Collective Work and Play in Ant ColoniesAnts are an amazingly diverse group of more than 14,000 species that live in every conceivable habitat on earth. Like many distributed systems, both natural and engineered, ant colonies operate without any central control. No ant can assess what needs to be done. Each ant responds to its interactions with ...
Geological field trip to Gale crater, Mars: a view from the ChemCam on MSLLocated on Curiosity's mast, the ChemCam instrument ("Chemistry and Camera") uses a laser to provide the elemental composition of geological features along the rover's path. Since 2012, it has contributed to the investigation of geological units that record a time when on Mars, at Gale crater, liquid water was present ...
Laurence Tubiana is France’s lead climate negotiator and a key architect of the international climate agreement forged in Paris last December. Founder of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) in Paris, Tubiana is Professor and Director at the Sustainable Development Center at Sciences Po Paris. This is the first ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Vulnerability of the tropics to future changes in drought and fireIn the future, changes in precipitation across the tropics may have profound consequences for the survival of tropical forests and their vulnerability to fire and other agents of global change. I will discuss how the physiological response of forests to increasing CO2 is a primary mechanism responsible for this pattern, ...
Christopher Bollas, the most influential psychoanalyst writing in English today, asserts that mental life is innately hazardous. The steps we take through childhood are marked by mentally painful episodes that constitute ordinary breakdowns in the self. Adolescence stands as the most painful such period, during which some of the major ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Low (Car)bon CommunitiesWith an increasing awareness of the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions and a recognition of the social benefits of car-free and car-light living, more and more city planners, advocates and everyday urban dwellers are demanding new ways of building cities. The book Low Car(bon) Communities examines case studies from ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
BASF: Nerd Nite at The Tech MuseumNerd Nite Silicon Valley returns to The Tech Museum! We celebrate the Bay Area Science Festival with two talks from Stanford genetics Ph.D.s Alex Dainis and Lisl Esherick. Coral sex and animal hearts, oh my! We'll have games, drinks, a little nerdy trivia and lots of nerdy fun. Food, beer ...
