Drop-in anytime between 9 am and 11 am to bird with us! SCVAS volunteers will be stationed at Palo Alto Baylands on the north side of the duck pond with binoculars to help you identify the huge variety of shorebirds and ducks that call the Bay Area home. No RSVP ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: Free
One Tam Forest Health TourWalk and talk with One Tam partner staff through a Forest Health project area. Learn more about the why's and how's of One Tam's work to help improve the health and resilience of Mt. Tamalpais'Â forests. Led by Danny Franco, Project Manager at the Parks Conservancy, and Suzanne Whelan, Volunteer Coordinator ...
'All the Little Things' - EcoCenter Family EventIn this special public program, join the Environmental Volunteers to learn about the importance of the "little things" in our ecosystem - insects, decomposers, etc. Discover how these organisms that we don't always see help the environment in big ways. This event will feature 3 separate activity stations, each with a ...
 Every human's previous encounters with reality are the source of internal mental predictions that help to shape future experiences. So, seeing the "real world" (or hearing sounds, or feeling pain, or ...) involves a personal, ideosyncratic filter/kaleidoscope. This prediction-based theory of mind is quite hopeful. More than a facile version ...
Where: Cost: Free
WHISPERS FROM THE COSMOS: The Dawn of Gravitational Wave AstronomyVirtually everything we know about the Universe has been discovered from the study of photons --- light in all its myriad forms from radio waves, to visible light, to x-rays and beyond. At the dawn of the 21st century, advanced technology is providing access to the Cosmos through detection of ...
Observations of turbulent dissipation in the coastal ocean from an autonomous underwater vehicleThe location and intensity of mixing in the world’s oceans is a fundamental topic of modern oceanography, yet the range of dynamical scales in oceanic flows has challenged efforts to quantify when and where dissipation of mechanical energy occurs. Such knowledge is essential to global climate science and prediction. Although global ocean models can resolve ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Landscape of Particle Accelerators, Snowmass Planning for Future, and Ultimate CollidersFor over half a century, high-energy particle accelerators have been a major enabling technology for particle and nuclear physics research as well as sources of X-rays for photon science research in material science, chemistry and biology. We will briefly review recent advances worldwide to increase the energy and improve the ...
Mike Morgan will share his reflections and lessons learned from 30 years as a leader and venture investor in a range of energy businesses that have seen significant transitions, including: natural gas infrastructure, residential solar, batteries + AI, and energy-optimizing software.Michael Morgan is Founder, Chairman and CEO of Triangle Peak PartnersAttend ...
Ravi Majeti(Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine) on "Stem Cells and Reprogramming in Human Acute Leukemia"TBA ... Thomas Haakenson(California College of the Arts) on "Kurt Schwitters and the Space, Sound, Sexuality of Dada Resistance"The year 2023 marks roughly the centennial of some of the ...
The nature of dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries of the modern era. All the matter that we see makes up just one sixth of the total mass of the Universe - there’s five times as much again in this mysterious stuff we call ‘dark matter’. We know ...
The birth of stars is one of the most complex problems challenging modern astrophysics. Understanding their origins is of fundamental importance to many areas of astronomy, from exoplanet studies to cosmology. While the study of the initial conditions of star formation in molecular clouds has accelerated during the past couple ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $15 General, $12 Members & Seniors
Colonial and imperial histories and contemporary realities often lead to the framing of marginalized populations’ linguistic practices as learning impediments, thereby scapegoating them as primary causes of educational and broader societal problems. This presentation draws on critical decolonial perspectives to understand the historical and contemporary consolidation of borders delimiting languages, ...
Women in AstrophysicsThere are proportionally more women in astrophysics than in many other branches of physics, but they are still in a minority. For many years the IAU (International Astrophysical Union)  has recorded separately its male and female membership. Using this data base I will review how the fraction of astrophysicists that ...
Two eclipses of the Sun are coming to North America during the 2023-24 school year - an annular (“ring of fireâ€) eclipse Oct. 14, 2023 and a total eclipse Apr. 8, 2024. People in two narrow paths will have the full eclipse experience each time. Everyone else (an estimated 500 ...
Where: Los Altos HillsCost: Free
Thursday, 05/11/23
Submarine Volcanic EruptionsMost submarine volcanic eruptions occur without being detected. When do record them,we find that submarine volcanoes erupt quite differently from volcanoes on land. I will summarize some of what we have learned over the last few years and hope to learn in the next few years from some new expeditions.Speaker: ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
InVADER Mission Conducts Deep-Sea Test - LivestreamA team of scientists and engineers from the SETI Institute, Impossible Sensing, NASA JPL, and other institutions will test their innovative robotic laser system on a deep-sea expedition aboard the E/V Nautilus. The mission, called InVADER (In-situ Vent Analysis Divebot for Exobiology Research), aims to advance technologies to explore, characterize ...
Where: Cost: Free
Investigating Pop Psychology: Pseudoscience, Fringe Science, and Controversies - LivestreamScience-based advances in the field of psychology continue to grow at an impressive rate; however, even more claims in psychology have little-to-no research support. What does it mean for a mental health treatment to be considered “evidence-based†and “science-based†- and how can you tell the difference?Psychologist Stephen Hupp will ...
Where: Cost: Free
After Dark: Thought and ActionHow can art help us understand the world around us? How can it help us adapt to change? Tonight, use art as a lens to explore how we understand ourselves and our connected futures on this planet. Discover the experimental documentary Stitching the Future with Clues, which centers neurodivergence as ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $19.95 General, Free for members
NightlifeCalling all creatures of the night: explore the nocturnal side of the Academy at NightLife and see what's revealed. With live DJs, outdoor bars, ambiance lighting, and nearly 40,000 live animals (including familiar faces like Claude, our alligator with albinism), the night is sure to be wild.Step inside the iconic ...
This talk will include a discussion of UFOs/UAPs and associated conspiracy theories, the strange object ‘Oumuamua, and more realistic ways of searching for extraterrestrial life. I’ll also share some of my thoughts on the likelihood of there being any other intelligent beings in our Milky Way Galaxy.Speaker: Dr. Alex Filippenko, ...
Abraham Verghese is Professor and Vice Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the School of Medicine at Stanford University. He is also a best-selling author and a physician whose focus on healing and empathy stands out in an era when technology often overwhelms the human side of ...
In this talk I will describe how pulsars (pulsating radio sources) were accidentally discovered during a research project to find quasars.Prof. Bell Burnell was responsible for the discovery of pulsars while a radio astronomy graduate student in Cambridge and has subsequently worked in gamma ray, X-ray, infrared and millimeter wavelength ...
Stanford biologist Billie Goolsby on Family Feud: Familial Decision-Making in Poison Frogs - Cooperation between parents tends to ensure family success, especially among poison frogs. Through direct observation, sound recordings, and hormone analysis, researchers test how coordination of parenting happens in nature - and how it predicts offspring survival.UC Berkeley physicist Ashwin Singh on Exploring ...
Where: Cost: Free
Friday, 05/12/23
Coastal Walk at Pillar Point BluffJoin Peninsula Open Space Trust for an afternoon walk at Pillar Point Bluff just north of Half Moon Bay! You will be guided by a POST representative who will share details about the area’s interesting natural history, from the coastal scrub habitat to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve that hosts tide ...
Planning of marine areas is being developed worldwide to support ocean sustainability. However, a number of conceptual and practical challenges limit the effectiveness of developing and implementing MSP. On top of these challengesâ€"and with a high potential to significantly exacerbate themâ€"there is global climate change. Climate-induced changes in ocean conditions ...
Geophysical characterization of calderas is fundamental in assessing their potential for future catastrophic volcanic eruptions. The mechanism behind the unrest of Long Valley Caldera in California remains highly debated, with recent periods of uplift and seismicity driven either by the release of aqueous fluids above the magma chamber or by ...
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free
Nocturnal: Climate Conversations - CANCELEDWhen we think about nature in the San Francisco Bay Area, we tend to think its most iconic features like the redwoods, beaches, wildlife and especially the fog. As climate change continues to alter Northern California, we examine how this impacts some of our favorite natural treasures and what scientists ...
Where: OaklandCost: $20
Climate Fiction Storytellers The Climate Parables: Reporting from the FutureThe series starts with the idea that survival in the Anthropocene depends on upgrading not just our technology, but also our collective imagination. From there, acclaimed storytellers will perform work from some of the most creative science fiction writers such as Kim Stanley Robinson and Eliot Peper, speculating on what ...
