SLAC Special Seminar: Sensitivity in Numbers : Scaling Up Superconducting Sensing at the Cosmic Frontier - LivestreamMany Cosmic Frontier efforts must instrument large numbers of superconducting sensors to meet their science goals. Though superconducting sensors offer unparalleled sensitivity in many applications, historically it has been very difficult to instrument them in the large numbers (hundreds or more) required to exploit their full potential. Superconducting sensor readout ...
Where: Cost: Free
Loops, Ladders and Links: The Recursivity of Social and Machine Learning - LivestreamMachine learning algorithms reshape how people communicate, exchange and associate; how institutions sort them and slot them into social positions; and how they experience life, down to the most ordinary and intimate aspects. Drawing on this published paper and examples from the field of social media, we will review the ...
Where: Cost: Free
Space Nuclear Propulsion for Human Mars Exploration - LivestreamSafely transporting humans to and from Mars will require advances in spacecraft propulsion. Advanced nuclear propulsion systems, including Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) and Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP), have the potential to substantially reduce trip time and space radiation exposure for astronauts compared to fully non-nuclear approaches. However, more research is ...
Where: Cost: Free
Building the next ubiquitous computing platform drawing on condensed matter physics - LivestreamComputing is at a momentous point today. AI, big data and decentralized work are driving a surging demand for computing power. At the same time, an ending of Moore’s Law and Dennard’s scaling are making it increasingly difficult (and expensive) to improve processor performance. The energy consumed by computing is ...
This talk will provide an overview of Stanford's Regulation, Evaluation, and Governance Lab (RegLab), which partners with government agencies to carry out high impact demonstration projects for better government. The RegLab is an interdisciplinary team of legal experts, data scientists, social scientists, and engineers, with an extensive track record of ...
Hundreds of millions of years ago, massive ice caps blanketed Earth’s continents from coast to coast. More recently, lush mega-forests of swamp cypress and dawn redwood have occupied what is now the Arctic circle. These dramatic shifts in Earth’s climate have long fascinated geoscientists. What caused these dramatic transitions between ...
Speaker: Greg Mulholland is the CEO and cofounder of Citrine Informatics, which builds software to help materials scientists, chemists, and product designers discover, manufacture, and design with advanced materials in 90% less time than with traditional approaches.
Nematic Fluctuations in Iron-based Mott Insulators - LivestreamMy research focuses on how electrons organize according to their charge, spin, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom in order to exhibit novel phases of matter. A particular area of interest is iron-based superconducting materials and low-dimensional systems that exhibit emergent, quantum phenomena. This talk will discuss a combined experimental-theoretical ...
Where: Cost: Free
Deep Networks Are Kernel Machines - LivestreamDeep learning's successes are often attributed to its ability to automatically discover new representations of the data, rather than relying on handcrafted features like other learning methods. In this talk, however, Pedro Domingos will show that deep networks learned by the standard gradient descent algorithm are in fact mathematically approximately ...
Where: Cost: Free
Tuesday, 02/23/21
Listening to Elephant SealsExplore the fascinating world and interesting adaptations of northern elephant seals during the Seymour Center’s virtual Elephant Seal Celebration Week. Special at-home activities, lectures, and interviews with scientists will reveal natural history, migration strategies, and allow participants to immerse themselves in elephant seal science at UC Santa Cruz. Virtual Elephant Seal ...
Where: Cost: $10 General per household, Free for members
In this talk, we will harness the pipeline concept towards manageable high throughput experimentation in ML/DL research. We will make a distinction between top-down pipelines used in production and a bottom-up design that we propose for researchers. We make the claim that using such a design principle mitigates some of ...
While working as a file clerk at a Los Angeles law firm in 1992, Erin Brockovich uncovered documents that ultimately led to more than 600 residents of Hinkley, California, filing a lawsuit against utility giant PG&E. Since then, Erin has worked on a host of a environmental issues across the ...
Get to know SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, which recently helped scientists find water on the Moon. SOFIA is a specially-modified Boeing 747SP aircraft that carries a very powerful 106-inch reflecting telescope.Soaring above 40,000 feet allows astronomers to study the Universe in ways that are not possible from ...
Where: Cost: Free
Vanishing Vaquitas: Lessons From a Humble Porpoise - LivestreamJoin us for a thought-provoking presentation by Dr. Barbara Taylor about what we can learn from the plight of the vaquita porpoise. Only a handful of Mexico's desert porpoise remains, and their habitat is a war zone controlled by illegal wildlife poachers. While there is still some hope, most lessons ...
How do scientists go from OMG to PhD? How do they turn their passion for science into their profession? What advice do they have for future scientists?If you are a 5th-12th grade student, undergraduate, teacher or parent, join us to ask these questions and more in a Q&A session with ...
Where: Cost: Free
Breaking waves, bubbles, light scattering and energy dissipation - LivestreamBreaking waves enhance the transport of gas, momentum and heat between the atmosphere and ocean, facilitating climate-relevant physical and chemical processes. Despite their substantial physical relevance to climate, contemporary ocean models cannot numerically solve the small-scale boundary layer structure due to computational expenses and will require parameterizations based on relevant ...
At the same time that disaster insurance is becoming ever more essential to ensure the financial resiliency of households and communities in the face of escalating extremes, those very events are stressing these markets. This presentation will discuss the design of public-private partnerships to stabilize disaster insurance markets, the extent ...
Around the world, people recognize that E=mc^2 oozes cosmic insight. But what does this "most famous equation" really say? What are energy and mass? And what makes the speed of light, c, so important? [Hint: mass, moving at speed c, doesn't turn into energy!] Using little more than common experience and middle-school math, Einstein's ...
Where: Cost: Free
Thursday, 02/25/21
Elephant Seals Week labside ChatExplore the fascinating world and interesting adaptations of northern elephant seals during the Seymour Center’s virtual Elephant Seal Celebration Week. Special at-home activities, lectures, and interviews with scientists will reveal natural history, migration strategies, and allow participants to immerse themselves in elephant seal science at UC Santa Cruz. Virtual Elephant Seal ...
Where: Cost: Free
Large area Weak Lensing and the LSST Camera - LivestreamWeak gravitational lensing of the light from distant galaxies is a powerful tool for mapping the total matter distribution of the Universe, although measurement of the effect faces many subtle and challenging issues. Â Detecting the coherent shape distortion of weak lensing requires high-quality imaging and precise measurements. Ongoing and forthcoming ...
Where: Cost: Free
Tackling Global Challenges - Plastic - LivestreamA quarterly lecture series where you will hear from industry experts about pressing sustainability challenges so you can apply your expertise and ingenuity to develop solutions that will make an impact. The 2020-21 Tackling Global Challenges speaker series will bring in experts who will speak to the sustainability challenges and ...
Where: Cost: Free
Plant Stories Trapped in Tar: Paleobotany at the La Brea Tar Pits - LivestreamThe La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of Los Angeles, California are world famous for their preservation of Ice-Age mammals, especially the iconic, extinct megafauna such as saber-tooth cats, dire wolves, mammoths and mastodons. What is less known, is that the unique asphaltic preservation of past life at La ...
Where: Cost: Free
SFBBO Birdy Hour Talk: Almaden Lake - Evolution of the Environment and How Birds Adapt - LivestreamThrough SFBBO's Colonial Waterbird Program, our biologists and community science volunteers have monitored populations of colony nesting waterbirds during the breeding season at more than 70 sites throughout the Bay Area. Join us to hear Larry Manning, who has been a colonial waterbird monitoring volunteer for nearly 20 years, as ...
Where: Cost: Free
February LASER Event - LivestreamThe original idea was to celebrate 70th anniversary of George Orwell's death. The author of "1984" died one year before the introduction of the first commercial computer. His novel is therefore devoid of algorithms. The 70 years since his death have instead been the age of algorithms, that increasingly dominate ...
After Dark Online: (Re)CollectionsDig into archives and collections that celebrate, document, and preserve the history and lived experiences of Black Americans. From home movies to oral histories, through artists’ reclamations and reframing of historic materials, join us in hearing from the archivists, artists, and librarians who are committed to bolstering the voices, culture, ...
California grizzly bears once roamed the entire length of the state, from the Sierras to the coastal regions. Learn about this now-extinct iconic species, discover what it might look like to reintroduce grizzlies to the state, and meet Monarch, one of the last of his species and now part of ...
Where: Cost: Free
Friday, 02/26/21
Live from Año Nuevo Natural ReserveExplore the fascinating world and interesting adaptations of northern elephant seals during the Seymour Center’s virtual Elephant Seal Celebration Week. Special at-home activities, lectures, and interviews with scientists will reveal natural history, migration strategies, and allow participants to immerse themselves in elephant seal science at UC Santa Cruz. Virtual Elephant Seal ...
Where: Cost: $10 General per household, Free for members
Paleomagnetic studies of Apollo samples indicate that the Moon generated a core dynamo lasting for at least 2 billion years. However, the geometry of the lunar magnetic field is still largely unknown because the original orientation of nearly all Apollo samples are unconstrained. Determining the direction of the lunar magnetic ...
Where: Cost: Free
How NASA’s Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars - LivestreamThe best part of traveling is when you arrive at your destination. You gather your belongings, freshen up and then start your trip. The Mars rover goes through a similar process. When a spacecraft approaches the planet Mars, there is an important process that requires extremely reliable technology! Learn more ...
This highest jumping, fastest flying, strongest biting Science Saturday of the year focuses on the Olympians in the animal kingdom. From falcons to mountain lions, and beetles to beavers, every athlete has a story to tell. Join us for crafts, activities, and science as we sprint, jump, and dive into ...
Año Nuevo Reserve Director, Patrick W. Robinson will lead us on a virtual elephant seal tour at Año Nuevo. His tour will include an introduction to the site, a walk through the colony, some show-and-tell of the electronic tags used on the seals, and a summary of some of the ...
Increasing our knowledge of how the universe works has always been enabled by technological development. From the invention of the telescope by Galileo, over 400 years ago, to the development of 8 to 10 meter class telescopes and the launch of the Hubble telescope at the end of the last ...
Join our resident astronomers on Facebook Live every Saturday evening live from Chabot’s Observation deck!Each week, our astronomers will guide us through spectacular night sky viewing through Nellie, Chabot‘s most powerful telescope. Weather permitting we will be able to view objects live through the telescopes and our astronomers will be ...
