Frontal cortical dynamics during decision-makingIn a dynamic environment, animals must adjust their action plans to match the behavioral demands. For example, the same sensory stimulus may require different motor responses depending on the context. The mammalian prefrontal cortex is thought to be a central node mediating flexible behavior, however the synaptic and circuit mechanisms ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Meet Leela: A New Constructivist Approach to AILeela is a semantic artificially intelligent agent modeled on the child development theories of Jean Piaget. She builds increasingly abstract semantic models of the world from her experiences of exploration, play, and experimentation. She uses a similar mechanism to map language exposure to experience and meaning. As Leela is an ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: Free
After Dark: You Are What You EatLiterally and metaphorically, we are what we eat. Â From vitamins and minerals to our cultural heritages, food is physiologically and emotionally important. Cuisine is passed down from one generation to the next, becoming apart of who we are. Come explore how historical and current conditions shape our relationship to food ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $17.95 advance, $19.95 at the door
Design NightlifeNightLife partners with San Francisco Design Week to explore the many ways design impacts lives, culture, and science - from AR to architecture, and beer labels to field experiments. Plus, celebrate the release of Lost Type Co-op’s new series of fonts, created in collaboration with and inspired by the Academy’s scientific collections.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $15 General, $12 Members
Hardcore Natural History: Saving the Ocean, One Golf Ball at a TimeJoin us for a conversation about one teenager’s personal project to clean the oceans in our area. Alex Weber and her father Mike have been free diving off the coast for sometime. A few years ago, Alex was struck by the number of golf balls that littered the ocean floor ...
Where: Pacific GroveCost: Free with admission
Building New Elements: Beyond the Periodic TableLike modern day and much more scientific alchemists, nuclear chemists work to construct elements that don’t exist on earth but may reside on proton-packed Islands of Stability off the far end of the periodic table, where these new heaviest elements could be long lived. Learn how six new elements were ...
7:00-7:25: Kimford Meador(Stanford/ Neurology) on "How does the brain damage affect how we think?"Abstract forthcoming...Read more7:25-7:50: Irving Weissman(Stanford) on "How normal stem cells regenerate the body but sometimes lead to cancer"Abstract forthcoming...Read more7:50-8:10: BREAK. Before or after the break, anyone in the audience currently working within the intersections of ...
Wildflowers, Plants, and Animals of Alum Rock ParkHave you ever walked through the park and wondered what that flower or animal it is that you see? Or have you been curious if every plant here is native? If you answered yes, YSI has got you covered!Come join us for a light nature walk in the park to ...
Where: San JoseCost: $16
Mapping syntactic structure in the brainWe all remember learning sentence diagrams and part-of-speech in grade school, but are those the underlying representations of syntactic structure in the brain? Neuroimaging allows us to answer this and other questions about language by providing a mechanism to test hypotheses about cognitive processes.Speaker: Lydia Majure, UC Berkeley
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Earth, Water, Paint - Artist ReceptionToni Littlejohn is a mixed media artist living and working in Point Reyes Station. She has exhibited her work extensively in the Bay Area and is a founding member of Gallery Route One. For 26 years she has been leading Wild Carrots, an arts workshop for artists and people new ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Cultural Tales of the Night’s SkyThe journey begins at sunset from the Center into the beautiful surrounding redwood forest. We’ll hike along some of the most popular trails and learn about local history as we uncover evidence from early settlers and will examine local plants as we discuss the ecology of the forest. At sunset, ...
Where: OaklandCost: $30 General, $27 Member
Assembling Life: How can life begin on Earth and other habitable planets?Dr. Deamer and his colleagues are testing the hypothesis that hydrothermal fresh water pools associated with volcanic land masses are a plausible site for life to begin. In his presentation, he will discuss the implications related to the search for life on Mars and icy moons like Enceladus and Europa.Speaker: ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
Astronomy Talk: Our Journey Toward MarsOur journey toward Mars began when first looked up to the night sky and noticed the ruby red glow of this celestial body. Join Mars scientist, Dr. J.R. Skok, on the journey from our first sight of the planet, through the telescopes, satellites, rovers, and samples that have transformed Mars ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
Sunday, 06/16/19
Marine Science Sunday: Summer with the Sea Lions Did you know that over half of all California sea lions are born on June 15 each year?  Come celebrate a special Marine Science Sunday where we highlight one of California's most iconic marine mammals and learn about what makes this animals so special. Guided tours will take you around the ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Family Day at the Garden: Bug Day!The UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley presents “Bug Dayâ€, a family-friendly interactive event that explores the world of insects. From plant-eating bugs to bug-eating plants, “good bugs†and “bad bugs,†insects that travel through water, soil or air, the beautiful and the bizarre, there is so much to discover. Visit ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free with admission
Science Sunday: Cephalopods Are the New Dinosaurs: A Squid’s-Eye View of the History of LifeBefore there were mammals on land, there were dinosaurs. And before there were fish in the sea, there were cephalopods - Earth’s first truly substantial animals and the ancestors of modern squid. With dozens of tentacles and formidable shells, they presided over an undersea empire for millions of years.Join scientist ...
Humans love certainty, intuitive explanations, and discovering patterns. Yet our world is complicated and filled with randomness. Statistical thinking provides us with practical tools for making sense of an uncertain world. It can lead us to make surprising conclusions from the data of everyday life. And it also teaches us ...
Graphic novelist and art mentor, Aaron Southerland, will hold a series of cartooning vibe sessions focused on outer space. The sessions are dedicated to the artsy students who desire to create and continue working on their own cartoon and comic characters. Aaron will provide guidance on drawing techniques using a ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Direct detection and characterization of exoplanetsDirect imaging is a method to detect and study extra solar planets, which consists of spatially resolving the light of the planet from the light of the star around which it is orbiting. The method is currently sensitive to young gas giant exoplanets that still radiate the heat from their ...
What is going on with the huge pieces - plates - that constitute Earth’s crust? Plate tectonics is ultimately responsible for the earth’s highest mountains and deepest oceans, also for most earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. It was first proposed in the mid 1960s, after the discovery of DNA, and ...
Where: NovatoCost: Free
Potentials and Pitfalls of Second Generation Biofuel ProductionBiofuel production in the U.S. has garnered increasing attention since the 1990s due to a national interest in energy independence and potential impacts of fossil-fuel-related climate change. Switchgrass, a grass native to the Midwestern United States, improves soil quality, stores carbon deep in the soil, and provides habitat for birds. ...
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free
Tuesday, 06/18/19
Alcatraz Waterbirds TourThis class will look beyond the prison walls of Alcatraz to the natural wonders of the island. Nine different waterbird species breed on Alcatraz during the summer months, the easiest to see being gulls, cormorants, pigeon guillemots, snowy egrets and black-crowned night herons. Waterbird docent, Corny Foster, will lead the ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Donations encouraged
Maximally constraining dark energyIn this talk I will sketch how combining observational bounds from cosmology with insights from theoretical particle physics allows us to test gravity with unprecedented precision, in particular zooming in on the nature of dark energy. In doing so, I will highlight the interplay between gravitational wave constraints on gravity ...
Ever look up at the night sky and wonder what’s all that up there? Have you been following the news about the black hole and the event horizon and would like to understand more about these phenomena and other Astronomy concepts? Join us and get a download on what’s hot ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Big Screen Science: Rocky IVAt the height of the Cold War, one movie envisioned a world where the U.S. and the USSR were brought together - by boxing. Join us as we celebrate America's birthday a couple of weeks early as we dissect the science of ROCKY IV. Are there limitations on the force ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $12.75
Wednesday, 06/19/19
Colloidal Heat Engines: Extracting Work from Bacterial Activity and Non-conservative ForcesArtificial microscale heat engines are prototypical models to explore the mechanisms of energy transduction in a fluctuation dominated regime. This talk will first discuss our experiments to realize a micrometer sized active Sterling heat engine operating between two nonequilibrium reservoirs with different activities of the bacteria. At high activities of ...
Biology is no longer destiny. Our DNA doesn’t determine our health and disease prospects, as geneticists once believed. According to the new science of epigenetics, the vast majority of our genes are fluid and dynamic -and their expression is shaped by what we think and what we do. Our genetic ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: sold out!
Human Intuition, Decision Analysis, and the Value of InformationOur intuitive decisions are subject to all kinds of biases and fallacies according to extensive research in the psychology of judgment. Decision analysis provides practical tools to help bring greater rationality to important decisions. Decision analysis has long been intertwined with computer science. John von Neumann, famous for the “von ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
Nerd Nite SF #109: Shaping SF, Otherworldly Geometry, and Cell Biology!June gloom increasing your sense of doom? Follow our nerdy beacon to the Rickshaw, where we’ll dig down through decades of fill to SF’s foundations, confound the flat-earthers by imagining a donut-shaped world, and watch cells do the splits. Just add music, alcoholic beverages, and Miss Arepita and boom - ...
