Hello again Science fans!
If you are one of those people who, like me, is interested in how things work, you may enjoy this video. It is about Olympic Curling Stones, how they are made, and why they cost so much. The process is fascinating. The granite only comes from one place on earth, Ailsa Craig off the Scotish coast. Two types of granite are used in each stone.
Curling can only be described as an odd sport. It is sort of like shuffleboard, but played on ice with heavy granite stones and teammates with brooms frantically sweeping the ice ahead of the moving stone to alter the speed and trajectory. The YouTube video comes from Ruth Aisling, a Scotish native who travels around Scotland and beyond in her camper exploring interesting places. Her accent is delightful too.
Put this one in the category of things I never knew I needed to know.
April 24 marked the 24th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. The launch was a success, but the telescope couldn’t “see” clearly. The outer edge of the mirror was flatter than it should have been, resulting in different focal points across the mirror and a fuzzy image. Here’s NASA’s accounting of the discovery of the problem and the solution.
To celebrate the anniversary, NASA released the image above of the M76 nebula taken by the Hubble. The name M76 comes from Charles Messier who discovered it, although he was looking for comets, not nebulas. It is the 76th object he discovered. Astronomers are a pretty basic bunch when it comes to naming things.
The Hubble telescope has, of course, gone on to make countless discoveries leading to a better understanding of the Universe. While it is often said that the James Webb telescope replaces the Hubble, that really isn’t true. JWST and Hubble see the sky in different wavelengths of light and compliment each other.
Looking back even further, to 1977, we can mark the launch of Voyager 1. It and its sibling Voyager 2 are the only two man-made spacecraft to leave our solar system. About 5 months ago Voyager 1 stopped sending data back to earth that made sense and it looked like its mission was over. But NASA engineers were able to figure out that a section of Voyager’s memory had been damaged and was the cause of the faulty data. They coded a bypass around this section of memory and, on April 20, Voyager 1 began sending data that made sense back to earth again. Think, for a minute, about the computer technology aboard Voyager. Compared to the power in our smart phones, it is very, very basic. Yet it is still working, almost 50 years later.
There are a lot of things about the solar system and the Universe that we can’t explain, prove, or disprove (yet). Two that come to mind are the existance of Planet 9 and UFOs, and both are in the news.
Scientists say they have found new statistical evidence that there is a hidden planet in our solar system, outside the orbit of Neptune. This hidden planet has sometimes been called Planet 9. Objects at the outer reaches of the solar system move in ways that defy prediction and modeling suggests Planet 9 may be the cause.
UFOs, or unidentified flying objects, were the subject of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight broadcast last Sunday. It is a humorous analysis of the history of UFOs, the folks on the periphery who believe they were abducted by aliens, and the government’s bad attempts at communicating with the public about sightings and causes. The skeptics among us laugh at the possibility, but you can’t prove a negative.
Physics and cosmology are deeply intertwined. Much of what we know about the mechanics of the universe involves the speed of light, something we can’t actually see, but know to an accurate degree. Well, MIT has a camera that is so fast, they’ve actually captured light as it travels, although somewhat indirectly. The video of this is pretty neat.
Moving on to the environment…in 2023 carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere reached the highest level yet, around 50 times higher than before the industrial revolution. As you might imagine, this isn’t good. And in Antarctica, sea ice is disappearing at an alarming rate. Will it recover?
We have been under the influence of a strong El Niño current this past winter. It is breaking down, and the cold La Niña current seems poised to return. What does that mean for our summer weather? Models don’t agree totally, but here’s an analysis of the trends, the model results, and the outlook, both for the US and Europe.
Last Monday was Earth Day, observed on April 22 since 1970. Here’s some history from Heather Cox Richardson.
It was only a matter of time before CRISPR, the gene editing technology, and Artificial Inteligence got together.
So there we have it, a little bit of everything in the world of science and skepticism. Have a great week in Science!
Bob
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Monday, 04/29/2024
Molecular Evidence of Anteroposterior Patterning in Adult Echinoderms or, Are Sea Stars All Head With No Body? - 04/29/2024 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Speaker: Dr. Chris Lowe, Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University
Flexible neural codes underlying challenging navigation - 04/29/2024 12:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford
Speaker: P. Dylan Rich, Princeton University
Room: S360
Going beyond the here and now: Counterfactual simulation in human cognition - 04/29/2024 12:30 PM
Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg 460) Stanford
As humans, we spend much of our time going beyond the here and now. We dwell on the past, long for the future, and ponder how things could have turned out differently. The capacity to simulate counterfactual possibilities is an important feat of human cognition. Counterfactuals are critical for how people make causal judgments, how they explain what happened, and how they hold others responsible for their actions. To simulate counterfactuals, we need three key ingredients: a generative mental model of the world, the ability to perform counterfactual interventions on that model, and the capacity to simulate what the consequences of these interventions would have been. I introduce the counterfactual simulation model (CSM) which incorporates these ingredients and applies them to capturing people's intuitive understanding of the physical and psychological world. In the physical domain, the CSM predicts people's causal judgments about a variety of physical scenes, including dynamic collision events, complex situations that involve multiple causes, omissions as causes, and causal responsibility for a system's stability. It also captures the cognitive processes that underlie these judgments as revealed by spontaneous eye-movements. People not only look at what actually happened; they spontaneously simulate whether the outcome in the counterfactual situation would have been different. In the psychological domain, the CSM explains what agent's actions made a difference to the outcome, whether one agent helped or hindered another, and how responsible different agents are for a joint outcome. Together these results demonstrate that much of human thought can be understood as cognitive operations over mental models, and that counterfactual simulation, in particular, plays a critical role in how humans make sense of the world.
Speaker: Tobias Gerstenberg, Stanford University
See weblink for instructions to gain entry to the building.
Room 126
Measuring and Modeling Turbulent Bottom Boundary Layers in Estuaries - 04/29/2024 12:30 PM
Shriram Center Stanford
Parameterizations of sediment erosion in coastal models typically assume a turbulent wave boundary layer with wave-induced currents that exceed the mean currents, which is typical for beaches exposed to swell waves in the open ocean. When the wave-driven currents are strong, the addition of waves to a mean current leads to more bottom stress and sediment erosion because of wave-driven turbulent mixing. In estuaries like San Francisco Bay that are protected from open ocean swell waves, traditional wave-current parameterizations can be invalid because waves are generally much weaker since they are driven primarily by local winds. I will present numerical simulation results of wave-current boundary layers in such environments in which the wave-driven effects are relatively weak. The first is a flat-bed case with a laminar wave superimposed over a turbulent mean current. In this case, even though the wave-induced current exceeds the mean current, the bottom stress is reduced by the laminar wave-driven currents. In the second case, the wave-induced current is weaker than the mean current, but the bed consists of bumpy roughness elements. In this case, the addition of bottom roughness leads to an increase in the bottom stress with the addition of the weak waves. These results show that the addition of waves to mean currents in estuarine environments can produce surprising results that are often difficult to incorporate into sediment transport models.
Speaker: Oliver Fringer, Stanford University
Foxes in Your Neighborhood - 04/29/2024 01:00 PM
Don Edwards Refuge Headquarters & Visitors Center Fremont
This program is led by internationally known Bill Leikam - aka the Fox Guy, president and co-founder of the Urban Wildlife Research Project. Here is what Bill says about his program: "Do you sometimes see paw prints in mud or scat (poop) on the trails and assume that a dog left it? It could be from something else, but if a fox left it, that scat is sending a message. Come along with me and I will show you how to distinguish and identify the markings of a gray fox and often the meaning behind it all. I’ll tell you true stories about foxes that I’ve encountered in my study on their behavior. Gain some insights into the fox’s nature. They are far more than what popular culture tells us. By the time we are through, you will have a set of “tools” you can use to identify the presence of foxes and the meaning behind their nature. Bring a hat and good walking shoes."
Children under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
Precision targeted radiotherapy for cancer: current and future paradigms - 04/29/2024 03:30 PM
Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) Colloquium Series Menlo Park
Radiation therapy has become one of the most effective and cost effective precision targeted cancer therapies. This colloquium will review the evolution of radiotherapy in recent years, and highlight future directions in its continued evolution towards more effective cure of cancer.
Speaker: Billy Loo Jr, Professor of Radiation Oncology
Attend in person or online (see weblink)
What Physicists Do Seminar - CANCELED - 04/29/2024 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
Plant-fungal mutualism in a changing world - 04/29/2024 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford
Kabir Peay completed a master’s degree at the Yale School of Forestry and Environment Science (F&ES) in 2003 and obtained my PhD in 2008 from UC Berkeley’s Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy and Management (ESPM) in Matteo Garbelotto's lab. Kabir did his postdoctoral training at UC Berkeley in the Dept. of Plant & Microbial Biology with Tom Bruns, and at Stanford in the Dept. of Biology with Tadashi Fukami. He was an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Plant Pathology at the University of Minnesota from 2011-2012 before coming to Stanford in 2012 to join the Dept. of Biology in his current position.
Room: Auditorium
The Inflation Reduction Act: Place-based Policy, Tax Incentives, and Geopolitics - 04/29/2024 04:30 PM
Stanford University Energy Seminar Stanford
The Inflation Reduction Act created a diverse set of funding, financing, and tax incentives to promote investment in clean energy and manufacturing that the Biden-Harris administration is now implementing. That work follows a four-year period of intense legislative activity in the 116th and 117th Congresses as well as the much longer history of U.S. clean energy and climate policy. The legislative process that achieved the Inflation Reduction drew on that long history and the vast library of policies it created over time, and it adapted to the opportunities presented to - and seized upon - by policymakers to respond to changing energy, security, and economic needs facing the nation. The resulting portfolio of tax incentives, funding and financing programs, and other measures in the Inflation Reduction Act and related laws points to the need for reinvestment in energy communities and the always-global context of energy policy.
Speaker: Luke Bassett, US Department of the Treasury
Tuesday, 04/30/2024
Omarova will lay out an institutional design scheme for the proposed National Investment Authority (NIA), a federal entity to be charged with the financing and implementation of a long-term public investment strategy for the United States. And she will explain how this NIA, and other institutional proposals that she has developed, could transform industrial policy in general, and climate policy in particular, in the United States.
Speaker: Saule Omarova, Cornell Law School
Register at weblink to attend
Is Climate Change an Existential Risk? - 04/30/2024 01:00 PM
Encina Hall Stanford
Catastrophic, civilization-threatening climate change is a genuine possibility within the coming century. This talk will consider evidence that a variety of climate tipping points and other planetary boundaries have already been crossed, and that climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases may be considerably higher than recent IPCC estimates. Further, modeling of cascading risks - such as how multiple tipping points might interact if thresholds are crossed - suggests that the full impact of anthropogenic environmental change remains unknown and likely underestimated. Meanwhile, a widespread focus on high-level international and national governance obscures how denial, disinformation, and multi-layered, subnational governance processes are delaying and derailing changes needed to reach Paris Agreement goals. The talk will end with reflections on ways forward.
Speaker: Paul Edwards, Stanford University
Attend in person or online (see weblink)
Perry Conference Room
Whole Earth Seminar - 04/30/2024 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Speaker: Kriti Sharma, UC Santa Cruz
Emergent Phenomena in Crystalline Multilayer Graphene - 04/30/2024 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
Condensed matter physics has witnessed emergent quantum phenomena driven by electron correlation and topology. Such phenomena have been mostly observed in conventional crystalline materials where flat electronic bands are available. In recent years, moiré superlattices built upon two-dimensional (2D) materials emerged as a new platform to engineer and study electron correlation and topology. In this talk, I will introduce a family of synthetic quantum materials, based on crystalline multilayer graphene, as a new platform to engineer and study emergent phenomena driven by many-body interactions. This system hosts flat-bands in highly ordered conventional crystalline materials and dresses them with proximity effects enabled by rich structures in 2D van der Waals heterostructures. As a result, a rich spectrum of emergent phenomena including correlated insulators, spin/valley-polarized metals, integer and fractional quantum anomalous Hall effects, as well as superconductivities have been observed in our experiments. I will also discuss the implications of these observations for topological quantum computation.
Speaker: Long Ju, Stanford University
The Science of Teaching - Livestream - 04/30/2024 05:00 PM
UC Berkeley
The spark that ignites a student’s curiosity for science and mathematics can happen anywhere, but it is crucially nurtured in the classroom. In this session, three Distinguished Teaching Award winners will discuss what it takes to engage students in scientific inquiry.
https://basicscience.berkeley.edu/
Panel:Alex Filippenko, Professor of Astronomy, UC BerkeleyAlexander Paulin, Assistant Teaching Professor of Mathematics, UC BerkeleyMarla Feller, Paul Licht Distinguished Professor in Biological SciencesModerator: Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, Executive Dean, College of Letters & Science, UC Berkeley
Register at weblink to receive connection information
Tech in Culture: How Technology is Disrupting the Culture Industry - 04/30/2024 05:30 PM
Silicon Valley Bank Experience Center San Francisco
Prepare to be inspired as we delve into the world of Tech in Culture. This event is co-organized with French Tech SF, EDHEC GETT Master's Students, and FACS. We will explore how technology is revolutionizing the cultural landscape through:
Captivating talks on AI-enabled art and its transformative potential.Immersive experiences that are pushing the boundaries of creativity.
Our wonderful panel of speakers, representing diverse backgrounds and experiences, will offer insightful perspectives on this evolving space.
The talks will be followed by a lively Q&A session and a delicious cocktail reception, providing an opportunity to engage with fellow attendees and dig deeper into the discussions.
Wonderfest: Ask a Science Envoy: Communication; Growth - 04/30/2024 07:00 PM
Hopmonk Tavern Novato
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these two Science Envoys will answer questions with insight and enthusiasm:
UC Berkeley psychologist Sophia Li on Imperfect Communication - As a communicator, I want to transfer information from my mind into the minds of listeners. Research shows that both listeners and uninvolved observers have overly positive perceptions of any communicator. They believe that the communicator knows more than s/he actually does, and has articulated thoughts better than s/he actually has.Stanford physicist Josh Tong on Growth and Form - Living creatures grow and transform their shape, to the awe of many scientists. What does it mean to grow? How do we compare an organism at different stages of its growth? Mathematics can help us find the way to understand this fundamental transformation.
Wednesday, 05/01/2024
Stanford Energy Research Showcase - 05/01/2024 08:30 AM
Arrillaga Alumni Center Stanford
The Stanford Energy Research Showcase is Stanford's principal annual technical symposium focused on Stanford energy research. Stanford faculty, post docs and graduate students, industry peers, and many interested stakeholders will gather to explore the most exciting advances in energy research at Stanford. Topics: Industrial Decarbonization, Energy Applications for Buildings, Electric Grid and Devices, Materials in a Circular Economy, Fast Charging Batteries, Hydrogen and Fuels. Register in advance to secure your seat!
Fixing the Climate: Strategies for an Uncertain World - 05/01/2024 05:00 PM
Levinthal Hall (Humanities Center) Bldg 02-100 Stanford
Stopping climate change will require reinventing today’s energy and industrial systems without falling victim to the same technocratic hubris that caused it. In their book, Fixing the Climate, Charles F. Sabel and David G. Victor propose an experimentalist system of governance and incentives for the incremental but cumulatively transformative redirection of the economy and democracy that allows us to construct a sustainable alternative. Experimentalism uses the very uncertainty that frustrates standard forms of rational decision-making through plans and markets to uncover new possibilities, allowing for the emergence of new coalitions to challenge entrenched interests.
Experimentalism is thus suited to the long and fraught transition from a world that has become unworkable to a more sustainable one. Evidence is mounting that deliberate redirection of the trajectory of development is achievable. Whether this redirection can be made consensual by subjecting it to widely inclusive and democratic control is an open question that will be addressed in this talk.
Speakers: Charles Sabel, Columbia University; David Victor, UC San Diagy; Inês Azevedo, Stanford University, Moderator
'The Gift' - 05/01/2024 06:00 PM
Memorial Church Stanford
The Gift is an immersive installation that animates contemporary astrophysics research to open up metaphorical space for grief, care, and renewal.
In this rolling-entry experience, participants gather in a music-filled reading room, where they encounter an all-ages illustrated book - based on the astrophysics research of Dr. Natalie Gosnell - that invites responses both tactile and emotional. This book tells the story of two stars that are so close to one another yet so far from us that they appear as a single point of light in the sky. Their fates are intertwined; one star, at the end of its life, transfers its material to the companion, allowing the companion to burn brighter and to appear - for a moment - younger, brighter, bluer. This tender story and playful experience heeds the call of anthropologist Emily Martin, to “wake the sleeping metaphors of science.”
Teaching Casualty Care in Ukraine During the Russian Invasion - Fourth Time's the Charm - 05/01/2024 06:00 PM
Lafayette Library and Learning Center Lafayette
Dr Michael Baker teaches Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) to civilian and military medical providers and Stop the Bleed (StB) to civilians. The goal is to improve the care of injured patients during the first critical minutes after wounding in order to improve survival. He has recently returned from his fourth tour teaching both courses in Ukraine and is scheduled to return for a fifth tour soon. He will review some history and geography of Central Europe/Ukraine, and give his insight into morale and conditions in Ukraine during this conflict. He will also explain where he perceives links of this conflict in Ukraine relate to other problem regions.
The Myths and Misconceptions About Breasts - 05/01/2024 06:00 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
An innovative investigation of the five strange worlds that worship women’s chests.
After years of biopsies, sociologist and bestselling author Sarah Thornton made the difficult decision to have a double mastectomy. But, after her reconstructive surgery, she was perplexed: What had she lost? And gained? An experienced sleuth, she resolved to venture behind the scenes to uncover the social and cultural significance of breasts.
Join us in person or online as Thornton talks with Michael Lewis and draws on what she learned from latest book, which excavates the diverse truths of mammary glands from the strip club to the operating room, from the nation’s oldest human milk bank to the fit rooms of bra designers. Thornton has insights from plastic surgeons, lactation consultants, body-positive witches, lingerie models, and “free the nipple” activists to explore the status of breasts as emblems of femininity. She examines how women’s chests have become a billion-dollar business, as well as a stage for debates about race, class, gender and desire.
Blending sociology, reportage, and personal narrative with refreshing optimism and wit, Thornton has one overriding ambition―to liberate breasts from what she says are centuries of patriarchal prejudice.
Speaker: Sarah Thornton, Sociologist and Author; Michael Lewis, Author, Moderator
The Human Cost of Climate Change - 05/01/2024 07:00 PM
Los Altos Public Library Los Altos
Rainforests chopped down. Indigenous peoples driven off their land to export avocados from Mexico. Extreme heat causing death and misery to factory workers and driving farmers off dried, cracked land in Bangladesh. Massive nickel processing plants in Indonesia making pristine water undrinkable and air unbreathable in order to make batteries for electric vehicles.
Brad Adams, former Asia director at Human Rights Watch, created Climate Rights International in 2023, and he will discuss these and other issues at the intersection of climate change and human rights, as well as provide some ideas about how to solve them.
Seating capacity limited to first 100 attendees.
Thursday, 05/02/2024
Deploying EV Charging Stations for Fleets - 05/02/2024 01:30 PM
Environment & Energy Building (Y2E2) Stanford
In this presentation, we'll explore the challenges and opportunities in fleet EV charging in America in the year of 2024. We will delve into two key case studies illustrating the impact of innovation: Fleets achieving rapid charging without extensive construction, and municipalities adopting green charging solutions in line with their sustainability goals.
Speaker: Susan Linwood is CEO of ChargePodX, which is is dedicated to providing the latest innovations in DC charging technologies.
Attend in person or register at weblink to attend online.
Room 292A
The Science of Weird Shit - Livestream - 05/02/2024 04:00 PM
Skeptical Inquirer
If the wider scientific community is right to be skeptical about paranormal claims, why do so many people believe in the paranormal - including a sizable number who claim to have had direct personal experience of paranormal phenomena?
Chris French will provide an overview of anomalistic psychology, which attempts to address believers by proposing alternative, nonparanormal explanations for ostensibly paranormal experiences. He’ll also discuss key factors such as the unreliability of memory, hallucinatory experiences, and a range of cognitive biases.
Register at weblink
What She Said - Women in AI - 05/02/2024 05:00 PM
W Hotel San Francisco San Francisco
Originating at W San Francisco with its launch in 2016, What She Said is a W Hotels & Resorts branded series featuring conversations among women that celebrate individuality, inclusivity, and honesty, tackling the issues of today from work, love, play and everything in between. The platform, which has since been adopted by W hotels worldwide, offers a safe space to drive progress in the gender equality movement and cultivate community with open conversations that inspire, educate, and enlighten.
Your ticket includes entry to the panel discussion, a complimentary beverage, light bites and an experience to connect and network.
Panelists TBA
NightLife Intersections: Music - 05/02/2024 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Be serenaded by the sweet yet powerful sounds of percussion and strings and experience the ways musical instruments can foster connection in the last leg of our NightLife Intersections series. Explore how instruments have evolved across generations and discover how they can be used to bridge communities.
Start the night with Hannah Mayree of Black Banjo Reclamation Project and sitar player Kamal Ahmad as they come together for a jam session and lively discussion around the history and evolution of their stringed instruments, and how they honor traditions and history while blazing a new path for the future.
Then, catch Carmen Román and Pierr Padilla from Cunamacué joined by Harry Best and Kristy Aki Oshiro for a rhythmic performance and talk, touching on the link between culture and artistic expression and the use of percussive instruments as a symbol of resistance.
Both panel talks will be moderated by NightLife Brand Manager and musician, Anacron Allen.
Family Science Night at Willard Middle School - 05/02/2024 06:00 PM
Willard Middle School Berkeley
Willard Middle School will host Family Science Night, an evening of colorful demonstrations and hands-on chemistry, presented by the local California Section of the American Chemical Society. The entire Willard Community is cordially invited!
Join us at in the Multi Purpose Room for exciting chemical demonstrations. We’re celebrating Earth Week this year with theme, “Getting A Charge Out Of Chemistry,” and visitors will have the chance to recreate Alessandro Volta’s original 1799 voltaic pile. Pick up your event program and visit each of the activity stations for plenty of hands-on science, before returning to the MPR for prizes and Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream. Collect your souvenir Periodic Table and copies of Celebrating Chemistry, with instructions for a variety of safe, hands-on activities that you can try at home.
After Dark: See for Yourself - 05/02/2024 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Get curious about the world at After Dark! Upend your perception and explore science, nature, and art with 650+ interactive exhibits. Reimagine colors in the monochrome room, and let your hearing, touch, and smell guide you through the Tactile Dome. End the night with a dance party hosted by DJ Ethan Dreams!
Robotic Food Manipulation in the Wild - 05/02/2024 06:00 PM
986 Mission St San Francisco
It’s easy to make a robot work once in the lab, but what does it take to make it work reliably in the real world?
At Chef Robotics, we have deployed dozens of robots into production. We are teaming up with Women in Robotics to share our learning with the community.
Join us for an exclusive demo of our robot in action, and mingle with fellow roboticists! We will also present the fun challenges that we’ve gone through, such as: the development of food manipulation utensils and motions, adaptive manipulation policies to environmental variations, and robot-to-robot communication.
Register at weblink to attend
Tech Talk: Psyche - 05/02/2024 06:30 PM
Hacker Dojo Mountain View
The Psyche spacecraft, built by Maxar in partnership with NASA JPL, is flying to 16-Psyche, an all-metal asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. Humanity has never before explored a world like it. But terrestrial planets like Earth are presumed to have metallic cores beneath their crusts. Psyche will hopefully help us learn more about planet cores: how planets are formed or how they get ripped apart. If it could be mined, 16-Psyche could be worth $10,000 quadrillion (that’s 19 zeros).
The program was first proposed in 2011, NASA put out the initial proposal in 2014, and JPL and Maxar were awarded the contract in 2017. It was launched on October (Friday the) 13th, 2023, and left the Earth on a Falcon Heavy faster than any other human-made object. At 5 months into the mission, the spacecraft is healthy. It is expected to reach 16-Psyche in August 2029.
Psyche is adapted from the Maxar 1300 series bus, which was designed as a geostationary (GEO) communications and remote sensing platform. It has 4 highly efficient electric propulsion thrusters and 12 “simple” cold gas thrusters. The electric propulsion produces about as much force as getting hit in the head with a piece of paper. With no atmospheric drag can accelerate objects to incredibly high speeds, but also be used to get into orbit around the asteroid and spiral down to low altitudes. Between the thrusters and a Mars flyby, it will reach 124,000mph relative to Earth before orbiting the asteroid. For comparison, the Lucy mission (launched in 2021) with a chemical propulsion system will visit multiple asteroids via short duration flybys.
In addition to the primary asteroid mission, Psyche also hosts the laser-based DSOC (Deep Space Optical Communications) technology demonstration, which is breaking records on how much data can be transferred from deep space.
Speaker: Ian Johnson, Maxar Space Systems
Life On Other Planets - 05/02/2024 07:30 PM
Bankhead Theater Livermore
Aomawa Shields is a woman of “contradictions.” An astronomer and astrobiologist, she searches for exoplanets where life might exist by using computer models to calculate the kind of atmosphere they’d need to support it. And she’s also a classically trained actor who - through her organization Rising Stargirls - teaches astronomy to middle school girls of color using theater, writing, and visual art to spark their imaginations. We invite you to be a part of this stunning and inspiring talk.
Friday, 05/03/2024
Bair Island Walking Tour - 05/03/2024 10:00 AM
Bair Island Wildlife Refuge & Trail Redwood City
Join Peninsula Open Space Trust for a walking tour at Bair Island! You’ll be guided by POST ambassadors who will share the history of this beautiful protected space, information about the species that live there, and what you can do to contribute.
This easy 1 mile walk with little to no elevation gain will highlight the wetlands and the marine life that live within, such as: Endangered Ridgeway’s rails and salt marsh harvest mice. Also cottontail rabbits, peregrine falcons, pelicans, egrets, terns, and stilts. We recommend bringing binoculars to catch sight of some of the beautiful birds at Bair Island.
Sign up via the weblink
The Origin of Magnetic Fields in Terrestrial Planets - 05/03/2024 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Speaker: Bruce Buffett, UC Santa Cruz
How Chemistry will Solve the Climate Problem, Fast! - 05/03/2024 12:00 PM
Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley
This presentation will be about how the precision of manipulating molecules has led to several large classes of porous materials capable of carbon capture and water harvesting from desert air. The use of generative AI and ChatGPT to speed up the cycle of materials discovery and make it available will also be presented.
Speaker: Omar Yaghi, UC Berkeley
An Evening with Michael Pollan - 05/03/2024 05:30 PM
Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley Berkeley
Writer Michael Pollan talks with KQED’s Mina Kim about our individual and collective well-being, from changing what’s on our tables to what’s on our minds. Pollan is the former John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at Berkeley Journalism and co-founder of the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. He is the author of nine books, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals,The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World, and his latest, This is Your Mind on Plants. Mina Kim hosts KQED’s Forum, a live daily talk show on issues that matter to California and the nation, to create an informed, healthier and stronger community.
In Town Star Party - 05/03/2024 09:15 PM
San Jose Astronomical Association San Jose
Come 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 (Binoculars are welcome). If you like to be a volunteer with or without a telescope please email at "itsp@sjaa.net".SJAA as an all volunteer-nonprofit org depends on the City of San Jose to use facilities at Houge Park. To maintain this relationship, we must provide facility-use data to the city. Therefore, we ask you to sign in (no traceable personal data collected) when you arrive at the event.
Saturday, 05/04/2024
Bringing Back the Natives In-Person Garden Tour - Bayside Gardens - 05/04/2024 10:00 AM
Bringing Back the Natives
About ten days before the in-person Tour three PDFs will be e-mailed to registrants. One will contain addresses and a map that shows the relative locations of the Bayside gardens; another will contain addresses and a map showing the relative locations of the Inland gardens.
The third is a “tickets” page. Tour goers will need to print out the “tickets” page (print multiple copies if you will need more than 20 tickets) and bring the tickets page(s) with them on the day of the Tour. Each person must submit a paper ticket in order to enter a garden. Don’t have a printer? Just make your own “Admit one” tickets. (Yes; really. It’s the only solution we could come up with.)
Birding at Vasona - 05/04/2024 10:30 AM
Youth Science Institute Los Gatos
Join YSI as we walk around Vasona Park and teach you about our feathered friends! Learn how to identify birds by their key characteristics, how to use binoculars, and then make a craft that will help you attract birds into your backyard!
Ages 4 - 12
A registered adult must accompany their child(ren)
Got Fakes? Paper microfluidics and the hunt for bad quality medicines - Livestream - 05/04/2024 10:30 AM
California Section American Chemical Society
In low- and middle-income countries, about one in ten medicine products is substandard or falsified. In my lab, I have samples of antimalarial drugs made from starch and chalk, antibiotics “cut” with talcum powder, and chemotherapy drugs that were manufactured at half the concentration they should have been. How do these products get into the supply chain, and more importantly, how can chemists help to get them out? This talk will focus on a point-of-use testing device that my group invented twelve years ago, the paper analytical device or PAD. I’ll explain how this paper microfluidic device works and how we are implementing it with partners in sub-Saharan Africa to discover bad quality medicines.
Speaker: Dr. Marya Lieberman, University of Notre Dame
Register at weblink to receive connection information
Rainbow Challenge at Vasona - 05/04/2024 11:00 AM
Youth Science Institute Los Gatos
Go on a scavenger hunt to find all the colors of the rainbow in the park! Who can find all the colors first? Who can find some of the most unique colors? Give it your best!
Ages 4 - 10
A registered adult must accompany their child(ren)
Nike Missile Site Veteran Open House - 05/04/2024 12:00 PM
Nike Missle Site Mill Valley
Veterans of the Nike program come to the site to share their stories with visitors and give guided tours of SF88 between the hours of 12pm - 3pm
The SF-88 Nike Missile Site is the most fully restored Nike missile site in the country. During the tense years of the Cold War, from 1953 to 1979, the United States Army built and operated close to 300 Nike missile sites in the United States. These sites were designed to be the last line of defense against H-Bomb carrying Soviet bombers that had eluded the Air Force’s interceptor jet aircrafts. SF-88 in the Marin Headlands was one such site. Today, Golden Gate National Recreation Area works together with a dedicated group of volunteers to preserve the site as it was during operations to remind visitors of the physical and psychological effects of the Cold War on the American landscape.
Peaceful Death: Another Option? - Livestream - 05/04/2024 03:00 PM
Bay Area Humanists
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Final Exit Network (FEN), a national organization which grew out of the Hemlock Society founded by Derek Humphry, and which has been supporting those who wish to hasten their own deaths.
Only eleven jurisdictions currently have Death with Dignity Acts -- often referred to as Medical Aid in Dying -- and many people desiring a planned death don't meet states' strict criteria. Learn about what FEN does and how it addresses the needs of potential clients who are not necessarily terminally ill.
Also discussed will be the importance (and shortcomings) of Advance Directives. Even for those not looking to hasten their death, FEN serves as a strong advocate for members who need help getting their legally enforceable wishes honored.
Speaker: Jim Van Buskirk is a Regional Coordinator for FEN, as well as a newsletter contributor, and Death Cafe facilitator.
Register at weblink to receive connection information
Starry Nights Star Party - 05/04/2024 09:15 PM
Tilton Ranch Reserve Morgan Hill
The San Jose Astronomical Association (SJAA), working with the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority (OSA), is glad to co-host a public star party at Rancho Canada del Oro (RCDO) Open Space Preserve. This site, just 30 minutes south of downtown San Jose, features dark skies. It's dark enough to see the band of our Milky Way galaxy in the summer.
Do not bring your own telescope (binoculars are welcome, but please no tripods). SJAA club members will set up their telescopes to help star party guests get the most knowledge and enjoyment out of the dark night sky.
Editor's Note: The location has changed to Tilton Ranch Reserve.
Sunday, 05/05/2024
Bringing Back the Natives In-Person Garden Tour - Inland Gardens - 05/05/2024 10:00 AM
Bringing Back the Natives
About ten days before the in-person Tour three PDFs will be e-mailed to registrants. One will contain addresses and a map that shows the relative locations of the Bayside gardens; another will contain addresses and a map showing the relative locations of the Inland gardens.
The third is a “tickets” page. Tour goers will need to print out the “tickets” page (print multiple copies if you will need more than 20 tickets) and bring the tickets page(s) with them on the day of the Tour. Each person must submit a paper ticket in order to enter a garden. Don’t have a printer? Just make your own “Admit one” tickets. (Yes; really. It’s the only solution we could come up with.)
Solar Observing - 05/05/2024 02:00 PM
San Jose Astronomical Association San Jose
It’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 safe.
We’ll have white-light telescopes with dense solar filters that reveal sunspots. Further, we’ll show you hydrogen-alpha telescopes that isolate a very specific color of red that reveals prominences (often thought of as solar flares) and intricate texture within the Sun’s chromosphere (its atmosphere).
We can also share with you a little about how the Sun works and how complex magnetic fields drive the number of sunspots and prominences that we’ll see on a given day.
Around 2:15, we'll have a short, informal introductory talk, and at other times, you can enjoy the views and ask questions about the Sun, telescopes, or astronomy in general.
We're also planning station for your get a better feel for a huge scale of our solar system! And you'll get a solar system you can fold up and carry in your pocket.
Conservative Threats to Public Education - 05/05/2024 02:00 PM
South San Francisco Public Library South San Francisco
Kevin Bolling's presentation sheds light on the pervasive conservative threats facing public education. Exploring the historical roots, Kevin unveils a timeline marked by systematic challenges. Real-life headlines illustrate the broader plan threatening public education: curriculum and book bans aimed at erasing vital historical narratives, private school vouchers, parent and student rights, and efforts to privilege Christianity. Kevin details a coordinated assault on the very foundation of democratic learning, urging action to safeguard the educational landscape for generations to come.
Speaker: Kevin Bolling, Secular Student Alliance
Monday, 05/06/2024
SynBioBeta 2024: The Global Synthetic Biology Conference - Pre-Conference - 05/06/2024 07:00 PM
San Jose McEnery Convention Center San Jose
Join us for an unparalleled four-day summit delving into synthetic biology. Explore why the costs of reading, writing, and editing DNA plummet while speed and accessibility soar. Gain insights into cutting-edge medical advancements such as cell therapies, vaccines, and living medicines. Discover how companies harness biology to produce bio-based jet fuel, textiles, concrete, and other chemicals and materials. Engage with trailblazing entrepreneurs crafting innovative foods, crops, and fragrances. Join us to see the potential applications of these technologies in shaping sustainable manufacturing ecosystems. Register at weblink.
For speaker list and agendas, see weblink
Live From the Field: Speakers from Field Stations Worldwide - Livestream - 05/06/2024 12:00 PM
Sonoma State Biology Colloquium
CEI Educational Outreach and Communications Lead, Kerry Wininger will host a live presentation over Zoom.
Zoom link will be available at the weblink prior to the talk
The Realities of Climate and Energy - 05/06/2024 03:30 PM
Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) Colloquium Series Menlo Park
Wise policies will balance the certainties and uncertainties of a changing climate against the world’s growing demand for reliable and affordable energy. I will describe the scientific, technological, and societal realities that should be informing those policies.
Speaker: Steven Koonin, New York University
Archaic variation in human populations - 05/06/2024 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford
Speaker: Emilia Huerta-Sanchez, Brown University
Room: Auditorium
Reducing GHG for Buildings and Industry Essential to Meeting 2030 and 2050 Targets - 05/06/2024 04:30 PM
Stanford University Energy Seminar Stanford
From the homes we live in to the very food that sustains us, America’s buildings and industrial sectors are the foundation of our modern world. People spend 90% of their time in buildings and manufacturing generates more than 11 million jobs and makes up 11% of U.S. GDP. But today’s buildings and industrial sectors come at a high price. Together, these industries are responsible for more than 60% of energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the U.S. Addressing emissions from buildings and industry will be vital to achieving the Biden-Harris Administration’s economy-wide goal of reducing such emissions 50 - 52% below 2005 levels by 2030 and reaching a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is committed to accelerating the innovation needed to fully transform these sectors to net-zero. Deputy Assistance Secretary for Buildings and Industry Dr. Carolyn Snyder will join us on May 6, 2024, to present DOE’s all-hands-on-deck strategy, investments, and technical assistance programs that will move decarbonization technologies out of the lab and on to our nation’s factory floors.
Speaker: Carolyn Snyder, US Department of Energy
Attend in person or online (see weblink)
Tuesday, 05/07/2024
SynBioBeta 2024: The Global Synthetic Biology Conference - Day 1 - 05/07/2024 07:00 PM
San Jose McEnery Convention Center San Jose
Production and Characterization of Carbonaceous Laboratory Analogs of Planetary Atmospheric Aerosols, Surface Materials, and Cosmic Grains - 05/07/2024 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Creepy or Captivating: A Spider Scientist's Perspective - Livestream - 05/07/2024 05:00 PM
San Francisco Public Library
Wednesday, 05/08/2024
SynBioBeta 2024: The Global Synthetic Biology Conference - Day 2 - 05/08/2024 07:00 PM
San Jose McEnery Convention Center San Jose
Illuminating Fungi - the Science of Fungal Bioluminescence - 05/08/2024 07:30 PM
Bay Area Mycological Society Berkeley
Thursday, 05/09/2024
SynBioBeta 2024: The Global Synthetic Biology Conference - Innovation Discovery - 05/09/2024 07:00 PM
San Jose McEnery Convention Center San Jose
SLAC on Tap: Shocking to the Core: Adventures in Earth Science - 05/09/2024 05:00 PM
The Dutch Goose Menlo Park
NightLife - 05/09/2024 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
After Dark: Intelligence Design - 05/09/2024 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
A Resilient Planet Needs Fungi NOW! - 05/09/2024 06:30 PM
Sebastopol Grange Sebastopol
From Creationism to QAnon: Answers in Genesis and the Culture War - Livestream - 05/09/2024 07:00 PM
Bay Area Skeptics
Friday, 05/10/2024
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics Seminar - 05/10/2024 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Saturday, 05/11/2024
Mt. Tam Star Party - 05/11/2024 07:30 PM
Rock Spring Trailhead Mill Valley
Jazz Under the Stars - 05/11/2024 08:30 PM
College of San Mateo Bldg 36 San Mateo
Sunday, 05/12/2024
Solar Observing - 05/12/2024 02:00 PM
San Jose Astronomical Association San Jose
Monday, 05/13/2024
Symbolic Systems Forum - 05/13/2024 12:30 PM
Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg 460) Stanford
Low Tide Walk at Bair Island - 05/13/2024 01:00 PM
Bair Island Wildlife Refuge & Trail Redwood City
Dynamics and Repeatability of Evolution in a Long-Term Experiment with Bacteria - 05/13/2024 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford
The Move To Zero - How To Get To True Carbon Neutrality - 05/13/2024 04:30 PM
Stanford University Energy Seminar Stanford
Unraveling the Mysteries of Black Holes and Neutron Stars - 05/13/2024 07:30 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco