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 ...
Where: San MateoCost: Free
Saturday, 02/08/20
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: FremontCost: 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
Low Tide WalkMSI takes to the tidepools for a treasure hunt of nature's beautiful intertidal secrets. We'll spend our time taking advantage of the low tide to reach the outer edges of Fiddler Cove, a super secret locals spot between Pescadero and Bean Hollow. This quiet piece of coast offers a wealth ...
Where: PescaderoCost: From $20
Twilight Marsh WalkExperience the salt marsh at twilight on an easy stroll along Tidelands (1.3 miles) Trail. At the setting of the sun we will observe the beginning of nature’s night shift. Come discover the sights, sounds, and smells of the refuge as night descends. Not suitable for young children. Call 510-792-0222 ...
As of today, only two objects have been observed, which can be definitively identified as of interstellar origin & destination: I1/‘Oumuamua & 2I/Borisov. ‘Oumuamua was an enigmatic object, visible only for about 2 weeks. While the high eccentricity of its orbit certainly makes it interstellar, it cannot be pinned down ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
Shark DayOur special Shark Day invites one and all to learn about these amazing creatures, from the great whites that swim just off our ocean shores, to the gentle leopard sharks that are common in our Bay. We will be feeding and touching our local leopard sharks in our teaching aquarium, ...
Where: Redwood CityCost: From $20
Monday, 02/10/20
Simulating galaxy imaging surveysNumerical simulations of weak gravitational lensing play an important role in statistical analyses of modern galaxy imaging data.In this talk, I will introduce our recent developments to simulate galaxy imaging data. We developed a method to produce synthetic data by utilizing full-sky lensing simulations for a given galaxy catalog. We ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Welcome to the era of fast radio burst “cosmologyâ€! Fast radio bursts are frequent, bright millisecond bursts of radio emission that have fortunately turned out to not be from microwave ovens or alien light sails, but rather to be some new extragalactic phenomenon likely associated with neutron stars. Radio astronomers are beginning to localize these bursts to specific galaxies, ...
The evaluation of petroleum systems via basin modeling, mapping, geochemical analyses, etc., is now a mature field due to codification of the petroleum system concept coupled with the development of sophisticated basin modeling software. Even so, evaluating petroleum systems with numerical techniques remains primarily a deterministic process resulting in non-unique ...
Microscopic robotsOver fifty years ago, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman claimed that a revolution was underway where information, computers, and machines would be shrunk to incredibly small dimensions. History has proven him mostly right: Moore’s law have given us microelectronics, the internet, and artificial intelligence. But the third leg of ...
The knowledge of the earliest time dynamics in molecular photophysics and photochemistry are critical because their role is to harness the energy from photons, initiating electronic and nuclear motion which is fundamental in many areas of science. Our ultimate goal is to understand the coupled electronic and nuclear dynamics induced ...
California is progressing toward the deployment of 5 million Zero-Emission Vehicles by 2030, a critical measure necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. In addition, California has set targets to serve the state with 100% clean energy and achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. The California ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
A Better Planet: 40 Big Ideas for a Sustainable FutureCan hip-hop help bridge the divide between communities of color and environmentalism? Are strong regulations making fracking safer and cleaner? Environmentalists probably nod at the first question and bristle at the second. But tackling climate means taking everyone outside their comfort zone.  In the new book A Better Planet: 40 Big Ideas ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 General, $12 Members, $7 Students
February Prof & A Pint: Bioengineering for Social Good Our world and the unexplored worlds around us are bathed in nano-scale systems (living cells) that convert their molecular surroundings into useful energy stores, building blocks, information storage, sensors, and secreted drones that detect, manipulate, control and harvest. As BioEngineers, we work to understand and influence these nano systems to ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
The Wuhan Novel Coronavirus of 2019: Applying the lessons of the past to protect us in the presentDr. Mark Finch, Sr., who received his medical degree from the University of California San Francisco, is an infectious disease specialist with Diablo Infectious Disease Group. Dr. Finch and Diablo Infectious Disease Group provide clinical infectious disease, infection control and antibiotic stewardship advice to several hospitals in Alameda County.
Our solar system teems with asteroids and comets, which range in size from tiny dust particles to gigantic mountains that are worlds in their own right. While most of these objects remain in stable orbits that whirl them around them Sun for billions of years, every now and again something ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $15 General, $12 Members & Seniors
During the last few years we established the synthetic and analytic infrastructure required to develop a promising new class of materials that operate on the basis of their structurally programmed molecular motion. Having a combination of static and rapidly moving components, we refer to them as being amphidynamic. They can ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Cosmology from the diffuse baryons between galaxies The field of cosmology has to make do with a theory of structure that is incomplete in the ``ultraviolet'' -- we lack a precise understanding of the cosmologically minute scales on which galaxies form and affect their surroundings. I will review methods to circumvent this limitation, with a particular focus ...
The hydrothermal systems that form at mid-ocean ridge (MOR) spreading centers represent perhaps the largest and most impactful geochemical phenomenon on Earth. There is 65,000 km of MOR encircling the globe, and the flow of water through the hydrothermal systems amounts to the entire volume of the oceans every 600,000 ...
Advancing the Science: The Latest in Alzheimer’s ResearchAlzheimer’s disease is a global health problem with more than 5.8 million people living with the disease in the United States alone. The only way to solve that problem is through research, and this talk will focus on the scientific advancements and progress in the field. Tremendous gains have been ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $20 General, $10 Members, $8 Students
Engram Preservation: Early work towards Mind UploadingIs it possible to preserve and read memories after someone has died? Robert McIntyre thinks it is, and that the technology is closer than most people realize. His company Nectome is working on documenting the physical properties of memory formation, and studying ways to preserve those physical properties after death. ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $25 - $100
Data Science, Beer & SPORTSIn celebration of SF Beer Week, come enjoy Standard Deviant’s great beers and listen to a few talks with USF’s Data Institute. This is USF’s fourth annual Beer + Data Science event and this year our focus will be on Sports Analytics. Hear from practitioners, professors and students as they ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Stories of a Changing Planet -- Environmental Documentaries in Transformative TimesFriends of Five Creeks' free Bay Currents talks present author and filmmaker Stephen Most who has scripted and co-produced environmental documentaries including Oil on Ice, Green Fire, River of Renewal, and Wilder than Wild.  His book Stories Make the World reflects on storytelling and the art of the documentary. Showing trailers from his ...
Real time observations of particulate fluxes, their compositions, related biogeochemical cycles, and distribution patterns of trace metals in deep open ocean waters are extremely rare, and more so in the context of continuous, highly resolved records. The Gulf of Aqaba (GOA), northern Red Sea, is a deep oligotrophic water body ...
My work uses data science to characterize how humans interact with the built and natural environments, seeking to plan for more sustainable and livable cities. Given the increasing ubiquity of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in the Bay Area, I present a study that aims to assist in planning decisions by ...
This session discusses the intersection of 5G, edge computing and AI/ML technologies for realizing IoT use cases. It discusses technology, architectural evolution and use cases.Speaker: Mallik Tatipamula, Ericsson
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Living on the Edge: Reproductive physiology, behavior, and recovery of southern sea ottersNearly hunted to extinction during the fur trade of the 18th and 19th centuries, the recovery of southern sea otters along the coast of California has been a slow and meandering journey. As a physiological oddball among marine mammals and a vital keystone species in coastal nearshore ecosystems, much can ...
In the U.S., the large-scale water infrastructure that radicalized safe drinking water access in the early 20th century is now beyond its design lifetime, compromising water quality and increasing costs. Safe drinking water is essential to our ability to thrive, but historically, efforts to ensure that households can afford drinking ...
In this talk, Stephen McCabe, Emeritus Director of Research of UCSC Arboretum, will focus on recent poaching of the native succulent Dudleya plants from the California coast, as well as mentioning other succulent poaching that is a side effect of the current succulent plant craze. In one bust alone, about ...
