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 ...
Join our virtual event featuring an international panel of renowned research scientists to learn all about vaccines for COVID-19 and other deadly infections. Our panel will discuss how effective COVID-19 vaccines have been developed so quickly, and highlight the remarkable achievements of other vaccination programmes from the past century.See weblink ...
Where: Cost: Free
Using Genetic Engineering to Combat Invasive Species - LivestreamRecently developed tools for Precise Genome Engineering have ushered in a number of novel proof-of-concept technologies for pest control. Termed ‘genetic biocontrol’, these approaches allow researchers to essentially convert the pest organism into a pesticide. Released genetically engineered biocontrol agents would spread deleterious genes into the pest population, leading to ...
Where: Cost: Free
A Brief Introduction to Applying Machine Learning to InvestingApplying machine learning to longer-term investing comes with specific difficulties. In this talk, we discuss a number of these issues to be aware of, such as:Signal-to-noise ratios are lowMarkets are continuously evolvingThe number of independent observations is lower than you might thinkPredictability does not guarantee profitability in real-world portfolios.While these ...
Where: Cost: Free!
City Nature Challenge Launch with One Tam - LivestreamIf you are curious about the world around you and want to connect with others, consider joining the fun on iNaturalist in preparation for City Nature Challenge 2021 (April 30- May 9).iNaturalist is an online platform to record, identify, and organize nature findings, meet other nature enthusiasts, and learn about ...
Astrobotany 101 - LivestreamNow, more than ever, humans are exploring the possibility of growing plants outside of Earth's atmosphere. Come learn about the fascinating field of astrobotany from UC Botanical Garden's own Director, Dr. Lew Feldman. Before taking on the directorship of the Garden, Professor Feldman spent 40 years on the Berkeley faculty, ...
Where: Cost: Free
SETI LIVE: The Library of the Great Silence and the Fermi Paradox - LivestreamSeth Shostak will be in conversation with the SETI Institute’s Artist in Residence member Jonathon Keats about his Library of the Great Silence. Keats is a widely recognized experimental philosopher, artist, curator and writer.The Library of the Great Silence is an installation art project that addresses one of the implications of ...
Where: Cost: Free
Making Waves: Protecting Nature and Culture in Micronesia - LivestreamClimate change threatens the very existence of many small island nations. Sea-level rise, weather extremes and coral reef destruction caused by warming waters have driven untold destruction and outmigration, with some communities fleeing - literally - to higher ground.Fighting for their collective survival, three small Pacific Island nations and two ...
Now that nearly 40 million people have had DNA tests, we've reached a tipping point. Virtually all Americans are affected - tested or not - and millions have been impacted by significant revelations in their immediate families. Libby Copeland's new book, The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who ...
Where: Cost: Free
After Dark Online: Forever ChemicalsBuilding resilient communities requires us to look at complex interactions between the built and natural environments we inhabit and our vulnerabilities within them. But what should we know about less visible barriers to resilience? Certain chemicals found in everyday products we use and wear have impacts on our bodies, and ...
Where: Cost: Free
NightSchool: Geology & Society - LivestreamExplore the vast field of geology and how the ground beneath our feet affects our lives - and vice versa. Hear from researchers studying how human activities impact the Earth’s structure and consider how geologic features are linked to the culture of local communities.EVENT HIGHLIGHTSDr. Hendratta Ali, Professor of Geoscience ...
Progressive localization of deformation is a basic mechanical process that produces simultaneously reduced strength and increasing strain in a deforming rock volume. The localization framework describes the progressive evolution of deformation from distributed failures in a rock volume to localized shear zones, culminating in generation of primary slip zones and ...
Where: Cost: Free
Saturday, 05/01/21
The Wonderful World of Indoor Houseplants - LivestreamHouseplants can bring us joy and a sense of calmness in our homes, and provide other benefits too! As many of us continue to spend more time at home during this extended COVID period, our appreciation of our beautiful potted companions has increased. This informative, fun, and engaging workshop presented ...
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, 05/02/21
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 ...
Where: Cost: Free
San Bruno Mountain: Rare Plants & Rare GeologyOur speaker Dr. David Nelson is an orthopedic hand surgeon and a botanist on the weekends. He has just finished a book titled The Natural History of the San Bruno Mountains which will be released in Fall 2022.San Bruno Mountain is located between Highways 101 & 280 in northern San Mateo County, ...
Where: Cost: Free
Monday, 05/03/21
Imaging quantum spin liquid behavior in single-layer 1T-TaSe2 - LivestreamQuantum spin liquids (QSLs) are a novel state of matter predicted to arise in quantum antiferromagnets where magnetic frustration or quantum fluctuations are strong enough to prevent magnetically ordered states even down to the lowest temperatures. QSLs are believed to exist in strongly correlated Mott insulators, and are thus related ...
Why do falling cats always land on their feet? The question has long intrigued humans. In this talk, we explore how the solution stumped brilliant minds and how it helped solve other seemingly impossible puzzles. With numerous photos and videos, physicist and cat parent Greg Gbur explores how attempts to ...
Where: Cost: Free
Programmable light-matter interactions: DNA as a tool for nanophotonics - LivestreamLight can be created, scattered, and confined by nanoparticles whose dimensions are smaller than the wavelength of light. A nanoparticle's interaction with light is often strongly tuned by its size and shape, providing an exciting opportunity to control the fate of photons with extraordinary precision. However, harnessing this potential is ...
Recent years have seen unprecedented motivation for the emergence of new energy technologies. Global dependence on fossil fuels, however, will persist until alternate technologies can compete economically. We must develop means to produce energy (or energy carriers) from renewable sources and then convert them to work as efficiently and cleanly ...
Financial interests distort the truths of evidence-based medicine, says Dr. Leemon B. McHenry. By revealing previously confidential documents released in litigation, Dr. McHenry exposes the role that pharmaceutical marketing has in the construction of medical literature, conference presentations and continuing medical education. The marketing spin is designed to be indistinguishable ...
For nearly four decades, satellites showed Antarctic sea ice had been slowly expanding in horizontal extent. Over the same period Arctic sea ice extent decreased rapidly, by nearly half the extent seen in the first images from modern satellite sensors. The decline in Arctic sea ice extent is roughly proportional ...
“Life is a process, not a substance, and it is necessarily temporary. We are not the reason for the existence of the universe, but our ability for self-awareness and reflection makes us special within it.†― Sean CarrollSean Carroll is a Research Professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute ...
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 ...
A New Force of Nature at the Large Hadron Colider - LivestreamAt the end of March 2021, scientists working on the LHCb experiment at CERN in Geneva reported an unusual discrepancy in their data that caused huge excitement in the physics community and beyond. They looked at a decade of information about how unstable particles called B mesons decayed into electrons ...
Where: Cost: Donations encouraged
A New Theory of Adversarial Examples in Machine Learning - LivestreamThe extreme fragility of deep neural networks when presented with tiny perturbations in their inputs was independently discovered by several research groups in 2013. Due to their mysterious properties and major security implications, these adversarial examples had been studied extensively over the last eight years, but in spite of enormous ...
Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Clathrate Hydrates - LivestreamClathrate hydrates are ice-like inclusion compounds in which space-filling water cages encapsulate different molecular substances. Dr. Saman Alavi studies clathrate hydrate materials using molecular dynamics simulations. In this talk, an introduction to these substances will be given with examples of how molecular dynamics simulations can give insights into details of ...
  The Frank Drake Award of the non-profit SETI Institute celebrates outstanding contributions to the scientific study of the origin, nature, and prevalence of life in the universe, and for work on techniques for the discovery of the existence of such life. (Past winners have included Nobel Laureate Charles Townes, and ...
Where: OnlineCost:
Micromitigation: Fighting Air Pollution with Activated Carbon - LivestreamWe would like to invite new members to join Counter Culture Labs' Micromitigation Meetup alternate Thursdays. We will be discussing ways to deploy existing adsorption technology using commodity granulated activated carbon for the mitigation of air pollution. We welcome those interested in both the environmental justice and technical engineering aspects of ...
Where: Cost: Free
NightSchool: Extreme Life - LivestreamYou know the saying: “Life finds a way.†Meet the world’s most poisonous bird, tiny thermophiles, and other living organisms that have adapted - and thrive - through extreme measures and in extreme environments.
As an old adage (mistakenly attributed to Confucius) notes, it’s difficult to find a black cat in a dark room, especially when there is no cat. Conspiracy theories have long been prevalent in the United States, but today they seem to be especially popular - from politics to popular culture ...
Planet 9 or Planet Nein? Discoveries in the Outer Solar System - LivestreamThere have been many headlines about the possibility of an undiscovered giant planet in the outer reaches of our Solar System. But is it real? Dr. Sam Lawler will lead you through the wilds of the distant Kuiper Belt with a surprisingly digestible (we promise!) discussion of orbital dynamics and ...
A sphere cluster (SPH-Mas) based gravity model allows a semi-analytic expression of the linearised equations around irregular-shaped celestial bodies Equilibrium Points (EPs) and an easy method for searching families of periodic orbits around them. The SPH-Mas model can retrieve the same dynamical objects of the shape model when the spheres ...
Where: Cost: Free
Virtual Talk: Through the Looking Glass at Aloes in WonderlandCome take a virtual tour of this well-known Santa Barbara garden’s namesake, the aloes! Though his life’s botanical passion has been the cycads, the name “Aloes in Wonderland†came to him in a dream some 15 years ago and changed the course of the gardens focus. Jeff will share some ...
The Mentoring Physical Oceanography Women to Increase Retention (MPOWIR) program was initiated in 2005 to address a systematic deficit in retention of women physical oceanographers at higher career levels compared to their representation at the PhD level. The program has focused on community and discipline-based mentoring. The principal elements of ...
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
Monday, 05/10/21
Light and Dark. A Story of the Cosmos - LivestreamLight is the main observable in cosmology, but most of what we "see" with this light is how the dark universe behaves. We will explore how the light from millions of distant galaxies are used to shed light on the nature of dark matter and dark energy.Speaker: Marika AsgariRegister at ...
There has never been more interest and anxiety about the effects of media - addiction, wellbeing, relationships, politics, finances, work changes, and more. Parents, pediatricians and policy makers are eager for better data about the effects of technology, but it has been a challenge for scientists to accommodate. The major ...
Supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies power some of the brightest objects we see in the Universe; active galactic nuclei (AGN). Much remains unknown, however, about exactly how energy is released from the material falling in through the accretion disk, and from the black hole itself, to power ...
Where: Cost: Free
Meeting the Goals of SB 100 - LivestreamCalifornia's Senate Bill (SB) 100 established a landmark policy requiring renewable energy and zero-carbon resources supply 100 percent of electric retail sales to end-use customers by 2045. This seminar will share the results of a recent study on the paths to achieving the goals of SB 100.Register at weblink to ...
Where: Cost: Free
Slugs and Steins: A Century of Paradigm Shifts in our Understanding of the Universe - LivestreamThe past century has witnessed the birth of our modern view of the large scale universe as well as an astonishing list of startling changes or paradigm shifts in our understanding. The rate of new discoveries seems to be accelerating with time. This talk will take us from the contributions ...
We’ll hear from Sabrina Pakzad: “SOFIA: NASA’s Flying Infrared Observatory†and from Dr. Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay: “The Lunar Crater Radio Telescope on the Far Side of the Moonâ€. In addition, we will host interactive astronomically-themed pub trivia.See weblink for YouTube link.
Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly critical to develop innovative, competitive, and differentiated medical businesses and products. However, each such project bears the risk of costly failures, due to lack of proper vision, guidance, and data strategy. Furthermore, deployed AI solutions always contain a degree of human and societal biases that ...
Cycles are hard to break. Once you get into the habit of eating badly, not exercising, or procrastinating, finding purpose and success can seem like an insurmountable goal. No matter how many books you read, podcasts you listen to, or YouTube how-to videos you watch, you're still not where you ...
Many landscapes are mantled with thin soils that overlie meters to tens of meters of weathered bedrock. This transition zone between soil and bedrock can be a vital water supply to vegetation and can control rates of groundwater recharge. This weathered rock may also regulate carbon cycling through the action ...
Dr. Mandë Holford will talk about how her research bridges from mollusks to medicine, combining chemistry and biology to discover, characterize, and deliver novel peptides from venomous marine snails for manipulating cellular physiology in pain and cancer. Her laboratory investigates the power of venom to transform organisms and to transform ...
Where: Cost: Free
Wednesday, 05/12/21
Amazon's Rise as a Global Empire - LivestreamCan you imagine life without Amazon? The company has changed the way we shop, invented products like Alexa, and disrupted industries, while its workforce has quintupled in size and its valuation has soared to well over a trillion dollars. Jeff Bezos’s empire, once housed in a garage, now spans the ...
After the successful February 18th landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars, Exploratorium scientist Isabel Hawkins and host Ron Hipschman catch up with our plucky Martian companion and tell you all about what's happening on the red planet. Where has Perseverance been? What has it found? Where is it going? Tune in ...
Where: Cost: Free
The Science Behind Catching Criminals and Cheats: Benford’s Law - LivestreamWhat do the IRS, election fraud, great music, Russian bots, deep fakes, and volcanoes have in common? The answer: Benford’s Law. But if you’re like us, you a) didn’t know this and b) don’t understand what this Law is all about. Not to worry because we’ve got you covered. Or ...
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 ...
Labside Chats: A Conversation with a Scientist, featuring Stephanie Brodie, Ph.D. - LivestreamTune in for the next Labside Chat with Stephanie Brodie, project scientist at UC Santa Cruz and researcher with the Fisheries Collaborative Program. Learn why scientists track marine predators in the ocean and how this helps protect endangered species such as whales and sea turtles.Join the conversation! Submit your questions ...
Join author Enrique Salmón for a presentation on his recent book "IwÃgara: The Kinship of Plants and People". In this book he explores 150 plants of key importance to American Indians. Enrique Salmón reveals how the plants were traditionally used, why they were used that way, what their health and ...
Where: Cost: Free
SETI LIVE: The End of Everything - LivestreamTake a look around. Everything you see, from this blue and green planet we live on to the stars and distant fuzzy galaxies in the sky, began with the Big Bang and, over billions of years, found its way to the shapes and forms they have now. But what is ...
Where: Cost: Free
After Dark Online: Sustainable EnergyExplore technologies designed to harness renewable energy sources and lower the carbon footprint of energy use through building and transportation design. The first week of May, the vessel Energy Observer will be docked next to our Platinum LEED-Certified campus on Pier 15. This high-tech French sailboat is the first self-sufficient, ...
Explore the tropical rainforests of the world with a session dedicated to these iconic and important ecosystems, which are home to nearly half of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and play a critical role in global weather. Learn how scientists are studying rainforest health - and get a bonus behind-the-scenes look ...
The anti-vaccine movement has broadened in scope over the past year, using arguments of “medical freedom†to bring in COVID-19 deniers and anti-maskers into the fold. Concerningly, the movement has also grown more politically polarized, as those who believe COVID is a hoax and masks don’t work tend to lean ...
Beyond the Great Reset - One-day Systems Change Summit - LivestreamJoin Richard Heinberg, Helena Norberg Hodge, Daniel Christian Wahl, James Quilligan, Sohail Inayatullah, Byron Joel and others on how we can create a world beyond “corporate sustainability†and move toward regenerative cultures and needs-based economies.See weblink for registration, agenda, and speaker information.
Dr. Chrissy Stachl’s journey to, and through, the University of California, Berkeley, Department of Chemistry contained many unexpected twists and turns. A trained chemist, she started out working in a physical chemistry lab, doing gas-phase research to understand how water molecules interact with each other and the ions they solvate. ...
One hundred years ago, Einstein predicted that light rays would bend in the space near a massive object - much as light rays refract in an optical lens. Today, we use this fact to weigh galaxies, to discover planets of other stars, and to “see†invisible black holes. How did ...
Where: Cost: Free
Resolving the Local Universe with the JWST & Hubble - LivestreamIn his talk, Dr. Weisz highlights the amazing science and images produced by Hubble observations of local galaxies from the past three decades. The pinnacle of these studies is the Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury (PHAT) program, an 800-hour Hubble survey of our sibling galaxy Andromeda, and one of the largest ...
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, 05/16/21
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 ...
Where: Cost: Free
Getting Under a Sea Otter’s Skin: The Anatomy of Sensitive Touch - LivestreamSea otters are in a race against time. To survive, they hunt for clams, crabs, urchins, snails, mussels, and abalone down to 100 feet deep. Otters must work quickly since they can hold their breath for only 1-3 minutes per dive, and their prey is often found in rocky crevices ...
Where: Cost: $10 General, Free for Members.
Solar Sunday Basics: Spots, Prominences, Filaments and More - LivestreamJoin us for this on-line event where we'll look in real time for prominences (often thought of as solar flares) and intricate texture within the Sun’s chromosphere (its atmosphere). We'll also provide an overview of how we observe the Sun in different types of light (such as red, H-alpha light), ...
Where: Cost: Free
Monday, 05/17/21
Symbolic Systems Forum: Sohpie Regan and Xinlan Emily HuSemantic Adaptation in PreschoolersSpeaker: Sophie Regan, StanfordDoes Distance Matter at Scale? Extending the “Distance Matters†Framework from Distributed Teams to Distributed OrganizationsSpeaker: Xinlan Emily Hu, StanfordSee weblink for Zoom link
Nearly one century ago, the Navajo Nation government was created in response to the discovery of major oil reserves on Navajoland, a 28,000 square mile landmass that spans Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. The newly founded government accepted agreements with multinational companies in the hopes of bringing jobs and economic ...
Mid-century net-zero targets are abundant these days. But there are a few industries where this type of goal would seemingly be contrary to what is thought to be their core business. On March 23, 2021, SoCalGas became the largest gas distribution utility in the nation as they set a net-zero ...
Where: Cost: Free
Tuesday, 05/18/21
Climate change: a risky business - LivestreamHow do we know how the climate is changing? How can we assess the risk to our lives, homes, businesses and communities? And how are people mitigating those risks in their everyday jobs, from engineering to finance?Join a panel of experts as they discuss the risks posed by climate change ...
 This talk will cover the following issues:-Measures of Central Tendency-Measures of Dispersion-Quantiles and the Interquartile Range-Understanding Variance-The Gaussian Distribution-Z Scores-Sampling Distribution to Estimate Population Mean-Covariance and CorrelationAgenda:11:40 am - 11:50 am Arrival and socializing11:50 am - 12:00 pm Opening12:00 pm - 1:50 pm Mustafa Yucel, " Interpreting Data Using Descriptive ...
Where: Cost: Free
The Weird and Wonderful World of Parasites - LivestreamWhat if you had to make your living inside another organism? Better yet - if you had to move between two or three organisms, in different taxonomic groups with different immune systems, to complete your life cycle? What if you were able to alter the behavior or genetics of other ...
The Garden's rare Mexican Magnolia species bloom in the Garden this month. Join Curator Holly Forbes for an introduction to these beautiful species and the rest of the Garden's nationally accredited Magnolia collection, part of a system that joins together public gardens in an effort to preserve plant species.Register at ...
Where: Cost: Free
Whole Earth Seminars - LivestreamSpeaker: Corinne Myers, University of New MexicoZoom information can be found on the EPS advising Google calendar
Where: Cost: Free
Full Spectrum: The Science of Color and Modern Human Perception - LivestreamTracing an arc from the earliest humans to our digitized, synthesized present and future - Adam Rogers shows the expansive human quest for the understanding, creation and use of color. We meet our ancestors mashing charcoal in caves, Silk Road merchants competing for the best ceramics, and textile artists cracking ...
Where: Cost: Free
The Science of Color and Modern Human Perception - LivestreamTracing an arc from the earliest humans to our digitized, synthesized present and future - Adam Rogers shows the expansive human quest for the understanding, creation and use of color. This journey has required millennia of remarkable innovation and a fascinating exchange of ideas between science and craft that’s allowed ...
Where: Cost: Free
Wildfires, Climate Change, and PopulationWildfires have become a yearly event in California. Join us at this virtual event to learn about the connections between wildfires, climate change, and population growth in California. U.S. Geological Survey research scientist and UCLA adjunct professor, Dr. Jon Keeley, studies climate change impacts on future fire regimes and has ...
Where: Cost: Free
Forbidden Planets: Alien Worlds in Science Fiction and Science Fact - LivestreamWe’ve all traveled to Tatooine, and some of us to Vulcan or Pandora, but how do these sci-fi worlds compare to the real life exoplanets like Kepler 16b, or the seven planets of TRAPPIST 1? Join us on a journey to alien landscapes, real and imagined, and see if you ...
SETI Talks: Why is Earth Still Habitable? - LivestreamEarth, a Pale Blue Dot in our solar system, is also the result of 4 billion years of evolution leading to a technologically advanced and intelligent civilization, humanity. When you look around almost anywhere on Earth, you see life. In the air, in the water, in the land and even ...
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
Full-Spectrum Science Online: Big & SmallWhen you make things big or small, whether physical or biological, they change form. Spiders the size of minivans, or people the size of blood cells, are the things of science fiction, and would not survive in the real world. Come find out why in this edition of Full-Spectrum Science.Speaker: ...
Where: Cost: Free
Bringing research into the clinic for children with cancer - LivestreamUCSC has made a vital, impactful leap into diagnostic testing with COVID-19. Now, we are on a path to leverage this work to bring a diagnostic genomics lab to UCSC. In this Kraw Lecture, we discuss how this diagnostic work at UCSC will impact the clinical environment. Dr. Sheri Spunt from Stanford ...
Where: Cost: Free
Stronger, Higher, Faster: Big Wave Surfing and Climate ChangeThe impacts of climate change are felt all over the world, and Mavericks, the legendary surf break near Half Moon Bay, is no exception. Waves there can crest well above 50-feet during a big swell - and as climate change accelerates, they are changing, too. Becoming bigger, faster, and more ...
Where: Cost: Free
COVID-19 Conundrum: Critical Insights on Cloud Security Posture of Enterprises - LivestreamIn the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a rapid uptick in demand for cloud services. Organizations globally increased their cloud workloads by more than 20%, leading to an explosion of security incidents. In this talk we'll review the latest cloud threat research from Palo Alto Networks elite ...
Where: Cost: Free
Talkin' Trash - Myths and Realities of Recycling and Materials Management - LivestreamWhy do we recycle?Recycling has many benefits including:saving energy and waterconserving natural resourcesreducing air and water pollutionconserving landfill spacereducing greenhouse gas emissionsassuring the sustainable existence of human life on EarthReady to talk trash?! Join Sunnyvale’s very own myth busters, Mark and Karen, to learn about the realities of recycling. Did ...
Variable stars have always been the most intriguing (and fun) targets for observers, professional and amateur alike. Stellar variability provides unique insights in critical stages of stellar evolution, helps determine distances to nearby galaxies, and adds to our understanding of explosion physics and the Milky Way's chemical enrichment. I will ...
Physical activity is powerful medicine: it can promote health and change the trajectory of aging. Science has taught us much about the pathways of disease, the causes of aging, and the mechanisms by which exercise exerts its benefits. Now, targeted exercise strategies can slow the aging process and improve both ...
Where: Cost: Free
Thursday, 05/20/21
Framers: Human Advantage in an Age of Technology and Turmoil - LivestreamJoin us for a virtual discussion with the three co-authors of Framers, which focuses on the essential tool that can enable humanity to find its way through the challenges of pandemics, populism, AI, ISIS, wealth inequity, climate change, and other worldwide problems that threaten our current civilizations. To frame is ...
Just over 95% of our Universe comes in the shrouded form of dark energy and matter that we can neither explain nor directly detect. Together, these two dark entities play out an epic cosmic battle with the gravity of dark matter slowly pulling structures in the Universe together, and dark ...
Where: Cost: Free
Midday Science Cafe - Harnessing Machine Learning for Science - LivestreamHow can we improve machine learning to better solve complex scientific problems? By advancing methods that are built to handle sophisticated algorithms and the three-dimensional geometry of physical systems. In this Midday Science Cafe, we’ll learn from two researchers tackling these challenges in order to make machine learning more effective. ...
Where: Cost: Free
How Citizen Astronomers Detected an Asteroid to Aid NASA’s Lucy Mission - LivestreamJoin Cathy Olkin, Deputy Principal Investigator for NASA’s Lucy mission, Franck Marchis, Unistellar’s Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Planetary Astronomer at the SETI Institute, and citizen astronomers Rachel Knight and actor and musician Tim Russ on a chat about directly contributing to space exploration.On May 9, 2021, five Unistellar citizen ...
Where: Cost: Free
Now, More Than Ever: Movement Building for Climate, Racial, and Health Justice - LivestreamThere has never been a more critical time for advancing health, equity and social justice while addressing climate change. This session will focus on the synergies between climate and racial justice movements and their promise in improving health, and community-based advocacy and policy initiatives to promote climate and racial justice ...
The Icteridae are the blackbirds, but they include many colorful species such as the orioles and meadowlarks as well as the all-black species, such as cowbirds and grackles. Some of the tropical species, such as the oropendolas are downright amazing-looking and sounding birds. This group of birds is only found ...
The physical universe, I will argue, is made of matter (or energy) and of order (or information). I’ll trace out the 13.8 billion year history of this matter/energy told by modern cosmology, as it has developed into ever-more sophisticated order and structure: galaxies and their arrangement, stars, planets, life, and ...
In this event, Lidia D’Amico (National Park Service Alcatraz Biologist) and Zoe Burr (Farallon Institute Seabird Biologist) will dive into the world of Alcatraz seabirds. They will tell you about several species that typically breed on the island every spring and summer, and the threats these birds are facing from climate ...
Since its founding in 2010, Chicago-based Manual Cinema has cultivated a distinct approach to performance that merges handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music to create immersive stories for stage and screen. In this live program, go into the studio and behind the scenes as the collective ...
Where: Cost: Free
Micromitigation: Fighting Air Pollution with Activated Carbon - LivestreamWe would like to invite new members to join Counter Culture Labs' Micromitigation Meetup alternate Thursdays. We will be discussing ways to deploy existing adsorption technology using commodity granulated activated carbon for the mitigation of air pollution. We welcome those interested in both the environmental justice and technical engineering aspects of ...
Signs of spring: flowers, pollinators, and bird songs. If you’ve noticed more avian chatter, movement, and transportation of nesting material, it’s because it’s bird breeding season. Join us to learn about how scientists monitor the health of California songbird populations and get a peek into the Academy’s stunning collection of ...
Where: Cost: Free
Working with Fire - LivestreamOur speakers will discuss how working with fire can benefit the Bay Area's communities and ecosystems and answer commonly asked questions about prescribed burning. With the approach of fire season, this timely talk is relevant for all California residents, whether urban, rural, or in-between.Speakers: Brian Peterson, Autubon Canyon Ranch; Jacob ...
Fibre-optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) is an emerging technology that enables the recording of ground motions with fibre-optic (telecommunication) cables. Since these cables can be deployed in environments that are traditionally challenging for seismometers (underwater, in cities, glaciers, deep boreholes, etc.), we can use DAS to make measurements of seismic ...
Where: Cost: Free
21-cm cosmology in 2021 - LivestreamI will describe how to use the 21-cm line of hydrogen to learn about cosmology and particle physics. I will begin with an overview of the 21-cm signal during cosmic dawn and reionization, and give an update of the 2021 status of both theory and data. Then I will show ...
Where: Cost: Free
NASA Ocean Satellites, Supercomputers, And Climate Science - LivestreamLearn more about climate science at NASA with Dr. Dimitris Menemenlis, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Working with the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, or ECCO, Menemenlis and colleagues attempt to make the best possible estimates of ocean circulation and ...
Where: Cost: Free
Wild & Scenic Film Festival 2021 - VirtualJoin Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) and Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (Midpen) as we co-host the Wild & Scenic Film Festival Virtually! Those who register will enjoy 2-hour film program that will air live at 7pm, Friday May 21st, and can be watched at any time, on demand through ...
Where: Cost: Free
A Walking Tour of Optical History -- Artifacts and Anecdotes from the Astronomical Lyceum - LivestreamPioneering telescope makers allowed a revolutionary ascendancy of American astronomy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Astronomical Lyceum in New Mexico, originally built in 1936 as a theater and gymnasium, now houses a collection of telescopes, optics, archives, and literature from this ascendancy. Its volunteer staff find the ...
 This workshop is for total novices in deep learning. We will have a brief introduction to how neural networks work, build a simple example with Keras, and learn about how we can tune up a simple deep learning model. You don’t have to have any prior deep learning knowledge, but ...
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, 05/23/21
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 ...
