Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) differ from conventional reservoirs in that fractures and faults are central to the engineering problem. The coupled physical processes governing faulted and fractured reservoirs are complex and difficult to model. Traffic light systems (TLS), the current state-of-the-art for managing induced seismic hazard, have shown only limited success, in part due to fundamental limitations ...
Much of the discourse on AI ethics and safety focuses on alignment mechanisms, bias mitigation, and containment of agentic systems. These are crucial concerns. This talk will frame a somewhat different problem: the rhetorical and psychological dimensions of AI's authority. I argue that LLMs have acquired what might be called ...
From the discovery of elementary particles to the detection of gravitational waves, the development of measurement tools has been essential in uncovering the fundamental laws of our universe. In condensed matter physics, we can create tiny “universes” inside quantum materials, each with its own dimensionality, symmetry, and emergent properties. In ...
In Martinique, the “Coffee of Legends” project was launched with the ambitious goal of reviving the island’s historic coffee industry for a global debut at the 2020 Olympics. Yet, more than a decade since its inception, the initiative has produced almost no beans. Moving beyond simple narratives of “failure,” this ...
Cells show a range of complex behaviors which might normally associated with cognition, including basic forms of learning such as habituation. The giant single-celled ciliate Stentor coeruleus is a pond-dwelling organism that attaches to substrates like pond plants and filter feeds by means of a ring of cilia at one ...
Power Systems in the emerging markets have markedly expanded access to electricity over the past two decades. However, Africa remains the world's last major electrification challenge, with approximately 600 million people lacking electricity access - "more than half the global total. This discussion examines the economic conditions and technical barriers ...
A high-luminosity high-energy polarized electron-hadron collider will be built at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in partnership with Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF) and will start operation in the middle of the next decade. The EIC will be capable of colliding polarized & unpolarized electrons on polarized protons/light nuclei and ...
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
FeDNA Technique: Environmental Monitoring for the Klamath River Dam RemovalIn 2023-2024, four dams were removed from the Klamath River restoring access to 400 miles of free-flowing river. Before the dams were demolished, a team of Molecular Ecologists sampled the system to establish a baseline of DNA so we could monitor population changes in response to restoration actions. Using the ...
Where: SebastapolCost: $7 Advance, $10 at door
Tuesday, 01/27/26
COP30 Debrief: Reflecting on Belém and the road ahead - LivestreamThe United States has formally withdrawn from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations process for countries to negotiate an agreement on how to address climate change. What happens now? Stanford’s delegates to the last major UNFCCC conference of parties (COP30) in Belém, will reflect on that ...
In this talk, Kyle Johnson will present battery-free autonomous microrobots that can fly in the wind or drive independently on the ground using microwatts of energy harvested from light or radio waves. These mobile sensing platforms are expected to have transformative impact in applications ranging from agricultural monitoring and infrastructure ...
Will artificial intelligence replace human workers, or will it empower them? Tech leaders and economists have long warned that AI is fundamentally a "labor-replacing tool" destined to automate away millions of jobs. But this outcome is not inevitable - it reflects specific design choices, not technological fate.This presentation challenges the ...
Cosmic - ray muon tomography provides a passive, high - penetration imaging modality capable of resolving subsurface density distributions at depth and in complex geological environments. Muons - secondary particles generated by cosmic - ray interactions in the upper atmosphere - propagate along near - straight trajectories and lose energy ...
Research security, as defined by the US government, refers to “safeguarding the research enterprise against the misappropriation of research and development to the detriment of national or economic security, related violations of research integrity and foreign government interference.” Countries around the world, and especially in the G7, have adopted policies ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Stretching the limits of surface reactivity: mechanochemistry and topological catalysisFor the past century and more, physical chemists and chemical physicists have sought to understand chemical reactivity in terms of underlying physical processes. This fruitful connection has led to great breakthroughs in conceptual understanding and practical application for fostering and controlling chemical reactions. Here, we examine how the physical principles ...
Join renowned neuroscientist Dr. Adam Gazzaley as he discusses the leading edge of brain science.What happens when neuroscience meets next-generation technology? In this dynamic talk, Dr. Adam Gazzaley discusses how modern technologies are reshaping the way we understand and improve cognition. From clinical-grade video games to neurostimulation and AI-driven diagnostics, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $12 General in person, $9 online
Civilizational OptioneeringIndy Johar is co-founder of Dark Matter Labs and of the RIBA award winning architecture and urban practice Architecture00. He is also a founding director of Open Systems Lab, seeded WikiHouse (open source housing) and Open Desk (open source furniture company). Indy is a non-executive international Director of the BloxHub, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: TBA
Fungi Fundamentals Part III: The Wood Wide Web - LivestreamJoin POST in this 90-minute live, interactive event that will take you beneath the forest floor to understand how fungi connect plants.Have you heard that trees can “talk” to each other through underground fungal networks? It’s one of the most captivating ideas in forest ecology.Back by popular demand after Parts ...
One of the great mysteries of science is how the brain creates conscious experience. Even though neuroanatomy and neuron-control are well understood, and modern tools have revealed many neural circuits, the neuroanatomic center of consciousness remains elusive. We aren’t even really sure how to measure consciousness! If we could build ...
This talk examines why South Sudan’s 2011 referendum on self-determination, a process intended to resolve Sudan’s racial conflict, ultimately intensified racialization for South Sudanese who remained in Sudan’s capital. The talk argues that independence functioned less as a resolution of racial injustice than as a reorganization of it, inscribing racial ...
In Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power (Oxford University Press, 2025), climate media scholar Hanna E. Morris (University of Toronto) reveals how national anxieties following the presidential election of Donald Trump in 2016 have shaped American journalistic and political interpretations of climate change in ways that severely limit how ...
Editor's Note: Bruce Macintosh, the original speaker scheduled to talk on "Pictures of Distant Worlds", has been called out of town. This talk will be given instead.Our Universe has provided many surprises to astronomers. One hundred years ago, Edwin Hubble showed it is expanding. In the 1990s, we found that the ...
Where: Los Altos HillsCost: Free
Fusion Energy: The Hope, the Hype, and What Comes Next - SOLD OUTHumanity has tamed fire, wind, steam and even the atom to fuel civilization. Now we’re reaching for the next leap: fusion.Fusion means creating the heat and pressure needed to force atoms to merge and release energy - essentially, building a tiny star on Earth. Long considered out of reach, that changed in December ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $25
Virtual Skeptics in the PubThis is a casual night of socializing with fellow science-forward skeptics and with others inhabiting our oblate spheroidal planet.Please join us! This is a free event brought to you by Bay Area Skeptics. All are welcome.Click here to join
OneTaste hoped orgasm would change the world. Emerging in the midst of the late-aughts for-profit wellness boom, the company was unwavering in its faith in orgasmic meditation, or OM, a fifteen-minute practice featuring a woman being clitorally stimulated by a clothed, usually male partner. Nicole Daedone, the group’s magnetic and ...
Engineering Skin Bacteria for Needle-Free Topical VaccinationThe ubiquitous skin colonist Staphylococcus epidermidis elicits a CD8+ T cell response pre-emptively, in the absence of infection, but the scope and purpose of this program remain unclear. Here, we show that this colonist also induces a potent, durable, and specific antibody response. Colonizing mice with S. epidermidis engineered to ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
One Mother For Two Species: The Complex Lifecycle of Harvester Ants - LivestreamLearn how the complex lifestyle of social insects leads to complex reproductive models in the Brad Ashby Memorial Lecture.Eusociality is a complex reproductive strategy where the sterile worker castes help their sexual relatives reproduce. In this presentation, we will explore how extreme caste differentiation can trigger genetic conflicts within a ...
Where: Cost: Free
SETI Live: Life After Ice - 46,000 Year Old Worm Wakes Up - LivestreamIn this SETI Live episode, host Simon Steel (Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center) chats with evolutionary biologist Philipp Schiffer (Worm Lab) about one of the most astonishing discoveries in modern biology: scientists have revived a microscopic worm that had been frozen in Siberian permafrost for roughly 46,000 years. These nematodes entered a state of ...
Firn, the compacted snow layer covering glaciers and ice sheets, controls how surface meltwater is stored or runs off to the ocean and therefore influences sea-level rise. While firn can buffer meltwater and delay runoff, the widespread expansion of ice layers, observed by in situ and remote sensing measurements, may ...
Most people on earth live in cities and they are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions. Cities are also where exposure to poor air quality is most frequent and most variable. Understanding and managing the path to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, improved public health and lower public health ...
Brainstem trauma or neurodegenerative diseases can often result in the inability to move or speak, despite intact cognition. The inability to communicate often results in severely decreased quality of life for individuals living with these conditions. Our recent work has shown that brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), can employ neural signals to ...
Join us for a book talk with author and climate scholar Hanna Morris on Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power.Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing at the event. See you there!About the Author: Dr. Hanna Morris is an Assistant Professor at the School of the ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $22.95 General, Free for members
NightLifeThursdays hit different at NightLife. The museum comes alive after hours - wilder, more curious, and full of exciting creatures. Grab your friends, grab a hand-crafted drink, and let yourself wander into whatever weird or wonderful corner calls you. You never know what you’ll stumble into next, and that’s the ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Varies
Pesticide Impacts in and around Monterey BayThe short- and long-term health impacts of pesticide use for local communities on land as well as in the ocean are addressed in a conversation with Yanely Martinez, Katherine Gabriel-Cox, Adam Scow and Logan Pallin.
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free
Astro 101: Moons of the Solar System (online)This event is one of several different introductions to astronomy offered by SJAA. In our solar system, the planets often get all the attention, but the moons have a lot going for them! This presentation visits our planets from Mercury to Pluto, but we'll focus on their moons to learn ...
Because all systems are either absorptive, open, or both, their resonance modes correspond to the eigenstates of a non-Hermitian operator and therefore have complex frequencies. These modes, known as quasinormal modes (QNMs), extend well beyond the electromagnetic context I will discuss in the seminar. They have gained significant interest in ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Saturday, 01/31/26
Bird Walk with Amanda PreeceJoin us for a special bird walk with the amazing Amanda Preece! This walk will be ADA accessible and open to all ages. We’ll be keeping a focus on shorebirds and their allies this time, as there are likely to be lots of winter migrants in by this point in ...
Where: Pacific GroveCost: $20 General, $10 Members
Science Saturday: Marvelous MigrationsJoin us for Science Saturday celebrating the amazing journeys of migrating animals! Microscopic plankton, magnificent birds, and massive whales: it’ll be a journey to remember. We are also celebrating the birthday of Sandy the grey whale, so come by to sign a birthday card and receive a birthday treat. Includes ...
Where: Pacific GroveCost: Free
Stewardship Saturday: Cook with ImpactJoin 18 Reasons and The Marine Mammal Center for a hands-on, food-focused event exploring how our everyday eating choices can support a healthier planet. Together, we’ll learn what it means to choose sustainably, eat sustainably, and make a delicious vegetarian meal. During this interactive session, you’ll collaborate to prep, cook, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Tilden Fungus FairCelebrate the fruits of winter! View hundreds of local mushroom specimens, enjoy phenomenal vendors sharing their talents through fungi, mingle with the mycological community and enjoy presentations by guest speakers.Saturday Speakers11:00 AM Glowing Fungi: Bioluminescence and UV Flourescence in California - Damon Tighe12:30 PM Australia 2023: FUNGA, Flora and Fauna ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
The planetary scene 60+ years ago, and how it suddenly changed with Mariner 4On July 15, 1965, human understanding of another planet in the solar system took a remarkable turn. That was the day Mariner 4, the first successful mission to Mars, encountered and took close up photos of that planet. By today’s smart phone standards those images are laughingly crude; then they ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
Sunday, 02/01/26
Tilden Fungus FairCelebrate the fruits of winter! View hundreds of local mushroom specimens, enjoy phenomenal vendors sharing their talents through fungi, mingle with the mycological community and enjoy presentations by guest speakers.Sunday Speakers:11:00 AM Fungi of the East Bay's Oak Woodlands - Ben Anderson12:30 PM Koji Fermentation - Eleana Hsu1:30 PM Storytime ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Solar ObservingIt’s there for us year round, lighting our days and providing energy for our lives, so maybe it’s time to give it a closer look. Join SJAA for amazing and detailed views of the Sun, and be assured that we’ll be using special telescopes that will keep your eyeballs perfectly ...
