Dear science fans,
Storm Ciarán bashed England and left many thousands without power across Western Europe last week.
The Panama Canal is restricting shipping since a drought left the region without enough fresh water to operate the locks for normal ship traffic. Some container ships had to off-load enough containers to meet weight restrictions. The containers were then transported by rail to the other side of the isthmus and re-loaded onto the ships before heading back out to sea.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) envisions the world reaching a rise in global temperature of 1.5C during the 2030s. A study released last Thursday concludes that benchmark will be breached in this decade. A second paper published in Oxford University Press concurs. Both papers identify the reduction of airborne aerosols (diesel exhaust, smog, industrial haze, etc.) as crucial. Efforts over the last half century have been partially successful in reducing air pollution and thus improving human health around the world - although problems continue in some regions. These two papers factor in the role of airborne aerosols in reflecting the Sun’s energy back into space. They calculated that Earth is heating faster due to the reduction of air pollution. Many climate scientists, however, are skeptical.
Fortunes are being invested in Direct Air Capture (DAC) of CO2. An outfit in Brisbane (just north of South San Francisco) claims they are currently the only DAC operation in the U.S. They plan to sell carbon credits with the hope they will become a profitable enterprise. The markets in carbon credits and offsets, however, have a tumultuous history.
BIOLOGY
When much younger, my sister could tickle me into uncontrolled paroxysms of laughter. ¿But what part of our brain permits us to be immersed in play, and cease watching out for apex predators? Knowing that rats and mice can be tickled into fits of laughter, biologists at the University of Lethbridge outfitted rats with brain electrodes. From their rat tickling sessions, they suspect the periaqueductal grey (PAG) structure may be involved.
SOCIETY meets TECHNOLOGY
ChatGTP Fails the Turing Test
Researchers at UC San Diego put 650 people at workstations. Half were connected to communicate with another person and half were connected to ChatGTP-4. Of those connected to ChatGTP, 41% were fooled into thinking they were conversing with another person. Of those connected to another person, 37% concluded incorrectly they were conversing with ChatGPT. Yes, it failed the Turing Test, but just by a hair.
Cocoons & Chambers
Although it is stating the obvious, a research study concluded that on-line algorithms are effective at presenting each of us with stuff we like - videos, topics, perspectives. In social media it's great for connecting with folk who share similar views. In browsing, the algorithms reinforce our attitudes. The algorithms help us to like our time on the ‘net so that we will spend more time and - not so incidentally - be targeted with tempting advertising. In that way, the algorithms drive profits for the providers: social media and browser companies. Algorithms are now giving way to AI - Artificial Intelligence - since AI is better than simple computer code at pleasing us and driving up profits. AI provides a better ‘positive feedback mechanism.’
There is a societal problem with this: we wind up participating in ‘echo chambers’ and confining ourselves to ‘information cocoons.’ We once hoped the Internet would serve to bring us together but, due to profit motives, the Internet increases schisms in our country - in nearly every country.
The authors in the above-mentioned research recommend that a bit of AI generated ‘negative feedback’ and ‘randomness’ would be helpful in broadening perspectives and providing better balanced information - in effect, opening up the “chambers” and “cocoons.” I have no doubt they are correct, but doing that would presumably decrease providers’ profits. It is naïve to expect providers to voluntarily take such measures.
GEOLOGY
150 million years ago, the Greater Indian plate separated from Gondwanaland and traveled north to collide with Asia. I learned long ago that the collision pushed up the Himalayan Mountains. A recent study suggests also a great portion of Greater India was subducted under the Asian plate, raising the Tibetan Plateau. The Tibetan Plateau holds about 85% of China’s lithium deposits. Environmental scientists are concerned about the crude and destructive mining practices there.
RAFFLE
Greg U won the jigsaw Space puzzle with his guess of 500. The prize this time is a brilliant JWST Mirror pin badge made by Cepheid Studios in France. Just send an email before noon Friday to david.almandsmith [at] gmail.com with an integer between 0 and 1,000.
My Picks of the Week (put reminders on your mobile phone)
– Guided Tour: Utopian Cities & Metropolis Exhibit 5:30 - 8:30pm Tuesday, S.F.
– Wonderfest: Spider Love & Cosmic Maps Livestream 7:30 Tuesday
– Behind the Hype of Generative AI 6pm Wednesday, S.F.
– The Science behind Social Media & Political Behavior Livestream 7:30 Thursday
– Bair Island Walking Tour 10am Friday, Redwood City
– Family Nature Adventures: Amazing World of Insects 10:30 Saturday, Oakland, $
WEIRDNESS
Any major nerd will tell you that 42 is the answer to the Ultimate Question of life, the Universe, and everything. However, 42 is the answer to other matters as well. Ethan Siegel compiled a list including: ¿How many times will the Sun orbit the Milky Way before catastrophically transforming into a red giant?
NERDY VIDEOS to enjoy
MRI, Metals, & Induction Cooking - Cup ‘O Joe - Joe Schwarcz - 4 mins
Inside a “One Revolution Per Minute” spacecraft - Erik Wernquist - 6 mins
Jupiter & Saturn from the Jungle - Dr. Becky - Becky Smethurst - 10 mins
Global Energy Transition - Just Have a Think - Dave Borlace - 13 mins
2nd Law of Quantum Complexity - Susskind et al - Quanta Magazine - 13 mins
[Full article here]
¿How dead is Moore’s Law? - Sabine Hossenfelder - 20 mins
Be kind, patient, empathetic, and POWERFUL,
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
Remember, remember, the 5th of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes,
'Twas his intent
To blow up the King and the Parliament.
Three score barrels of powder below
Poor old England to overthrow.
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match
Holler boys, holler boys, let the bells ring
Holler boys, holler boys
God save the King!
----
Ditty associated with Guy Fawkes Night
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Monday, 11/06/2023
Mechanisms of Genome Scaling During Embryogenesis and Evolution - 11/06/2023 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Speaker: Coral Zhou, UC Berkeley
From quantum hard drive to foliated manifold - 11/06/2023 02:30 PM
Stanley Hall Berkeley
One major open problem in quantum information theory is how to build a quantum hard drive, i.e. a quantum system that can store quantum information reliably for a long time without active error correction. No completely satisfying solution to this problem has been found, but in the search a whole new class of quantum many-body models have been discovered with exotic properties never seen before. This new class of models, dubbed the “fracton” models, have point excitations that cannot move freely, a robust ground state degeneracy that increases with system size, and slow dynamics even without any disorder. In this talk, I will introduce some of the most important fracton models and present a systematic framework for characterizing their universal properties. By realizing that the properties depend on the foliation structure of the underlying manifold, we reveal the hidden equivalence relation between many seemingly different models and identify the direction of search for new features.
Speaker: Xie Chen, Caltech
Some Building Blocks for Foundation Model Systems - 11/06/2023 03:30 PM
Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) Colloquium Series Menlo Park
I fell in love with foundation models because they radically improved data systems that I had been trying to build for a decade. Motivated by this experience, the bulk of the talk focuses on efficient building blocks for foundation models. The first line of work describes fundamental trends in hardware accelerators for AI that we can leverage, e.g., optimizing memory accesses in Flash Attention on GPUs. The second line of work describes new architectures that are asymptotically more efficient than transformers for long sequences. One family of these architectures is inspired by signal processing and classical architectures, like RNNs and CNNs, in a mathematically precise way. These new architectures have achieved state-of-the-art quality on long-sequence tasks, are promising general purpose architectures, and are being applied to new areas. Of course, as researchers, we want to understand their limits and how to improve them, which the talk will focus on. Two underlying themes in the talk are understanding the role of inductive bias in AI models and understanding how robust our recipe is to get amazing AI.
Speaker: Chris Re, Stanford University
Attend in person or online (See weblink for Zoom information)
Species, sex, and silk: arachnid evolution in three parts - 11/06/2023 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford
Mercedes Burns is an evolutionary biologist and arachnologist. She is currently an assistant professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, since 2017. Her research primarily focuses on the evolution of sexual reproduction and attendant sexual conflict, which occurs between males and females due to their differing fitness strategies. Mercedes additionally collaborates with Dr. Sarah Stellwagen at UNC Charlotte to describe the form and function of Panarthropod prey capture glues.
Speaker: Mercedes Burns, University of Maryland
Room: Auditorium
From Astronomical Research to Communicating Astronomy - 11/06/2023 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
Astronomy, sometimes considered a gateway science, can stir great curiosity and inspire students to pursue a STEM-related career. I was trained as an astronomer specialized in spectroscopy of distant galaxies, before deciding to change my focus from galaxies to people. In this talk, I’ll share what is intriguing about those faraway galaxies, as well as my own journey transitioning from a researcher to an outreach professional who is still exploring this new career path step by step. I’ll also discuss some challenges, difficult decisions, and lessons learned along the way.
Speaker: Dr. Xinnan Du, Stanford University
Testing relativity on a tabletop with a miniature network of optical lattice atomic clocks - 11/06/2023 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley
The remarkable precision of optical atomic clocks offers sensitivity to new and exotic physics through tests of relativity, searches for dark matter, gravitational wave detection, and probes for beyond Standard Model particles. While much of optical clock research has focused on improving their absolute accuracy, many searches for new physics can be performed with relative comparisons between clocks. To this end, we have recently realized a “multiplexed” strontium optical lattice clock consisting of two or more clocks in one vacuum chamber, forming a miniature clock network. This enables us to bypass the primary limitations to typical atomic clock comparisons and to achieve new levels of precision.
In this talk I will explain the motivation, concept, and operating principles of our multiplexed optical lattice clock. I will then present recent experimental results in which we performed a novel, blinded, precision test of the gravitational redshift with a vertical array of 5 evenly-spaced ensembles of ultra-cold strontium atoms spanning a total height difference of 1 cm. I will present the error budget produced from our systematic evaluation, and the unblinded results of our first test. I will explain how these results can also be viewed as proof-of-principle measurements of relativistic gravitational potential differences at the millimeter scale, with applications to geodesy. Finally, I will discuss the outlook for using our apparatus for future searches for new physics, including a novel direct test of the Einstein Equivalence Principle, and explorations of the interplay between general relativity and quantum mechanics.
Speaker: Shimon Kolkowitz, UC Berkeley
Real Reliability: The Value of Virtual Power - 11/06/2023 04:30 PM
Stanford University Energy Seminar Stanford
This presentation will introduce the concept of virtual power plants (VPPs), describe their potential for facilitating affordable decarbonization of the power sector, and address barriers to deploying VPPs at scale.
Speaker: Ryan Hledik, Brattle
Attend in person or online
Fukushima nuclear waste release: Is it safe? Hear from scientists &. health - 11/06/2023 07:00 PM
Berkeley Senior Center Berkeley
The public will hear from scientists, environmental experts, and health professionals as the world faces, for the first time ever, the planned release of 31,000 tons of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean by March, 2025, and then more releases over the next 40 years. This is an in-person event. * Selected Speakers include:
Dr. Tatsujiro Suzuki, former vice chairman of Japan's Atomic Energy Commission and now a member of the Advisory Board of Parliament's Special Committee on Nuclear Energy
Dr. Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research and member of the Pacific Islands Forum Independent Expert Panel on TEPCO's Fukushima radioactive water dumping proposals
Dr. Katsumi Furitsu, a radiation specialist working with impacted people in Fukushima
Activist and environmentalist Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation
Dr. Robert Gould, President of San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility
Daniel Hirsch, retired Director, Program on Environmental and Nuclear Policy, UC Santa Cruz; President, Committee to Bridge the Gap, a nuclear policy NGO
On July 11, 2023, the Berkeley City Council did not support a proposed "Resolution Opposing Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Government of Japan's Planned Discharge of Wastewater from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean". Since then, Japan has released radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima Nuclear Plant into the Pacific Ocean twice. The roundtable will extend the conversation from the City Council meeting by providing a panel of experts and a forum for representative community, faith, and political action groups to speak. * Some presenters will appear by pre-recorded video from other parts of the world.
Tuesday, 11/07/2023
Future Cities Trends - 11/07/2023 09:00 AM
swissnex San Francisco San Francisco
Future Cities Trends is the opening session of our program and will provide a comprehensive outlook on the evolving landscape of urban development in Switzerland and the US, focusing on three sectors: construction, energy, and digital transformation. The 15 selected Swiss project will present their work followed by keynotes from San Francisco Bay Area experts. This session promises to set the stage for an engaging exploration of the future of cities.
Agenda
9 - 10:30am: Swiss Project Presentations 10:30 - 11am: Keynotes from SFBA Experts:
Introduction Future Cities: Sarah Dennis Phillips, Executive Director at the Office of Economic and Workforce Development of SF Government
Energy: Cole Roberts, Americas Urban Energy Business Leader at Arup with focus on Energy Systems
Architecture/Construction: Kirsten Ritchie, Global Director Climate Action + Sustainability at Gensler
Digital Cities: Joe Kaylor, Senior Transportation Planner on the Integrated Planning at Arup. He will address emerging trends and outlook in the Americas, in terms of data and technology transformation in city planning and operations, including utility and transportation, to accelerate equitable and sustainable development.
Register at weblink
AI, Medicine, and the Limits of the Human Mind - Livestream - 11/07/2023 02:00 PM
UC Berkeley
“Will we still have doctors in 20 years?” is a common question. The answer is yes. But medicine, along with both the doctor and patient roles, will be fundamentally transformed by AI. Rather than simply automating tasks that doctors already do, AI will open up transformative new possibilities - along with enormous potential to scale up harms and inequalities.
Speaker: Ziad Obermeyer
Register at weblink to attend
Roundtable: Sustainable Urban Future in San Francisco - 11/07/2023 02:15 PM
swissnex San Francisco San Francisco
Join us for a roundtable discussion on Urban Policy in collaboration with SPUR, the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, a nonprofit public policy organization.
This panel will delve into the future of sustainable urban development in San Francisco, with a focus on infill projects, green buildings and infrastructure, and clean transportation in the face of climate change. Experts will explore innovative approaches to facilitating the transition to a carbon-zero city. With representatives in the fields of design, development, real estate, and public policy, the panel will address the role of city government, developers, and businesses in creating a more resilient city.
Speakers:
Gregory Vilkin, CEO at The Baylands Development Company
Eric Aronsohn, Vice President Energy and Sustainability at The Baylands Development Company
Geeti Silwal, Head of the Cities+Sites practice at Perkins + Will
Tyrone Jue, Director of San Francisco Department of Environment
Joe Speicher, Chief Sustainability Officer at Autodesk
Sujata Srivastava, San Francisco Director at SPUR (Moderator)
Programmable control of indistinguishable particles: from sampling to clocks to qubits - 11/07/2023 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
Quantum information science seeks to exploit the collective behavior of a large quantum system to enable tasks that are impossible (or less possible!) with classical resources alone. This burgeoning field encompasses a variety of directions, ranging from metrology to computing. While distinguished in objective, all of these directions rely on the preparation and control of many identical particles or qubits. Meeting this need is a defining challenge of the field. There are several promising platforms that are targeting these capabilities, and I will focus on one such platform - optically-trapped neutral atoms. We have been developing a new suite of tools, based on the use of more exotic atomic species, new trapping architectures, and new control methods. I will provide an overview of these developments and a few specific examples of our recent scientific directions, which range from the use of bosonic atoms for sampling problems, a new kind of atomic clock, and a different kind of qubit.
Speaker: Adam Kaufman, Colorado University, Boulder
Combining earthquake source observations with physics-based models and geological constraints to infer crustal strength - 11/07/2023 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Speaker: Rebecca Herrington
Open House: Guided Tour of Metropolis Exhibitions + Utopian Cities: From Current Solutions to Future Realities - 11/07/2023 05:30 PM
swissnex San Francisco San Francisco
As part of our 20th anniversary programming Metropolis, we are featuring several exhibitions on display in our space at Pier 17.
Discover the U.F.O.G.O. Exhibition from ECAL (Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne), Urban Futures Stories with Your 2040, and our Swiss projects selected for the anniversary program.
All exhibitions will let you discover new ideas for the cities of the future and will give you the opportunity to interact with the creators of the different projects.
The open house is followed by an event on the future of cities:
Utopian Cities: From Current Solutions to Future Realities Explore urban futures with innovative Swiss projects driving sustainable and digital city transformation selected for our Anniversary Programming ‘Metropolis’.
Ask me Anything (AMA) on Big Data Technologies and Applications - Livestream - 11/07/2023 06:00 PM
IEEE Computer Society of Silicon Valley
Raghavendra K. Chunduri submitted his PhD Dissertation in Scalable Machine learning in School of Information Technology and Engineering, at Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India. He received his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in computer science and engineering from JNTU University, India. Currently Raghavendra is working as a Senior Engineer, Software Engineering at Concentrix corporation, Omaha Nebraska for 14years. Raghavendra is also working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS). His research interests are neuromorphic computing, edge computing, deep learning, big data and machine learning.
Unmasking the Future of AI - 11/07/2023 06:00 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
To many of us, it might seem like recent developments in artificial intelligence emerged out of nowhere to pose unprecedented threats to humanity. But to Dr. Joy Buolamwini, a trailblazer in AI research, this moment has been a long time in the making. Dr. Buolamwini has spent decades pondering the many implications of an AI-powered world - all the potential benefits, detriments, and injustices.
But Dr. Buolamwini hasn’t simply explored the potential for harm by AI; she has researched and identified real-world AI harm that has already been done by some of the world’s largest tech companies. In graduate school, she led groundbreaking research at MIT’s Future Factory that exposed widespread racial and gender bias in AI services from tech giants like Microsoft, IBM, and Apple. In her upcoming book, Unmasking AI, Dr. Buolamwini takes readers through the remarkable journey of how she uncovered what she calls “the coded gaze” - the evidence of encoded discrimination and exclusion in tech products - and how she galvanized the movement to prevent AI harms by founding the Algorithmic Justice League.
Dr. Buolamwini has educated President Biden's administration and international leaders at the World Economic Forum and the United Nations on the importance of rectifying algorithmic harms. Her work has been featured in Time, The New York Times, and the Netflix documentary Coded Bias. Now, she shares her story with us.
Join us to hear from a pioneer of algorithmic justice as talks with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Wall Street Journal technology journalist Deepa Seetharaman, explaining Buolamwini's belief that computers are reflections of both the aspirations and the limitations of the people who create them.
Speakers: Sam Altman, OpenAI; Joy Buolamwini, Algorithmic Justice League, Author; Deepa Seetharaman, The Wall Street Journal, Moderator
Attend in person or online
Wonderfest: Next Scientist #2 - Spider Love & Cosmic Maps - 11/07/2023 07:30 PM
Wonderfest
Next Scientist is a new Wonderfest series of online presentations. Every Next Scientist Zoom consists of two 30-minute presentations (including 10 minutes of Q&A), each featuring a young researcher describing next-level science:
Creepy or Captivating: A Spider Scientist's Perspective
How have recent discoveries about spiders changed beliefs that have been passed down for generations? Can we see that the study of spiders is beneficial to society? One person's life-long journey - from curious child to rigorous researcher - reveals spider science to be an avenue of creative self-expression that offers rich insights into nature.
Speaker: Trinity Walls, UC Berkeley
Creating the Largest-Ever Maps of the Universe
New datasets from the James Webb Space Telescope have begun to reveal some of the oldest known galaxies in the universe. But what lies beyond these extremely remote objects, and what more can we learn by going deeper? Next-generation experiments are working to map the most distant regions of the universe to help explain the origins of the first galaxies.
Speaker: Tyler Cox, UC Berkeley
Wednesday, 11/08/2023
It's not muddy - we need our sediment to survive - 11/08/2023 11:00 AM
Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute
Speaker: Doug George - Program Manager, NOAA Office for Coastal Management
Please register to join us on Zoom.
Special LASER: Russia's Media Art Scene - Livestream - 11/08/2023 12:00 PM
LASER Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous
Speakers:
Nina Czegledy, Ontario College of Art University, TorontoAnna Frants, Cyland, St. PetersburgElena Gubanova, Media Artist, St. PetersburgNatalia Kolodzei, Russian Academy of ArtsOlga Sishko, Pushkin State Museum of Art History, Moscow
Register at weblink
Cyanobacteria and cyanotoxins in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta - 11/08/2023 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center Tiburon
Speaker: Keith Bouma-Gregson, US Geological Survey
Attend in person or online (register at weblink)
The Digital is a Ruin: Digital Space, Geography and the End of the World - 11/08/2023 03:30 PM
McCone Hall Berkeley
Using the case study of urban and ruin imaginaries in the virtual worlds of digital spatial media, this presentation examines the potentiality of digital space as both a conceptual term and increasingly prevalent shorthand for the perceived hybridity of digital and material experience. The focus on urban ruin engenders questions of visual representation and meaning making, the production of digital space, and the politics of encounter through play and imaginaries of the end of the city. Ruins in virtual worlds are navigable, computational, and representational forms, which, I argue can be understood as simultaneously masculine and normative (as in the practice of urban exploration), and open to radical potential and possibility (as in a Queer reading of the end of the world). In this reading, ruinous framings are a marker of fundamentally fragmented digital forms, understood against cultural contexts of chaos and disintegration and established discourses of urban and everyday life impacted by crisis and disaster. How does the multivalent spatiality and signification of ruin provide a useful inroad to the critique of emerging technologies and environments like video games, the ‘metaverse’, and augmented or mixed reality?
Here, I make the case that the emergence of spatial, navigable, and increasingly large-scale virtual worlds is a phenomenon that demands a reconfiguration of existing and emerging geographical thought. To understand the contemporary formation of digital spaces in virtual worlds - which I describe in terms of digitality and ruinality - it is necessary to expand key frames around space, place, and cities. Further, Walter Benjamin’s work on urban experience and modernity also enables the articulation of a relation between digital worlds, discourses of crisis and catastrophe, and the figuration of the ruin as a material and symbolic index of decline under capitalism. Finally, this presentation argues that the prevalence of ruined cities and imagined catastrophes in contemporary digital media is significant to the form and spatiality of digital worlds and cultures, providing considerable grounds for a critical interpretation of digital media as fundamentally spatial and geographical.
Speaker: Emma Fraser, UC Berkeley
Energy and Resources Group Colloquium - 11/08/2023 04:00 PM
Giannini Hall Berkeley
Speaker: Meredith Fowlie
Saving Point Reyes: How An Epic Conservation Victory Became a Tipping Point for Environmental Policy Action - 11/08/2023 04:00 PM
Environment and Energy Building (Y2E2) Stanford
Join us for this engaging discussion which will offer participants specific advocacy lessons learned from a newly released study of “the Golden Era” of environmental policymaking 1962-1975, lessons from California battles won in Congress that are directly applicable to the challenges of the 21stcentury. The environmental policy challenges ahead - from the climate crisis to public lands policies - must overcome widespread fears of government dysfunction. Warburg’s new book Saving Point Reyes: How An Epic Conservation Victory Became a Tipping Point for Environmental Policy Action* presents a hopeful story, based on deep archival research and oral histories, synthesized by a veteran congressional aide and Washington lobbyist. The success of grassroots activists in reversing the filling of San Francisco Bay and protecting both Point Reyes and the Golden Gate headlands from massive subdivisions already under construction helped make the San Francisco Bay Area one of the most desired places to live. These triumphs also fueled the rise of many of the leading national environmental NGOs. Warburg details the clever tactics, novel strategies - and repeated good luck - that drove these wins. His rich narrative also celebrates the often-overlooked role of Bay Area women as grassroots leaders and explores the lead role played by Republican lawmakers in an era when environmental protection enjoyed bipartisan support.
Speaker: Gerald Warburg, University of Virgina
Register at weblink
Automating Illusions: Behind the Hype of Generative AI - 11/08/2023 06:00 PM
California College of the Arts San Francisco
Image and text-generating tools like Midjourney and ChatGPT have created both anxiety and hope in the world of design and creativity. Join us for a thought-provoking talk that aims to untangle the hype surrounding generative AI tools. By critically reviewing their history, analyzing media portrayals, and exploring ethical dimensions, we aim to shed light on the complexities of AI and creative labor.
Speaker: Şerife Wong, Icarus Salon
Register at weblink
Through the Fantastic Eyes of Frogs and Toads: How scientists study what frogs and toads see - RESCHEDULED - 11/08/2023 07:30 PM
Marin Science Seminar San Rafael
Speaker: Rayna Bell, California Academy of Sciences
Editor's Note: This event has been rescheduled to 11/15/2023
Thursday, 11/09/2023
Generative AI: Race, Art, and Power - 11/09/2023 10:30 AM
South Hall Berkeley
From ChatGPT, DALL-E, Bard, and Midjourney, the use of AI as a creative tool has increased dramatically both from technological breakthroughs and a flood of new users. Users and researchers have offered both praise and criticism - about the veracity of AI-generated art, race and gender bias engrained in these systems, and the exploitation of work from marginalized groups within training data.
Join three dynamic experts to expand on these themes and to facilitate discussions about generative AI and its effects at the intersections of race, art, and power.
Sessions will explore questions such as:
Who suffers most when it comes to the potential replacement of working artists and writers?How is knowledge created through the use of generative AI? Whose work gets to be remembered?Who speaks and who listens; who is at the table when it comes to conversations surrounding art and generative AI?Is AI-generated art high-art or low-art? Can it be considered “art” at all? What can be considered creativity?What does the future landscape look like for activism in the problem space of generative AI?
Speaker: Michele Elam, Stanford University
The Future of Food: A Benefit Event for Hungry Minds - 11/09/2023 05:00 PM
Lawrence Hall of Science Berkeley
Join us at The Lawrence for an immersive evening for hungry minds exploring the future of food. This celebratory benefit event will include tastings inspired by food innovators, interactive experiences, a seated dinner, and a thought-provoking talk from our featured speaker, Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli.
Science on Tap: Brews and Ethnobotany - 11/09/2023 05:30 PM
Other Brother Beer Co. Seaside
Science on Tap is our new series that mixes the best parts of learning about science with some of the best brews on the central coast! Each event will feature a happy half-hour highlighting beverages from our partners at local breweries followed by a panel discussion from experts about the work they’re doing to benefit our natural world and communities. The evening will consist of a happy half-hour with beverages both alcoholic and non along with small bites and music from 5:30 - 6:00, followed by talks from 6:00-7:00 and a discussion and Q&A from 7:00-7:30. All proceeds from ticket sales go toward creating more educational events and supporting local scientists and organizations. Learn more about each session below and sign up today to reserve your space!
NightLife - 11/09/2023 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Calling all creatures of the night: explore the nocturnal side of the Academy at NightLife and see what's revealed. With live DJs, outdoor bars, ambiance lighting, and nearly 60,000 live animals (including familiar faces like Claude, our alligator with albinism), the night is sure to be wild.
Venture into our latest aquarium exhibit Venom to encounter live venomous animals and learn the power of venom to both harm and heal.
Visit the BigPicture exhibit in the Piazza to marvel at the most recent winners of the BigPicture Natural World Photography competition.
Bask in the glow of one of the largest living indoor coral reef displays in the world: our 212,000-gallon Philippine Coral Reef habitat.
Take in the interstellar views from the Living Roof, then grab a bite from the Academy Café and head to the West Garden outdoor bar to drink and dine under the stars.
After Dark: Tinker, Touch, Play - 11/09/2023 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Uncap your markers and unleash your creativity at tonight’s After Dark with the Drawing Board. Choose your own design and use a giant pendulum to create mesmerizing artworks that you get to take home with you - available at every After Dark. Want to create more art? Conjure unexpected figures in sand with Spinning Patterns, and play with brilliant silhouettes at Colored Shadows.
Stellar Paternity Tests: Tracing Stars Back to the Clusters of their Birth - 11/09/2023 07:00 PM
Los Altos Public Library Los Altos
The Milky Way’s hot stars generally form in open clusters within the thin disk. However, there are a small number of early-type stars that are observed at high altitudes above the disk and were likely ejected from their birth clusters within the past few million years. My student Brandon Schweers and I are working to identify from which open clusters these high-latitude B stars originated. We combine data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia Mission with a model of the Milky Way’s gravitational potential to trace the kinematic trajectories of about 100 high latitude B stars and more than 1000 known Galactic open clusters to identify past moments of intersection. I will share our results to date and discuss additional strategies to refine the cluster paternity memberships.
Speaker: Ginny McSwain, Lehigh University
Attend in person or online. Speaker will attend via Zoom
The Science behind Social Media and Political Behavior - Livestream - 11/09/2023 07:30 PM
Bay Area Skeptics
This talk introduces a collection of studies recently published in Science and Nature about the effects of algorithms and virality on political attitudes and behavior in the 2020 US election campaign. The findings are among the first published studies stemming from the most comprehensive research project to date examining the role of social media in American democracy. What are the effects of social media algorithms used by Facebook and Instagram in shaping users’ on-platform experiences as well as offline attitudes and behaviors?
Speaker: Jennifer Pan, Stanford University
See weblink for connection information
Friday, 11/10/2023
Bair Island Walking Tour - 11/10/2023 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 at weblink
Dive Into The Marine Mammal Center - Livestream - 11/10/2023 12:00 PM
Marine Mammal Center
Are you new to The Marine Mammal Center? Do you want to learn more about how we care for seals, sea lions and otters? Are you intrigued by our work on climate change, ocean trash and whale conservation? If you want to know more about The Marine Mammal Center and how you can be an ocean hero, this event is for you!
Join us to learn about the many ways our community (that includes people like you!) advances global ocean conservation. From training future scientists and veterinarians to engaging in research with global impact to developing educational curriculum for far-reaching audiences, The Marine Mammal Center is much more than just the world’s largest marine mammal hospital. And you’re making a difference by being part of this ocean-loving community.
During this live Zoom event, Adam Ratner, Director of Conservation Engagement, will share riveting patient stories illustrating the vital work of The Marine Mammal Center. Then you’ll get the chance to participate by asking your own questions at a Q&A following the presentation.
Each registrant will receive their own unique Zoom link after registration. We are looking forward to seeing you! Register at weblink.
Public Tours of Bodega Marine Laboratory - 11/10/2023 02:00 PM
UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory Bodega Bay
These tours are led by our wonderful crew of ocean-loving docents, and visitors will learn about ongoing marine and coastal science research at Bodega Marine Laboratory and its history on the Sonoma Coast. Plus, you'll get to meet a variety of colorful and diverse ocean creatures.
The front gates will be open to allow visitors in from 1:45 until 3:45pm on Fridays. Please plan to arrive no earlier than 15 minutes prior to your tour start time.
Public tours are only available by reservation on Eventbrite. If your preferred tour time is already full, you can place your name on a waitlist through Eventbrite to claim a spot if one becomes available.
Saturday, 11/11/2023
Free National Parks Day - 11/11/2023 07:00 PM
Various
Admission to most US National Parks is free today, in honor of Veterans Day
Building Enterprise Large Language Model Applications - 11/11/2023 09:30 AM
Hacker Dojo Mountain View
This workshop provides a comprehensive introduction to building AI applications with large language models. Attendees will learn the foundations of models like GPT-3.5/GPT4 and LLaMa2, including how they work, how to access them, and best practices for fine-tuning and prompting. A key part of the day will involve hands-on work with custom datasets to train models on specific tasks and document types. We'll cover gathering quality data, cleaning and labeling, choosing model architectures, prompting techniques, and evaluating performance. The workshop wraps up with deployment strategies, including hosting models locally, leveraging APIs, monitoring, and maintaining production systems. Participants of all backgrounds are welcome. The material will cater to beginners while still diving deep on topics critical to real-world language model adoption.
Some key recent topics to cover could include chain-of-thought prompting, an approach to conversational AI; reinforcement learning from human feedback for improved answers over time; and cross-domain transfer learning to leverage models trained in one domain for new domains with limited data.
See weblink for additional information and to register
Family Nature Adventures: The Amazing World of Insects and Helpful Pollinators - 11/11/2023 10:30 AM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Through engaging activities, experiments, and stories, children will discover the diverse and extraordinary characteristics of these tiny creatures. Our knowledgeable and enthusiastic instructors will guide the participants on a memorable hands-on exploration, encouraging their curiosity and nurturing a deeper appreciation for the natural world.
Family Nature Walks - Foothills Nature Preserve - 11/11/2023 11:00 AM
Foothills Nature Preserve Los Altos
Join the EV for a fun exploration of local open space, led by our environmental educators. Intended for ages 6-11.
Lunar Landing Sites, Past and Future - 11/11/2023 07:30 PM
East Bay Astronomical Society Oakland
As we look back on the discoveries of the Apollo program, now more than fifty years ago, and stand on the verge of a new generation of lunar exploration through the Artemis Program, it is appropriate to reflect upon the sites chosen for lunar exploration. In this talk, we will look back at the Apollo landing sites, examine why they were chosen, and discuss what we learned from them. We will then look ahead to sites that have been identified for upcoming lunar exploration, both human and robotic. These sites each offer fascinating and compelling reasons for exploration. They will help answer key questions about the Moon and its history. Many will also facilitate a sustained human presence on the Moon.
The presentation will feature data gathered from many different instruments aboard a variety of spacecraft and made available through NASA’s Moon Trek online data visualization and analysis portal. The presentation will include an overview of using the portal so that audience members can follow and even become direct participants in this exciting new era of lunar exploration.
Speaker: Brian Day, NASA
Attend in person or on Facebook
Sunday, 11/12/2023
Drop-in at the Charleston Slough Observation Deck - 11/12/2023 09:00 AM
Charleston Slough Observation Deck Palo Alto
Visit our birding station at the Charleston Slough observation deck, where our volunteers will help you identify ducks, shorebirds, and more. No need to sign up - come by anytime we’re there! This event is wheelchair accessible.
The Smell of Money: Film Screening and Discussion - 11/12/2023 02:30 PM
Palo Alto Art Center Palo Alto
"Who pays the price for what we want?" A century after her grandfather claimed his freedom from slavery and the family land, Elsie Herring and her North Carolina community fight the world's largest pork corporation for their freedom to enjoy fresh air, clean water, and a life without the stench of manure. The film explores of some of the most important tensions in our modern world: People versus profit; and the battle for environmental and social justice
A Q&A with the writer/coproducer Jamie Berger (appearing via telecon) will immediately follow the film screening.
Watch the trailer:
Register at weblink
Monday, 11/13/2023
Rewinding the Clock -- the Quest to Reverse Aging - 11/13/2023 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Speaker: Alex Trapp, Retro Biosciences
The Burden of Wake and the Reasons for Sleep: how sleep promotes synaptic homeostasis - 11/13/2023 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford
Chiara Cirelli received her medical degree and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Pisa, Italy, where she started investigating the molecular correlates of sleep and wake and the role of the noradrenergic system in sleep regulation. She continued this work as Fellow in experimental neuroscience at the Neuroscience Institute in San Diego, California, and since 2001 at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, where she is currently Professor in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Cirelli’s research is aimed at investigating the functions of sleep by using a combination of electrophysiological, molecular, genetic, and ultrastructural approaches. Together with her long-term collaborator, Dr. Giulio Tononi, she has developed the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis, according to which sleep is needed for synaptic renormalization, to counterbalance the net increase of synaptic strength caused by wake plasticity.
Speaker: Chiara Cirelli, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Room: Auditorium
Achieving Fusion Gain in the Laboratory: How Physicists Design, Deploy, and Interpret Experiments at the National Ignition Facility - 11/13/2023 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
Speaker: Dr. Jim Gaffney, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs
UC Berkeley Physics Colloquium - 11/13/2023 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley
Speaker: Gavin Crooks, Berkeley Institute for the Theoretical Sciences
Cosmic Alchemy: How Neutron Star Smash-Ups Forge Heavy Atoms - 11/13/2023 07:30 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
The source of about half of the heaviest elements in the Universe has been a mystery for a long time. Although the general picture of element formation is well understood, many questions about the astrophysical details remain to be answered. The key may lie in the collision of neutron stars - violent, energetic, and unusual events that we are now beginning to observe. This talk will focus on recent advances in our understanding of the origin of the heaviest and rarest elements in the Universe.
Speaker: Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, UC Santa Cruz
Tuesday, 11/14/2023
Permitting Reform: How Best to Combine Accelerating the Energy Transition, Protecting the Environment, and Ensuring Fairness - Livestream - 11/14/2023 11:00 AM
Stanford University
Scientific Collaboration Amidst Shifting US-China Relations - 11/14/2023 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
Past to Future Carbon Cycle Feedbacks - 11/14/2023 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Chronodiversity: Thinking about Time with Trees - 11/14/2023 07:00 PM
Club Fugazi San Francisco
An Overview of Shark Research in Hawaii - Livestream - 11/14/2023 07:00 PM
American Cetacean Society
Wonderfest: Jaws of Life: The (R)evolutionary Story of the Mammalian Bite - 11/14/2023 07:00 PM
Hopmonk Tavern Novato
Wednesday, 11/15/2023
The John and Mary Louise Riley Seminar Series at Bodega Marine Laboratory - 11/15/2023 11:00 AM
Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute
Merlin Sound ID: Challenges in Real-time Analysis of Bird Vocalizations - Livestream - 11/15/2023 11:00 AM
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Energy and Resources Group Colloquium - 11/15/2023 04:00 PM
Giannini Hall Berkeley
Youth Talk: The Influence of Environmental Activism on Gen Z Voting - 11/15/2023 05:30 PM
Eshleman Hall, Senate Chambers, 5th Floor Berkeley
Science Uncorked: Unraveling a Giant: Collaborative Effort in the Entangled Whale Response & Prevention Program - 11/15/2023 06:00 PM
Gourmet au Bay Bodega Bay
Most Delicious Poison: The Story of Nature’s Toxins - From Spices to Vices - 11/15/2023 06:00 PM
UC Botanical Garden Berkeley
After APEC: What's China's Role in California's Green Transition? - 11/15/2023 06:00 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
Nonfungible Tokens (NFTs): Transformative Potential and Risk Management - 11/15/2023 06:30 PM
Hacker Dojo Mountain View
Water Above, Water Below, Water Within - 11/15/2023 07:00 PM
Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series Los Altos Hills
CROSSINGS: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet - Livestream - 11/15/2023 07:00 PM
Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society
Renewable Power! Powering Electric Cars and Storing Renewable Energy with Energy-dense Batteries - Livestream - 11/15/2023 07:30 PM
Marin Science Seminar San Rafael
Through the Fantastic Eyes of Frogs and Toads: How scientists study what frogs and toads see - 11/15/2023 07:30 PM
Marin Science Seminar San Rafael
Thursday, 11/16/2023
North Ridge Trail Hike at Purisima Creek Redwoods - 11/16/2023 09:00 AM
Purisima Creek North Ridge Trailhead Woodside
Environmental and Energy Economics Seminar - CANCELED - 11/16/2023 12:10 PM
Cheit Hall Berkeley
Smart Grid Seminar: Jianhui Wang, Southern Methodist University - Rescheduled - 11/16/2023 01:30 PM
Environment & Energy Building (Y2E2) Stanford
A Highly Linear Distributed Amplifier Using Ultra-wideband Intermodulation Feedforward Linearization - 11/16/2023 04:00 PM
Sonoma State Dept. of Engineering Science Rohnert Park
Storytelling with Cafe Ohlone - 11/16/2023 04:00 PM
Lawrence Hall of Science Berkeley
A Trip to Avian Mars - The Weird and Wonderful Birds of Australia - Livestream - 11/16/2023 06:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
NightLife: Book Fair - 11/16/2023 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
After Dark: Glow Opening - 11/16/2023 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Prey-go-neesh Nes-kwe-chohl: California Condors Return to Yurok Country - Livestream - 11/16/2023 07:00 PM
Golden Gate Audubon Society
Equalizing Equity - 11/16/2023 07:00 PM
Computer History Museum Mountain View
Fungal and Animal Interactions - 11/16/2023 07:30 PM
Bay Area Mycological Society Berkeley
Friday, 11/17/2023
Morning Hike at Rancho Cañada del Oro - 11/17/2023 09:30 AM
Rancho Canada Del Oro Open Space Preserve Morgan hill
Scientific World Building: a Cascadian Example - 11/17/2023 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Insomnia Treatment: What Have we Learned and What do we Still Need to Know? - 11/17/2023 12:00 PM
ChEM-H/Neuroscience Building, James Lin and Nisa Leung Seminar Room (E153) Stanford
Public Tours of Bodega Marine Laboratory - 11/17/2023 02:00 PM
UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory Bodega Bay
Saturday, 11/18/2023
Holiday Mineral and Gem Sale - 11/18/2023 10:00 AM
Santa Cruz Live Oak Grange Santa Cruz
Jazz Under the Stars - 11/18/2023 05:45 PM
College of San Mateo Bldg 36 San Mateo
City Public Star Party - 11/18/2023 06:00 PM
City Star Parties - Point Lobos San Francisco
Sunday, 11/19/2023
Holiday Mineral and Gem Sale - 11/19/2023 10:00 AM
Santa Cruz Live Oak Grange Santa Cruz
Monday, 11/20/2023
Stem Cells and the MS in Biotechnology at Sacramento State - Livestream - 11/20/2023 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Physics Condensed Matter Seminar - 11/20/2023 02:30 PM
Stanley Hall Berkeley