Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) differ from conventional reservoirs in that fractures and faults are central to the engineering problem. The coupled physical processes governing faulted and fractured reservoirs are complex and difficult to model. Traffic light systems (TLS), the current state-of-the-art for managing induced seismic hazard, have shown only limited success, in part due to fundamental limitations ...
Much of the discourse on AI ethics and safety focuses on alignment mechanisms, bias mitigation, and containment of agentic systems. These are crucial concerns. This talk will frame a somewhat different problem: the rhetorical and psychological dimensions of AI's authority. I argue that LLMs have acquired what might be called ...
From the discovery of elementary particles to the detection of gravitational waves, the development of measurement tools has been essential in uncovering the fundamental laws of our universe. In condensed matter physics, we can create tiny “universes” inside quantum materials, each with its own dimensionality, symmetry, and emergent properties. In ...
In Martinique, the “Coffee of Legends” project was launched with the ambitious goal of reviving the island’s historic coffee industry for a global debut at the 2020 Olympics. Yet, more than a decade since its inception, the initiative has produced almost no beans. Moving beyond simple narratives of “failure,” this ...
Cells show a range of complex behaviors which might normally associated with cognition, including basic forms of learning such as habituation. The giant single-celled ciliate Stentor coeruleus is a pond-dwelling organism that attaches to substrates like pond plants and filter feeds by means of a ring of cilia at one ...
Power Systems in the emerging markets have markedly expanded access to electricity over the past two decades. However, Africa remains the world's last major electrification challenge, with approximately 600 million people lacking electricity access - "more than half the global total. This discussion examines the economic conditions and technical barriers ...
A high-luminosity high-energy polarized electron-hadron collider will be built at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in partnership with Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF) and will start operation in the middle of the next decade. The EIC will be capable of colliding polarized & unpolarized electrons on polarized protons/light nuclei and ...
Where: Menlo ParkCost: Free
FeDNA Technique: Environmental Monitoring for the Klamath River Dam RemovalIn 2023-2024, four dams were removed from the Klamath River restoring access to 400 miles of free-flowing river. Before the dams were demolished, a team of Molecular Ecologists sampled the system to establish a baseline of DNA so we could monitor population changes in response to restoration actions. Using the ...
Where: SebastapolCost: $7 Advance, $10 at door
Tuesday, 01/27/26
COP30 Debrief: Reflecting on Belém and the road ahead - LivestreamThe United States has formally withdrawn from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations process for countries to negotiate an agreement on how to address climate change. What happens now? Stanford’s delegates to the last major UNFCCC conference of parties (COP30) in Belém, will reflect on that ...
In this talk, Kyle Johnson will present battery-free autonomous microrobots that can fly in the wind or drive independently on the ground using microwatts of energy harvested from light or radio waves. These mobile sensing platforms are expected to have transformative impact in applications ranging from agricultural monitoring and infrastructure ...
Will artificial intelligence replace human workers, or will it empower them? Tech leaders and economists have long warned that AI is fundamentally a "labor-replacing tool" destined to automate away millions of jobs. But this outcome is not inevitable - it reflects specific design choices, not technological fate.This presentation challenges the ...
Cosmic - ray muon tomography provides a passive, high - penetration imaging modality capable of resolving subsurface density distributions at depth and in complex geological environments. Muons - secondary particles generated by cosmic - ray interactions in the upper atmosphere - propagate along near - straight trajectories and lose energy ...
Research security, as defined by the US government, refers to “safeguarding the research enterprise against the misappropriation of research and development to the detriment of national or economic security, related violations of research integrity and foreign government interference.” Countries around the world, and especially in the G7, have adopted policies ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Stretching the limits of surface reactivity: mechanochemistry and topological catalysisFor the past century and more, physical chemists and chemical physicists have sought to understand chemical reactivity in terms of underlying physical processes. This fruitful connection has led to great breakthroughs in conceptual understanding and practical application for fostering and controlling chemical reactions. Here, we examine how the physical principles ...
Join renowned neuroscientist Dr. Adam Gazzaley as he discusses the leading edge of brain science.What happens when neuroscience meets next-generation technology? In this dynamic talk, Dr. Adam Gazzaley discusses how modern technologies are reshaping the way we understand and improve cognition. From clinical-grade video games to neurostimulation and AI-driven diagnostics, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $12 General in person, $9 online
Civilizational OptioneeringIndy Johar is co-founder of Dark Matter Labs and of the RIBA award winning architecture and urban practice Architecture00. He is also a founding director of Open Systems Lab, seeded WikiHouse (open source housing) and Open Desk (open source furniture company). Indy is a non-executive international Director of the BloxHub, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: TBA
Fungi Fundamentals Part III: The Wood Wide Web - LivestreamJoin POST in this 90-minute live, interactive event that will take you beneath the forest floor to understand how fungi connect plants.Have you heard that trees can “talk” to each other through underground fungal networks? It’s one of the most captivating ideas in forest ecology.Back by popular demand after Parts ...
One of the great mysteries of science is how the brain creates conscious experience. Even though neuroanatomy and neuron-control are well understood, and modern tools have revealed many neural circuits, the neuroanatomic center of consciousness remains elusive. We aren’t even really sure how to measure consciousness! If we could build ...
This talk examines why South Sudan’s 2011 referendum on self-determination, a process intended to resolve Sudan’s racial conflict, ultimately intensified racialization for South Sudanese who remained in Sudan’s capital. The talk argues that independence functioned less as a resolution of racial injustice than as a reorganization of it, inscribing racial ...
In Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power (Oxford University Press, 2025), climate media scholar Hanna E. Morris (University of Toronto) reveals how national anxieties following the presidential election of Donald Trump in 2016 have shaped American journalistic and political interpretations of climate change in ways that severely limit how ...
Editor's Note: Bruce Macintosh, the original speaker scheduled to talk on "Pictures of Distant Worlds", has been called out of town. This talk will be given instead.Our Universe has provided many surprises to astronomers. One hundred years ago, Edwin Hubble showed it is expanding. In the 1990s, we found that the ...
Where: Los Altos HillsCost: Free
Fusion Energy: The Hope, the Hype, and What Comes Next - SOLD OUTHumanity has tamed fire, wind, steam and even the atom to fuel civilization. Now we’re reaching for the next leap: fusion.Fusion means creating the heat and pressure needed to force atoms to merge and release energy - essentially, building a tiny star on Earth. Long considered out of reach, that changed in December ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $25
Virtual Skeptics in the PubThis is a casual night of socializing with fellow science-forward skeptics and with others inhabiting our oblate spheroidal planet.Please join us! This is a free event brought to you by Bay Area Skeptics. All are welcome.Click here to join
OneTaste hoped orgasm would change the world. Emerging in the midst of the late-aughts for-profit wellness boom, the company was unwavering in its faith in orgasmic meditation, or OM, a fifteen-minute practice featuring a woman being clitorally stimulated by a clothed, usually male partner. Nicole Daedone, the group’s magnetic and ...
Engineering Skin Bacteria for Needle-Free Topical VaccinationThe ubiquitous skin colonist Staphylococcus epidermidis elicits a CD8+ T cell response pre-emptively, in the absence of infection, but the scope and purpose of this program remain unclear. Here, we show that this colonist also induces a potent, durable, and specific antibody response. Colonizing mice with S. epidermidis engineered to ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
One Mother For Two Species: The Complex Lifecycle of Harvester Ants - LivestreamLearn how the complex lifestyle of social insects leads to complex reproductive models in the Brad Ashby Memorial Lecture.Eusociality is a complex reproductive strategy where the sterile worker castes help their sexual relatives reproduce. In this presentation, we will explore how extreme caste differentiation can trigger genetic conflicts within a ...
Where: Cost: Free
SETI Live: Life After Ice - 46,000 Year Old Worm Wakes Up - LivestreamIn this SETI Live episode, host Simon Steel (Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center) chats with evolutionary biologist Philipp Schiffer (Worm Lab) about one of the most astonishing discoveries in modern biology: scientists have revived a microscopic worm that had been frozen in Siberian permafrost for roughly 46,000 years. These nematodes entered a state of ...
Firn, the compacted snow layer covering glaciers and ice sheets, controls how surface meltwater is stored or runs off to the ocean and therefore influences sea-level rise. While firn can buffer meltwater and delay runoff, the widespread expansion of ice layers, observed by in situ and remote sensing measurements, may ...
Most people on earth live in cities and they are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions. Cities are also where exposure to poor air quality is most frequent and most variable. Understanding and managing the path to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, improved public health and lower public health ...
Brainstem trauma or neurodegenerative diseases can often result in the inability to move or speak, despite intact cognition. The inability to communicate often results in severely decreased quality of life for individuals living with these conditions. Our recent work has shown that brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), can employ neural signals to ...
Join us for a book talk with author and climate scholar Hanna Morris on Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power.Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing at the event. See you there!About the Author: Dr. Hanna Morris is an Assistant Professor at the School of the ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $22.95 General, Free for members
NightLifeThursdays hit different at NightLife. The museum comes alive after hours - wilder, more curious, and full of exciting creatures. Grab your friends, grab a hand-crafted drink, and let yourself wander into whatever weird or wonderful corner calls you. You never know what you’ll stumble into next, and that’s the ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Varies
Pesticide Impacts in and around Monterey BayThe short- and long-term health impacts of pesticide use for local communities on land as well as in the ocean are addressed in a conversation with Yanely Martinez, Katherine Gabriel-Cox, Adam Scow and Logan Pallin.
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free
Astro 101: Moons of the Solar System (online)This event is one of several different introductions to astronomy offered by SJAA. In our solar system, the planets often get all the attention, but the moons have a lot going for them! This presentation visits our planets from Mercury to Pluto, but we'll focus on their moons to learn ...
Because all systems are either absorptive, open, or both, their resonance modes correspond to the eigenstates of a non-Hermitian operator and therefore have complex frequencies. These modes, known as quasinormal modes (QNMs), extend well beyond the electromagnetic context I will discuss in the seminar. They have gained significant interest in ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Saturday, 01/31/26
Bird Walk with Amanda PreeceJoin us for a special bird walk with the amazing Amanda Preece! This walk will be ADA accessible and open to all ages. We’ll be keeping a focus on shorebirds and their allies this time, as there are likely to be lots of winter migrants in by this point in ...
Where: Pacific GroveCost: $20 General, $10 Members
Science Saturday: Marvelous MigrationsJoin us for Science Saturday celebrating the amazing journeys of migrating animals! Microscopic plankton, magnificent birds, and massive whales: it’ll be a journey to remember. We are also celebrating the birthday of Sandy the grey whale, so come by to sign a birthday card and receive a birthday treat. Includes ...
Where: Pacific GroveCost: Free
Stewardship Saturday: Cook with ImpactJoin 18 Reasons and The Marine Mammal Center for a hands-on, food-focused event exploring how our everyday eating choices can support a healthier planet. Together, we’ll learn what it means to choose sustainably, eat sustainably, and make a delicious vegetarian meal. During this interactive session, you’ll collaborate to prep, cook, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Tilden Fungus FairCelebrate the fruits of winter! View hundreds of local mushroom specimens, enjoy phenomenal vendors sharing their talents through fungi, mingle with the mycological community and enjoy presentations by guest speakers.Saturday Speakers11:00 AM Glowing Fungi: Bioluminescence and UV Flourescence in California - Damon Tighe12:30 PM Australia 2023: FUNGA, Flora and Fauna ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
The planetary scene 60+ years ago, and how it suddenly changed with Mariner 4On July 15, 1965, human understanding of another planet in the solar system took a remarkable turn. That was the day Mariner 4, the first successful mission to Mars, encountered and took close up photos of that planet. By today’s smart phone standards those images are laughingly crude; then they ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
Sunday, 02/01/26
Tilden Fungus FairCelebrate the fruits of winter! View hundreds of local mushroom specimens, enjoy phenomenal vendors sharing their talents through fungi, mingle with the mycological community and enjoy presentations by guest speakers.Sunday Speakers:11:00 AM Fungi of the East Bay's Oak Woodlands - Ben Anderson12:30 PM Koji Fermentation - Eleana Hsu1:30 PM Storytime ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Solar ObservingIt’s there for us year round, lighting our days and providing energy for our lives, so maybe it’s time to give it a closer look. Join SJAA for amazing and detailed views of the Sun, and be assured that we’ll be using special telescopes that will keep your eyeballs perfectly ...
Ashley worked for 12 years as a public aquarium professional, where her passion in aquaculture supporting sustainable exhibits and conservation initiatives began, notably with SECORE coral conservation & the White Abalone Recovery Project. She holds an MS in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences from the University of Florida, researching sunflower sea ...
The subsurface is indispensable to deep energy decarbonization, with capacity to store energy on scales necessary to balance renewable grid loads and to sequester carbon on scales relevant to emission reduction targets. Sustainably engineering subsurface reservoirs for energy production, energy storage, and dedicated carbon storage requires an integrated understanding of ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
SETI Live: Back to the Moon - LivestreamHumanity is heading back to the Moon - and Artemis II is the mission that makes it real.In this SETI Live, host Simon Steel is joined by Dr. Caitlin Ahrens, assistant research scientist at NASA Goddard, to explore how Artemis II will prepare the way for future astronaut missions.Artemis II isn’t landing ...
Semiconductor moiré lattices provide a flexible platform to study flat, topological bands with a variety of closely competing ground states. In this talk, I will describe single-electron transistor microscopy of twisted WSe2 which reveals a rich interplay between magnetism, correlations, and topology. At zero magnetic field, we observe quantum anomalous ...
By introducing the concept of fugitive networks, this talk re-thinks Black women’s geographies of mobilization around former plantations on Venezuela’s Caribbean central coast. I show how these mobilizations both engage with and resist the state, as they are shaped by long-standing historical legacies of racialized exclusion and denial of claims ...
In 1964, L.V. Keldysh predicted that excitons - quasiparticles formed by bound electron-hole pairs - could undergo Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) below a critical temperature. However, realizing this macroscopic quantum state in conventional semiconductors proved difficult due to the ultrashort lifetime of optically excited excitons. While spatially indirect excitons in GaAs ...
Bioorthogonal chemistry enables the performance of chemical reactions in biological, including living, systems. The concept was borne out of an unmet need for molecular imaging technologies focused on cell surface glycans, but quickly expanded to applications across basic and translational life sciences research. Today, bioorthogonal chemistries are enabling the development ...
Climate change isn't just threatening our energy systems, it's already breaking them. Extreme weather and other climate hazards are straining generation, transmission, and supply infrastructure, triggering cascading failures across the grid. This talk reveals the scale of our growing vulnerabilities and explores how they collide with surging energy demand. And ...
Finding new chemistry from natural sources is often described as “finding a needle in a haystack,” where scientists must sift through vast numbers of organisms, extracts, and/or genetic variants before uncovering a molecule that fits their needs. Advances in analytical technology now allow us to search more chemical space than ...
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free
Tuesday, 02/03/26
Beyond the Classical Paradigm: Redefining Immune Responses in Tissue Repair and DevelopmentBeyond classical microbial defense, barrier tissue immune cells integrate dynamic environmental and intrinsic signals while communicating with parenchymal cells to maintain homeostasis and shape disease outcomes across the lifespan. My research uncovers unconventional immune responses within the skin barrier across distinct biological settings. I identify a previously unrecognized immune - ...
Today, climate change is affecting virtually all terrestrial and nearshore settings. How well do we understand the physical landscape effects, and how have planning and economic sectors responded so far? This presentation will discuss the challenges of identifying and measuring climate-driven physical landscape responses to modern warming and its associated ...
Modern cosmology has revived interest in some early 20th century puzzles that had seemed to be more philosophical than scientific, the problems of Boltzmann’s brain and Wigner's friend. The inability of a complete understanding of a physical system’s state and dynamics to reveal whether it is conscious plagues both ethics (“Which systems have rights?”) and ...
In interstellar and circumstellar environments, most volatile molecules exist as an amorphous molecular solid referred to as astrophysical ice. This icy material is one of the major building blocks in the formation of new solar systems, and its properties shape the composition and potential habitability of nascent planets. The James ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Live Longer, Live Better: Technology Advances and AgingJoin Prof. Ronjon Nag (of Stanford University and R42 Group) for an accessible, fast-moving tour of the most important technology approaches in longevity today. We’ll also explore the companies investing heavily to turn these ideas into real-world therapies and tools. Prof. Nag works at the intersection of AI and biology ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $22 General, member discount
Wednesday, 02/04/26
Chalk Scribblers meet the expert: Chris French - LivestreamChris French was the head of Goldsmiths University's Anomalistic University’s Psychology Research Unit which was dedicated to the study of The Science of Weird Sh*t, as he titled the popular science book he wrote on the subject after his retirement.His research focused on belief in the paranormal, encompassing the psychology ...
Online dating is a fast growing $9+ billion industry, and that’s just humans seeking humans! Dating AIs are already generating billions and growing at 25% a year. Join us for a conversation that will investigate how computers have changed how we live and love today and what changes might be ...
Imperialism continues to shape our contemporary multipolar world, yet it often remains confined to the logics and parameters of Euro-American dominance. This talk describes black imperialism in Africa. It explores how one of the largest landlocked countries in the world, Ethiopia, emerged as a black maritime empire post-World War II ...
We are excited to hear from Southwest Research Institute’s Dr. Benjamin Byron: “Seeing the Moon with Ultraviolet and Infrared Eyes: Images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter” and Southwest Research Institute’s Dr. Chris Bert: “Exploring Mercury, a World of Fire and Ice.“Click here to watch on YouTube
The California DNA Program (CALeDNA), launched from the University of California in 2017, has been tackling the massive disconnection in scales of measuring nature from satellite-based sensing down to DNA in a gram of soil or water. Through dozens of collaborative projects around the world, CALeDNA lab scientists have harmonized ...
Where: Santa ClaraCost: Free
Meet the Author: Adam Becker - More Everything Forever Adam Becker is an author and astrophysicist whose latest book - More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity - is about "the terrible plans that tech billionaires have for the future and why they don’t work." In it, Becker breaks down why we will ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
The Art of the Film Score: Music & Storytelling in Magical RealismWhat makes a film world feel alive - sometimes before a single word is spoken?Join composer and sound editor Rebecca Nisco for a deep dive into how music shapes cinematic storytelling.Through films like Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, and Under the Skin, Rebecca will explore how music transports audiences, ...
Join UC Berkeley Professor Ken Goldberg for this fascinating and timely discussion.AI is transforming the digital world, but we live in a material world. We need to move things, make things, and maintain things. The next step is "Physical Intelligence" which uses advances in robots and sensors to extend AI ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $12 General
Thursday, 02/05/26
Hidden in plain sight: Long-term impacts of respiratory virus infectionsRespiratory RNA viruses pose a significant public health challenge by causing life-threatening seasonal infections with long-lasting implications in chronic pulmonary conditions. While infections by respiratory viruses such as parainfluenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rhinoviruses, coronaviruses, and influenza virus were long thought to follow a simple, self-limited course, during my ...
Despite decades of satellite altimetry, seafloor fabrics and ocean dynamics at kilometers in scale have remained poorly resolved. Using new observations from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission, I present fine-scale marine tectonic features, including individual abyssal hills, small seamounts, and submarine canyons previously hidden beneath sediments ...
Hina Ashar is a seasoned engineering and AI leader with extensive experience driving product development across both large enterprises as well as early stage startups. She began her career as a software developer and advanced into executive leadership roles, where she has delivered several new products leveraging modern software and ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
Navigating the Tensions in Canada’s Climate & Energy PolicyCanada is internationally known as an outspoken proponent of ambitious climate action. At the same time, Canada has the third-largest oil reserves in the world, and the petroleum industry represents a major sector of the Canadian economy. Federal policymakers walks a difficult line between economic growth, energy security, and environmental ...
Energy prices are soaring throughout the United States, and in California. This is occurring at a time when the ‘too cheap to meter’ resources are increasing shares of energy production. So, what is going on? This talk posits, for discussion, the possibility that renewable resources are incommensurate with the twentieth ...
After Dark: Rooted in STEMCelebrate Black scientists and innovators, and hear from experts on ocean health.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $22.95 General, Free for members
Astronomy on Tap Davis: Two talksSean Carroll will talk about: The Origin of Complexity in the UniverseandAndrew Wetzel will talk about:Out of Chaos Comes Order: The History of our Milky Way Galaxy
Where: DavisCost: Free
Climate Justice and the Moss Landing Battery FireAs part of the Intersections of Climate Change Lecture series there will be a panel discussion including marine geologist Ivano Aiello and environmental studies scholars J. Mijin Cha and Dustin Mulvaney focused on the climate justice issues raised by the Moss Landing Battery Storage System fire.
Coastal risks are growing from climate change, development, and habitat loss. The Center for Coastal Climate Resilience assesses coastal risks, promotes nature-based adaptations, and identifies innovative solutions to reduce risks to people, property, and the environment. Dr. Beck will describe recent successes in bridging ecology, engineering, and economics to develop ...
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free
NightLifeThursdays hit different at NightLife. The museum comes alive after hours - wilder, more curious, and full of exciting creatures. Grab your friends, grab a hand-crafted drink, and let yourself wander into whatever weird or wonderful corner calls you. You never know what you’ll stumble into next, and that’s the ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Varies
Open Question: Ocean Health - What if the ocean is at a tipping point?Recent research shows that climate change is destabilizing ocean currents, and making ocean waters warmer and more acidic. What do these changes mean for ocean ecosystems and the humans that rely on them?The Exploratorium is teaming up with Point Blue Conservation Science to dig into the details. Find out what’s ...
What does it really mean to be free - and how do we learn to imagine it?Join Ato Quayson, Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and English at Stanford University, for a thought-provoking exploration of freedom through the novels of Toni Morrison.Drawing on Beloved, Song of Solomon, and A Mercy, this lecture ...
First Friday Nights at CuriOdysseySwing into the weekend with science, animals, music, food trucks, and fun! On the first Friday of every month, parents and kids celebrate together at CuriOdyssey.Dance to some of your favorite hits, while enjoying animal presentations and science activities. Activities and programs are different each time, so make it a ...
Where: San MateoCost:
Book Talk: California Amphibians & How to Find ThemJoin Dr. Emily Taylor as she takes us through the amazing world of California’s amphibians! Dr. Taylor will share stories from her new book and have a book signing as well as other merchandise for sale after the talk. If you love frogs, salamanders, newts, and tadpoles, this talk is ...
Are we alone? Or is there other life out there in the universe beyond Earth? If there is other life, is it complex life, capable of using language and creating technology like us? Dr. Sofia Sheikh seeks to answer this question by using facilities like the Allen Telescope Array to ...
Naturalist Walk at Bouverie PreserveJoin director of education, Cate Clune and bilingual environmental education specialist, Andrea Salazar, on a naturalist walk at Bouverie Preserve in Glen Ellen. Take in the wonders of the outdoors by slowing down and using observational skills to learn about the environment around you.Prepare to use all your senses, bring ...
First Saturday Tours are a wonderful way to introduce yourself to the Arboretum or to deepen your knowledge of the Arboretum’s plant collections. Each tour is a little different depending on the time of year, the interests of the tour guide, and the people who join in. For example, you ...
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free with admission
Foothills Family Nature WalkJoin us at Foothills Nature Preserve for a family-friendly nature walk, guided by EV docents. Good for ages 6 and up; all children must be accompanied by an adult.Please click the link to register via EventBrite. Space is limited.
Where: Los AltosCost: Free
Sunday, 02/08/26
Marine Science Sunday: Marine Mammal BabiesJoin us to learn more about the elephant seals and gray whales being born right now along the coast! We will explore the incredible cuteness of marine mammal babies and the adaptations of marine mammal moms to care for their young. We will also share the best places to see ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free with admission
Monday, 02/09/26
Automated Construction Performance Monitoring and Operations through Advances in Computer Vision, Robotics, and BIMProf. Kevin Han is the Edward I. Weisiger Distinguished Associate Professor at NC State University. In this presentation, he will introduce ongoing research at the Construction Automation and Robotics Lab (CARL), which he directs. CARL focuses on the development and validation of advanced computer vision and machine learning analytics that ...
Lexie is an entomology PhD candidate interested in the impact of microbes on bee health. She received a BS in Biology (focus evolution, ecology, and behavior) and a BSA in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin. As an undergraduate, she investigated the spatial distribution of bacteria within the ...
Abstracting human preferences into computational objectives is essential for aligning AI systems, yet fundamentally challenging due to the complexity and context-dependence of human values. This talk examines how preferences are captured through human annotation and translated into reward models for reinforcement learning from human feedback. While enabling state-of-the-art chatbots, I'll ...
The ground state of real geometrically frustrated magnets is a long-standing puzzle. We recently showed that the spin glass state, ubiquitous in 3D Heisenberg systems, is due to defect-related quasispins and that defect-free systems develop a previously unrecognized energy scale, T*, significantly below the mean field energy. The entropy loss ...
Structure and Function of Mammalian SWI/SNF Chromatin Remodeling Complexes in Health and DiseaseATP-dependent chromatin remodeling complexes are heterogeneous, multi-component molecular machines that govern genomic accessibility and gene expression and are frequently perturbed in human disease. This presentation highlights biochemical and structural advances that have enabled the mechanistic understanding of mSWI/SNF complex activities and functional assignment of mSWI/SNF-transcription factor interactions in developmental and ...
Expansion of helium gas through a cold nozzle generates a beam of very cold superfluid nanodroplets. If this beam passes through dilute atomic or molecular vapor, one or more “dopants” can become embedded in each droplet and are promptly cooled to their lowest vibrational and low rotational states. Very cold ...
Will a collaboration of humans & technology be successful in the long term? Will it become the savior of health care or just another pain?Artificial intelligence can now match and sometimes surpass physicians in areas such as diagnosis to empathy. What does that mean for doctors, patients, and the future ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $25 General, $10 online
'Hunting Yellow Pigs' screeningA summer program for high schoolers that has had perhaps the greatest impact on American mathematics and is a paragon of questing knowledge.Special HCSSiM Documentary: Hunting Yellow PigsCome join old and new friends for a special in-person screening of a documentary about the summer math program for high school students ...
The primary challenge for synthetic chemists is supporting the efficient exploration of chemical space to find the best molecules for understanding or solving problems. In the past decade, cross-electrophile coupling, the union of two different electrophiles through transition-metal catalysis under reducing conditions, has become an increasingly used tool in these ...
There is a rapidly growing demand for reliable, low-cost trace gas sensors, particularly for hydrogen, in energy and critical infrastructure applications. These systems require ppb-to-ppm sensitivity, high intrinsic selectivity, and ultra-low power operation - requirements that are not simultaneously met by today’s commercial gas-sensing technologies due to fundamental limitations in ...
A rapidly expanding literature documents the detrimental effects of excessive cell phone use, particularly on mental health outcomes and attention. While nearly all studies focus on adult populations, many experts have used them to support phone bans in schools - partially in the hope that these might help reverse declining ...
Three remarkable abilities of brains and machines are to: (1) learn new behaviors from a single example, (2) creatively imagine new possibilities, (3) learn language, and (4) perform mathematical reasoning. I will discuss simple analytic yet quantitatively predictive theories of how (1) mice learn to accurately navigate on the first ...
Photonic structures offer the ability to fundamentally alter how light interacts with matter. I will tell several stories of how these abilities can be leveraged for new ways to perform measurements on single molecules. In one story, I will show how the increased light-molecule interactions in high-finesse fiber Fabry-Pérot microcavities ...
Quantum computing promises to solve classically intractable problems, but building useful systems requires a fault-tolerant logical architecture for protecting and processing quantum information. After decades of progress, the field has largely converged on the surface-code architecture, which nevertheless appears fundamentally difficult to scale, with practical applications likely requiring millions of ...
Is the “mad genius” a myth-or a scientific reality?From Ancient Greece to modern pop culture, creativity has long been linked to emotional extremes. But what does science actually say about the relationship between mood and creative thinking?Join Sheri Johnson, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at University of California, Berkeley and Director ...
Where: OaklandCost: $25
Skeptics in a Real PubEnjoy an evening of socializing and feasting with fellow Bay Area science-forward folk in an Irish Pub on the Peninsula with great food. < Menu >Join us! This is a free event brought to you by Bay Area Skeptics. All are welcome.
Earth’s oceans are warming. Such large-scale aspects of climate change are disrupting important ecological balances, including the delicate service sea urchins perform in California’s kelp forest ecosystem. The implications are broad and alarming (and addressable): a warming planet may cause collapse in wild populations of vital marine life.Speaker: Daniel Okamoto, ...
This month, we have two excellent talks lined up: First, Dr. Tetyana Pitik will talk about the ghostly, near massless particle messengers known as neutrinos. Then we’ll hear from Henry Liu about the “baby picture of the universe” - the Cosmic Microwave Background!
Where: OaklandCost: Free
Wednesday, 02/11/26
Social by nature: from animal minds to inclusive Science communities - LivestreamJoin us on the International Day of Women and Girls in Science for an inspiring inaugural lecture by Professor Claudia Wascher, Social by Nature, exploring what it means to be social, both in the animal kingdom and in the scientific community.Drawing on her comparative research on avian cognition, Professor Wascher ...
The vertical export of biological material out of the surface ocean is a key component of biogeochemical cycles and food supply to the deep ocean and benthos. I will present companion studies from the highly-productive Chukchi shelf of the Arctic Ocean, in which we connect traditional sediment trap measurements that ...
Where: Moss LandingCost: Free
Introducing the Agentic AI Risk Management Profile - LivestreamOne of the most important recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) has been the emergence of agentic AI, or AI agents, systems that can act autonomously to plan and carry out tasks. While these systems present many of the same risks as other advanced AI systems, their ability to operate ...
Food consumers have long been demanding a healthier and more ecologically sustainable food system. Yet labor is rarely part of the discussion. In this talk, Minkoff-Zern will draw on her co-authored new book, Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food System , which chronicles labor across the food chain ...
Speaker 1: Ben Gordon“George Lucas has a Moon problem”Speaker 2: Dr. Tabetha Boyajian“The Moon as an Observatory”Click here to watch on YouTube
Where: Cost: Free
How to AIArtificial intelligence - a.k.a. AI - is here and it’s not going anywhere. So who gets to use it and benefit from it? Is it a danger or is it a useful tool? Wall Street Journal columnist?Christopher Mims says AI is nothing to be afraid of. For people who take the ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $22 General in person, $10 online, discount/member
The Arctic: An Emerging OceanDon’t miss out on an evening celebration of a philanthropic milestone and the exploration of an increasingly important development in the Arctic. It will be a night of film clips and discussion, music and food and beverages - plus, of course, conversations and networking with other people with interest and ...
In the month of February, The intersections of Climate Change lecture series will host a panel discussion with Dr. Shehnaz Hussain and Fire Captain Jamie Gabriel. They will discuss ongoing research in cancer being the leading cause of death among California firefighters and why preventative interventions remain elusive.
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free
Washington's White Birds of Winter: Snow Geese & Swans - LivestreamWell-known wildlife biologist Martha Jordan will present a program regarding the changing landscape that our swans and snow geese now face in migration and on their wintering grounds. You will learn about their life history, biology, and what influences their distribution across our state and the flyway, with a focus ...
The first trillionths of a second after the Big Bang are amongst the most mysterious periods in the Universe’s history, yet the physics governing this era remains largely unknown. Our current best model for describing the cosmic expansion during this tiny fraction of a second is “inflation” - a brief, ...
What if intimacy is an act of intention, not chance?Once pushed to the cultural margins, BDSM has quietly reshaped how we talk about pleasure, consent, power, and emotional connection. In this provocative and illuminating talk, Shelby Devlin explores how practices rooted in kink - clear communication, intentional power exchange, and ...
Invest in Cures Rare Disease ForumJoin LaunchBio to explore the transformative potential of impact investing in addressing rare disease challenges. This annual forum highlights the promise of venture philanthropy and innovative collaborations, offering hope for the commercialization of therapies that could revolutionize the treatment of rare diseases.Learn from venture leaders, advocates, researchers, and entrepreneurs as ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $35 Early Bird (Jan 12), $55 After
Marine ecological communities face numerous disturbances, some of which are becoming stronger and more frequent due to climate change. These range from chronic “press” disturbances, such as warming and pollution, to acute “pulse” disturbances, such as heatwaves and storms. Characterizing the population dynamic responses to these stressors has been a ...
The increasing penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) brings opportunities and challenges to the operation of power distribution systems. Conventionally, the DER hosting capacity of a local electric power system is commonly represented as a static value that is determined by evaluating DER’s impacts on grid reliability considering “worst-case” conditions, ...
Science on Tap: Great White SharksTake a deep dive into great white sharks with Dr. Barbara Block and her team Monterey Bay White Sharks out of Hopkins University! Dr. Block has worked with filmmakers to create an incredible new short documentary that will be shown as well as discussions and insights with audience Q&A to ...
Where: Pacific GroveCost: $25 General, $10 Members, Students free with ID
NightLife: Mix & MingleMeet-cute meets science. It’s a Valentine’s vibe for every relationship status. Singles, couples, friends, and curious cuties welcome.
Where: San FranciscoCost: Varies
Skills for a Workforce of Humans, Agents and RobotsAI-powered agents and robots are already technically capable of performing an increasing share of human work. So how can workers, managers and organizations adapt to the dramatic shift? A new McKinsey Global Institute report offers a roadmap. While AI is transforming the workplace at unprecedented speed, people will remain essential for ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
After Dark: SexplorationsSlip into something comfortable and dive into all the ways that nature gets it on.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $22.95 General, Free for members
The Night of Science - Fact, fiction and the future of Autism SpectrumJoin us for an evening of conversation as we explore how cutting-edge science is reshaping our understanding of the brain.Hosted by UCSF Associate Professor, Danielle Swaney, We’ll hear from Dr. Matt State, a leading expert in psychology and psychiatric genetics, who takes the stage for a flash talk presentation, “Fact, ...
The ocean gives us life - but it’s also one of the least understood places on Earth.We often hear about plastic pollution, overfishing, and dying coral reefs. But what’s actually happening in our oceans right now - and what stories are missing from the conversation?In this timely talk, marine conservationist ...
Wilson’s Phalaropes and Red-necked Phalaropes are exceptionally unique shorebirds that specialize in hypersaline habitats. Nathan will discuss the challenges facing phalaropes within the San Francisco Bay and across their intercontinental migration. He will discuss monitoring data within the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, how saline lakes like California’s Mono Lake ...
Evolution Gone Wrong describes why the human body is uniquely prone to aches and pains. From poorly fitting teeth to blurry vision, torn menisci to difficult births, the history of our imperfections is rooted in our past. To understand our anatomy, we take a tour around the animal kingdom from ...
Where: Cost: Free
Friday, 02/13/26
Evolution Days 2026Each year, the Essig Museum celebrates the birthdays of Charles Darwin (February 12th, 1809), Alfred Russel Wallace (January 8th, 1823), and Henry Bates (February 8th, 1825) with special behind-the-scenes tours of our collection in the Valley Life Sciences Building (VLSB). Join us for a special look at our collections featuring ...
Flooding is one of the most damaging natural hazards worldwide, with increasing risk driven by climate??'induced changes and exposure in vulnerable communities. Meeting emerging design and planning challenges requires scalable flood modeling tools that incorporate future climate conditions while quantifying the uncertainty inherent in these projections. Typically, national flood information ...
Astro 101: Intro to Observing the Night SkyThis event is one of several different introductions to astronomy offered by SJAA and aims to get you started observing the night sky. During this event, you'll get an overview of the types of sky objects we observe (stars, planets, nebulae, galaxies and more), the tools we use to do ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
In Town Star PartyCome join San Jose Astronomical Association (SJAA) for an evening of stargazing. Event details:Events are held at the parking lot of our headquarters, Houge Park, San Jose. The event duration is 2 hours. SJAA volunteers will share night sky views from their telescopes.Please refrain from bringing your own telescopes ...
Where: San JoseCost: Free
Saturday, 02/14/26
Fungus February: Fungus Fair at Presidio Tunnel Tops Join us outside the Field Station at Presidio Tunnel Tops for the Parks Conservancy Fungus Fair to explore the weird and wonderful world of fungus! Learn the process of how mushrooms grow, how to identify them in the wild, and what ecologists have been learning about fungus in the park. Weather ...
Join us for a series of fun and engaging days of creativity and sustainability. Let’s come together to transform plastic waste into beautiful works of art that examine the connection between plastic and ocean life cycles, and inspire change. Your created pieces will be part of a community art installation ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: Free
Evolution Days 2026Each year, the Essig Museum celebrates the birthdays of Charles Darwin (February 12th, 1809), Alfred Russel Wallace (January 8th, 1823), and Henry Bates (February 8th, 1825) with special behind-the-scenes tours of our collection in the Valley Life Sciences Building (VLSB). Join us for a special look at our collections featuring ...
New technologies have the potential to greatly enhance and expand the functioning of human memory, but they can also come with unintended consequences. Having access to smartphones and the Internet, for example, has changed how people remember (and often what they forget). In this talk, I will provide an overview ...
Where: Santa CruzCost: Free
Junior Rangers at the Refuge: Bird Beak BuffetLove learning about new habitats? Curious about wildlife? Our Junior Rangers at the Refuge program is perfect for your family! Join us each month as we explore the Don Edwards SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge through fun, educational activities.This February, we'll discover how the Refuge can support over 280 species of birds ...
Brian is a marine ecologist who works on the foraging behavior, habitat associations, and spatial ecology of seabirds, and tries to incorporate these perspectives into spatial models of seabirds and their prey. Brian has worked on marine or aquatic birds within California, Alaska, Maine, Nova Scotia, and Wisconsin, and works ...
Classical methods for achieving nucleophilic substitution reactions of alkyl electrophiles (SN1 and SN2) have limited scope and are not generally amenable to enantioconvergent variants that employ readily available racemic coupling partners. In this talk, the use of radical chemistry in combination with transition-metal catalysis to address the dual challenges of ...
Speaker: Caleb Luke Mayer, Stanford UniversitySee weblink for connection information
Where: Cost: Free
Out of the ice age: Insights into past sea level and ice sheets from Beringia to AntarcticaAlthough understanding how ice sheets respond to a changing climate is a pressing issue of the century, our current knowledge of past ice-sheet changes remains limited by data sparsity. Over the last deglaciation, we understand global sea-level changes quite well, however, we know little about which ice sheets contributed meltwater ...
Designing, constructing, maintaining, and upgrading civil engineering infrastructure requires fresh thinking to reduce materials, energy, and labor. Meeting this goal depends on a deeper understanding of infrastructure performance - during construction and throughout its service life - enabled by innovative monitoring. The future of infrastructure will rely on smarter information: ...
Extensive attention has been paid to the potential harms of media consumption generally, and social media use in particular, with relatively little consideration given to the potential psychological benefits of media use. This talk will address why this bias exists and its potential for unintended negative consequences. Evidence of how ...
The computational resources required to describe the full state of a quantum many-body system scale exponentially with the number of constituents. This severely limits our ability to explore and understand the fascinating phenomena of quantum systems using classical algorithms. Quantum simulation offers a potential route to overcome these limitations. The ...
Spectroscopy and microscopy have the potential to reveal the structure and dynamics of complex materials, ranging from chromophores in solution to molecular aggregates, nanomaterials, and even quantum sensors. Yet, disentangling these signals and extracting an intuitive picture of how excitations form, move, and transform is one of the most persistent ...
Human manipulation is a dance of contact - carefully choreographed by physics, geometry, perception, and control. Despite extensive theories of contact physics and our advanced learning methods, achieving generalizable robot dexterity in the open world remains elusive. The challenge lies in the “hybrid” nature of contact: interactions are non-smooth and ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Popping the Science Bubble: Two talksWhat a trip! How psychedelic drugs reopen critical periods of developmentSpeaker: Makenzie Wilkinson, NeroscienceVisual processing and the limits to acuitySpeaker: Lauren Sigda, Vision ScienceAttend in person or click here to watch on Zoom
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Finally, something goodStefan Sagmeister has designed for clients as diverse as the Rolling Stones, HBO, and the Guggenheim Museum. He’s a two time Grammy winner and also earned practically every important international design award. Stefan talks about the large subjects of our lives like happiness or beauty, how they connect to design ...
Why do countries rich in oil so often experience political instability and human rights conflict?In this lecture, Mona Shomali explores the idea of the “resource curse” - a theory in international development that helps explain why vast natural wealth can fuel inequality, violence, and environmental harm rather than prosperity.Drawing on ...
This talk will cover all things Sonoma County fungi: My obsession origin story, where to find mushrooms, important trees to learn, edible mushrooms, weird mushrooms, resources to utilize, mushroom stories, and more.Speaker: David Healy, Teacher
Landslides remain a major global hazard, with thousands of events each year posing significant impacts to human life, infrastructure, critical lifelines, and ecosystems. Global climate change and evolving land-use practices are expected to increase the frequency, severity, and spatial extent of landslides, further amplifying the socio-economic risks. While advanced constitutive ...
Geologic hydrogen, including both naturally occurring and stimulated, is a promising primary energy resource. The Earth is a natural laboratory where hydrogen can be observed from surface features (e.g., springs, fairy circles) and subsurface structures (e.g. geothermal wells, chromite mines). The Earth is also a natural factory where both natural ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Forest-based natural climate solutions: Is there still hope?Rapid decarbonization and conservation are both essential to addressing climate change, with tropical forests playing a critical role in achieving net-zero emissions.Drawing on research from the Cambridge Centre for Carbon Credits (4C), Coomes will explore how forest-based nature-based climate solutions seek to reduce deforestation and restore degraded landscapes through credible ...
Campos agrícolas are fenced parcels spanning thousands of acres, owned or rented by Mexican-US agribusiness corporations, and characterized by intensive monoculture and large-scale production. There, surrounded by deserts and highways, transnational agricultural conglomerates have built “mini cities” as a frequent strategy to secure sufficient and available human labor. Each harvest ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Ultrafast Magnetism: The Physics Behind Faster, Greener Computing - SOLD OUTWhat happens when magnets move faster than we thought possible?In our everyday devices, magnets store information by flipping their polarity - north becomes south, south becomes north. But compared to modern silicon electronics, this process is surprisingly slow.Enter ultrafast magnetism. When magnets are struck with incredibly short laser pulses - ...
This presentation will discuss Scott Harris's new book, Why We Love Birds: 52 Birders on Birding. In the book, he interview 52 extraordinary birders about their spark bird, favorite bird, nemesis bird, and their favorite birding day. Accounts include Kenn Kaufman, Sy Montgomery, Pete Dunne, Debi Shearwater and Scott Weidensaul. Their answers ...
Astronomy on Tap is is a free public lecture series where astronomers give short, laid-back talks over drinks at local bars. No background in science required - our scientists share cool stuff about space while the audience just sits back and relaxes, with plenty of time to indulge their curiosity ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
The Cosmic Background RadiationDr Bernardita Ried, of the Kavli Institute of Particle Astronomy at Stanford, will present to us on cosmic background radiation.
Cell membranes are highly sensitive to changes in pressure, temperature, and aqueous chemistry. This drives pronounced biochemical adaptation among marine life to protect membrane integrity and function under diverse conditions. For fifty years, scientists have recognized that organisms adjust the fatty (lipid) building blocks of their membranes to maintain optimal ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Exoplanetary Poetry: AI, Chemistry, and Alien Communication - LivestreamOur Cosmic Consciousness residency artists daniela brill estrada, Bart Kuipers, and Julie-Michèle Morin, discuss an art-science collaboration that imagines how language might emerge from alien worlds. Hosts: Bettina Forget and Cosmic Consciousness residency advisor Gregory Betts.Join SETI AIR program Director Bettina Forget for a conversation with Cosmic Consciousness artists in ...
Earth’s mantle occupies most of its volume, connecting the deep, inaccessible core to the surface. Its convection regulates the planet’s temperature, magnetic field, chemical distribution, and habitability conditions. Changes in convective regimes therefore have profound implications for Earth’s evolution and our interpretation of the geologic record. In this talk, I ...
Dr. Timothy Chou began his commercial career at one of Silicon Valley's first startups, Tandem Computers. He retired as the first President of Oracle's cloud computing business, pioneering the software-as-a-service model that would reshape the technology landscape. Following his retirement from Oracle, Dr. Chou has served on several public and ...
'Becoming Martian' - LivestreamJoin us virtually with the author of “Becoming Martian” to examine the potential consequences of life in space.As commercial space travel accelerates and plans for long-term human settlement beyond Earth move closer to reality, questions once confined to science fiction are becoming matters of scientific and policy relevance. We are ...
Where: Cost: Free
Controllable AI: Control Theory meets Artificial IntelligenceControl theory is fundamental in the design and understanding of many natural and engineered systems, from cars and robots to power networks and bacterial metabolism. In this talk, we explore how the principles of control and dynamical systems - formalized with control theory - can also play an important role ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Paved Paradise: The Ecological Impacts of Our Planet’s Roads - LivestreamSome 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, providing convenient infrastructure for humans at the expense of wildlife. Discover the profound ecological harm wrought by transportation, and the innovative solutions road ecologists, conservationists, and engineers are using to redress them. From tunnels for English toads to bridges for California’s ...
Once a marvel of modern science, plastic has become so inextricably woven into our lives that imagining a world without it seems impossible. Over the last 75 years, says author and environmentalist Judith Enck, plastic has cradled our planet in a synthetic embrace. In her new book The Problem With Plastic, ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $22 General
Listening with Merlin: How Sound ID Works and What It Can (and Can’t) Do - LivestreamMerlin Sound ID has made it possible for anyone to identify birds by sound, but how does it actually work, and how should birders use it? In this talk, I’ll give an accessible overview of how Merlin Sound ID listens to audio and turns it into species suggestions. I’ll describe ...
Where: Cost: Free
NightLife: Lunar UndergroundWelcome the Year of the Horse with LED lion dances, fortune tellers, and a bustling night market. Plus, a special performance by Frankie Fictitious. Our Lunar New Year celebration is one you won't want to miss.
Where: San FranciscoCost: Varies
After Dark: New Moon, New YearWelcome the Year of the Horse with traditional dances and uncover the significance of astronomical calendars.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $22.95 General, Free for members
Alison’s favorite photography subjects are tiny fungi and Myxomycetes (“Myxos” or “Slime Molds”), most so small that you would not see them as you walk through the forest. Alison will describe her evolution and process for creating beautiful photos of mushrooms and Myxos, most barely a few millimeters tall. She will share ...
Where: SebastopolCost: Free
Understanding Our Nearest Star: Solar Flares, Magnetic Explosions, and their Societal ImpactWhile our nearest star, the Sun, provides the conditions necessary for life on Earth, it also produces the most energetic events in the solar system. Solar flares release enormous amounts of energy, including intense and harmful X-ray radiation, and some eruptions are powerful enough to spew vast quantities of solar ...
Since its original development for engineering and insurance applications, the adoption of disaster risk assessment has grown, inspiring innovations in modeling, modern data collection methods such as crowdsourcing and remote sensing, and, importantly, a more diverse set of stakeholders. While promising, this growth necessitates new approaches that meet the distinct ...
NightLife: Friday Edition (18+)We're switching it up. For the first time ever, NightLife is landing on a Friday, and we’re opening the doors to guests 18+. Wander the museum after hours with a drink in hand, plus spend the night moving to sets from Shroomi, Maj, and MNTRA. Plus, explore vintage finds from ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Varies
Saturday, 02/21/26
Open Community Hike Day at Bouverie PreserveCome out to the Bouverie Preserve in the Sonoma Valley, where we invite you to an open recreational day!Join us for the rare opportunity to explore the 535-acre preserve of mixed evergreen forest, riparian woodland, and chaparral. The preserve is home to a rich combination of plants and animals, including ...
Where: Glen EllenCost: Free
An Easy Intro to Feynman's Quantum ElectroDynamics (QED) - LivestreamOne of the most delightful and informative physics books ever written is Richard Feynman’s QED. In this short book, Feynman undertook the daunting task of explaining his Nobel-Prize-winning theory, Quantum ElectroDynamics, without any math except in a few elaborating footnotes. Remarkably, he succeeds! In this talk, Terry replicates many of ...
Where: Cost: Free
Baylands ExplorationsJoin expert EV docents for an exploration of the science and nature of the Palo Alto Baylands. What makes this habitat so special? How do the plants and animals survive the salty conditions? Why is it so different at different times of day or times of the year? How can ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: Free
Science Saturday: Reptile RevelryJoin us for Science Saturday celebrating the remarkable lives of reptiles and amphibians! With family-friendly games, crafts, and special guests, this event includes free admission to the Museum
Analyzing organic materials in artworks has long been associated with destructive techniques, which can be a major limitation when working with delicate or historically important objects. Recent developments, in both instruments and sampling strategies, have opened the door to approaches that require little to no intervention on the object itself. ...
Where: Cost: Free
Microbes vs. Climate Change: Bay Area EditionPOV: You are amongst the smallest and mightiest population in the Bay Area. Join us to see how microorganisms cope with climate trends!Imagine life as some of the smallest, but mightiest living things in the Bay Area: microbes! Join us for an interactive presentation and activity to learn about some ...
Where: AlvisoCost: Free
Spring FestivalKick off the Year of the Horse with culture, creativity, and connection! Join us for a day of activities and crafts for the whole family. Hear real-life stories of rescue-to-hero horses. Make your own lion dance puppets, and discover the foundations of Chinese dance. Immerse yourself in traditions old and ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free with admission
Jazz Under the Stars - CANCELEDJazz Under the Stars is a FREE monthly public stargazing event! Usually occurring on the Saturday nearest the 1st quarter moon (check our Events Page), join us in Building 36 on the 4th floor observatory for a night of smooth jazz, bright stars, and a lot of fun! We play our ...
Where: San MateoCost: Free
Starry Nights Star PartyJoin the San Jose Astronomical Association (SJAA) and Santa Clara County Open Space Authority (OSA) for an unforgettable night of exploring the night sky. Our knowledgeable docents, members of SJAA, will be your guides to providing valuable insights into the wonders of our universe. The viewing site, Rancho Canada del ...
Where: Morgan HillCost: Free
Capturing Nature’s Most Beautiful Light Shows: Auroras and EclipsesAuroras and eclipses are nature’s most spectacular light shows and bucket-list experiences for many, but how do you maximize your odds of actually seeing them when it counts? In this presentation, Vincent Ledvina, professional aurora chaser and space physics Ph.D. student, will break down the science behind auroras and the ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
Sunday, 02/22/26
Gathering 4 Gardner: Pixar in a BoxJoin us for a fascinating talk on the science behind Pixar films! Part of the Gathering 4 Gardner (G4G) conference, this talk features mathematician and former Pixar senior scientist Tony DeRose, who will share his insight into how STEM advancements have impacted filmmaking.We’re pleased to host this presentation as part ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free with admission
Marine Science Sunday: Marine Mammal BabiesJoin us to learn more about the elephant seals and gray whales being born right now along the coast! We will explore the incredible cuteness of marine mammal babies and the adaptations of marine mammal moms to care for their young. We will also share the best places to see ...
Where: SausalitoCost: Free with admission
Monday, 02/23/26
Beyond Black-Box: Human-Centric and Physics-Informed AI for Integrated and Autonomous ConstructionAs global demand for urban infrastructure collides with severe labor shortages and urgent decarbonization goals, industrialized construction has emerged as a critical paradigm shift for the AEC industry. However, the transition toward fully integrated and autonomous systems remains stalled by a fundamental technical hurdle: distributional shift. Unlike highly structured digital ...
Financial systems underpin climate resilience: they fund protective infrastructure, shape preparedness through risk transfer, and provide the insurance that enables communities to recover from disasters. Yet these systems are increasingly strained by climate-driven extremes, evident in the National Flood Insurance Program’s multi-billion-dollar debt and the withdrawal of insurers from high-risk ...
Machine learning is the key technology underlying today's amazing artificial intelligence systems.How did we get to today's technology which now supports a trillion dollar AI industry? What were the key scientific breakthroughs? What were the surprises and dead-ends along the way, as seen by the researchers who created them? Who ...
The Earth’s subsurface is fractured and highly heterogeneous, and fractures often act as preferential pathways that dominate fluid flow and solute transport. This fracture-controlled behavior strongly influences a variety of subsurface technologies including carbon and hydrogen storage, natural or stimulated hydrogen production, geothermal energy, enhanced hydrocarbon recovery, and long-term geologic ...
With all the trouble going on in the world, why would we make games? Shouldn't we be working on climate change or be out protesting? Games can be more than just escapism though. Come learn how they can be art, a protest or way to refresh ourselves when we're tired ...
Popular culture is one of the most powerful spaces where publics encounter science, form attitudes toward it and imagine what scientific futures might look like. Film, for example, reaches global audiences and offers a narrative imagination lab where emerging technologies can be explored long before they enter everyday life. These cinematic ...
Fault-tolerant quantum computation requires further advances in lowering physical qubit error rates in scalable architectures. In this talk, I will present our work on understanding and controlling the microscopic sources of decoherence in superconducting qubits arising from material defects and interfaces. I will present our identification of microscopic origins of ...
Speaker: James Gagnon, University of UtahRoom: Auditorium
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Accelerating Irregular ComputationThe last decade of hardware scaling has been defined by a contract of regularity in which modern parallel hardware reaches peak throughput when data is organized as dense tensors and computation is uniform. This contract breaks down for the irregular representations used to model the physical world, including dynamic meshes ...
The diversity of beetles is widely known - but beetles are complex creatures living in diverse locations so they don’t all compete. Far less well known is the diversity of bacteria within species, most surprisingly with huge number of variants living together and directly competing for very long times. Why ...
The global energy transition will only succeed with the active participation of the private sector. Corporates are central to this effort: they are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions, among the largest consumers of electricity, critical drivers of innovation and scale in climate technologies, and - crucially - key providers ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Advanced Geothermal Energy for California Science, Status and ChallengesAll indications are that advances in drilling technology, mostly developed for or by the oil and gas industry, have placed geothermal energy (the kind that generates electricity) on the cusp of major new opportunities. Historically limited to geographic locations where hot rock and water are relatively near the surface, the ...
Where: SebastapolCost: $7 Advance, $10 at door
From Prompt Grounding to Edge Delivery: Agentic AI at ScaleAs enterprises adopt Generative AI, the challenge shifts from building isolated models to engineering multi-tenant AI platforms that are secure, grounded, and operationally reliable. This session explores the architecture of prompt-grounded, agentic AI systems that combine prompt engineering, retrieval-based grounding, and tool orchestration with cloud and CDN-based delivery to enable ...
Where: Mountain ViewCost: Free
Tuesday, 02/24/26
Exploring the Hidden World of Backyard Birds - LivestreamExplore the stars of Backyard Birds Revealed with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and acclaimed wildlife photographers Tim and Russell Laman. This live online event celebrates the quiet wonder of winter birdwatching - the reminder that even in the coldest months, life and color thrive just beyond your doorstep.Our five-part video series ...
Slow, spatially complex motion and transport in the body play central roles in health and disease. Yet these dynamics remain difficult to measure non-invasively because they occur in small or geometrically complex regions, or are too slow and become buried under larger physiological fluctuations. To address this, we developed a ...
Right after it cooled off in the Hadean, Earth is thought to have been mostly an ocean planet. The first substantial record of emerging land dates to the early Archean, with the recognition of sedimentary rocks laid down in subaerial environments. Deciphering that record is paramount to our understanding of ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Quantum Computing in Practice - LivestreamQuantum computing is a rapidly emerging field that uses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems that are far beyond the reach of even the most powerful traditional supercomputers. While there is tremendous promise, quantum information is remarkably delicate, and building systems that can manipulate it poses an enormous ...
The discovery of quantum materials, from unconventional superconductors to topological and correlated systems, has traditionally relied on a slow and fragmented loop between theory, computation, and experiment. Serendipity and brute force trial-and-error have played an important role in many important discoveries. In this talk, I will describe how Periodic Labs ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
Responsibly Improving AI with Privacy-Sensitive Data: Principles, Theory, and PracticeLarge language models have revolutionized the field of machine learning, but a core tenet remains: AI systems need to be built and tuned using high-quality data from the right domain. As these systems increasingly touch our daily lives, the relevant data is frequently distributed and privacy sensitive. In this Richard ...
I will present battery-free autonomous microrobots that can fly in the wind or drive independently on the ground using microwatts of harvested energy from light or radio waves. These mobile sensing platforms could have a transformative impact in applications from agricultural monitoring, hazardous infrastructure inspection, exploring extraterrestrial environments, and reconfiguring ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Old-Growth Chronicles: Saving the Salmon Forests - LivestreamLynda Mapes will give a short presentation on highlights from her latest book, The Trees Are Speaking: Dispatches from the Salmon Forests, including an exploration of how abundant salmon runs once nourished old-growth forests on both coasts. She will detail other takeaways from her wide-ranging project on these remarkable ecosystems, ...
There are scientific truths, religious truths, historical truths, mythical truths, and more. In our current swamp of misinformation, disinformation, truthiness, rewritten history, conspiracy theories, “fake news,” and bald-faced lies, how do we discern actual facts and truth? What is “truth,” anyway? The Declaration of Independence claims that “We hold these ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $22 General, member discounts
Come learn more about the Western Snowy Plover, a diminutive shorebird that calls the beaches of Monterey Bay home. Point Blue Conservation Science ecologist Kriss Neuman has spent decades studying this tiny, threatened shorebird and will share information on the plover’s life history and breeding ecology, discuss why California’s sandy ...
Where: Pacific GroveCost:
Unraveling individual and environmental drivers of variation among elephant seals - LivestreamEnvironmental variation across temporal and spatial scales shapes individual differences in traits and causes resource acquisition and allocation to fluctuate dramatically. Spotlighting northern elephant seals as a model system, Roxanne and research technician Conner Hale will discuss how the Beltran Lab combines mark-recapture methods and animal-borne sensors to investigate how individual ...
The most energetic phenomena in the universe tend to reveal themselves through intense, short-lived signals. These violent transient events include novae, supernovae, and mergers of both neutron stars and black holes. Their signals - their natural messages - can span the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and may include gravitational waves as ...
Where: NovatoCost: Free
Wednesday, 02/25/26
AI-Driven Load: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities - LivestreamThe growth of AI is driving increasing energy demand in the form of new data centers, while also changing how data centers are designed and operated. In this webinar, experts from EPRI’s DCFlex initiative and Stanford’s Bits & Watts Initiative will discuss trends, challenges, and opportunities arising from this AI-driven ...
Where: Cost: Free
Drive-Thru USA - the Spatial Analysis of Car-Centric Sprawl - LivestreamDrive-thru businesses, in which customers place and retrieve orders without ever leaving their cars, discourage social interaction and physical exercise, and degrade a street’s walkability and air quality. Despite these negative attributes, their proliferation across the United States has never been quantified or spatially analyzed. This study pursues this topic ...
Extreme urban heat, driven by climate change and rapid urbanization, poses a growing threat to public health, energy systems, and economic productivity. Yet effective urban heat mitigation is hindered by two key gaps: limited mechanistic understanding of urban heat environment across global cities, and a lack of robust tools to ...
The crustal magnetic anomalies near the lunar crater Gerasimovich are among the highest-magnitude anomalies on the Moon. Previous work has suggested they formed from the deposition and magnetization of ejecta from the Crisium basin, which is antipodal to the region. In this talk, I will describe the correlation between topographic ...
Feminist interventions have instrumentally shaped critical perspectives in mapping. Yet, feminist mapping has often been erased or considered niche within both GIScience and critical GIS conversations. Drawing on recent work in data feminism, design justice, and feminist digital geographies (among others), I engage with a feminist mapping framework to reveal ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Productively Programming Accelerated Computing SystemsModern accelerated computing systems are increasing in scale, becoming more specialized and diverse, and evolving more quickly. While these changes bring significant performance improvements, they also come with the challenges of productively developing software that targets complex and rapidly changing hardware. For software to keep up with modern hardware, programming ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Leading Scientific Innovation: A conversation with Dr. Kimberly BudilJoin us for a fireside chat with Dr. Kimberly Budil, Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, as part of the Russell Women in Science Leadership Lecture Series at Northeastern Oakland. Dr. Budil will discuss LLNL's mission and core scientific capabilities, her leadership approach as the Lab's first woman director, and ...
Where: OaklandCost: Free
The Age of Tech x Biopharma - Livestream(In-person tickets are sold out)AI and emerging technologies are reshaping biopharma and redefining how science is built, scaled and valued. As the landscape shifts, the industry must confront critical questions about leadership, capital strategy and what innovation really looks like in the years ahead.Join us to hear inside perspectives from ...
Where: Cost: Free
Virtual Skeptics on the PubThis is a casual night of socializing with fellow science-forward skeptics and with others inhabiting our oblate spheroidal planet.Please join us! This is a free event brought to you by Bay Area Skeptics. All are welcome.Click here to join.
Who gets included in neuroscience - and who gets left out?Many common tools in psychophysiology and neuroscience - like EEG, EDA, and fNIRS - struggle to work accurately across different skin tones and hair types. While not intentionally exclusionary, these technologies often fail to accommodate darker skin and curlier or ...
