In honor of Earth Day, Garden Curator Holly Forbes will shine a light on the various ways the Garden is involved in native California flora conservation efforts. The Garden holds one of the largest collections in the world of California native plant species, including over 200 taxa on rare or ...
Extreme fire behavior has been observed frequently during recent wildfires in the Western US, yet there is still limited understanding of the role of plume dynamics on fire spread. The Rapid Deployments to Wildfires Experiment (RaDFIRE) was the first coordinated meteorological field campaign dedicated to observing fire-atmosphere interactions during large ...
Bats are often misunderstood and feared by people, but they are amazing animals and are incredibly important to the ecosystem and to us humans. Join us to learn about these flying mammals and how they are vital to agriculture. Bats eat the insects that affect our crops and spread disease.This ...
The pandemic has raised significant issues of concern for a democratic society, including that of balancing personal freedom against the greater good. How should this issue be most appropriately addressed during a time of pandemic or national emergency? How well is America actually equipped to handle this kind of crisis ...
Where: Cost: $10 General, Free for Members.
The past, present, and future of DNA-based forensics - LivestreamNew technologies are being brought to bear in criminal justice. The existence of community databases of DNA information have enabled a new approach, forensic genetic genealogy, for identifying suspects in violent crimes. New technologies for recovering and analyzing DNA from forensic samples brings forensic genetic genealogy to bear for even ...
Where: Cost: Free
Hardcore Natural History: Marine Algae as Ocean Record Keepers - LivestreamJoin us as we speak to Dr. Emily Miller a research technician in the Monterey Bay Aquarium/Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) Incubator Initiative program with the Environmental Sample Processor (ESP) team. Emilly Miller will talk about how the team based at the Monterey Bay Aquarium used older algae specimens ...
At this After Dark, hear from and celebrate voices at the forefront of the environmental justice movement. Founded in 1970 by activist groups, Earth Day is an annual, global event to raise awareness about our natural environment, the threats posed by a changing climate, and the actions we can take ...
Where: Cost: Free
Intro to Computer Vision: Building Object Detection Models and Datasets - LivestreamJoin this hands-on workshop to get started with computer vision and object detection.Build your own object detection model from start to finish. Includes step-by-step instructions on data annotation and model training with your own dataset.Object classification and localization within an image is foundational to many computer vision applications.In this workshop ...
Where: Cost: Free
NightSchool: Earth Day for the People - LivestreamWe know that it’s important to take care of the entire planet, but this Earth Day, we’re focusing on projects at the zip code level. Get inspired by people and organizations radically changing both the health of the environment and their communities - through sustainable development, environmental justice, citizen science, ...
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these two Science Envoys will answer questions with insight and enthusiasm:UC Berkeley psychologist Rebecca Corona on The Many Faces of Awe - Awe is unlike any other emotion. It possesses ...
Where: Cost: Free
Friday, 04/23/21
DNA Day at UC Santa Cruz - LivestreamAttend our annual celebration to learn how UCSC is revealing life’s code. This event features distinguished scientific speakers on leading edge genomics science; research presentations by UCSC undergraduate genomics scholars; and a student-led strawberry DNA extraction demonstration. Join in the discussion and Q&A.Selected talks will be made available in Spanish.Speakers ...
Where: Cost: Free
Eggs, Tadpoles, to Frogs: Monitoring Frogs in the Golden Gate National Parks - LivestreamLearn about the common and uncommon frogs you will see in the Golden Gate National Parks. Hear the story about the California Red Legged Frog and the work the Golden Gate National Parks is doing to reintroduce and monitor this threatened frog population in the park.Price Sheppy from the Parks ...
Both Ganymede and Callisto, Jupiter’s two largest moons, host numerous impact craters and basins on their ice shells. Although it is not yet possible to directly probe them, the wide ranges of impact crater sizes provide a possible avenue through which we can begin to understand the internal structures of ...
Where: Cost: Free
'Saving the Dark' Movie and Panel Discussion - Livestream"Saving The Dark" is a Documentary Movie on Astronomy and Light Pollution. It is about the significance of Astronomy and the night skies, effects of Light Pollution on Astronomy, human health, wildlife and beyond, what we can do to fight it. The movie will show what the people in cities are missing out ...
Prepare for time-travel during this prehistoric Science Saturday, when we'll set our sights on the age of the dinosaurs. This event will feature fossils, footprints, and more as we learn what made the dinosaurs so successful, and also what led to their extinction.See weblink for connection information
Where: Pacific GroveCost: Free
Reducing our Footprint with Chemistry - LivestreamOur virtual event on April 24th will be a fun-filled learning event. Several hands-on demonstrations, short lectures and explanations of activities will keep it exciting, engaging and informative. One of these activities will involve plant smells (flower, leaves, barks etc.), guessing the smells, and building models of molecules behind these ...
Where: Cost: Free
Observing the Sky: (Some) Astronomical Innovation From Then to Now - PART 2 - LivestreamFor more than 2000 years, innovative people have applied their ideas and insights into observing the universe. Unknown thousands of years ago, visual observers named sets of stars from the patterns they saw, sometimes using myths or animals, real or imagined, in their environments for the names. This became a ...
Where: Cost: Free
Current Understanding and Recent Work on Cosmology, Galaxy Formation - LivestreamThe modern standard cosmology ΛCDM describes almost perfectly the cosmic microwave background observations, but the resulting expansion rate of the universe (the Hubble parameter) is in serious disagreement with local measurements. This Hubble tension can be resolved by a brief episode of dark energy contributing about 10% of cosmic energy ...
Join our resident astronomers on Facebook Live every Saturday evening live from Chabot’s Observation deck!Each week, our astronomers will guide us through spectacular night sky viewing through Nellie, Chabot‘s most powerful telescope. Weather permitting we will be able to view objects live through the telescopes and our astronomers will be ...
Where: Cost: Free
Sunday, 04/25/21
Bringing Back the Natives Virtual Garden TourIn a series of live garden visits passionate garden owners and the talented designers of the Bay Area’s most beautiful and inspiring landscapes will show us what’s happening in the garden now, feature their favorite natives, describe their great native plant gardening resources, and more.Check the weblink for the agenda ...
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence offers market price and data assessments for lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel - the foundation of a lithium ion battery, which in turn is the foundation of the energy storage revolution. Simon Moores will discuss his work at Benchmark.Speaker: Simon Moores, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence
An issue that has been debated for decades is whether there are gendered differences in communication styles and, if so, whether these differences can perpetuate power imbalances between people with different gender identities. If the answer to these questions is yes, then many have argued that those with less power ...
Where: Cost: Free
Non-abelian bosonization in two and three spatial dimensions and applications - LivestreamIn this talk, we generalize Witten's non-abelian bosonization in (1+1)-D to two and three spatial dimensions. Our theory applies to fermions with relativistic dispersion. The bosonized theories are non-linear sigma models with level-1 Wess-Zumino-Witten terms. We apply the bosonization results to the SU(2) gauge theory of the $pi$-flux phase, critical ...
Supercomputer performance now exceeds that of the earliest computers by thirteen orders of magnitude, yet science still needs more than they provide. Prior to 1990, supercomputers were powered by one, or a few, sequential or vector processors. But since 1990, almost all the increased machine performance has been provided by a ...
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence offers market price and data assessments for lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel - the foundation of a lithium ion battery, which in turn is the foundation of the energy storage revolution. Simon Moores will discuss his work at Benchmark.Speaker: Simon Moores, Benchmark Mineral IntelligenceEditor's Note: This seminar ...
Where: Cost: Free
Using Quantum Sensors to Search for Dark Matter - LivestreamAstronomical observations (such as galaxy rotation speeds and gravitational lensing) are the primary evidence for the existence of Dark Matter (DM). DM makes up ~80% of all matter in the universe, is effectively invisible to the electromagnetic force, and interacts at the very least via the gravitational force. Theorists have ...
Where: Cost: Free
Atoms Interlinked by Light: Programmable Interactions and Emergent GeometryThe power of quantum information lies in its capacity to be non-local, encoded in correlations among entangled particles. Yet our ability to produce, understand, and exploit such correlations is hampered by the fact that the interactions between particles are ordinarily local. I will report on experiments in which we use ...
In 2017, Dr. Shanna Swan published an internationally acclaimed landmark study that sparked great concern about declining human fertility. Join us as this award-winning scientist and reproductive epidemiologist outlines steps individuals and society can take to prevent further impairment by everyday chemicals, which she says are severely impacting our reproductive ...
Where: Cost: $10 General, Free for Members.
'Beauty and the Beast: California Wildflowers and Climate Change' - LivestreamClimate change and other human impacts on the environment are threatening wildflowers and the life that depends on them. In this special and timely work, conservation photographers Rob Badger and Nita Winter give us a spectacular view of California’s extraordinary wildflowers as both a cause for celebration and protection. Beauty ...
Robot ethicist Kate Darling offers a nuanced and smart take on our relationships to robots and the increasing presence they will have in our lives. From a social, legal, and ethical perspective, she shows that our current ways of thinking don’t leave room for the robot technology that is soon ...
Birgitta Whaley’s current research interests focus broadly on quantum information and quantum computation, control and simulation of complex quantum systems, and quantum effects in biological systems. Quantum information processing employs superposition, entanglement, and probabilistic measurement to encode and manipulate information in very different ways from the classical information processing underlying ...
Where: Cost: Free
Scientific espionage, open exchange, and American competitiveness - LivestreamAmid rapidly escalating tension between the United States and China, professors, scientists, and students of Chinese ethnic origin as well as those engaging in academic collaborations with China are under heightened scrutiny by the federal government. In 2015, Xiaoxing Xi, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Physics at Temple University, became ...
Where: Cost: Free
Basic Science Lights the Way: Rising Stars of Berkeley Mathematical and Physical Sciences - LivestreamFrom the search for Earth-like planets to seeking knowledge of past climates on Earth, Berkeley’s early-career faculty in the physical sciences push the boundaries of basic research and teaching in their fields. Hear from professors in four MPS departments about how their work lights the way.This talk features Courtney Dressing, ...
Where: Cost: Free
Gray Whale Populations: The Eastern/Western Paradox - LivestreamJoin ACS San Francisco Bay Chapter for a fascinating evening of insights into gray whale biology and ecology. After being driven to the brink of extinction by commercial whaling, the eastern North Pacific population has made a remarkable recovery. They remain subject to threats including, but not limited to, lack ...
Where: Cost: Free
Near-Earth Asteroids, The Impact Hazard, and Space Missions - LivestreamNear-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are small solar system bodies in orbits that come near or cross the orbit of Earth. I will review NEAs as unique physical worlds, as potential impact hazards to Earth, and as accessible destinations for spacecraft. Michael W. Busch, PhD, is a planetary astronomer and research scientist at the SETI Institute. ...
Each year, more than half the coho salmon that return to spawn in Puget Sound’s urban streams die suddenly when exposed to stormwater that has flushed through highways and city streets. A team of researchers has identified a single contaminant, 6PPD-quinone, as the cause of this mass poisoning. This chemical ...
For thousands of years, people have wondered, “Are there planets like Earth?†“Are such planets common?†“Do any have signs of life?â€Today astronomers are poised to answer these ancient questions, having recently found thousands of planets that orbit nearby Sun-like stars, called “exoplanetsâ€.Professor Sara Seager, one of the world’s leading ...
How do scientists go from OMG to PhD? How do they turn their passion for science into their profession? What advice do they have for future scientists?If you are a 5th-12th grade student, undergraduate, teacher or parent, join us to ask these questions and more in a Q&A session with ...
Where: Cost: Free
Does California need more options for forest or blue carbon offsets? - LivestreamGovernments, universities, oil companies, and businesses of all sorts pledge to achieve “net zero†greenhouse-gas emissions by buying offset credits based on conservation of forests or farm soils, or carbon sequestration by waters and wetlands: so-called natural climate solutions. Offsets are meant to compensate for damage caused by emissions from ...
There is a well-recognized partisan and ideological polarization on environmental issues in the United States. This talk will discuss what is known (and what is not) about the origins and development of that phenomenon between 1945 and 1981, examined against the background of the postwar decades’ intra-party ideological conflict, national ...
In this talk, Dr. Levin will help us understand, and find delight in, black holes - perhaps the most opaque theoretical construct ever imagined by physicists. She will take us on an exploratory tour of the neighborhood of a black hole, and help us feel the visceral experience of encountering ...
