Coastal Walk at Cowell-Purisima TrailJoin Peninsula Open Space Trust for a beautiful walk along the Cowell-Purisima trail that POST helped create by protecting adjacent farmland. While it may be foggy, we hope to catch gorgeous views of the ocean, nearby farmland, and glimpses of harbor seals, pelicans, hawks, rabbits, and whales during the winter ...
Where: Half Moon BayCost: Free
Elves, Dwarfs, and (mini) MonstersOur Local Group has been a rich testing ground for small-scale predictions of the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model, along with the impact of reionization and stellar feedback on the evolution of dwarf galaxies. However, we urgently need other samples of satellite systems around MW-mass hosts. I will present results ...
Protecting coastal environments and communities from sea level rise and storms requires engineering solutions that acknowledge the uncertainty of our climate change predictions on coastal scales. Nature-based solutions (NBS) are engineered to adapt to the environment while reducing shoreline flooding and promoting healthy coastal ecosystems. NBS implementation combines engineering, ecological, ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Is That a Meteor? - LivestreamWhen the Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance project originally started in 2009, there were three locations at Fremont Peak Observatory and Lick Observatory, in California. Each platform included 24 black-and-white surveillance video cameras that were programmed to watch the sky from dusk until dawn. Thousands of potential meteor detections were ...
Where: Cost: Free
What it Will Take to Prevent the Next Big One: Pandemics, Planetary Health and Our Global Future Please join us for an evening with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and UC Santa Cruz alumna Laurie Garrett (Merrill 75). Named by the New York Times “Cassandra†for predicting the COVID-19 pandemic and other outbreaks, Garrett will discuss what it will take to prevent the next pandemic, and protect both ...
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free
After Dark: See for YourselfThe Exploratorium is your playground after dark! Wander the galleries, sip a cocktail, and let a DJ from Hip Hop for Change set the vibe. We think you’re phenomenal, so why not head over to our Human Phenomena Gallery (Osher Gallery 1)? Experiment with thoughts, feelings, and social behavior. Here, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $19.95 General, Free for members
Spice up your Thursday night by taking your tastebuds for a ride at our hottest NightLife yet. We’re bringing the heat with a crew of local culinary experts who specialize in fiery flavors from around the world. Learn about the cultural significance of spices and sample a range of gourmet ...
Seeing wild Macaws fly across the sky is a sight that leaves few people untouched. Travel with us to Costa Rica with Dr. Sam Williams from the Macaw Recovery Network to learn about these flying rainbows and how besides being stunning, their incredible intelligence and charisma have been the downfall ...
How can science education improve young people’s ability to evaluate science-related claims? Online, young people are confronted with information of wildly varying quality made by those who would claim to have expertise. The complexity of science has made the key issue one of evaluating the credibility of the so-called “expert†...
Where: Cost: Free
2022 Bay Area Chemistry Symposium This symposium, unique in the Bay, will provide an ideal forum for students, postdocs, and industrial chemists to meet and exchange ideas covering themes in chemical biology, synthesis, and computational chemistry. The 2022 symposium will feature keynote seminars from leading local academics & industrial chemists, as well as short talks ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Saturday, 11/12/22
Community Day at Cypress GroveMeet Audubon Canyon Ranch’s science staff - Join a guided bird walk - Explore the preserveNo reservation needed - light snacks and beverages will be provided, but feel free to bring a picnic lunch to enjoy with your neighbors beside Tomales Bay!This is an outdoor event so dress accordingly - ...
Lucinda Jackson worked for decades in the male-dominated science world and faced sexism, harassment, and discouragement. But along the way Jackson learned how to empower herself by recognizing and utilizing her past, identifying her vision and core values for decision-making in the present, and intentionally planning for her future Next ...
Where: Cost: Free
What if the Moon Didn’t Exist? - LivestreamAssuming that the Moon formed as the result of a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized asteroid, Neil will explore how the Earth would be different today if that event had never occurred. As you will see, the consequences extend from geology to meteorology to oceanography to ecology to botany ...
Where: Cost: Free
Sunday, 11/13/22
Family Friendly Tour - California Native People and PlantsPlease join us at the East Bay Regional Parks Botanic Garden for a Special Family Friendly Tour, California Native People and Plants. On this tour, you’ll play the traditional Miwok game of staves, grind acorns, and even wash your hands with soap plant root. You will see California Native artifacts ...
Quantum computing is a rapidly advancing field that is poised to take on complex problems that elude even the most powerful supercomputers. In this talk, I will discuss the following:    •   What is quantum computing and how can it be applied?    •   My journey from Symbolic Systems into ...
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Dec. 25, 2021, and commissioning was completed in early July 2022. With its 6.5 m golden eye, and cameras and spectrometers covering 0.6 to 28 µm, Webb is already producing magnificent images of galaxies, active galactic nuclei, star-forming regions, and planets. Scientists ...
Globular clusters are beautiful and ancient structures that have been providing insight into the structure of our galaxy and the evolution of stars for more than 100 years. I will describe the role that binary stars play in their fascinating internal dynamics and examples of how binaries are revealed in ...
Jeffrey Gordon received his A.B. from Oberlin College and his M.D. from the University of Chicago. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine and gastroenterology at Washington University and was a post-doctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Biochemistry at NIH’s National Cancer Institute. He has spent his entire career ...
Overturning the Paradigm: What systems approaches tell us about glycosylation and non-coding RNA - CANCELEDGlycans offer cells a rich coding space, integrating information from the genome, transcriptome and proteome that reflects both cell status and the function of cells within an organism. Their position at the outer edge of cellular space makes them ideal partners for immune cell recognition and targets for pathogens including ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Narrowing the search for axion dark matterThe quantum chromodynamics axion and axion-like particles are some of the most sought-after beyond the Standard Model particles at present because of their possible connections with the strong-CP problem, dark matter, and ultraviolet physics such as Grand Unification and String Theory. Laboratory searches are underway around the world to search ...
Jay Apt is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business and in the CMU Department of Engineering and Public Policy. He is the Co-Director (with Granger Morgan) of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center and Director of the RenewElec (renewable electricity) project. He has authored over 80 ...
Where: Cost: Free
Tuesday, 11/15/22
Lessons from scale for large language models and quantitative reasoningLarge language models trained on diverse training data have shown impressive results on many tasks involving natural language -- in many cases matching or exceeding human performance. Some measures of progress exhibit remarkably robust power-law improvement over many orders of magnitude in dataset, model and compute scale, while other capabilities remain difficult to extrapolate. ...
With funding from the National Science Foundation the IceCube project at the South Pole melted eighty-six holes over 1.5 miles deep in the Antarctic icecap to construct an enormous astronomical observatory. The experiment discovered a flux of neutrinos reaching us from the cosmos, with energies more than a million times ...
Dimitar Bojantchev will share his path from amateur to informed collector, and onward to professional contributor to science. He is a leading taxonomist of macrofungi in California and the Western United States with an emphasis on the largest genera of Cortinarius and Russula.Dimitar has regularly served as a lead identifier ...
Where: Cost: Free
ACS San Francisco Bay Chapter 2021 Grant Recipients Present their Cetacean Research - LivestreamIn December 2021, through the generous support of individual donors like you, the American Cetacean Society San Francisco Bay Chapter was thrilled to award cetacean research grants to three emerging marine biologists doing critical research in support of our mission: to protect whales, dolphins, porpoises, and their habitats through public ...
Morning Hike at La Honda Open Space PreserveJoin Peninsula Open Space Trust for a beautiful hike at Lower La Honda Creek Open Space Preserve where you’ll experience the area’s sweeping views and gorgeous rolling grasslands! The preserve is over 6,100 acres, of which POST has contributed 5,200 acres. You will be guided by a POST Ambassador on ...
An uneducated seamstress with boundless curiosity. A mother octopus with a baffling shell. When the lady and the octopus met, they reshaped marine biology, proving that females of both species were far more capable than they’d been given credit for. Nineteenth-century inventor and explorer Jeanne Villepreux-Power charted her own course ...
Where: Cost: Free
Dive Into The Marine Mammal Center - LivestreamAre you new to The Marine Mammal Center? Do you want to learn more about how we care for seals, sea lions and otters? Are you intrigued by our work on climate change, ocean trash and whale conservation? If you want to know more about The Marine Mammal Center and ...
Where: Cost: Free
Silicon Valley Talks: Technology and JournalismWhen Samuel Morse sent the first official telegram from the Supreme Court Chamber, he demonstrated this new media technology with the message, "What hath God wrought?" Journalists today, nearly 180 years later, might well ask the same question about technology's impact on their profession, and on the news business generally. ...
Light at Night: A Glowing Hazard - LivestreamThe Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter, and the Sierra Club Bay Alive Campaign invite you to our symposium on dark sky and bird-friendly building and lighting design.The use of LED lighting technology is causing an unintended, yet pervasive and harmful effect: the over-lighting of ...
Where: Cost: Free
Corporations and Climate Risk in the Real World: The Case of PG&E - LivestreamEvery year, much of the western United States is ravaged by ever more severe wildfires, caused in part by local decisions and in part by the local impacts of global climate change. Many of the most destructive wildfires in recent years have been caused by electric utilities, showing the urgency ...
All multicellular life hosts diverse microbial communities that are integral to biological function; these microorganisms drive metabolism, stress resistance, and acclimatization at organismal and ecosystem scales. For modern reef-building corals, their success hinges upon interactions with associated photosynthetic endosymbiotic algae. However, increasing sea surface temperatures cause a breakdown in the ...
Where: Cost: Free
Using satellites to monitor environmental change with National Geographic eEvery ten days, a constellation of satellites works together to take a high-resolution picture of each location on earth. Most of this data is and will be used for defense and intelligence purposes, but we can also use this data for environmental purposes.In this talk with Caleb Kruse, he will ...
Kim Anno(California College of the Arts) on "Spectacle of Nature and Iconic Western texts: Oedius Rex and Dante’s Purgatorio"Rearranging iconic Western texts to reconfigure new meaning...Read more Kokichi Sugihara(Meiji University, Japan) on "How to Make Impossible Objects"The “impossible object†initially meant an imaginary 3D structure which occurs in our ...
The guest speaker will be Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian addressing 13 ways that environmentalists can advocate effectively for good policy.“13 Tips†is a lively, interactive presentation that Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian has presented to leadership groups, nonprofits, and community activists for many years. “Having served as an ...
Black holes are undoubtedly some of the most mysterious objects in the known universe. This mystery seems to sit poorly with some, often earning them descriptions in the media such as “gargantuan monstersâ€, “gravitational terrorsâ€, and even “one-way passages to doomâ€! In this talk, I aim to shed some light ...
It is now clear that most normal galaxies have a big black hole, with between a million and ten billion suns in mass, in their nucleus. However, in addition to being the monstrous cosmic maws of popular characterization, these black holes can interact strongly and subtly with their environment. They ...
On which worlds and under what conditions can life begin? The new “urability†framework (places and conditions under which life can originate) is a new addition to Astrobiology, joining the term “habitability†(worlds where life as we know it can survive). Applying urability to exoplanet models will inform a key ...
Our November speaker will be Dr. Klara Scharnagl, Tucker Curator of Lichenology at the UC Berkeley Herbarium. She's going to talk about symbiosis and ecology of these specialized fungi.