Mushroaming Along the Presidio Coastal BluffsGet your caps on and be prepared to enter our mycelium/fungus season in the Golden Gate National parks! Come and join us in the underbrush of the Presidio Coastal Bluffs as there is much to explore and learn about the fungus in our parks! We welcome everyone of all ages ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Bay Rocks for KidsJoin volunteer and geologist, Malcom Pringle, to learn about why rocks rock! What makes up the hills and habitats that surround San Francisco Bay? Bang, scratch, nick, view, (even chew?) rocks from the hills and crystals from the Bay! Ponder how and where they could have formed -- are those ...
Where: AlvisoCost: Free
Nature Walk for HealthTake a break from your busy schedule and refresh your spirit with nature at the refuge. Take a guided nature walk on the Tidelands Trail and hear what makes this National Wildlife Refuge unique. The approximately one mile walk traverses through endangered species habitat and offers great views of south ...
Where: FremontCost: Free
Jazz under the StarsJazz Under the Stars is a FREE monthly public stargazing event! Occurring on the Saturday after the 1st quarter moon (check our Events Page), join us on the 4th floor planetarium for a night of smooth jazz, bright stars, and a lot of fun! We play our jazz from CSM's own ...
Where: San MateoCost: Free
Night of IdeasThis seven-hour marathon of philosophical debate, keynotes, panels, performances, and interactive experiences is designed to spur dialogue and creative participation on the theme "Living on the Edge."We live in a world balanced on the edge between immense challenges and even grander possibilities. How do we reckon with these tensions and ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Sunday, 02/02/20
Point Reyes 15th Annual Fungus FairJoin us for the 15th annual Point Reyes National Seashore Fungus Fair. Attend free lectures in the Bear Valley Visitor Center Auditorium. Learn about fungi and their role in the many Point Reyes habitats, from grasslands to redwoods. See the remarkable colors and shapes of wild mushrooms collected in the ...
Where: Point Reyes StationCost: Free
Monday, 02/03/20
Testing inflation and constraining cosmology with cosmic microwave background measurementsInflation -- the leading model for the earliest moments of the time, in which the Universe undergoes a period of rapid, accelerating expansion -- generically predicts a background of primordial gravitational waves, which generate a B-mode component in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The measurement of such ...
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
Bright (active) Galaxies in Dark Matter halosThe bright galaxies comes in different colours and show different activities. Some are red, some blue and others have angry supermassive blackholes. These galaxies acts as the doorway to the cosmological universe we live in. Our understanding of inner working of universe and its mysterious dark components of matter and ...
Complex models in Earth Sciences refer to the combination of multiple properties, scales, observations, and physics relating the various model components for the description of geological objects. As natural objects the reservoirs, earth crust or planets require a multidisciplinary description. Formulating such a description into a joint numerical framework is ...
The Hubble Hunter’s GuideThere appears to be a significant discrepancy between Lambda CDM predictions of the Hubble constant and measurements of the Hubble constant. I will review the evidence that this discrepancy arises due to a faliure of LCDM, and discuss the challenges to resolving the discrepancy with various LCDM extensions.Speaker: Lloyd Knox, ...
Understanding the physics of the rupture process of giant earthquakes, such as those that occur around the Pacific ring of fire, from its preparatory phase to its destructive effects, is a major science question with socio-economic implications. Owing to important efforts, in the last few decades, in the development of ...
The particle nature of dark matter is a driving question of contemporary physics, with astrophysical experiments leading the search for dark matter annihilation or decay signatures. Sterile neutrinos, which could provide an elegant solution to the puzzle of the observed active neutrino masses and mixing, are among the most well-motivated light ...
Society faces the dual challenge of providing reliable and affordable energy while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the risks of climate change. By 2040 the global population will grow from 7 to more than 9 billion and energy demand is likely to increase by 25% even with efficiency ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Conversations at the Library: What Every Parent Should Know About VapingOver 2500 people in the United States have contracted EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury), and more than 50 have died from it. Adolescents and young adults are using e-cigarettes more often than combustible cigarettes.Stanford School of Medicine Professor Dr. Bonnie Halpern-Felsher will discuss her research on young ...
Where: San MateoCost: Free
Wonderfest: Ask a Science Envoy: Optimization, Ecology, & SupernovaeWonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these three Science Envoys will answer questions with insight and enthusiasm:UC Berkeley industrial engineer and operations researcher Caleb Bugg on "Engineering in an Apocalyptic World"Stanford Earth systems scientist Sami Li ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Tuesday, 02/04/20
Botany Series: Basic BotanyHow do plants work? If it’s been way too long since that high school biology class, come take a step back with Annette Russell (Presidio Senior Nursery Manager). We will learn the basic processes that plants go through in life, how they have adapted to the changing earth environment over ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Donations encouraged
Two KIPAC Tea TalksCosmology using Galaxy Clusters in DESISpeaker: Christopher Bradshaw, UC Santa CruzTBASpeaker: Zhanpei Fang, Stanford
Jupiter’s moon Europa is a fascinating world and a prime candidate for life within our Solar System. I will focus on the outer ice shell of the satellite where the dissipated tidal energy sustains a subsurface ocean. If the ice shell allows for exchange processes, exogenic material deposited on the ...
Join us for this important movie for our time.Racing Extinction is a documentary about the ongoing Anthropogenic mass extinction of species and the efforts from scientists, activists and journalists to document it by Oscar-winning director Louie Psihoyos, who directed the documentary The Cove (2009). The film received an Oscar nomination, for Best Original Song, and an Emmy nomination for Exceptional Merit in ...
Where: Castro ValleyCost: Free
Science at the Library: Magnetic MagicThere are 4 activities at each presentation after a show presentation. Parents work with their children to learn about science. Recommended  for elementary age children.Â
Discovery Station: Chocolate and VanillaDoes chocolate really grow on trees?! Did you know vanilla comes from an orchid?! Come discover where two of our favorite foods come from, learn about the process of making chocolate, and find out how animals, such as monkeys, help these plants in their native tropical habitats. Docents will have ...
The modern day National Airspace System (NAS) is powered by System Wide Information Management (SWIM) which is a real-time digital data sharing infrastructure that provides a high fidelity view of the lifecycle of a flight. The newly available data within the SWIM feeds can be leveraged to help drive efficiencies ...
Recent advances in perception technology, fueled by progress in deep learning, have materially changed the degree of situational awareness one can expect from robots engaged in the real world: in addition to perceiving the geometry of the world around them, robots can now also reason about its semantics, and communicate ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Investigation of the Feijao Tailings Dam Failure near Brumadinho, BrazilAt approximately 12:28pm local time on January 25, 2019, tailings dam B-1 at Vale S.A.’s Corrego do Feijao Iron Ore Mine, located 9 kilometers north-east of Brumadinho, in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, suffered a sudden failure resulting in a catastrophic mudflow that travelled rapidly downstream resulting in significant ...
Professor Kate O'Neill discusses how wastes have become globalized, but also how a single move by one country - China's decision not to import paper and plastic scrap - can affect all of us right down to weekly chores such as taking out the trash.Free for OLLI@Berkeley members, UC Faculty, ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: $10 General
Four Graduate Student Research in Progress TalksLaura Hollander (Boyer Lab) Effect of salt marsh plant species diversity on community response to sediment augmentationChristian Tettelbach (Boyer Lab) Effects of climate change on the herbivory of eelgrass (Zostera marina) by an invasive grazer in San Francisco BayCarl Hendrickson (Boyer and Nielsen Labs)Pisaster disaster and other tales from the ...
As American society continues to have a growing older population, understanding all aspects of aging is a critical national priority. Perhaps no subject is more important than understanding what happens to our brains as they age and what people can do to enhance cognition as they get older. And there ...
Toward Maps of Exoplanet SurfacesPerhaps the simplest question that one can ask of a distant star or planet is, "What does it actually look like?" Even the best interferometers can only give us limited information about the surfaces of select giant and/or nearby stars, while the direct imaging of exoplanet surfaces is all but ...
'Call of the Baby Beluga'One day in Quebec, a baby beluga whale washes up on a gravel beach along the St. Lawrence River, still vigorously alive. This baby whale’s story takes us on a larger journey through the world of the St. Lawrence beluga whales and of the scientists who are working to help ...
Join us for an evening at the intersection of neuroscience, art, and virtual reality, as we gather experts to explore how our body shapes our sense of self and guides our actions within real and virtual worlds.After a keynote from Walter Greenleaf, Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Virtual Human ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $10
Buzzed NightlifeCelebrate one of life’s most classic combos - coffee and chocolate - in a tribute to two of the Bay Area’s favorite ways to get buzzed.Sip and taste samples from local roasters and chocolatiers while learning everything there is to know about caffeine, beans, that unique bitter taste, and the ...
Watch science come to light at After Dark. Light brings energy and color to our world, and photonics is the study of how it’s generated and the varied ways it can be modulated, amplified, and detected. Learn about industrial applications through LASER and fiber optics as well as the manipulation ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $17.95 adv, $19.95 door, free with A.D. membership
Meet the New Technologies Shaping Our WorldIf you live in Silicon Valley, you can hardly avoid hearing about new technologies that are changing the way we live our lives, transforming industries and creating positive disruption. You've heard mentions of the Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning and Deep Learning, Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain, Edge and ...
Where: Santa ClaraCost: Free
Biofuture/ Biohistories: Growing Brain Organoids in the LabUsing stem cells - like those found in our earliest embryonic selves - scientists have learned to grow miniature brain-like structures, called brain organoids. How similar are organoids to a real human brain, and what can we do with them? So far, scientists have seen brain organoids send signals in ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 (includes museum admission)
Friday, 02/07/20
Two KIPAC Tea TalksTBASpeaker: August Evrard, Univ. of MichiganLots of Fun With TRAPPIST-1Speaker: Rodrigo Luger, CCA, Flatiron Institute
SF Beer Week runs from Feb. 7-16 2020 in venues around the Greater Bay Area. Some of the many festive events pair fresh craft beer with science!For example, on Sunday, Feb 9, Jim Brown, Director of Fermentation Science at the UC Davis Brewing School will talk Yeast and Brewing Science. Beer Science ...
Where: Cost: Some ticketed, some pay as you go events.
The Materials Project and Data-driven Materials DesignThe powerful combination of supercomputing resources, robust algorithms for solving the laws of physics, and state-of-the-art software infrastructure are enabling rapid, systematic calculations of real materials properties from quantum mechanics across chemistry and structure. A result of this paradigm change are databases like the Materials Project (www.materialsproject.org) which is charting ...
The physical properties of matter change dramatically as atoms assemble into extended solids. Tracing the evolution of these properties as a function of material scale presents formidable challenges. Fortunately, low-dimensional materials can provide a vital link between these extremes of scale if their size, shape, and structure can be finely ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
First Friday: The Sound of ScienceHello science our old friend, we’ve come to learn about sound again. Make some noise at this phonic First Friday! Explore the elements of sound and how living things experience them through hands (and ears)-on interactives lead by our community partners. Loud, quiet, annoying, beautiful: all sounds are welcome!
Where: OaklandCost: $5
Woodside First Friday: CuriOdyssey's Executive Director Rachel MeyerThis month's presentation will be about CuriOdyssey - a science playground & zoo creates a world-class science museum for tomorrow’s innovators. Executive director Rachel Meyer will talk about its history and roots as the Champion of Early Science Learning and why it is so Important. How they do what they ...
Where: WoodsideCost: Free
Satellite Galaxies and Dwarfs in the Local GroupOur Local Group of galaxies is composed of our Milky Way; its twin galaxy, Andromeda (M31); and the dozens of small “satellite†galaxies orbiting around each of them. Satellite galaxies are thought to be the building blocks of more massive galaxies, therefore tracking the orbital histories of satellite galaxies in ...
