King Swett Hike - Bay Area Ridge TrailJoin us for a hike on the King-Swett Ranches. This Solano Land Trust property is a protected expanse of hills and valleys between the cities of Vallejo, Benicia and Fairfield. This nearly 4000 acre expanse is only open on docent led hikes and includes a section of the Bay Area ...
Dark energy and the Hubble constant with standard candles and standard clocks In this talk, I will summarise our recent results on constraining dark energy and measuring the local expansion rate, i.e. the Hubble constant, with Type Ia supernovae and gravitationally lensed transients. Despite growing evidence of accelerated expansion of the universe, the physical mechanism driving this phenomenon is poorly understood. Using ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Adult Night Hike and Sip: Harvest MoonThe journey begins at sunset from the Center into the beautiful surrounding redwood forest. The 4-5 mile hike will be lit by the light of the moon. Along the way, you’ll learn about the local history and ecology of the forest and hear interesting stories and facts about the harvest ...
Where: OaklandCost: $30 General, $20 Member
Green FridayJoin Laura Cunningham for a presentation with her artwork, photos, and research on the ecology and management of Point Reyes National Seashore. An ongoing National Park Service General Management Plan revision is ongoing, and public comments are welcome, for Point Reyes National Seashore and the northern portion of Golden Gate ...
Quantum mechanics, the physics of the very small, is the most accurate and far-reaching theory in science. (Bear in mind: theory is as good as it gets in science!) Still, physicists themselves admit that they don't fully understand the quantum world. Caltech physicist and New York Times best-selling author Sean Carroll suggests that we do have a very ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Film screenings: 'California on Fire' & 'Wilder Than Wild'CALIFORNIA ON FIRE screeningQ&A with Jeff FrostWILDER THAN WILDA one-hour documentary that reveals how fire suppression and climate change have exposed our forests and wildland-urban landscapes to large, high-severity wildfires, and explores strategies to mitigate the impact of these fires.Producers Stephen Most and Kevin White will be joining us for ...
Where: ValejoCost: Free
Saturday, 09/14/19
Hayward Fault Walking TourOver the last million years, the natural beauty of Fremont has been shaped by the Hayward Fault. Instructors will be leading these 'ground breaking' tours and exposing the science and beauty of the Hayward Fault. This fault is one of several active faults in the world actually creeping at 5 ...
Where: FremontCost: $15 adults
8th Wine Country Nature & Optics FestivalThe 8th annual "Wine Country Nature and Optics Festival" will be focused on the black bears and a wide range of fascinating nature organizations representing fauna, flora, fur, feathers, and family fun. Over 40 non-profits, optics companies, and artists will be tabling at this free public event on the plaza. Additional festival ...
Where: SonomaCost: Free
Princes of Plants, Trees of Life: How People Use PalmsPalms are the third-most economically important plant family, after grasses and legumes. But you'd never know it living here near the 38th parallel. Jason Dewees, palm expert at Flora Grubb Gardens and author of the award-winning Designing with Palms (Timber Press, 2018), will talk about the rich economic and cultural ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: $15 General, $10 Members (incl garden admission)
Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Hawk Talk & Raptor ReleaseThe Hawk Talk begins at noon, when a GGRO volunteer speaks about hawk migration and identification, and what we do here at the GGRO. Conditions permitting, a banding volunteer will bring up a newly banded hawk, talk about the banding program, and release the hawk in front of the crowd. ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Sean Carroll: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Space-TimeQuantum mechanics is the most accurate and far-reaching theory in physics, yet physicists themselves readily admit that they don't understand it. But Caltech physicist and New York Times best-selling author Sean Carroll suggests that we do have a very promising way of understanding the mysteries of the quantum world.This event ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: $22 General, $15 Member, $8 Student
The Bigger Picture: A Brush with Nature - Artist ReceptionA show and sale of landscape paintings, a portion of the proceeds to be donated to the Open Space and Parks Fund of the Marin Community Foundation Free and open to the public.Chris Adessa and Thomas Wood are landscape painters in Marin County, California. Their work has supported nature-conservation organizations, ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Trekking the ModelJoin a Ranger or docent on a guided tour of the Bay Model, a 1.5-acre hydraulic model of the San Francisco Bay and Delta. Discover the stories of the two major operations that took place at this location between 1942 - 2000.
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Film Screenings: Wild ChildWild Child is a curated program for kids and families. Join us on an educational and inspirational journey from the cold Alaskan North, to the remote Karnali River in Western Nepal. We will learn about the importance of wolf and bison in our ecosystems and culture, and how anyone, regardless ...
Where: ValejoCost: Free
Adult Night Hike and Sip with Michael CharnofskyLed by East Bay Regional Park District and Chabot, join us for a special edition of Hike & Sip with special guest Michael Charnofsky. Michael has worked for over 20 years in outdoor science education as a Naturalist and he has served on the Board of the California Association of ...
Where: OaklandCost: $30 General, $27 Member
Full Moon Night HikeAre you interested in what animals come out after the sun goes down? Now is your chance to find out! Come join Youth Science Institute for a mild walk through Alum Rock Park, and discover who is waking up as the sun sets. This leisurely walk is suitable for all ...
Where: San JoseCost: $16
Exploring Pluto, Charon & the outer reaches of the solar systemIn 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft flew past icy Pluto and Charon and sent back the first images of these objects in the furthest outskirts of our solar system. I will review what we now know about Pluto and Charon, and how the study of these bodies has evolved. I'll ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
Sunday, 09/15/19
Marine Science Sunday: Sea Otter SpectacularDid you know that the sea otter is the furriest animal in the entire world? The smallest marine mammal is also one of the most special with adaptations to stay warm, find food, and even use tools! This month we celebrate the threatened species with our Sea Otter Spectacular in a ...
Join Greater Farallones sanctuary naturalists and WaterTreks for a morning kayak on the Russian River Estuary along the spectacular Redwood Coast. Explore the wildlife, ecology, and island and coastal beaches where the river meets the sea. We’ll collect plankton samples for Sonoma Coast Watch to monitor for harmful algal blooms. ...
Where: JennerCost: $90, kayaks provided
Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Hawk Talk & Raptor ReleaseThe Hawk Talk begins at noon, when a GGRO volunteer speaks about hawk migration and identification, and what we do here at the GGRO. Conditions permitting, a banding volunteer will bring up a newly banded hawk, talk about the banding program, and release the hawk in front of the crowd. ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Science Sundays: Kelp Forest Resiliency: Life after Sea Urchin GrazingAlong California’s Central Coast, sea urchins have recently transformed a long-established kelp forest into an underwater mosaic - patchy forests interspersed with barrens void of kelp. What causes sea urchin outbreaks that result in widespread kelp deforestation? How will they end and when will kelp forests recover?Join Joshua Smith as ...
This year, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 by hosting our annual banquet on the USS Hornet, the aircraft carrier that picked up the crew of Apollo 11 from the Pacific Ocean. During this event, we will have a buffet style dinner in the ship’s officers wardroom, ...
Where: AlamedaCost: $54 General, $44 Members, $24 Students
Monday, 09/16/19
A 2020s Vision of CMB LensingThe field of CMB lensing is somewhere akin to where measurements of the primary CMB itself were 15 years ago; we have detected it's there and measured some scales to moderate significance, but the exciting era of deep precision measurements is just on the horizon. Over the coming decade, CMB ...
Around the world, people recognize that E=mc^2 oozes cosmic insight. But what does this "most famous equation" really say? What are energy and mass? And what makes the speed of light, c, so important? [Hint: mass, moving at speed c, doesn't turn into energy!] Using little more than common experience and 9th-grade math, Einstein's ...
Where: AlamedaCost: Free
Quantum sensing at high pressuresThe nitrogen-vacancy center has emerged as a promising nanoscale quantum sensor for temperature, strain, electric and magnetic fields. By integrating NV centers directly into a diamond anvil cell (DAC) --- the workhorse of high pressure science --- we demonstrate in situ measurements of magnetism inside the pressure chamber, up to ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Chemical Proteomic Platforms to Expose and Exploit Novel Metabolic Signals in DiseaseBiological systems are inherently and profoundly heterogeneous, both at the molecular level (e.g. encoded proteins existing in distinct posttranslational modification states) and the cellular level (e.g. organization of biomolecules to distinct regions of a cell or distinct cells within a tissue). Therefore, in order to understand information flow under basal ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
THE DARK SIDE OF EXTREME GALAXIESGalaxy formation and evolution is closely tied to the effects of dark matter and supermassive black holes. Aaron Romanowsky will present observations and dynamical modeling of two extreme and mysterious classes of galaxies -- the ultracompact dwarfs and the ultra-diffuse galaxies -- to provide novel constraints on their underlying dark ...
Where: Rohnert ParkCost: Free
Supersymmetry and Dark Matter: From the Weak Scale to the Planck ScaleWhile supersymmetry remains an interesting and important extension of the Standard Model of particle interactions, it experimental verification remains elusive. There are many motivations for supersymmetry, many of which center on the notion of Grand Unification. However, motivations for supersymmetry do not necessarily point to weak scale supersymmetry. I will review the ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Tools and Weapons: The Promise and Peril of the Digital Age Tech companies have moved fast to manifest the great promise of digital transformation, chasing rapid growth and sometimes disruption as an end in itself. The world has turned information technology into both a powerful tool and a formidable weapon, and today we are at an inflection point. Enormous challenges such ...
Where: Redwood CityCost: $50 - $75
Technosignatures: What Are They, And How Might We Find Them?: Jill Tarter at the Berkeley ForumArthur C. Clarke's third law states that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Since 1960, SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) researchers have been searching for that ‘magic’ in the form of radio, and now optical, electromagnetic signals. These searches need to continue and grow utilizing the exponentially increasing ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Conversations at the Library: Shaili Jain / PTSD: The Unspeakable MindMore than six million Americans suffer from PTSD. Stanford University psychiatrist Shaili Jain’s book, The Unspeakable Mind: Stories of Trauma and Healing from the Frontlines of PTSD Science, draws on a decade of her own clinical innovation and research. Dr. Jain argues for a paradigm shift in how PTSD should be approached, ...
Where: San MateoCost: Free
Free Will and Contemporary NeuroscienceAre the findings of contemporary neuroscience opposed to a belief that humans have free will?Speaker: Paul Symington, Franciscan University of SteubenvilleRegistration at weblink.
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Tuesday, 09/17/19
AGING, RESEARCH, AND TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION SUMMIT: DISRUPTING NEURODEGENERATIVE DISEASESAlzheimer’s and neurodegenerative diseases are critical health and financial burdens on patients, families, and societies in this country and around the world. Through Medicare and Medicaid, the US government is spending $200B this year on care and support, and that is projected to reach $1Trillion by 2050. 5.8M people are ...
Synthetic polymers are significant importance in all aspects of modern life, and during the last few decades, these materials have facilitated major societal advances. Innovative polymeric materials have the potential to address humankind’s next grand scientific and technological challenges; however, taking advantage of the opportunities presented by these materials requires ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Two KIPAC Tea TalksPlanning for JWST ObservationsSpeaker: Becky Canning, KIPACAstrophysics in the MeV gamma-ray bandSpeaker: Regina Caputo, NASA Goddard
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Sonoma State Biology ColloquiumSonoma State University Biology ColloquiumSpeaker: Margaret Rousser, Conservation Society of California
Where: Rohnert ParkCost: Free
Electric Vehicles Are Charging AheadWhile not a panacea for transportation-related pollution, electric vehicles and fleets have an important role to play in reducing emissions. What infrastructure, planning and policy decisions will it take to make this mode of transportation more widespread and accessible? Come join us for a discussion about strategies and innovative approaches, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $10 General, Free for members
Intoxicating Plants Tour - SOLD OUTJoin us for a leisurely stroll through the Garden to learn about the plants people have used to heal pain, cause pain, bring about pleasure, celebrate the sacred, and symbolize faith. Cultures from around the world will be represented. This walk is hosted in conjunction with the current ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free with admission
The boundary of galaxy clusters and its implications on SFR quenching of satellite galaxiesInfalling particles form a sharp physical boundary around their first apocenters around the parent halo, which is called "splashback radius". The previous measurements of splashback radius using optical clusters reported a ~20% discrepancy against the theory prediction. Here, using galaxy clusters detected by SZ surveys (ACT, SPT), we present the ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Health disparities, inequalities, inequities: What’s the difference and why does it matter?Although the term health equity has become widely familiar in public health over the past few years, there is no consensus about its meaning or the meaning of the related terms health disparities and health inequalities.This talk will discuss these concepts, their inter-relationships and distinctions, and the implications for policy ...
Recent advances in super-resolution fluorescence microscopy have led to ~10 nm spatial resolution and exciting new biology. We are developing new approaches to advance beyond the structural (shape) information offered by existing super-resolution methods, and reveal multidimensional information of intracellular functional parameters, including chemical polarity, diffusivity, and reactivity, with nanoscale ...
J.R. Blair is a lecturer in biology at San Francisco State University and the director of the SFSU Sierra Nevada Field Campus near Yuba Pass. He obtained his Masters degree in 1999 studying under the MSSF Science Advisor, Dr. Dennis Desjardin. His thesis was Fungi Associated with Arctostaphylos in Central ...
The Carmel River is an ephemeral river/bar built estuary located in southern Carmel Bay that is bounded by rocky headlands to the south and north of the 700-meter long pocket beach. Observations show the hydrodynamics during breaching and closure events that occurred during the transition from dry to wet seasons ...
Noah Whiteman, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley and the Principal Investigator of the Whiteman Laboratory. Their research follows from Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, who focused on the evolution of traits shaped by biotic interactions (interactions between organisms).
Machine learning (ML) algorithms are increasingly used to model and predict economic outcomes. Using 15 years of data and nearly 10,000 variables, we build an ML model to predict the likelihood that manufacturing facilities will violate EPA regulations on hazardous waste. Given that the EPA can inspect a limited number ...
The pharmacologic properties of cannabis are varied: sophisticated changer of consciousness, medicine with claims of healing for numerous syndromes, and substance of abuse. The story of how the neurochemical and neurophysiological properties of cannabis are being revealed is a tale of inspiration and dedication. In particular, the discovery of cannabinoid ...
The Bay Area’s transportation system is running at capacity. We see the strain when squeezing our way into crowded MUNI and BART cars, waiting 30 minutes or more at the Bay Bridge toll plaza, and dodging scooters as we cross the street. To add to the challenge, the California Metropolitan ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Nerd Nite SF #112: Parasites, Octopuses, and Superheroes!“Mindsuckers: Tales of the Most Badass Bugs on the Planet†by Anand VarmaThe stuff of nightmares: Parasites that hijack their host bodies. They control their minds. Force them to become their bodyguards, steer them into their burrows where the will be devoured alive, or compel them into the mouths of predators. How ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $10
Probability Management - A Cure for the Flaw of Averages - RESCHEDULED and MOVEDEditor's Note: This event has been rescheduled to September 19 and moved. See our listing on 9/19.Dr. Sam L. Savage, Executive Director of ProbabilityManagement.org, Author of The Flaw of Averages: Why we Underestimate Risk in the Face of Uncertainty, Adjunct Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University. The discipline ...
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a NASA space mission that is tasked with tracking the brightness variations of stars across nearly the entire 360 degree expanse of the sky, in its two year planned mission. In operation for the past year, it has already made numerous new discoveries, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Thursday, 09/19/19
Silicon Valley Leaders Symposium: Eric Law from Swinerton - CANCELEDSince Fall 2002, the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering has hosted the Silicon Valley Leaders Symposium (SVLS). The Symposium hosts industry and technology leaders to talk about business and technology trends. It also features prominent leaders who discuss broader societal and political issues that shape our life and society.Eric ...
Discussion of his new book “Digital Transformation: Survive and Thrive in an Era of Mass Extinction†with Professor Shankar Sastry. Reception and book signing in the Kvamme Atrium to follow.
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
A New Era of Transients and Cosmic Structure on the Radio SkyTechnology advances have opened a new era of radio observations. We are now monitoring the sky at millisecond cadence and discovering a vast catalog of new fast radio transients while simultaneously making deep maps of structure in the universe using hydrogen intensity mapping as a tracer. While these fields are ...
Quantum Computing - Introduction and ApplicationsThough early in its development, real quantum computers are now available from IBM on the cloud. This radically new kind of computing offers the possibility of solving some of the world's hardest problems, ones that have always been intractable for "classical" computers.This talk is a gentle introduction to the who, ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: Free
A Conversation with California's First Surgeon General Nadine Burke HarrisDr. Nadine Burke Harris has seen firsthand the health effects of childhood stress. As a pediatrician and medical director of the Bayview Child Health Center in San Francisco, she began studying how childhood adversity translates to poor health in adulthood. In 2013, she founded the Center for Youth Wellness in ...
How has transportation evolved over time, and how does this evolution move toward generating a sustainable transportation ecology? Join us to learn more about how transit technology has advanced to respond to both current and anticipated future needs. From insight into the mechanics of self-driving cars to visions from the past of ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: 17.95 advance, 19.95 door, AD members free
In 2018, health care became the United States’ largest industry, but some would say that its success came at the expense of the American people. Coverage is unaffordable for many, 20 percent of Americans have faced debt collection for medical bills, and care increasingly feels rushed and impersonal. How did ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 General, $10 Members, $8 Students
'90s NightlifeGrab your high-waisted mom jeans and your flannel and get yourself to ‘90s NightLife for a celebration of iconic pop culture.Step into the garden for an epic medley of ‘90s movie soundtracks (think The Lion King, Titanic, The Fifth Element) by the Awesöme Orchestra Collective.Chat with Bay Area experts as ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Varies
Probability Management - A Cure for the Flaw of AveragesEditor's Note: This event was originally scheduled for Sept 18 at a different location.Dr. Sam L. Savage, Executive Director of ProbabilityManagement.org, Author of The Flaw of Averages: Why we Underestimate Risk in the Face of Uncertainty, Adjunct Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University. The discipline of probability management ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
Hardcore Natural History: Sudden Oak DeathWe will look at the theme of disease through the lens of plants, diving into what is commonly referred to as “Sudden Oak Deathâ€. Phytophthora ramorum, the pathogen known to cause sudden oak death, will be explored by our expert guest Chris Lee, of the California Department of Forestry and ...
Where: Pacific GroveCost: $10 General, $5 Members, $15 at door
Hooked on the Fishing Cat: An Evening with Fishing Cat ConservancyDeep in the mangroves of Asia is a cat that loves water, and gets most of his meals from fishing! The long-term survival of The Fishing Cat depends upon the people who live in the surrounding areas. The Oakland Zoo Impact Speaker Series welcomes Ashwin Naidu, co-founder and director of ...
The San Francisco Estuary Invasive Spartina Project is led by the CA State Coastal Conservancy and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, in partnership with more than 150 landowners and resource agencies in all nine counties of the SF Bay Area.  The overarching goal is to eradicate invasive Spartina in order to ...
Two KIPAC Tea TalksThe boundary of galaxy clusters and its implications on SFR quenching of satellite galaxiesSpeaker: Tae Hyeon-Shin, Univ. of PennsylvaniaMachine learning applied to CosmologySpeaker: Tomasz Kacprzak, ETH Zurich
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
Raptor ID Class on Hawk Hill with Allen FishJoin GGRO director Allen Fish for a 3-hour raptor workshop on the Pacific Coast’s best raptor-spotting spot. Come learn how to tell soaring hawks from accipiters and falcons. And how to spot unique species behaviors as well as tell-tale field marks. Come learn a whole new vocabulary of geeky bird ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Donations encouraged
Engineering Electronic States, Energy Transfer and Disorder in Nanomaterials Through the External EnvironmentThere is a rich variety of semiconductor nanostructures available today for the design of novel material systems and interfaces with tailor-made functionalities. In particular, atomically thin two-dimensional materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) monolayers exhibit extraordinary optical and electrical properties. For such materials, with thicknesses ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Lectures & Lasers: Colorblindness with EnChromaGet lit with lasers! Want to impress your friends with your expansive knowledge of science and culture? Looking for a new date night activity? Just want to kick back and watch a laser show?Don McPherson, a Doctor of Glass Science, was responsible for the original “ah-ha†moment that led to ...
Where: OaklandCost: $20
So you want to buy a telescope (and not just store it in the closet)Thinking of getting a telescope or trying to understand what you already have? To help avoid the frustration that often accompanies such an undertaking, join SJAA for an hour to learn about telescopes, including how telescopes work, their critical components, the types of telescopes that are available, and additionally useful ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
Spacecraft Thermal ControlIn this presentation we will discuss the role of Thermal Engineers on the spacecraft design team and explore the use of conduction and thermal radiation (the two dominant modes of heat transfer in a vacuum) to control the temperature of the spacecraft.Speaker: Kenji Ozawa
Where: LivermoreCost: Free
Saturday, 09/21/19
California Coastal Cleanup DayEvery year, on the third Saturday in September, people join together at sites all over California to take part in the State's largest volunteer event, California Coastal Cleanup Day. This year Marine Science Institute is kicking off Coast Weeks at Pescadero State Beach! Join us and thousands of volunteers as ...
Where: San GregorioCost: Free
California Coastal Cleanup Day - Marin CountyCalifornia Coastal Cleanup Day is celebrating its 35th year! Join others around the State to make a difference keeping our beaches, waterways, and parks clean. With over 40 cleanup sites in Marin County, check the Bay Model website for a volunteer opportunity near you.Â
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Smithsonian Museum Day LiveSmithsonian Museum Day Live! is an annual event hosted by Smithsonian magazine. On Saturday, September 21, 2019, visitors who present the Museum Day Live! ticket at the Hiller Aviation Museum will gain free museum admission for two.Tickets available at weblink starting Aug 15.
Wolbachia lab workshop - DNA extraction!Wolbachia infects 60% of all insect species on earth, and has an enigmatic and complex relationship with its hosts. Recently researchers have exploited this relationship to successfully manage Dengue and Zika virus transmission by mosquitoes.In this series of 3 laboratory workshops you will learn to extract DNA from insect samples, ...
Where: OaklandCost: $20
Our changing atmosphere: Evidence that demand a Verdict?Many people are aware of climate change only by way of public discourse and social media. Drawing on recent scientific papers organized for a course he teaches at Berkeley, Jeff Reimer will show how the atmosphere is changing, that humans are the cause, and that there are consequences. These consequences ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Hawk Talk & Raptor ReleaseThe Hawk Talk begins at noon, when a GGRO volunteer speaks about hawk migration and identification, and what we do here at the GGRO. Conditions permitting, a banding volunteer will bring up a newly banded hawk, talk about the banding program, and release the hawk in front of the crowd. ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
TEDxPaloAltoSalon: RethinkHear from an extraordinary lineup of individuals rethinking our understanding of epigenetics, musical performance, neuro technology, belief systems, origami, nuclear power and more. Speakers include neuroscientist Osh Agabi; origami artist Ilan Garibi; PTSD specialist Dr. Saili Jain; Grammy(R)-nominated drummer Sammy Miller; Daniel B. Poneman, President and CEO of Centrus Energy ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: $70.
Movie Night on Mt. Tam: The Martian2015 film starring Matt Damon depicts the struggles of an astronaut left behind on Mars as he awaits rescue. Post-screening discussion by Jeffrey Silverman of Science VS Cinema
Where do we come from? A fundamental question of the human species. We might not know the answer, but we do know how the atoms that make up us, the sun, the planets, and the stars were made. Many schoolchildren know that the sun is a star made of hydrogen ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
Sunday, 09/22/19
Marine Science Sunday: Top Predators: Orcas and SharksThe size, strength and skills of the ocean's top predators are simply one of a kind. This month we celebrate National Wildlife Day with those animals that rule the ocean in Top Predators: Orcas and Sharks! Come learn more at Marine Science Sunday - fun educational programs for kids and adults! ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free with Admission
Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Hawk Talk & Raptor ReleaseThe Hawk Talk begins at noon, when a GGRO volunteer speaks about hawk migration and identification, and what we do here at the GGRO. Conditions permitting, a banding volunteer will bring up a newly banded hawk, talk about the banding program, and release the hawk in front of the crowd. ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Medicine in the Garden: Fall EquinoxLast season we found over 40 medicinal plants during our plant walk led by clinical herbalist Lisa Sanderson-Fox. In our ever changing garden we will again enjoy an herbal walk! Afterwards we will make herbal vinegars to boost our immune system this fall and winter. Melanie Molina will lead participants ...
Counter Culture Labs is proud to be hosting the American Society for Microbiology Agar Art Contest Come and learn how to make colorful and unique living art. Design your own art piece using our colorful bacteria, and then submit your piece for a chance to win.In this hands-on workshop, participants will be ...
Where: OaklandCost: $10
Monday, 09/23/19
Tests of new physics with the Lyman-alpha forestThe Lyman-alpha forest (the correlated absorption seen in the spectra of high-redshift quasars) is a uniquely powerful probe of new physics in the cosmological model - whether that be properties of the neutrino, the nature of cosmic inflation or the phenomenology of dark matter. The challenge lies in robustly disentangling ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Particle physics beyond the Standard Model (and other fun) with clusters of galaxies Clusters of galaxies provide superb laboratories for exploring new particle physics. They represent the most massive dark matter objects in the Universe, making them an important laboratory for probing dark matter decay and annihilation signatures. However, in this talk, I will highlight how the transparency (or lack thereof) of the ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Atom Defined Fabrication Comes of Age: Binary Logic and an Ising SimulatorThe long persistent barriers to atom-defined fabrication in silicon have been overcome. In the last year or two A.I. enabled printing and editing of atomically-perfect ensembles has become routine. I will discuss atomic circuitry composed of individual silicon surface dangling bonds that has the potential to address the shortcomings of ...
EXPLORING PLANETS ORBITING NEARBY STARSThe NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission launched last year and is finding hundreds of planets orbiting nearby stars. The TESS mission will probe the compositional diversity of small planets, investigate the formation of planetary systems, and set the stage for the next phase of exoplanet exploration: the quest ...
In the field of engineering, dimensionless numbers frequently help to characterize the state of a system. I will present a series of vignettes about unusually large dimensionless numbers that arise in brain science. These can indicate issues that are poorly understood, and in some cases clearly misunderstood.Speaker: Markus Meister, Caltech
Introduction of PyTorch and Transfer LearningPyTorch is the fastest growing framework to build deep learning algorithms. In this one hour seminar, we will cover the state of the art of deep learning. We will provide an intuitive understanding of model development in PyTorch.To solve real-world problems , we will introduce Transfer Learning, where you can ...
Where: SunnyvaleCost: Free
Tuesday, 09/24/19
We Are the WeatherIs clinging to habits and cravings destroying our future? An outspoken critic of factory farming and animal-centric diets, Jonathan Safran Foer writes that stopping climate change begins with a close look at what we eat - and don’t eat - at home for breakfast. At the office, industry leaders such ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 General, $12 Members, $7 Students
Tests of new physics with the Lyman-alpha forest The Lyman-alpha forest (the correlated absorption seen in the spectra of high-redshift quasars) is a uniquely powerful probe of new physics in the cosmological model - whether that be properties of the neutrino, the nature of cosmic inflation or the phenomenology of dark matter. The challenge lies in robustly disentangling ...
The Unspeakable Mind: Stories of Trauma and Healing from the Frontlines of PTSD ScienceShaili Jain, in conversation with Louise Aronson, will share nuanced cartography of PTSD, a widely misunderstood yet crushing condition that afflicts millions of Americans. Jain's forthcoming book, The Unspeakable Mind, is the definitive guide for a trauma-burdened age. With profound empathy and meticulous research, Jain - a practicing psychiatrist and PTSD specialist at one ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 General, $10 Members, $8 Students
Film: 'Plastic China'Join Zero Waste Youth USA for another screening of "Plastic China" - the film that gave rise to China's recent waste ban policy, also known as National Sword. The film profiles a young woman and her family who live next to a recycling plant, in mountains of plastic waste from ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Scorched Earth: Culture and Climate Under SiegeWildfires are breaking records as they burn through acres of Amazon rainforest, northern California countryside and even the Arctic tundra. This loss carries major implications for the global climate: The Amazon alone is responsible for removing 5 percent of the world’s 40 billion tons of CO2 emissions from the air each year. ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 General, $12 Members, $7 Students
Learn the story of California's changing ecosystems--as observed from space--from USGS Research Physical Scientist Kristin Byrd, Ph.D.How can we use images from space to help us understand changes to our coasts, range lands, forests, and wildlife habitats?How can they help to predict future changes?What more can we learn from advances ...
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
Ecology and Conservation of Pacific Albatrosses; a Scientist’s and Artist’s PerspectiveBreck Tyler’s Presentation:Albatrosses travel thousands of miles across ocean basins, returning to land only to nest. Midway Atoll, a tiny island in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian chain, is one of the world’s largest albatross colonies, hosting more than a million nesting birds. Sharing his experiences from 30 years at Midway, ...
Learn how astronomers are using gravitational lensing to aid in our understanding of the universe. Dr. Schaan will show how naturally-occurring gravitational lenses work and how they are used to take measurements across the universe. He also will discuss what we expect to learn from current and upcoming experiments with ...
Where: Walnut CreekCost: Free
Nerd Nite Silicon Valley #8: Sarah Winchester and Bay Area SharksNerd Nite is a boozy, playful, and educational lecture series found in cities all around the world. Enjoy 30 minute talks from scientists, historians, game designers, and other nerds over drinks.Topics for Nerd Nite Silicon Valley #8Come and face your fears! We’ll take a virtual visit to the famously haunted ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
Green Film Festival: 'Push' Opening Night ReceptionHousing is a fundamental human right, so why can't we afford to live in our own cities anymore? Push sheds light on a new kind of faceless landlord, our increasingly unlivable cities, and an escalating crisis that affects us all. Follow Leilani Fraha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $60 General, $55 Members, $16 film only
Intelligent coordinated robot teams allow for the inspection of large infrastructures on land, air, water, and subsea, by combining robotic precision and speed with human intuition and abstract thinking. By recently unifying a priori system dynamics knowledge with efficient machine learning, robots are now able to learn complex manipulation tasks ...
Sophien Kamoun is a senior scientist at the Sainsbury Laboratory and a professor at the University of East Anglia. His group studies how filamentous plant pathogens, such as the Irish potato famine pathogen Phytophthora infestans, infect plants, and the plant processes that are modulated by these pathogens.
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Sears Point Tidal Marsh Restoration: Dissecting Rapid Ecological Change Through Multiple Lenses Dr. Michael Vasey is a passionate believer in the need for good science to inform management decisions and public engagement in the cause of conserving the San Francisco Estuary (SFE). He left a career in teaching conservation biology at San Francisco State to practice conservation biology as manager of the ...
Corey Garza is an associate professor of Marine Science in the School of Natural Sciences at California State University, Monterey Bay. His research interests are in the area of marine landscape ecology using GIS modeling and spatial statistics to study the relationship between scale dependence, habitat complexity and patterns of species ...
Evolving Economies of CannabisDesign Considerations for Legalizing Cannabis with Dr. Beau Kilmer, RAND Corporation Canada, Uruguay, and 12 jurisdictions in the United States have passed laws to remove the prohibition on cannabis and legalize supply for adults. Many of these jurisdictions allow large-scale production and retail sales, but this is not the only ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: $25 General, $22 Members & Students
Green Film Festival: 'Anthropocene: The Human Epoch'Experience this cinematic meditation on humanity's massive reengineering of the planet, as scientists argue we have now entered a new epoch. The Anthropocene is a full-scale, catastrophic change that we cannot reverse completely. But we must try.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Where: OrindaCost: $5 General, $1 students & K-12 Teachers
Peninsula Gem and Geology Society Monthly MeetingLocal mineral dealer and part mine owner Rick Kennedy will be giving a presentation on the Jackson's Crossroads Amethyst Mine of Wilkes Co. Georgia, the premier amethyst locality in the United States. The mine consistently produces world class specimens and crystals that are justifiably celebrated for pure rich purple color ...
Where: Los AltosCost: Free
Skeptics in the Pub: MillbraeScience and Reason with Skeptics in the Pub West Bay, Fiddlers Green, Millbrae sponsored by Bay Area Skeptics.If ye value critical thinking, and if ye scorn the film-flam man, and if ye drink, drink with us, your friends. If ye shun the brewer’s art, at least help us lay waste to bangers & mash!Skeptics ...
The world we live in is wildly complex and open-ended. Despite the excitement surrounding AI, building an artificial intelligence that rivals or exceeds human levels in dealing with that world is far more difficult than we once believed. How can we create AI worthy of our trust when solving real-world ...
Astronomy on Tap: Saturn's Rings, Star Birth, and ExoplanetsBorn with the Dinosaurs? The Origin, Age, and Remaining Lifetime of Saturn's RingsSpeaker: Paul Estrada, SETIA Star is Born: How Stars Form in SpaceSpeaker: Jim Jackson, Stratospheric Observatory for Infrafred AstronomyWhat do we Know About Exoplanets? And What's Left to Learn?Speaker: Jesse Dotson, NASA Ames
Where: San JoseCost: Free
Thursday, 09/26/19
Tip the Scales: Pushing the Limits of Computational AstrophysicsThe role of computation in astrophysics has grown substantially over the last decade, driven by the growth in computer power, sophistication of computational methodologies, and increasing data volumes. Over the next decade, the importance of computational astrophysics will continue to grow as computers reach exascale performance and data-intense observational surveys ...
Editor's Note: This event has been postponed until Spring, 2020.Since Fall 2002, the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering has hosted the Silicon Valley Leaders Symposium (SVLS). The Symposium hosts industry and technology leaders to talk about business and technology trends. It also features prominent leaders who discuss broader societal ...
They say all the world’s a stage - and here, you can enter nature’s cabaret and encounter the high drama of nature. From mating dances to glorious bird songs, from horror stories of hunting and the elation of birth to the mysteries of perplexing landscapes, indulge in the artistry of ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: 19.95 door, 14.95 members, AD members free
For Future Reference: Reckoning with the Ethics of Technology Institute for the Future (IFTF) and the podcast Reckonings invite you to join Reckonings producer Stephanie Lepp, Moment CEO Tim Kendall, and IFTF Digital Intelligence Lab research manager Katie Joseff, at IFTF for a conversation about the ethical decisions behind the technology in our lives. We’ll explore questions like:How do ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: $10
Understanding Bias How biased are you? According to Jennifer Eberhardt, we live in a world where unconscious bias and innate prejudices affect our visual perception, attention, memory and behavior. These stereotypes can dramatically influence and impact our education, employment, housing and our criminal justice system.Eberhardt has worked extensively as a psychologist and ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: $22 General, $15 Member, $8 Student
 Learn about bat ecology, diversity, and the role they play in our ecosystem.See how scientists are using a variety of methods including capture, acoustic monitoring, and tracking, to learn more about local bat species.Find out how this information helps land managers address conservation challenges including habitat loss, emerging diseases such ...
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
Green Film Festival: 'Walden'Through thirteen 360-degree shots, Daniel Zimmermann creates a meditative comment on the absurdity of the economic rationale that underlies our globalised world. Follow the reflective journey of a felled fir tree from a Catholic Monastery in Austria to a mysterious destination in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Friday, 09/27/19
Photography BasicsThis class is for those who have an interest in getting better photographs with their cameras. It is designed to take beginners who are using the “Auto†mode most of the time and want to use the other features to improve their results. The approach will be to make the course ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Donations encouraged
Diffuse Galaxies As a Probe for Dark MatterLow mass galaxies provide an essential testing ground for theoretical predictions of cosmology. They dominate the counts in the Local Group and have high mass-to-light ratios, making them ideal for studying dark matter on small scales. Recent advances in telescope instrumentation have opened a new window into the population of ...
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
Peculiar Velocities in Cosmology The Universe is not homogenous. Since the early times, its structures have grown and moved under the laws of gravity. By measuring these motions today we are able to trace the history of the Universe expansion and gravity laws and hence test the General Relativity. Peculiar velocity measurements rely on ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Transport Properties of Complex NanosystemsHeat, charge, and mass are fundamental energy carrying modes relevant to nearly all dynamic properties of interest in engineering, physics, and modern energy technologies. Here, I will discuss the design and understanding of transport properties in complex nanoscale systems where the dimensional constraints are changed systematically to reveal fundamental principles ...
Carbon dioxide is one of the most attractive renewable C1 resources, which has many practical advantages such as abundance, economic efficiency, and lack of toxicity. The favorable nature as a carbon source is, however, inextricably linked to its inherent inertness. Here we report a new strategy to circumvent thermodynamic and ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Green Film Festival: 'The River and the Wall'This film follows five friends on an immersive adventure through the unknown wilds of the Texas borderlands as they travel 1200 miles from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico on horses, mountain bikes, and canoes. Their mission: to document the potential impacts of a border wall on the natural ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Green Film Festival: 'Artifishal'This film is a call-to-action documentary about people, rivers, and the fight for the future of wild fish and the environment that supports them. It explores wild salmon's slide towards extinction, threats posed by fish hatcheries and fish farms, and our continued loss of faith in nature.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Saturday, 09/28/19
BABEC 2019 Fall Conference: Advancing Biotech EducationPlease join us for an engaging and inspiring day of community with other science teachers from across the Bay Area! Come see our new classroom resources and learn how biotech activities can help you teach NGSS.Strategies for Strong Workforce Program FundingLearn how to engage with new state funding options for ...
Where: San BrunoCost: Free
Guided Nature Walk Experience the beauty and rich natural history of this 535-acre preserve. Our guided nature walks are on Saturdays throughout fall and spring. Participants are divided into small groups and paired with a trained Bouverie volunteer to explore the mixed evergreen forest and flower-carpeted oak woodland.Visitors of all ages are welcome. In order ...
Did you know that our oceans are getting noisier, that plants might grow better with classical music playing, or that NASA scientists have converted solar flares into sound waves to learn about the sun? From rabbit ears to bat echolocation, from owls in flight to dolphin sonar, the sense of ...
A Shoreside at MSI promises to be a fun morning of exploration and discovery! At our beach front facility participants will work as a team to pull in a large seine (net) to catch local fishes, set a mud grab to gather bottom samples and invertebrates, and learn the difference ...
Enjoy shark science, shark experts, shark art, shark films, shark conservation, food and live music!Event Schedule- Main Event Free!!11am: All art & science activity stations open, food truck & refreshments available.11am-1pm: Live Music - Ukulele Friends 11:30am: Special Programs (see below)1pm: Ocean Life Parade & Costume Contest2pm-4pm: Live Music - Heather Combs & Max Delaney2pm: Special Programs ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Hawk Talk & Raptor ReleaseThe Hawk Talk begins at noon, when a GGRO volunteer speaks about hawk migration and identification, and what we do here at the GGRO. Conditions permitting, a banding volunteer will bring up a newly banded hawk, talk about the banding program, and release the hawk in front of the crowd. ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Green Film Festival: 'The Woman Who Loves Giraffes'Think the Jane Goodall of giraffes and you'd get Canadian zoologist and feminist trailblazer Dr. Anne Innis Dagg, whose unprecedented work and scholarship on South African wildlife was stonewalled by institutional chauvinism. This film highlights both her pioneering research and her timeless fight for gender equity.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Green Film Festival: 'Golden Fish, African Fish'The Casamance region in the South of Senegal is one of the last areas of traditional fishing in West Africa, and crucial to the food safety of many African countries. But the challenges of industrial fishing companies and harsh working conditions are putting the region in danger of collapse.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Marinship and California’s Second Gold RushDuring WWII, Sausalito (including the Bay Model building) was home to a shipyard called Marinship. Join Charles Wollenberg, history instructor at Berkeley City College and UC Berkeley for this talk and learn how the story of Marinship fits into the larger history of the "Second Gold Rush," the extraordinary process ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Green Film Festival: 'Silent Forests'Meet passionate and tenacious conservationists as they fight to stop forest elephant poaching in Arfica's Congo Basin region. Institutional challenges like corruption and lack of funding threatened to derail their attempts to save those that remain.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Green Film Festival: 'Mossville: When great Trees Fall'As a centuries-old black community, contaminated and uprooted by petrochemical plants, comes to terms with the loss of its ancestral home, one man standing in the way of a toxic petrochemical plant's expansion refuses to give up.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Green Film Festival: 'Ay Mariposa'Journey along this emotional odyssey in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas with advocates who show their fierce commitment to home, justice, wild beauty, monarch butterflies, and the future of the US-Mexico borderlands.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Green Film Festival: 'Cooked: Survival by Zip Code'A life and death story about extreme heat, the politics of "disaster", and survival by zip code. This story explores the systematic ways that climate disasters like heat waves disproportionately affect lower income and marginalized communities.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Green Film Festival: 'The Green Lie'The big companies would have us believe that we can save the world just by buying the right stuff in our own homes. In this film, greenwashing experts explore how we can fight back against the dangerous lies of big business.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Green Film Festival: 'The Pollinators'A cinematic journey about the current international bee crisis and what it means for our food security. This film explains the problems of modern large scale agriculture and offers ideas on how it can be improved, illustrated through the migratory pollinators that are a vital cornerstone of our entire food ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Sunday, 09/29/19
DÃa de la IngenierÃa/Latino Engineering Day 2019Join us for a family-friendly collaboration between the Exploratorium and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE).Latino Engineering Day/DÃa de la IngenierÃa combines panel discussions, presentations on the science and engineering heritage of Latinos, and playful activities such as making NatureBots. This annual, drop-in program is conducted primarily in Spanish and provides opportunities to meet ...
The San Francisco Botanical Garden is one of the world’s premier gardens. Here you can see thriving collections of plants from all around the world. Our day’s activities will include a docent lead tour highlighting plant forms that are fun to draw, a potluck lunch (bring something to share- you ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 suggested donation
Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Hawk Talk & Raptor ReleaseThe Hawk Talk begins at noon, when a GGRO volunteer speaks about hawk migration and identification, and what we do here at the GGRO. Conditions permitting, a banding volunteer will bring up a newly banded hawk, talk about the banding program, and release the hawk in front of the crowd. ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Green Film Festival: The Age of StupidOscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living in the devastated future world of 2055, looking back at old footage from our time and asking: why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
'Anthropocene: The Human Epoch'Edward Burtynsky is a contemporary fine art photographer and filmmaker; his remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes and their incursions into the natural landscape are included in the collections of over 60 major museums around the world.He has been awarded numerous prizes for his work including the inaugural TED ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $25 - $100, Free for Members
You know what time is because of your daily experience, but what seems constant and unchanging is not. In 1905, Albert Einstein threw a monkey wrench in our perception of time and space. Join us as we examine a few of these quirks on a conceptual nonmathematical level. Yes, you ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: included with admission
Green Film Festival: 'Earth'Several billion tons of earth are moved annually by humans - with shovels, excavators, or dynamite. Nikolaus Geyrhalter observes people in mines, quarries and at large construction sites, engaged in a constant struggle to take possession of the planet.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Green Film Festival: 'Once Was Water'This inspiring film explores the innovative water technologies in Las Vegas, Nevada: the thirstiest city in the driest state. The solutions presented could hopefully serve as a model for the rest of the world.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Green Film Festival: 'Motherload'A crowdsourced documentary about a new mother's quest to understand the increasing isolation and disconnection of the digital age, its planetary impact, and how cargo bikes could be an antidote. How can choices within our nuclear families effect change on a global scale?
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Green Film Festival: '16 Sunrises' Closing Night Wrap PartyFor six months, French Astronaut Thomas Pesquet and his fellow astronauts live on the International Space Stateion, 450 kilometers from Earth. As the space station revolves, they experience 16 sunrises each day, witnessing a planet that is constantly evolving. They capture spetacular footage of superstorms, cosmic phenomena, and life in ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $30 General, $25 Members, $16 film only
Green Film Festival: 'Kifaru'Experience the intimate joys and pitfalls of wildlife conservation through the eyes of Kenyan rhino caretakers who witness extinction happening in real-time. With their protection "Sudan", the last make Northern White Rhino in existence, is the subject of a last resort IVG experiment to save the species they love.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $16 General, $13 Members
Can We Build a Brain?From the Nova Wonders website: "Artificially intelligent machines are taking over. They’re influencing our everyday lives in profound and often invisible ways. They can read handwriting, interpret emotions, play games, and even act as personal assistants. They are in our phones, our cars, our doctors’ offices, our banks, our web ...
Many jurisdictions in the United States - Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Washington, Nevada, Puerto Rico, and New York - have recently passed legislation setting ambitious midcentury targets of significant economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reductions and 100% carbon-free electricity. However, few studies have considered the natural and agricultural land constraints and ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Static and Dynamic Control of Topological MatterUnderstanding materials based on their underlying topological order has caused a paradigm shift in condensed matter physics in how we classify and describe emergent phenomena in systems. Controlling and engineering these exotic orders is key for next-generation electronics and topological quantum computers. In this talk, I will discuss how the ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
DUNE: How I learned to stop worrying and love the neutrinoSince the discovery of neutrino oscillations more than twenty years ago, we have made steady progress on understanding neutrino properties with ever more challenging experiments. Today, we know that the fundamental parameters that govern this process take on some peculiar values and that they set the stage for CP violation, ...
FROM ASTROPHYSICS TO ANGEL INVESTOR - HOW SCIENCE HELPED ME SUCCEEDEntrepreneur and lapsed astronomer Lance Cottrell will discuss how a background in physics has informed and supported his circuitous path from privacy advocate to intelligence community vendor to startup mentor.
New States in Complex SystemsComplex systems are often described by simple equations that nevertheless can lead to a rich variety of disparate solutions. Discovering and understanding the full spectrum of solutions that correspond to stable states is at the forefront of current research on the network modeling of complex systems. Recent work by our ...
Come and learn how to make colorful and unique living art. Design your own art piece using our colorful bacteria.Counter Culture Labs has been partnering with the American Society for Microbiology for their yearly Agar Art Contest (http://www.asm.org/agarart) - last year we even won in the Maker division!In this hands-on ...
Join Nerd Nite East Bay to learn how human systems borrow from nature, how and why the Transcontinental Railroad arrived in the East Bay, and the bonkers biology of our favorite Kaiju.Ecomimicry: How Human Systems Benefit By Copying NatureHuman activities have greatly modified natural ecosystems, sometimes to our own detriment. ...
Where: OaklandCost: $8-10
Tuesday, 10/01/19
SynBioBeta 2019: The Global Synthetic Biology SummitSynBioBeta is where tech meets bio and bio meets tech.Meet the innovators and companies, find new opportunities, partner up and discover the potential of the biological industrial revolution. We loved our time at Mission Bay Conference Center, but our industry and our attendance have outgrown that facility, so we’re very ...
Where: San FranciscoCost:
Two KIPAC Tea TalksDirect Imaging of Habitable Exoplanets* (*In the Next Decade)Direct detection and detailed characterization of habitable exoplanets is a key science goal of future observatories. Although space-based telescopes will characterize exo-Earths in the late 2030s, extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) on extremely large ground-based telescopes (ELTs) has the potential to enable such ...
Learning from small scales in weak lensing and CMB data Weak lensing of photons by large scale structure is sensitive to both the growth of the (lensing) structures and the expansion history of the universe. The large number of modes available on small scales have the potential to constrain cosmological parameters beyond what is achievable in the linear regime, but ...
How well do you understand the links between housing policy and our climate goals? Many current housing policies undermine our ability to reduce transportation emissions the biggest source of climate pollution in California. These policies also affect issues of environmental justice, equity, building electrification and affordability. Come learn about these ...
A look at the gigantic animals that roamed Fremont area as well as the rest of coastal California. Irvington area of Fremont is one of the best preserved site of these fossils. Families will learn about sabertooth cats, mammoths, camels, mastodons, and many more large animals.There are 4 activities at ...
Where: FremontCost: Free
Super-Human Operator: Controlling Accelerators with Machine LearningParticle accelerators are used every day in a wide range of scientific, medical and industrial applications. But did you know that the task of operating these machines is far from mundane? For example, for every experiment at SLAC’s X-ray laser, the Linac Coherent Light Source, human operators regularly adjust several ...
The activities of the vast majority of fishing vessels in the world have remained unquantified and largely opaque due to a lack of technology. With newly developed hardware solutions that harness solar power and cost-effective cellular networks to transmit data, it is becoming possible to provide vessel tracking systems at ...
Where: Moss LandingCost: Free
CITRIS Research Exchange - 5G Tech and Policy5G wireless networks hold great potential, enabling unprecedented advancements in linking robots, cars, and other sensor-enabled technologies and infrastructure to revolutionize cities. While the future of smart cities may bring gains in sustainability, mobility, and economic opportunity, ensuring these benefits are felt by all community members remains a significant challenge. ...
Governments subsidize R&D through a mix of interdependent mechanisms, but subsidy interactions are not well understood. This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evaluation of how R&D subsidy interactions impact firm behavior. I use funding rules and policy changes in the UK to show that direct grants and tax credits for ...
The Changing Forest Fire Patterns in Central and Northern CaliforniaLarge wildfire occurrence has increased noticeably throughout central and northern California over the last 10-15 year. Climate more conducive to fire spread and changing vegetation (fuel) complexes are readily cited causes of this. This presentation describes the historical context for large wildfire occurrence in northern California using a newly discovered ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Intelligence: Mundane or a Miracle?How do you define intelligence?  Intelligence is a fuzzy concept defined by scientists as “a level of cognitive complexity.†For centuries, humanity thought that we were the most advanced, and hence, a unique expression of intelligence on Earth. We believed a series of improbable events that cannot be repeated elsewhere triggered ...
Black holes are cosmic objects that are so small and dense, that nothing, not even light can escape their gravitational pull. Until recently, no one had ever seen what a black hole actually looked like. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a global array of radio dishes, linked together by ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Thursday, 10/03/19
The Event Horizon Telescope: Imaging a Black HoleThe Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) array operating at the shortest possible wavelengths, which can resolve the event horizons of the nearest supermassive black holes. Observing at mm radio wavelengths enables detection of photons that originate from deep within the gravitational potential well of ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Silicon Valley Leaders Symposium: Debbie Powell from PG&E - CANCELEDEditor's Note: This speaker is canceled. However, Tatjana Rmus from PG&E will speak on Oct. 10 instead. See our listing for details.Since Fall 2002, the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering has hosted the Silicon Valley Leaders Symposium (SVLS). The Symposium hosts industry and technology leaders to talk about business ...
Machine LearningMachine learning methods have allowed us to create many powerful and practical models from data to develop many new and life changing technologies. Understanding the underlying algorithms behind the methods provides insight into how the data is being used to learn patterns and achieve the specific goal. This talk will ...
Where: Rohnert ParkCost: Free
Hacking STEM: Modernizing and Democratizing STEM EducationThe jobs of today will not be the jobs of tomorrow. Globally schools are being asked to prepare students with future-ready skills. However, to engage the leaders of tomorrow, teachers need access to the right materials today. These materials need to be easily obtainable, affordable and reflect the mandated academic ...
How are you shaped by the genes you’re born with, and by your environment? How do your body's trillions of cells work together to create a human self? At our brand-new exhibit collection, Cells to Self, you can use microscopes, digital models, and firsthand interactions with cells to explore how cells ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $19.95, $14.95 explO members, AD members Free
Cafe InquiryCenter for Inquiry San Francisco's monthly get together to talk about whatever interests us.
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
Sharktoberfest NightlifeIt’s time to raise a glass for NightLife’s annual salute to brews and the ocean’s most legendary apex predators. Sip your way through a pop-up beer hall with libations on tap from local brewery favorites, including Uncommon Brewers, Magnolia Brewing, Laughing Monk, and Black Hammer Brewing.Groove to tunes spun by ...
California is a globally significant biodiversity hotspot. With roughly 6,500 native plant taxa, the Golden State boasts similar botanical diversity to Japan and New Zealand. It’s mild climates and rugged landscapes have also made California a highly desirable place to live, with a population close to 40 million people and ...
First Friday: Spooky ScienceIf there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? Scientists!October’s First Friday is all about spooky science. Learn about the science of fear, say hello to some creepy crawlers, and hear scientific explanations for things that go bump in the night. Science is so fun… it’s scary!
This month hear from SETI Senior Research Scientist, Margaret Race. Her lecture, Behind the Scenes Planning - To the Moon and Beyond, gives you an exclusive look into the important prep work that the public never sees before hitting the launchpad.If you’ve ever been curious about the search for extraterrestrial ...
Where: OaklandCost: $5
Saturday, 10/05/19
Hayward Fault Walking TourOver the last million years, the natural beauty of Fremont has been shaped by the Hayward Fault. Instructors will be leading these 'ground breaking' tours and exposing the science and beauty of the Hayward Fault. This fault is one of several active faults in the world actually creeping at 5 ...
Join the Greater Farallones Association, Marin County Parks, and renowned ornithologist and marine biologist Peter Pyle for a day of restoration and exploration on Bolinas Lagoon’s Island. After an early birding walk, we’ll remove invasive plants that interfere with normal tidal flow. As we work, we will learn about dynamic dune ...
Where: BolinasCost: $25, lunch included.
The Climate Reality ProjectGet the latest facts on the climate crisis, and tips on how together, we can solve it.Climate Reality Leadership Corps member Harriet Harvey Horn will deliver the most current version of Al Gore’s Climate Reality presentation (as seen in the documentary "An Inconvenient Truth") that aims to answer three key ...
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Hawk Talk & Raptor ReleaseThe Hawk Talk begins at noon, when a GGRO volunteer speaks about hawk migration and identification, and what we do here at the GGRO. Conditions permitting, a banding volunteer will bring up a newly banded hawk, talk about the banding program, and release the hawk in front of the crowd. ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
Family Science & Astronomy Festival + MakerspaceFamily Science and Astronomy Festival is a day of free learning and fun for the young and young at heart. Featuring planetarium shows, science workshops, astronomical observations, public safety demos, and more.The CSM Library Makerspace offers drop-in crafting, electronics, media and tinkering workshops.The events culminate in a key note lecture by ...
Where: San MateoCost: Free
Trekking the ModelJoin a Ranger or docent on a guided tour of the Bay Model, a 1.5-acre hydraulic model of the San Francisco Bay and Delta. Discover the stories of the two major operations that took place at this location between 1942 - 2000.
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
What To Do With the Body: An Environmental PerspectiveThis talk presented by Deborah Meckler will address both conventional and imaginative ways of dealing with human remains in a massively populated world, with an eye to how these death care activities affect Earth’s ecosystems and resources. She will discuss the evolving death-care choices and necessities world-wide as well as ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Illuminating Dark Matter - CANCELEDDark matter is the cosmic parent of all vast structures in the night sky, including our own Milky Way galaxy. Yet, we know so little about this mysterious stuff that constitutes over 80% of the material universe. This talk will illuminate our universe’s elusive dark matter, highlighting the ingenious methods ...
Where: Mill ValleyCost: Free
Observe the Moon NightThe Foothill College Astronomy Department and the Peninsula Astronomical Society would also like to invite you to join in on NASA's Observe the Moon Night at the Foothill College Observatory. The first quarter moon on Oct. 5 provides a prime opportunity to join people around the world in taking a ...
Have you ever wondered how sea level rise will impact Lake Merritt, and all of Oakland? Are you aware that existing heat in the oceans will cause the seas to rise for centuries, no matter how much carbon emissions are reduced today? Do you have an inkling of why ocean ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
First Friday: International Observe the Moon NightInternational Observe the Moon Night is a worldwide celebration of lunar science and exploration held annually since 2010. One day each year, everyone on Earth is invited to observe and learn about the Moon together, and to celebrate the cultural and personal connections we all have with our nearest neighbor. ...
This month we celebrate Halloween with a creepy collection of stories about the animals that live in the deepest parts of the ocean! Learn how elephant seal's can dive to 5000 feet and stay underwater for 2 hours at a time without imploding (!), find out how a sperm whale ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free with Admission
34th Annual Wildlife FestivalYSI would like to invite you to join us for our 34 th Annual Wildlife Festival this fall! Come out and see YSI’s Owl Ambassadors during our Raptor Review, enjoy story time with Smokey Bear, and finish the day off with Conservation Ambassador’s “Zoo to You†program on stage with ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free ($6 parking)
Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Hawk Talk & Raptor ReleaseThe Hawk Talk begins at noon, when a GGRO volunteer speaks about hawk migration and identification, and what we do here at the GGRO. Conditions permitting, a banding volunteer will bring up a newly banded hawk, talk about the banding program, and release the hawk in front of the crowd. ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free
City Star Party @ The ExplOratoriumCome join us for our monthly San Francisco City Star Party. SFAA members provide telescopes for your viewing pleasure. Be sure to check the SFAA website for the latest updates…bad weather or overcast skies will cancel!
Changes in Industrial and Power Sector Carbon Capture: Higher Incentives/Lower CostsRelatively few industrial carbon capture or power sector carbon capture projects have been done in the U.S. in recent years for pollution control purposes. That is, carbon capture is widely used in industries such as natural gas processing and urea fertilizer manufacturing, where carbon capture is required for production purposes. ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Diagnosing quantum chaos in many-body systems using entanglement as a resourceClassical chaotic systems exhibit exponentially diverging trajectories due to small differences in their initial state. The analogous diagnostic in quantum many-body systems is an exponential growth of out-of-time-ordered correlation functions (OTOCs). These quantities can be computed for various models, but their experimental study requires the ability to evolve quantum states ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
ADVENTURES IN NANOMAGNETISMThe foundations of our modern society rest on storing and moving electron charges. Imagine what more we could discover and do if we could also manipulate electron spins, or the intrinsic magnetic moment of electrons. James Lee will describe his research to date along these lines in magnetic thin films ...
CryoEM and CryoET Automation: Where are we now and what do we still need?The dramatic improvements in the progress of cryo electron microscopy (cryoEM) and cryo electron tomography (cryoET) over the last five years has been accompanied by the adoption of a high level of automation. However, there are several automation challenges that remain to be addressed in the areas of specimen preparation, ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Searching for Axion Dark Matter Below 1 micro-eV: the Dark Matter RadioOne of the most enduring mysteries in particle physics is the nature of the non-baryonic dark matter that makes up 85% of the matter in the universe. The QCD axion, originally proposed as a solution to the strong CP problem in QCD, is one of the most strongly motivated candidates ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
The Cutting Edge of Energy Innovation: Three SnapshotsEutectic Liquids for High-Energy Density Flow BatteriesWind and solar resources are abundant, but intermittent, requiring advanced energy storage options. Flow batteries can offer scalability, long cycle-life, and power-to-energy tunability, however, they have low energy density. In order to achieve high-energy density flow batteries, we employ eutectic mixing properties for the ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Half-Earth: How to Save the Natural WorldFeaturing the Horace M. Albright Lecture in Conservation and the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation Distinguished Lectureship in Biodiversity, with biologist and naturalist Edward O. Wilson, award-winning actress and environmental advocate Glenn Close, and other special guests.
The near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are a population of objects on orbit around the Sun that cross or come near the orbit of Earth; remnants of material from the early solar system that never accreted into planets. NEAs are accessible targets for space missions, but also pose a hazard due to potential ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $15 General, $12 Members & Seniors
Tuesday, 10/08/19
Two KIPAC Tea TalksModelling ExoplanetsSpeaker: Laura Schaefer, StanfordTBASpeaker: Aurel Schneider, Univ. of Zurich
Take a deep dive in robotic applications for good and discover how to get into robotics with networking, mentoring opportunities, and demos from impressive student groups and supportive community organizations including Women in Robotics/SVR. The key note will be by robotics industry leader and UC Berkeley professor Anca Dragan; the ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Analytic covariance of the redshift-space galaxy power spectrumA robust analysis of the covariance of the galaxy power spectrum is crucial for cosmological parameter estimation. The traditional process of obtaining the covariance involves simulating thousands of mocks. I will present an analytic approach for the full covariance matrix which is more than four orders of magnitude faster than ...
Water is extremely common on Earth but also one of the most mysterious of compounds in which the solid form (ice) floats on its melt. Bulk water is celebrated as an excellent solvent, particularly of polar compounds, and also as a relatively inert medium. It is often said to be ...
 Speaker: Paula Welander is a microbiologist who received her undergraduate degree from Occidental College in Los Angeles. She pursued her PhD studies in microbiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and completed her postdoctoral studies at MIT in the Departments of Biology and of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. ...
Monitoring and Predicting the California Current System with Global and Regional ModelsGiven the ecological and socioeconomic importance of the California Current System (CCS), there is broad interest in monitoring and modeling its variability on multiple timescales. To that end, regional ocean models have become indispensable tools for leveraging available observations to predict conditions in unobserved locations and understand physical and biogeochemical ...
Speaker: Simone Alin, NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and University of Washington School of Oceanography
Where: Bodega BayCost: Free
An Evening of Mushroom LoreAuthor and mycologist Lawrence Millman combines ecological, ethnographic, historical, and contemporary knowledge in his research and writings. His latest work, Fungipedia, takes us on a mycological journey - from John Cage and Terrence McKenna to mushroom sex and fairy rings.His work explores the lives of individuals like African American scientist George Washington Carver, ...
Cosmological Weak LensingWeak gravitational lensing is a unique technique to map the distribution of dark matter in the universe. It is also a sensitive probe of dark energy, large scale structures in the universe, and cosmological parameters. We will first briefly describe the principles of weak lensing. We will then review the ...
Join Point Reyes National Seashore and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary for a live "ship to shore" video chat with scientists from the E/V Nautilus. Ask questions, hear from the team about what they are seeing and learning about this unique deep sea ecosystem in the national marine sanctuaries offshore ...
Since Fall 2002, the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering has hosted the Silicon Valley Leaders Symposium (SVLS). The Symposium hosts industry and technology leaders to talk about business and technology trends. It also features prominent leaders who discuss broader societal and political issues that shape our life and society.Speaker: ...
If we are what we eat, what will we be in the future? From plant-based proteins to food-delivery systems to the integration of robotics and technology in food production and even serving the landscape of what and how we eat is changing rapidly. Explore what’s new in our diets and ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $19.95, $14.95 explO members, AD members free
Conversations at the Library: Keith Humphreys / Healing Addiction in AmericaThe numbers are staggering. According to the latest statistics, approximately 20.6 million Americans have an addiction. In recent years, an opioid crisis has rippled across America, leaving people and their communities devastated. But there is great hope - a wide range of treatments are available and effective. Join us for a ...
Where: San MateoCost: Free
Drugs, Plants, Brain, MindFor millennia, humans have cultivated relationships with psychoactive plants and fungi â€" relationships embedded within and guided by ritual frameworks honoring the powers of these plants and fungi as allies. As cultures have evolved, so also have these plant-fungal-human interactions. Our current era is one of reduction of organisms to ...
7:00-7:25: Irving Weissman(Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine) on "How normal stem cells regenerate the body but sometimes lead to cancer"Besides the more famous embryonic stem cells, there are also adult stem cells, and, unfortunately there are also tumor stem cells...Read more7:25-7:50: James Ferrell(Stanford/ Systems ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Remembering the Loma Prieta Earthquake 30 Years Later: Looking back to see how far we've comeThe Loma Prieta earthquake ended decades of seismic tranquility in the Bay Area - Is the earthquake threat in the Bay Area real and imminent?Up to $80 billion in earthquake mitigation investments have been made since the Loma Prieta earthquake. Are we safer?Learn how Loma Prieta has led to improvements ...
The "teenage" brain tests reality, seeks novelty, and is notoriously impulsive. In their new book, (not childhood but)Â Wildhood, Harvard biologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, MD, and science writer Kathryn Bowers explore telling similarities in teenage brains and behaviors across species. Of Wildwood, Frans de Waal says, "The wild adventure of adolescence has ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Chem trails, hollow earths, and other strange ideasFrom rejection of evolution and plate tectonics to questions about chem trails and crystal energy, many introductory science students come to class with strange ideas about the earth. Can animals predict earthquakes? Is the Earth hollow? Is climate change a hoax? Spoiler alert: no. Steven Newton, who teaches at the ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Friday, 10/11/19
Two KIPAC Tea TalksBlue Galaxies: Exploring the Origin of Nebular Emission in the Early UniverseSpeaker: Kirk BarrowSpinning and Connecting (in) the Cosmic SpiderwebSpeaker: Mark Neyrinck, Univ. of the Basque Country
Controlling the exact atomic structure is an ultimate form of materials engineering. Atomic manipulation and atom-by-atom assembly can create functional structures that are hard to synthesize chemically. Defects at the one- or few-atom-scale have intriguing properties that can be applied to fields like quantum engineering (e.g. nitrogen vacancy center, single ...
Controlling the exact atomic structure is an ultimate form of materials engineering. Atomic manipulation and atom-by-atom assembly can create functional structures that are hard to synthesize chemically. Defects at the one- or few-atom-scale have intriguing properties that can be applied to fields like quantum engineering (e.g. nitrogen vacancy center, single ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Pluto’s atmosphere dynamics and volatile transport investigated with numerical climate modelsPluto’s tenuous atmosphere is mainly nitrogen and is in solid-gas equilibrium with the surface nitrogen ice. Over the past three decades, different Earth-based observations hinted at an exotic and dynamical atmosphere as they revealed (1) a much warmer atmosphere (70-100 K) than the surface (40 K), with a strong inversion ...
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free
Adult Night Hike and SipThe journey begins at sunset from the Center into the beautiful surrounding redwood forest. The 4-5 mile hike will be lit by the light of the moon. Along the way, you’ll learn about the local history and ecology of the forest and hear interesting stories and facts about the harvest ...
Where: OaklandCost: $30 General, $27 Member
An Evening With Dr. Jane GoodallEsteemed ethologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace, will start off Wildlife Conservation Expo weekend with a special Friday evening talk. Jane will share fascinating stories about her studies on wild chimpanzees in Gombe National Park beginning in 1960, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $25 - $80
Green FridayJoin volunteers from the local chapter of Citizens Climate Lobby, a non-profit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy organization focused on national policies to address climate change, to learn more about the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (H.R. 763). If passed, the EICDA would reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 40% in just ...
Guided Nature Walk Experience the beauty and rich natural history of this 535-acre preserve. Our guided nature walks are on Saturdays throughout fall and spring. Participants are divided into small groups and paired with a trained Bouverie volunteer to explore the mixed evergreen forest and flower-carpeted oak woodland. Guided Nature Walks are no more ...
Where: Glen EllenCost: $20 suggested donation
All Things Fall With David HerlockerVisit Martin Griffin Preserve throughout our limited Fall Season, with Nature Guide-led walks, activities, or materials to open your eyes to our lovely preserve in a different way each week. Visitors are also welcome to hike our trails on their own, scoop up a newt at the ponds, peer at ...
As Above As Below is an Astro/Neuro/Art exhibit that aims to cultivate and optimize dialogue between artistic and scientific inquiry through collaborative exchanges. Â In this Origami Workshop, Mark will guide you in building the nearby galaxies, called "The Council of Giants", out of fabric and paper, and folding your own ...
Every year, WCN’s Wildlife Conservation Expos provide a unique opportunity to bring together wildlife’s most ardent supporters with some of the world’s leading conservationists to connect, share stories, and make life-long friendships. At Expo you can hear what it’s like to live and work in some of the most remote parts of the world ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $100 General, $50 Students
Invertebrate InvestigationSpend the morning touching and discovering the vast differences between Rocky Shore and San Francisco Bay invertebrates (animals without backbones) and then enjoy creating a take home craft. Great for young and older minds alike and for anyone who loves to get hands on with cool creatures.
Where: Redwood CityCost: $20
Adaptive Optics for Telescopes Large and SmallIn the past 20 years, adaptive optics (AO) technology to remove image blurring due to atmospheric turbulence has come a long way. In this talk I will describe the basic principles of AO and laser guide stars; a bit of AO history; its current status on 8-10m telescopes; and future ...
