Climate Conversations: Extreme Events - LivestreamAs a result of climate change, extreme events such as floods, wildfires, storms, and heat waves are already becoming more dangerous and destructive. Marshall Shepherd (University of Georgia) will moderate a conversation with Craig Fugate (former FEMA Administrator) and Marissa Aho (Washington State Department of Natural Resources) about the connections ...
Manual harvesting of fresh-market fruits is costly and labor-intensive. This presentation will discuss two different robotic harvest-aid systems and report results from their deployments during commercial harvesting. The first system comprises two mobile robots that reduce workers’ non-productive walking times by carrying full and empty trays in the field. The ...
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 ...
Understanding a community’s ability to prepare for, respond to, and adapt to impacts of environmental, economic, or cultural change is an essential component of understanding social vulnerability. In the context of Ocean Acidification and associated environmental stressors, for this project we identified shellfish farms in California that were located in ...
Speaker: Kyle Lampe, University of VirginiaSee weblink for Zoom information
Where: Cost: Free
Quantum Computing: Theory to Application - LivestreamIn recent years, there has been a substantial amount of research on quantum computers - machines that exploit quantum mechanical phenomena to solve mathematical problems that are difficult or intractable for conventional computers. If large-scale quantum computers are ever built, they will be able to break many of the public-key ...
SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, operated by NASA, is a Boeing 747SP aircraft that flies into the stratosphere, above 99 percent of Earth’s infrared-blocking atmosphere, allowing research in ways not possible with ground-based telescopes.Ten years after her first flight on SOFIA, Marita Beard's stories about her experiences on ...
Where: Cost: Free
Nerd Nite SF #120: LSD Art, Redwoods, and Fish-Mediated Epilepsy Research! The lineup for all you nerds this month is a doozy! We’ll take a rollercoaster ride through the twists and turns of Mark McCloud’s mind as he tells us stories of his in-home museum of blotter art comprised of over 33,000 LSD sheets collected over the decades. If that’s not ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $15
Thursday, 09/16/21
A Bird’s Eye View of Coyote Valley - LivestreamLearn about Coyote Valley and the wildlife who call this vibrant landscape home. With representatives from the Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Center, the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, and the Peninsula Open Space Trust, participants can engage with local experts about birding in Coyote Valley and learn about Coyote Creek ...
Hints About the Earliest Galaxies The Cosmic Dawn - the era when the first stars and galaxies formed - is one of the frontiers of extragalactic astrophysics. In this talk, I will describe how surprisingly simple models of galaxy evolution provide insight into the basic processes driving these galaxies (and others) while simultaneously highlighting the ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Oaks of the UC Botanical Garden - LivestreamJoin Garden curator Holly Forbes for an illustrated talk on the Garden's many diverse oaks.Register at weblink to receive connection information
Where: Cost: Free
May the Forces Be with You - Measuring Forces that Hold Molecules Together - LivestreamIn these interactive sessions, we will talk about the forces that hold solids and liquids together, fabricate our own force measuring apparatus, and quantify the strength of glues. Finally, we will talk about how to present, compare, and discuss the strength of tested glues. The suggested list of materials will ...
I will discuss what the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover has been up to on Mars since landing on February 18, 2021.Speaker: Ken Farley, Calinfornia Institute of TechnologyRegister at weblink to receive connection information.
Where: Cost: Free
Evening Tours of Lick Observatory - SOLD OUTThe event will last approximately 4 to 6 hours. Visitors should be prepared to walk about one mile during the evening, including taking stairs. Events are held rain or shine.The tour will start at the main building’s Visitor Center. Participants can learn about the unique history of the world’s first ...
Where: Mt. HamiltonCost: $75
After Dark: See for YourselfSpark your curiosity at After Dark - as the Sun sets, we’ll hit the rainbow lights, turn the music up, and open our doors, inviting you to take your imagination out to play. Fuel up with a cocktail and prepare to roam free through six spacious outdoor and indoor spaces. ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $19.95 General, Free for members
Meditation: an Approach to Managing Anxiety & Uncertainty - LivestreamWe are living in a stressful and confusing time, and it can be difficult to find ways to stay positive and true to ourselves. Meditating regularly can bring an experience of profound peace and happiness! Join this virtual program, sponsored by the San Mateo Public Library, to learn about the ...
Calling all creatures of the night: explore the nocturnal side of the Academy at NightLife and see what's revealed. With live DJs, outdoor bars, ambiance lighting, and nearly 40,000 live animals (including familiar faces like Claude the albino alligator), the night is sure to be wild.Step inside the iconic Shake ...
Purple Martins have been in long-term decline in California due to factors such as habitat loss, competition with the European Starling, disturbance from construction projects, and declines in their insect food supply due to neonicotinoid insecticide use. Dan Airola has been studying and working for over two decades to conserve ...
Where: Cost: Free
Friday, 09/17/21
The Secret Body: How the New Science of the Human Body Is Changing the Way We Live - LivestreamIn a revolutionary new vision of human biology and the scientific breakthroughs that will transform our lives. Professor Daniel M. Davis shows how radical new possibilities are becoming realities thanks to the visionary efforts of scientists who are revealing the invisible and secret universe within each of us.Focusing on six ...
Where: Cost: $5 General, Free for members
Plastics: How Did We Get Here, and What's Next?Future technologies depend on the development of functional materials having: (1) hierarchical structures spanning multi-length scale down to the molecular level, (2) built-in functionalities (biological, optical, electronic, magnetic properties), (3) superior selectivity with sensitivities comparable to what we find in nature, (4) responsiveness to external stimuli. These require ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
May the Forces Be with You - Measuring Forces that Hold Molecules Together - LivestreamIn these interactive sessions, we will talk about the forces that hold solids and liquids together, fabricate our own force measuring apparatus, and quantify the strength of glues. Finally, we will talk about how to present, compare, and discuss the strength of tested glues. The suggested list of materials will ...
Where: Cost: Free
Evening Tours of Lick Observatory - SOLD OUTThe event will last approximately 4 to 6 hours. Visitors should be prepared to walk about one mile during the evening, including taking stairs. Events are held rain or shine.The tour will start at the main building’s Visitor Center. Participants can learn about the unique history of the world’s first ...
Where: Mt. HamiltonCost: $75
Astronomy - From Passion to Profession - LivestreamI will discuss how I turned my passion for astronomy and outreach into a profession. I teach astronomy research seminars to students and educators around the country and the world, and get to use telescope networks covering the globe. Following my passion and taking advantage of opportunities that came my ...
Where: Cost: Free
Saturday, 09/18/21
Air Pollution in High Definition: Building Low-Cost Sensor Networks & Community Partnerships - LivestreamMeasuring atmospheric pollutants at high spatiotemporal resolution has the potential to help identify problematic sources as well as pinpoint communities facing disproportionate risks. Most traditional air quality monitoring campaigns, however, have been necessarily sparse in their resolution owing to the significant upfront and operational costs of high-precision and high-accuracy instrumentation. ...
Where: Cost: Free
Fire Ecology of CaliforniaFires are an important fact of life in California. Humans have developed ways to deal with the fire season, but what about plants and animals? In what ways are they adapted to California’s fires?Join us in this interactive exploration of fire ecology. Learn how plants and animals deal with fire, ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: Free
Movie Night - 'Luminous' - LivestreamAstronomy Professor Larry Molnar believes he can find the unfindable - a star that is about to explode.When Larry and a small team of students stumble across a strange star, they embark on a dramatic journey of scientific discovery, which brings the unlikely team into the international spotlight. But others ...
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 ...
Sea otters are a model species for investigating how the recovery of a top marine predator impacts ocean ecosystems. As sea otters expand into new regions and habitats, such as saltmarsh ecosystems, they are unraveling secrets previously unknown to science. This presents an unprecedented learning opportunity, providing much needed knowledge ...
Where: Cost: $10 General, Free for Members.
Monday, 09/20/21
Coral Innate Immunity - LivestreamDr. Traylor-Knowles is an Assistant Professor in Marine Biology and Ecology at University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins University, her PhD. in Biology from Boston University, and did a NSF Ocean Sciences ...
Large Scale Structure Beyond the 2-Point Function - LivestreamAccording to the standard paradigm, inflation seeded the primordial Universe with density perturbations that are adiabatic and Gaussian distributed. In this limit, all the information is contained within the two-point correlation function, or equivalently, the power spectrum. Today, the distribution of matter is far from Gaussian, with structures forming across ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Chemogenetic and optogenetic technologies for probing molecular and cellular networksI will describe recent work on scalable, single-cell molecular recorders of past cellular events; proximity labeling for the study of protein trafficking and RNA binding proteins; and other molecular technologies under development.Speaker: Alice Ting, Stanford University
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Cosmic alchemy in the era of gravitational wave astronomy - LivestreamThe source of about half of the heaviest elements in the Universe has been a mystery for a long time. Although the general picture of element formation is well understood, many questions about the astrophysical details remain to be answered. Here I focus on recent advances in our understanding of ...
Cork oak (Quercus suber) is an endemic tree species to the western Mediterranean Basin where it naturally occurs in Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, France and Sardinia in Italy) and Northern Africa (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia). It is mostly known by its bark - the cork - which is harvested each ...
“Plant blindness†is the term used to describe the phenomena where plants often go unnoticed or underappreciated by humans. Plant blindness is observed in many contexts including in the study of palaeontology where plants are often overlooked simply as food for animals rather than as the fundamental underpinnings of all ...
Where: Cost: Free
Mathematics: The Key to a Hidden World - LivestreamDo we really need to learn about mathematics in our modern world? We all carry calculators around in our pockets and so much of what we're taught in school mathematics can seem irrelevant to our lives. However, the reason we learn mathematics is not just to solve problems. It's to ...
Where: Cost: Free
Collective Dynamics of Coexisting Spin Textures: The Antiferromagnetic Switching of FexNbS2 - LivestreamThe theory behind the electrical switching of antiferromagnets is premised on the existenceof a well defined broken symmetry state that can be rotated to encode information. A spin glass is in many ways the antithesis of this state, characterized by an ergodic landscape of nearly degenerate magnetic configurations, choosing to ...
Where: Cost: Free
Finding a path towards a molecular theory of nonequilibrium systemsIn this talk, I will discuss some recent efforts to develop a set of theoretical and simulation tools to study molecular systems driven away from equilibrium. This work leverages recent advancements in the study of large deviations and control theory, as well as the burgeoning area of stochastic thermodynamics. Generalizations ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Two Talks: Popping the Science Bubble - LivestreamMoss Animals? The Secret Lives of Overlooked Sea CreaturesIf 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 ...
Where: Cost: Free
Mary Roach's Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law - LivestreamMary Roach wants to let us in on a secret: The greatest number of repeat criminal offenders are outside, all around us, and you’ve probably even seen some today - animals. It has only been three centuries since animals had to stand trial for their misconduct, in a court of ...
Where: Cost: $5 General, Free for members
Advanced Mushroom Identification - LivestreamAlan Rockefeller is scheduled to be our guest speaker this month. He is a mycologist living in Oakland, California. In 2001 he began studying mushrooms, and is self taught. Each year since 2007 he has traveled to Mexico to collect mushrooms - he has now photographed more than 1,000 species ...
Where: Cost: Free
Conversations About Landscape: Hidden Nature SF - LivestreamWhere San Francisco’s iconic skyscrapers, streets, and parks stand today, there once was a wild landscape full of surprises - from vast hills of drifting sand to lush valleys and wetlands of many kinds. This land, home to the Ramaytush Ohlone, has been radically transformed. Nevertheless, its history remains an ...
