americans are dealing with a new mental stressor: climate anxiety. Whether from reading the news, coping with the immediate trauma of a natural disaster or fearing for a warming planet, according to the American Psychological Association, climate anxiety is undermining our health and well-being. What’s the solution ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 General, $12 Members, $7 Students
Astro Night: Galaxies Across Cosmic TimeFor a century, astronomers have studied galaxies--- immense systems made up of gas, dust, dark matter, and stars--- to help us understand our place in the vast night sky. In this talk, I'll start by taking you on a journey through human time, from how early astronomers learned that the ...
The Farallon Islands, part of the City and County of San Francisco, is a National Wildlife Refuge located 27 miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge. Cold ocean currents and other environmental factors there lead to high ocean productivity and a thriving marine wildlife ecology. Biologists working for PRBO/Point Blue ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
'The Love Bugs' - a documentary filmOver the course of 60 years, Lois and Charlie O’Brien, two of the foremost entomologists and pioneers in their field, traveled to more than 67 countries and quietly amassed the world’s largest private collection of insects. He was the Indiana Jones of entomology and she was his Marion Ravenwood. Their ...
Observation of Room Temperature Polar SkyrmionsComplex topological configurations are a fertile playground to explore novel emergent phenomena and exotic phases in condensed-matter physics. For example, the recent discovery of polarization vortices and the associated complex-phase coexistence and response under applied field in superlattices of (PbTiO3)n/(SrTiO3)n suggests the presence of a complex, multi-dimensional system ...
The first part of the presentation will introduce our methodology towards improving molecular catalysts for energy relevant conversions. We strategically introduce redox-active and slightly acidic imidazolium moieties into the secondary coordination sphere of molecular CO2 reduction electrocatalysts. Results from systematic comparative studies will be presented that strongly suggest that mechanistic ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
'Chasing the Thunder'"Chasing the Thunder" is a high-seas documentary about the Sea Shepherd’s epic 110-day, 10,000-mile chase of the “Thunder,†considered the world’s most notorious poaching vessel. Across two seas and three oceans, the marine activists hunted the fugitive fishing ship through massive ice floes, storms-tossed seas, a near collision and violent ...
Join us for a First Friday all about outdoor appreciation! Learn all about Bay Area ecology and how you can participate in science when you’re outside. Here at Chabot, we love to talk about how space exploration helps us learn about other planets, but what about how it helps us ...
Where: OaklandCost: $5
Charon, Pluto’s Companion: What We’re Learning from New HorizonsPluto’s large moon Charon turned out to be far more interesting than astronomers expected. Pluto was the star of the New Horizons show, but the features on Charon’s surface tell a fascinating tale of how icy worlds could form far from the gravitational influences of the giant planets. There is ...
What’s it like to explore the most polluted areas of our oceans? Long-distance swimmer Ben Lecomte was the first person to swim the Pacific Trash Vortex northwest of the Hawaiian Islands. With his team aboard the support ship I am Ocean, they documented how the largest ecosystem on Earth is being ...
Join us for a day of creativity, awe-inspiring demonstrations, and tons of free activities for you and your friends and family. At our upcoming Fall Open House, our faculty will be on hand demonstrating techniques in blacksmithing, woodworking, and glass flameworking - just to name a few. You can also get hands-on with ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
Getting into Medicine for High School Students w/ Nae Tanaka Want to learn more about getting into college or being involved in the healthcare field? Teens In Health, a teen-led organization based here in California, presents Nae Tanaka, a renowned college admission counselor who will guide high school students on how to apply to college and give advice to what ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Trekking the ModelJoin a Ranger or docent on a guided tour of the Bay Model, a 1.5-acre hydraulic model of the San Francisco Bay and Delta. Discover the stories of the two major operations that took place at this location between 1942 - 2000.
Counter Culture Labs is proud to be hosting the American Society for Microbiology Agar Art Contest (http://www.asm.org/agarart) - last year we won in the Maker division!.Come and learn how to make colorful and unique living art. Design your own art piece using our colorful bacteria, and then submit your piece for a ...
Where: OaklandCost: $20
Not just ancestry: 23andMe and genomic researchWhile most people are familiar with 23andMe's commercial products such as sequencing of DNA to determine ancestry, many do not realize that the company has the largest re-contactable research database of genotypic and phenotypic information in the world. More than eight million 23andMe customers have consented to participate in research and have ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: free
MISSION: MARSWe are making progress globally - from the Arctic to Antarctica, from underground labs to the International Space Station - to achieve the first human voyage to Mars. Come explore the what, why, how, when, and who of our first journey to the Red Planet.Speaker: Pascal Lee, SETI and Mars ...
Where: Mill ValleyCost: Free
Sunday, 09/08/19
Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Hawk Talk & Raptor ReleaseThe Hawk Talk begins at noon, when a GGRO volunteer speaks about hawk migration and identification, and what we do here at the GGRO. Conditions permitting, a banding volunteer will bring up a newly banded hawk, talk about the banding program, and release the hawk in front of the crowd. ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Monday, 09/09/19
Population III Star Formation and the Cosmic 21-cm Background The first generation of stars to have formed in the universe were likely very different than the stars we observe today. These Population III stars formed from pristine gas with no metals, and their formation was crucial to the early evolution of galaxies. While we have yet to observe a ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Optoelectronic Properties of Hybrid Halide Perovskites from First PrinciplesPerovskites are a family of materials with unparalleled chemical and structural diversity that underpin a tremendous range of functionalities [1]. Their versatility often pushes the boundaries of chemical intuition, but also promises immense opportunity for materials design and discovery. In particular, organic-inorganic metal-halide perovskites have recently emerged as one of ...
Exploiting the Malleability of Disorder to Design Biologically-Inspired FunctionThe complexity of living systems poses a formidable challenge to physical scientists interested in biology. I will discuss one theoretical approach towards gaining possible insight into biological phenomena: to design systems to exhibit similar phenomena. To do so, we start with systems with complex energy/cost landscapes, which have far more ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Building Trust in the Black Box: An Introduction to AI ExplainabilityIn recent years, the themes of transparency and trust have become increasingly central to the way that humans develop, manage, regulate, and monitor ML technologies. It is clear that now more than ever stakeholders need tools to detect model bias and understand model behavior. At Fiddler Labs, we're building a ...
After 50 years of promises and potential, robots are beginning to leave the lab to live in the wild with us. But how should we coexist with these intelligent, autonomous machines? In this lecture, Dr. Madeline Gannon discusses how art and technology are merging to forge new futures for human-robot ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Searching for Needles in an Ancient Haystack: Environmental DNA from Pleistocene PermafrostYou shed DNA constantly everywhere you go… as do all other animals, plants, bacteria and fungi - we refer to this ‘shed’ DNA as environmental DNA (eDNA). Because all organisms shed DNA into their environments, ecosystem-level monitoring can take place with a single method, making eDNA an emerging frontier in ...
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free
Mapping the Universe: The Sloan Digital Sky SurveyThe Sloan Digital Sky Survey is an unprecedented all-sky spectroscopic survey of over six million objects. It is designed to decode the history of the Milky Way galaxy, trace the emergence of the chemical elements, reveal the inner workings of stars, and investigate the origin of planets. SDSS will also create ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $15 General, $12 Members and Seniors
Rainforest Action Network, www.ran.org, has been fighting for people and planet for 30 years. Communications Director Christopher Herrera will share how RAN takes on some of the biggest causes of climate change and forest destruction - including current campaigns targeting the palm oil industry, the fossil fuel industry, and even the Tokyo ...
Genetic engineering of plants is at the core of sustainability efforts, natural product synthesis, and agricultural crop engineering. The plant cell wall is a barrier that limits the ease and throughput with which exogenous biomolecules can be delivered to plants. Current delivery methods either suffer from host range limitations, low ...
Why Do Dark Matter Haloes Die Together? The Causes of Halo Assembly Bias at Galaxy Masses At a constant mass, old dark matter haloes and young dark matter haloes cluster differently from one another. This fact, known as "assembly bias," severely complicates the construction of mock catalogues and serves as a major challenge for structure formation models. In this talk, I test and synthesize the many ...
Everyone knows someone who’s survived cancer. But no one knows anyone who’s survived Alzheimer’s - until now. Alzheimer’s disease is a global pandemic and the third leading cause of death in the United States. Of the 326 million Americans currently living, approximately 45 million will develop Alzheimer's disease during their ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 General, $10 Members, $8 Students
Odd Salon: EphphanySpeakers:Muriel Gordon ~ Ferris’ Wheel and the World’s Fair: Transforming a Generation of AmericansLilia Gutnik - A Smokejumper’s Guide to Fighting Fire with FireAaron Laycook ~ Filippo Di Ser Brunellesco and the Invention of Linear PerspectiveMark Linsey ~ Katharine Briggs & Isabel Meyers: Creators of the World’s Most popular Personality ...
Scientists can spend theirentire career on a single idea, or elaborate experiment, and never find anything new. But if they make a significant breakthrough and discover what they have been looking for, they can win the ultimate prize: the Nobel Prize.Is the Nobel Prize, and any other high-profile recognition, a ...
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
Free Bay Currents Talk: The Curious World of SeaweedJoin artist/naturalist Josie Iselin as she introduces her newest book, focused on ecological relationships of these colorful marine algae. This seventh book illustrated by Josie’s unique art brings to life the roles of seaweeds as marine engineers and providers of habitat vital to life on the Pacific's edge. Refreshments 7 PM, ...
7:00-7:25: Stephen Auger (Media Artist) and Benjamin Smarr(UC Berkeley/ Neuroscience) on "Interstellar Hallucination"Visualization of patterns that inform nearly all shamanic and archaic traditions...Read more7:25-7:50: Anja Ulfeldt(Media Artist) on "Subjective Infrastructure: Experiential art employing civic, domestic, and personal infrastructure as it relates to physical and auditory experience."Art that ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common ProblemsRandall Patrick Munroe is an American cartoonist, author, scientific theorist, and creator of the webcomic xkcd - primarily a stick figure comic with themes in computer science, technology, mathematics, science, philosophy, language, pop culture, romance, and physics. The popularity of xkcd among science fiction fans resulted in Munroe being nominated ...
