[C]Worthy: Navigating to Solutions for Ocean-Based Carbon Dioxide RemovalThere is scientific consensus that carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will be necessary to meet the Paris Agreement's goal of keeping the rise in global temperature to within 2°C. Among the most promising and scalable approaches to CDR are ocean-based pathways. These methods capitalize on natural physical and biogeochemical processes ??" ...
As play is intrinsic to humanity, it should come as no surprise that the history of computing is veined with playful simulations and games of all kinds. From the Balinese cockfight to Los Alamos’s Monte Carlo simulations, play and games, in all their kaleidoscopic glory, reflect the diverse cultures and ...
At last count, thirty lawsuits are challenging the legality of using in-copyright works to train generative AI models. While the lawsuits are still in early stages, fair use defenses are likely to be the main focus of judicial analyses of their merits. This talk will explain what judges have decided ...
"The Petro-State Masquerade" considers how postcolonial political futures in the Caribbean nation-state of Trinidad and Tobago came to be staked to the market futures of oil, natural gas, and their petrochemical derivatives. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research, Jobson theorizes how the tenuous relationship between oil and political power??"enshrined in ...
Artificial intelligence (AI) has focused on a paradigm in which intelligence inheres in a single, autonomous agent. Social and economic issues are entirely secondary in this paradigm. When AI systems are deployed in social contexts, however, the overall design of such systems is often naïve??"a centralized entity provides services to ...
The current era of computing is driven by mostly general-purpose computing architectures with some specialization. With the increasing use of artificial intelligence/machine learning (ML) applications in manufacturing, natural language processing, scientific applications with increasing requirements such as weather prediction and protein folding, and even in Level 3 & 4 driverless ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
The Science of Modern Machine Learning: New Opportunities for TheoryDeep learning, the technology underlying the recent progress in AI, has revealed some major surprises from the perspective of theory. These methods seem to achieve their outstanding performance through different mechanisms from those of classical learning theory, mathematical statistics, and optimization theory. Simple gradient methods find excellent solutions to nonconvex ...
The Webb Telescope was designed to look back in time, to study the first generation of stars, and reveal our cosmic origins. In what is only its second year of operation, JWST has already brought us tantalizingly close to our dream of seeing those first stars. Dr. Coe will tell ...
In paleontology, the skull, arms, and legs can provide valuable insights into the diversity of diets and movements in extinct animals. As animals evolve, all parts of their skeleton evolve simultaneously as a coordinated whole, however, the research paleontologists conduct often examines these parts of the skeleton independently. Emily Bogner’s ...
Belowground regulation of aboveground dynamics: How soil microbes shape species coexistence in plant communitiesSoils are teeming with microbial life, which exerts substantial control over plant ecology and evolution. Global environmental change threatens to disrupt these key plant??"microbial interactions, underscoring the importance of understanding the role that microbes play in shaping plant communities. Here, I will share my integrative approach to this problem, which ...
Giancarlo Savini is an Investment Principal at Future Energy Ventures with 15 years experience in ventures investments and commercial partnerships in the energy transition space. He worked in Shell Ventures, Honeywell Ventures where he was involved in 21+ transactions in Energy SaaS software platforms, Biofuels, Hydrogen and Energy Storage. Giancarlo ...
Nearly 40 years ago, on November 20, 1984, the SETI Institute was incorporated with inaugural officers CEO Thomas Pierson and SETI scientist Jill Tarter. The goal was to provide SETI researchers with a place to grow the search for life beyond Earth. What began with one NASA-funded SETI project and ...
Living nature, through some 3 billion years of evolution, has developed materials, objects, and processes that function from the nanoscale to the macroscale. The understanding of the functions provided by species and processes found in living nature can guide us to design and produce bioinspired surfaces for various applications1,2,3. There ...
Join us for an incredible evening of discussion about one of our most incredible local animals: Bears! Ursinologists Meghan Walla-Murphy and Dr. Brock Wooldridge will discuss life histories, stories, and conservation of these mega mammals both locally and around California. With a happy half-hour sponsored by Other Brother Brewery, it’s ...
Where: Pacific GroveCost: $20 General, $15 Members
After Dark: GatheringLean into fall with a special After Dark celebrating different ways we get together this time of year.Age 18+
Where: San FranciscoCost: $22.95 General, Members Free
NightLifeCalling 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 60,000 live animals (including familiar faces like Claude, our alligator with albinism), the night is sure to be wild.Step inside the iconic ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Varies
A Tale of Two Bridges and Round EarthCan you measure the radius of the Earth from an office window? An unusual photograph through a telescope of two San Francisco bridges clearly shows the curvature of the Earth. Measurements from this photo, bridge dimensions, and a few calculations result in a calculated radius of the Earth surprisingly accurate! ...
R. W. Kerrigan is a California native, with family roots here going back to 1850. He had public safety responsibilities in several California State Parks for 8 years, followed by a B.A. and M.A. (in Biology) from SFSU and a Ph.D. in fungal genetics from U.C. Santa Barbara, then a ...
The 2024 election was notable for its continuation of high amounts of dis-information that were spread through a variety of means. There were efforts by foreign agents to influence our elections and throw sand in the gears of our electoral machine. Perhaps predictably, the use of AI in election interference ...
Lichen & Friends BioblitzJoin us on Mt. Tam for a naturalist adventure! A bioblitz is a quick, intense survey of the species present. It’s part nature walk, part open-ended treasure hunt, and lots of joyful, careful observation. Our adventure will start with a quick how-to and an introduction to lichens and forests. We ...
One of the challenges in biomedical sciences is the development of next-generation tools that can accurately image, identify, and execute desired missions in a selectively programmed manner. In this lecture, I will discuss magnetic nanoparticles as core platform materials and tools for a variety of functionalities such as sensing, targeting ...
Join POST and Santa Clara County Parks for an educational experience like no other: Raptor Fest! This incredible event will highlight very important species of raptors who play an integral role in the health of our ecosystems!This free educational event will feature presentations and a chance to visit local wildlife ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
EV Expo Cruise on by the City of Sunnyvale’s first Electric Vehicle (EV) Expo! Learn all the exciting benefits of driving an EVat this FREE event! Join us for a morning talk on the latest financial assistance programs available for EV purchases.Hear from proud EV owners showcasing their vehicles and sharing their ...
Where: SunnyvaleCost: Free
Nature's Best Hope - 20th Anniversary Bringing Back the Natives Garden TourAgenda for Saturday:10:00 Registration opens: book signing10:30 Welcome from Glenn Phillips, Executive Director of the Golden Gate Bird Alliance, and Kathy Kramer, Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour Founder and Coordinator11:00 “Restoring the little things that run the world: Why it matters, and what you can do” Doug Tallamy12:00 Bringing ...
Zara Rutherford is the world’s youngest female pilot to fly a solo trip around the world in a small plane and she will debut her children’s book, I Flew Around the World: The True Story of a Young Female Pilot’s Record Breaking Flight.Young readers, aged 7-9, can join the inspiring, ...
Where: San CarlosCost: Free with admission
Salamander Search at SanbornSanborn is famous for its amphibians; you just need to do some extra searching to find them! Join us for a fun day of looking under rocks, logs, and other unique hiding spots that Sanborn’s Salamanders call home!Register at weblinkAges 4 - 12
Where: SaratogaCost: Free
Bioluminescent Dinoflagellates ? - RESCHEDULEDBioluminescent dinoflagellates are microscopic algae that glow blue in the dark!In this workshop, we will create a living dinoflagellate flask. We will inoculate a grow vessel with these microorganisms and feed them. We will also set up LED lights with a timed photoperiod. Dinoflagellates need a strict light/dark cycle to ...
Tule Boat and Doll-making with Ohlone Cultural LeadersCelebrate National Native American Heritage Month in the Outdoor Nature Lab with 'ottoy Initiative leaders Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino. On both Sundays, they will demonstrate how to create traditional dolls and boats and provide materials so participants can make their own to take home.Event is included with admission to ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Event is free with admission to the science center
Nature's Best Hope - 20th Anniversary Bringing Back the Natives Garden TourAgenda for Sunday1:00 Welcome from Glenn Phillips, Executive Director of the Golden Gate Bird Alliance, and Kathy Kramer, Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour Founder and Coordinator1:20 "Nature’s Best Hope" Doug Tallamy2:30 ClosingSee also the longer Oakland event on November 16.
Where: Santa ClaraCost: See weblink
Bioluminescent Dinoflagellates ? Take home a glowing flask with your algae pet!Bioluminescent dinoflagellates are microscopic algae that glow blue in the dark!In this workshop, we will create a living dinoflagellate flask. We will inoculate a grow vessel with these microorganisms and feed them. We will also set up LED lights with a timed photoperiod. Dinoflagellates need a strict light/dark cycle to ...
How do recent advances in Generative AI affect firm value? We construct the first measure of firms’ workforce exposures to Generative AI and show that an “Artificial-Minus-Human” (AMH) portfolio that is long high-exposure firms and short low-exposure firms earned daily returns of 0.44% in the two weeks following the release ...
There is broad consensus that electrification of end uses and renewable electricity can drastically and cost-effectively reduce GHG emissions from the energy system. But important questions remain about end uses that are particularly challenging to electrify as well as the broader (and typically not modeled) implications of net-zero emissions energy ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
GPS to the rescue: how the CYGNSS mission is uncovering new hydrologic processes in the TropicsThe Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) is in many ways, a unique mission. With its ability to penetrate clouds and canopies and a strong sensitivity to water, CYGNSS has helped us uncover new spatio-temporal dynamics of water at the surface of the Earth. In this presentation, I will describe ...
Evaluating the degree to which post-9/11 programs of mass electronic surveillance as leveraged by law enforcement have achieved purported counterterrorism objectivesThe post 9/11 era has witnessed an explosion in the use of state surveillance for the purposes of law enforcement. In the past few decades, the means and methods of ...
The low-carrier density state of a 2D semiconductor is described in terms of the homogeneous two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG), the ground state properties of which are determined by the electron density. Below a critical density, the electronic system freezes into a triangular lattice electron solid, or Wigner crystal. For experimentally ...
We will review the science underlying the recent award of the Nobel Prize to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for developing the foundations of modern artificial intelligence using tools from physics. This award has generated some misplaced controversy, with (some younger) computer scientists claiming AI has nothing to do with ...
Machine learning (ML) applications are increasingly reliant on black-box pretrained models. To ensure safe use of these models, techniques such as unlearning, guardrails, and watermarking have been proposed to curb model behavior and audit usage. Unfortunately, while these post-hoc approaches give positive safety ‘vibes’ when evaluated in isolation, our work ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Habitable Exoplanet Imaging Technology DevelopmentUS Astronomers have recently listed habitable exoplanet imaging ??" imaging and spectroscopy of a planet around another star that can harbor life on it's surface ??" as a top priority in the coming decades. However, our current telescopes and state-of-the-art technologies are insufficient to enable this high priority science goal. ...
Where: Rohnert ParkCost: Free
Illuminating the Biochemical Activity Architecture of the CellThe complexity and specificity of cellular processes require spatial microcompartmentation and dynamic modulation of the underlying biochemical activities, such as dynamic phosphorylation and dephosphorylation catalyzed by specific protein kinases and phosphatases, respectively. We hypothesize that cellular biochemical activities are spatially organized into an “activity architecture” and reorganization and restructuring of ...
Neutrinos possibly hold the key to one of the most profound questions still to be answered: why is the Universe dominated only by matter and what role did neutrinos play in the evolution of the universe? The answers to these questions lie hidden within the yet to be known properties ...
As technology has overtaken religion as a primary influence on 21st-century life and community, have tech titans and their innovations become our new false idols?Greg Epstein, Harvard and MIT’s influential humanist chaplain, joins us in San Francisco??"the epicenter of the technological revolution??" to delve into what it means to go ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $25 General in person, $10 online
In this presentation I will describe fluorogenic (off to on) probes we have developed to monitor electron transport,1 lipid peroxidation,2 and electrophilic stress,3 in lipid membranes. I will portray live cell imaging work where we exploit newly developed activatable fluorogenic antioxidants2 and state-of-the-art imaging methodologies to monitor lipid peroxyl radicals ...
The Snowball Earth hypothesis predicts that the hydrological cycle was curtailed for millions of years, with ice-cover and low temperatures limiting silicate weathering of the continental crust. In this scenario, the deep ocean should have equilibrated with the mantle through hydrothermal exchange at mid-ocean ridges. Here we report the discovery ...
The central topic of this seminar is modeling approaches to facilitate resource conservation and a just energy transition. Potential subtopics are an emerging technology’s potential for scaling, life-cycle assessment for measuring social and environmental impacts, uncertainty quantification, and economic modeling for the energy transition. Our goal is to create an intimate, ...
The CSCS Community Series or CS3 was established out of a desire to increase visibility of the amazing sleep and circadian work that is being done here on campus. This virtual seminar series provides an opportunity for member labs to present on the latest and greatest progress from their groups, with an ...
Understanding deformations of macroscopic thin plates and shells has a long and rich history, culminating with the nonlinear Foeppl-von Karman equations in 1904. However, thermal fluctuations in thin elastic membranes fundamentally alter the long wavelength physics, leading to strongly scale-dependent elastic constants, consistent with experiments that twist and bend atomically-thin ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
On Avoided Emissions - RescheduledThe urgency of climate change mitigation has led to widespread adoption of emissions avoidance projects to both reduce and offset emissions. At the core of offset integrity lie leakage, additionality, and permanence. Leakage and additionality, carbon market shorthand for imprecise measures of the economics concept of elasticities and externalities in ...
Quantum AI LecturesJoin us at the Japan Innovation Center (JIC) in Palo Alto, CA, on Thursday, November 21 for an exclusive event focused on the transformative intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Quantum Technologies. Designed for Fortune 500 executives, CFOs, CVCs, VCs, investors, business strategists, and innovation leaders, this event will delve into ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: $20
Astronomy on Tap Tucson #101: Chaos and Planetary Defense - LivestreamTucson’s local flavor of Astronomy on Tap, Space Drafts, is excited to present its 101st edition! This month, we’ll be joined by the director of the Catalina Sky Survey, Carson Fuls, who will tell us about the survey’s role in planetary defense, and Steward Observatory graduate student Sóley Hyman who ...
Where: Cost: Free
Right in your backyard: The plight of the North Pacific right whale - LivestreamOnce numbering in the tens of thousands, the North Pacific right whale was driven to the brink of extinction; now it's estimated that fewer than 50 animals remain in the eastern population. Despite this, one of these rare animals was seen this May off Point Reyes, CA. So how do you study the proverbial ...
The first time I smelled a truffle, it reached inside me and made me want it more than anything in the world. With that first whiff, it was as if the entire forest opened and invited me into its deepest, most profound essence. Yet once a truffle is unearthed, it only ...