Greetings Science Fans,
Last week, among many topics, I referred to a great article that really cut to the chase about wildland fires in California. I’m sure that you realize it isn’t just about the people who live in the “urban interface”. People all over the world are effected by fires, not just in California. 10 questions for a Stanford researcher on the health hazards of wildfire smoke
It wasn’t that long ago that smoking was publicly accepted. If you went to a restaurant there might have been a “smoking” or “no smoking” section. It was separated from the rest of the place by a sign that said so. Thanks to legislation that was signed by the same president that started the EPA, OSHA was created. We don’t have to endure smoke in public places because we don’t like it. The start of this wasn’t the Clean Air Act. It was passed for the health and safety of people who had no choice to avoid it because of their jobs! Many of those are now called frontline workers! On occasion I have brought a sound level meter into a bar or restaurant, they need to have their hearing protected too. When will OSHA help everyone with that?!
For all of my recent doom and gloom about science and how it is accepted, here’s a bit of good news… Evolution now accepted by majority of Americans
Here are some suggestions for the coming week. Remember to check out things you know nothing about!
Two Talks: Popping the Science Bubble - Livestream Tue @ 5:30
After Dark: Sea Otters Thu @ 6:00 with real people!
College of San Mateo's Family Science & Astronomy Festival + Makerspace Sat @ 12:00 (Zoom)
Drink less, exercise more and take in the air – sage advice on pandemic living from a long-forgotten, and very long, 18th-century poem. I would also suggest that really thinking about all of the people that help you appreciate a seemingly simple thing.
While I’m not a student of history I am always amazed by what records and stuff are left from the previous few thousand years of human history. Today things are much different. Happy 25th to the Internet Archive and Wayback Machine!
Another celebration that deserves note is 50 years of collaboration between NASA and USGS. Landsat 9 is due for launch soon! I’m sure you are curious about Earth's mysterious red glow as well.
There are many things that we have learned were wrong over the years. We need to keep studying! Superseded theories in science an Obsolete scientific theories
One of those obsolete theories, a flat earth, will be well noted yet again this Wed 9.22 @ 12:21. The folks that took a ride to look down on the ISS last week might also disagree with the whole flat earth thing!
Did you catch the explOratorium/Apple release last week?
Let’s see if I can get it correct this week! Two weeks ago, Dave forgot to include his email address for entering the contest to win a diecast Virgin Galactic model. The contest is extended a week. You have until noon Friday to send an email to david.almandsmith@gmail.com with an integer between 0 and 1,000.
I’d like to remind you that we are all volunteers here at the SciSchmooze. A few years ago, David Almandsmith joined Bob and me with the weekly writing opportunities. However, the Science Schmooze would not exist without the amazing and dedicated work of Bob Siederer who designed the calendar monitoring system that we (Bob) use and manages it on an almost daily basis. Bob will be writing next week, be sure to let him know what you think.
Have a great week. Learn something new and amazing.
herb masters
“Increasingly, our leaders must deal with dangers that threaten the entire world, where an understanding of those dangers and the possible solutions depends on a good grasp of science. The ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, acid rain, questions of diet and heredity. All require scientific literacy. Can Americans choose the proper leaders and support the proper programs if they themselves are scientifically illiterate? The whole premise of democracy is that it is safe to leave important questions to the court of public opinion—but is it safe to leave them to the court of public ignorance?”— Isaac Asimov
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Monday, 09/20/2021
Coral Innate Immunity - Livestream - 09/20/2021 09:00 AM
Stanford University
Dr. Traylor-Knowles is an Assistant Professor in Marine Biology and Ecology at University of Miami, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins University, her PhD. in Biology from Boston University, and did a NSF Ocean Sciences Postdoctoral fellowship at Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University. Dr. Traylor-Knowles is passionate about innovative ocean conservation solutions and mentorship. She leads the Cnidarian Immunity Laboratory which investigates the evolution of immunity in corals, sea anemones and ctenophores. Specifically, her research focuses on disease processes, environmental stress, symbiosis, wound healing, regeneration, and cellular mechanisms of immunity. She is also the Founder and Director of Black Women in Ecology, Evolution and Marine Science and is an advocate for Black women in science and academia.
See weblink for Zoom link
Searching for the quietest compact objects in the Milky Way - 09/20/2021 12:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
Speaker: Tharindu Jayasinghe Arachchilage
Large Scale Structure Beyond the 2-Point Function - Livestream - 09/20/2021 02:00 PM
Varian Physics Building Stanford
According to the standard paradigm, inflation seeded the primordial Universe with density perturbations that are adiabatic and Gaussian distributed. In this limit, all the information is contained within the two-point correlation function, or equivalently, the power spectrum. Today, the distribution of matter is far from Gaussian, with structures forming across a vast range of scales. Despite this, almost all analyses of observational data are performed using two-point functions. This begs the question: what information lies in higher-point statistics? In this seminar, I will present a pedagogical overview of the non-Gaussian correlation functions, and demonstrate how they can be used both to sharpen constraints on known physical parameters, and to provide stringent tests of new physics occurring in the early Universe. One of the major barriers to constraining cosmology from the higher-point functions is computational: measuring the statistics with conventional techniques is infeasible for current and future datasets. I will discuss new methods capable of reducing the computational cost by orders of magnitude, and show how this facilitates a number of exciting new tests of the cosmological model.
Speaker: Oliver Philcox, Princeton University
See weblink for Zoom information
Chemogenetic and optogenetic technologies for probing molecular and cellular networks - 09/20/2021 04:00 PM
Stanley Hall Berkeley
I will describe recent work on scalable, single-cell molecular recorders of past cellular events; proximity labeling for the study of protein trafficking and RNA binding proteins; and other molecular technologies under development.
Speaker: Alice Ting, Stanford University
Cosmic alchemy in the era of gravitational wave astronomy - Livestream - 09/20/2021 04:15 PM
UC Berkeley
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. Here I 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
See weblink for connection information
Tuesday, 09/21/2021
Cork oak woodlands: human-shaped systems of conservation value - 09/21/2021 10:00 AM
UC Botanical Garden Berkeley
Cork oak (Quercus suber) is an endemic tree species to the western Mediterranean Basin where it naturally occurs in Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, France and Sardinia in Italy) and Northern Africa (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia). It is mostly known by its bark - the cork - which is harvested each 9 to 12 years, without felling the trees, and mostly used as wine bottle stoppers. Other cork applications include use as pavements in buildings, insulation material, clothes or artwork. Across their area of distribution cork oak woodlands are multiple use systems where livestock production co-occurs with cork harvesting, and frequently other uses such as agricultural crops, big and small game hunting or recreation activities. The cork oak woodland understory typically forms a species diverse shrub-grassland matrix that provides a variety of ecological niches for plant and vertebrate species of conservation interest. Human management partly generates habitat heterogeneity that characterizes the biodiversity - rich cork oak woodlands. Both under-use (e.g. land abandonment) and over-use (e.g. overgrazing) may threat the conservation value of cork oak woodlands. The conservation of these woodlands must encompasses solutions promoting the sustainable use of the system.
Speaker: Miguel Bugalho, University of Lisbon
In search of the roots of roots: 400 million years of plant root evolution - Livestream - 09/21/2021 12:15 PM
Stanford University
“Plant blindness” is the term used to describe the phenomena where plants often go unnoticed or underappreciated by humans. Plant blindness is observed in many contexts including in the study of palaeontology where plants are often overlooked simply as food for animals rather than as the fundamental underpinnings of all terrestrial ecosystems. A major goal of my research is to promote and communicate the importance of land plant evolution and the vast changes plants have made to the Earth System. In my research I utilise a diversity of techniques, including classic comparative methods, new imaging techniques and molecular approaches such as comparative genomics, to shine a spotlight on the evolution of the hidden half of plants rooting systems.
Speaker: Sandy Hetherington, University of Edinburgh
Mathematics: The Key to a Hidden World - Livestream - 09/21/2021 02:00 PM
National Math Festival
Do we really need to learn about mathematics in our modern world? We all carry calculators around in our pockets and so much of what we're taught in school mathematics can seem irrelevant to our lives. However, the reason we learn mathematics is not just to solve problems. It's to unlock a world hiding in plain sight, to enable us to appreciate its patterns and navigate its secrets. In this session we'll explore some of those secrets and see how mathematics helps us to wonder at the world we live in.
Eddie Woo is a high school mathematics teacher in Sydney, Australia.
This live event, geared at ages 11+, is presented by the National Math Festival and the Mathical Book Prize. Registrants will receive a Zoom link and instructions to join.
Collective Dynamics of Coexisting Spin Textures: The Antiferromagnetic Switching of FexNbS2 - Livestream - 09/21/2021 02:30 PM
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
The theory behind the electrical switching of antiferromagnets is premised on the existence of a well defined broken symmetry state that can be rotated to encode information. A spin glass is in many ways the antithesis of this state, characterized by an ergodic landscape of nearly degenerate magnetic configurations, choosing to freeze into a distribution of these in a manner that is seemingly bereft of information. In this talk, I will show that the coexistence of spin glass and antiferromagnetic order allows a novel mechanism to facilitate the switching of the antiferromagnet FexNbS2, which is rooted in the electrically-stimulated collective winding of the spin glass. The local texture of the spin glass opens an anisotropic channel of interaction that can be used to rotate the equilibrium orientation of the antiferromagnetic state. The use of a spin glass’ collective dynamics to electrically manipulate antiferromagnetic spin textures has never been applied before, opening the field of antiferromagnetic spintronics to many more material platforms with complex magnetic textures.
Speaker: Eran Maniv, UC Berkeley
See weblink for Zoom information
Finding a path towards a molecular theory of nonequilibrium systems - 09/21/2021 04:00 PM
Latimer Hall Berkeley
In this talk, I will discuss some recent efforts to develop a set of theoretical and simulation tools to study molecular systems driven away from equilibrium. This work leverages recent advancements in the study of large deviations and control theory, as well as the burgeoning area of stochastic thermodynamics. Generalizations of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, and variational statements of stability for nonequilibrium systems, will be demonstrated. Specific questions concerning electrokinetic phenomena in ionic solutions confined to nanoscale dimensions and the self assembly of active matter will be addressed.
Speaker: David Limmer, UC Berkeley
Two Talks: Popping the Science Bubble - Livestream - 09/21/2021 05:30 PM
Berkeley Public Library
Moss Animals? The Secret Lives of Overlooked Sea Creatures
If you’ve ever been to a kelp-encrusted beach or a rocky tidepool, you have probably seen a bryozoan, but few even realize these odd little creatures are living beings. Although easily overlooked, these “moss animals” have survived 450 million tumultuous years through change and innovation. Coral’s less famous roommate, bryozoans are colonial animals made up of many tiny individuals sharing a skeleton. Come learn about the advantages of this odd lifestyle and the never-ending mysteries of their evolution.
Speaker: Maya Samuels-Fair
Quantum chemistry in modern service to X-ray science
X-Rays are useful to chemists as much as they are to doctors and dentists. X-Rays can be used to quickly analyze which elements on the periodic table compose a substance because each element interacts with a unique energy of X-Ray radiation. Brighter and better X-Ray sources, such as the Advanced Light Source at Berkeley National Lab, are allowing for a wider range of exciting experiments. I’d like to share my research with you in computationally modeling X-Ray-matter interactions - a task difficult enough to require the power of a supercomputer.
Speaker: Scott Garner
Mary Roach's Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law - Livestream - 09/21/2021 06:00 PM
Commonwealth Club - Online Event
Mary Roach wants to let us in on a secret: The greatest number of repeat criminal offenders are outside, all around us, and you’ve probably even seen some today - animals. It has only been three centuries since animals had to stand trial for their misconduct, in a court of law, with legal representation. Yes, really.
In her newest book, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, the science enthusiast turned writer deep-dives into human-animal conflict. As human land consumption creeps further into the natural habitats of these so-called troublemakers, it becomes more pressing to realize a symbiotic coexistence. The question becomes: Who is in the wrong, animals living according to their instincts or the humans that increasingly police them? To answer this question, Roach trots the globe from the Himalayas to Vatican City making friends with rats and foes with a macaque. Ultimately she reaches the conclusion that there is true, untamed hope for working with rather than against our critter counterparts.
At INFORUM Roach will regale us with stories as wild as they are true, such as her foray into rat-bait taste testing. Further she will serve as our safari-guide in the conversation of how to bring outdoor and indoor worlds together safely and justly at a time when this work is needed most. This conversation is moderated by Kara Platoni, Wired's science editor
Conversations About Landscape: Hidden Nature SF - Livestream - 09/21/2021 07:00 PM
ExplOratorium
Where San Francisco’s iconic skyscrapers, streets, and parks stand today, there once was a wild landscape full of surprises - from vast hills of drifting sand to lush valleys and wetlands of many kinds. This land, home to the Ramaytush Ohlone, has been radically transformed. Nevertheless, its history remains an integral element of the city’s landscape. After two years of research, historical ecologists have unearthed countless unexpected stories of what this region looked like in the past and synthesized them into a single map representing the city’s historical landscape. Join the Exploratorium and the San Francisco Estuary Institute in exploring our ecological past and how our historical landscape can inform a vision for a healthier, more resilient city.
Speakers: Sean Baumgarten, SFEI; Gregg Castrow, Society of California Archaeology; Johathan Young, The Presidio Trust
See weblink for YouTube and Facebook links
Advanced Mushroom Identification - Livestream - 09/21/2021 07:00 PM
Mycological Society of San Francisco
Alan Rockefeller is scheduled to be our guest speaker this month. He is a mycologist living in Oakland, California. In 2001 he began studying mushrooms, and is self taught. Each year since 2007 he has traveled to Mexico to collect mushrooms - he has now photographed more than 1,000 species of fungi from Mexico. Alan enjoys mushroom photography, DNA barcoding and microscopy.
See weblink for Zoom information
Wednesday, 09/22/2021
Sense for Less: Physical Informed Cyber-Physical Systems Adaptation for Device-Free Human Monitoring - Livestream - 09/22/2021 12:00 PM
CITRIS Research Exchange
The number of everyday smart devices is projected to grow to billions in the coming decade, which enables various smart building applications. These applications, especially in-home long-term occupant monitoring, rely on emerging device-free human sensing techniques. From the system perspective, we introduce an alternative non-intrusive sensing modality through ambient structural vibration to indirectly infer fine-grained occupant information. However, due to the complexity of the physical world, sensing data distributions face severe domain variances. Therefore, from the data perspective, accurate information learning through pure data-driven approaches requires a large amount of labeled data, which is costly and difficult to obtain in practice. We address these challenges by combining physical and data-driven knowledge in learning.
Speaker: Shijia Pan, UC Merced
Register at weblink to receive Zoom information
3D imaging of living cells in real time - Livestream - 09/22/2021 05:30 PM
UC Santa
Discovery in biology and medicine is strongly driven by new possibilities to visualize the processes of life. To see new things, the Saralab invents and custom builds new types of optical elements and imaging systems. Specific problems in Biology demand that we push technology to the limit in terms of both spatial and temporal resolution. In this Kraw Lecture learn how the SaraLab at UC Santa Cruz is harnessing the power of diffractive Fourier optics in microscopy enabling simultaneous 3D imaging that provides unique imaging compatible with several flavors of optical super-resolution.
Register at weblink to receive connection information
The Amazing Wildlife of Cape Cod - 09/22/2021 05:30 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
What makes Cape Cod so unique? Miles of beautiful sand-swept coastline and an abundance of wildlife inspires visitors to flock from all over the world annually. At this special Birdy Hour, learn about the Cape's Great White Shark population, where White Sharks come closer to the shore than anywhere else in the world. The waters surrounding Cape Cod host over 300 individual Great White Sharks during the summer and fall months. Cape Cod Bay and the North Atlantic are also the wintering feeding grounds for nearly the entire population of North Atlantic Right Whales. Sadly, less than 400 individuals exist. Stephanie will also discuss sea turtle strandings and charismatic bird species unique to the Northeast, and will touch upon two conservation success stories - the localized recovery of Osprey and Bald Eagles. In 2021, Bald Eagles nested for the first time on Cape Cod in over 100 years!
Speaker: Stephanie Ellis, Wild Care
A New Era of Experiential Medicine: From Video Games to Psychedelics - 09/22/2021 05:30 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
A fundamental challenge of our health-care system is the enhancement of cognition for millions of people who suffer from psychiatric and neurological conditions. Despite 70 years of global effort in attempting to identify molecules deliverable as pills to accomplish this goal, we have largely failed to deliver truly effective, accessible and low-side-effect treatments for cognitive impairments associated with medical conditions, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADHD and dementia.
It is important to be aware that for thousands of years we humans have been creating experiences to enhance the quality of our lives and support our mental health. However, this approach has largely been marginalized as “alternative” and has not been embraced within the core of mainstream medicine. Dr. Adam Gazzaley will describe his mission to develop and validate experiences as medicine by integrating neuroscience-guided design, invention and experimentation. In this talk, he will discuss his invention of a closed-loop video game that has now become the first FDA-cleared video game for any medical condition, and the first digital treatment for ADHD. He will share how the next generation of experiential medicine will incorporate advances in artificial intelligence, sensory immersion, virtual reality, multimodal physiological recordings and noninvasive electrical brain stimulation. He will conclude with a deep dive into his newest undertakings to explore the intricacies and possibilities of one of man’s oldest experiential medicines - psychedelics.
Speaker: Dr. Adam Gazzaley, UC San Francisco; Patty James, author, Moderator
SETI Talks: Is a Sixth Mass Extinction the future of living species on Earth? - Livestream - 09/22/2021 07:00 PM
SETI Institute
Human society and the global ecosystem are at a critical point in time, facing climate and biodiversity crises. According to a recent analysis, the sixth mass extinction of wildlife on Earth is accelerating. More than 500 species of land animals are on the brink of extinction and are likely to be lost within 20 years, a number equivalent to the number lost over the entire last century.
Earth ecosystems have been through severe extinction crises in the past. There have been five mass extinction events during the last 450 million years, each destroying 70-95% of the species of plants, animals and microorganisms that previously existed. Causes of these events included massive volcanic eruptions, depletion of ocean oxygen or collision with an asteroid. Following each event, it took millions of years to regain the numbers of species comparable to those before the extinction event.
What can our understanding of these systems’ ecology, evolution and history teach us about surviving the current situation? We invited two scientists from the California Academy of Sciences to discuss this topic. Scott Sampson, executive director and a dinosaur paleontologist, and Peter Roopnarine, the Curator of Geology, whose research focuses on understanding the evolution of ecological systems.
Moderator: Franck Marchis, SETI
Register at weblink to receive connection information
Thursday, 09/23/2021
The Past, Present, and Future Stewards of Coyote Valley - Livestream - 09/23/2021 11:00 AM
Peninsula Open Space Trust
As we face the uncertain future of climate change, Coyote Valley’s natural infrastructure creates resilience. Learn about the past, present, and future of land stewardship in Coyote Valley, including how the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe’s historic ethic of stewardship in this region continues into the present day and future. This webinar will also discuss water's role in sustainable agricultural practices in the Santa Clara Valley, and how Coyote Valley's water resources support people in surrounding communities.
Speakers:
Andrea Mackenzie, General Manager, Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority Charlene Nijmeh, Chairwoman, Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area Jake Smith, Conservation GIS Coordinator, Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority Zooey Diggory, Biologist and Wetland Specialist, Valley Water Cindy Chavez, Supervisor, Santa Clara County
UC Berkeley Astronomy Colloquium - 09/23/2021 12:40 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
Speaker: Dan Scolnic, Duke University
Scratch Space - Virtual Conversations on the Role of the Radical Imaginary - Livestream - 09/23/2021 01:00 PM
SETI Institute
Join independent artistic research studio Interspecifics as they discuss their latest work, Codex Virtualis, an evolving collection of virtual hybrid bacterial-AI organisms designed to provide insights into how life might originate in extraterrestrial habitats. We’ll explore what makes the living different from the non-living, how can life can emerge from an ecosystem of algorithms, and whether life is itself an algorithm.Codex Virtualis is the outcome of the SETI x AI art residency, a partnership between the SETI Institute’s Artist-in-Residence (AIR) Program and ARS Electronica. Veronika Liebl, Director of European Cooperation Ars Electronica and Bettina Forget, Program Director of the SETI Institute’s AIR Program will join the conversation to discuss this partnership and their interest in the field of AI.
See weblink for link to Facebook to view
Visualizing a Better Future: Celebrating Andries van Dam - Livestream - 09/23/2021 05:00 PM
Computer History Museum
Do you watch animated movies or play video games? Do you click on a digital link or image to see more? Do you puzzle over the ethical use of computer technology?
If so, you can thank - in part - computer scientist and professor Andy van Dam.
Van Dam has devoted his life’s work to revolutionizing how people and ideas connect through computers, how people and computers connect through interactive graphics, how scholars connect through digital humanities education, and how technology and society can connect in ways that are good for humanity.
In his five-decade career, van Dam has:
Helped pioneer computer graphics and hypertext. Coauthored with Jim Foley a field-defining book on computer graphics that for thirty years has been used by hundreds of thousands around the world. Advanced digital humanities and other uses of computers in education. Taught more than 10,000 students at Brown University. Eight became chairs of leading computer science departments, influencing generations of students. Many have impacted entertainment and business as leaders at Pixar, Microsoft, Adobe and other companies.
Van Dam Joins Other Pioneers
For a lifetime of contributions to computer graphics, hypertext, and education, van Dam will be inducted as a CHM 2021 Fellow, joining other visionaries such as NASA mathematician and "hidden figure" Katherine Johnson, World Wide Web creator Tim Berners Lee, and software pioneer Rear Admiral Grace Hopper.
Here’s what you’ll experience:
Be inspired by van Dam’s story, from surviving an internment camp to discovering his life’s work to his recent “Call to Arms” about the most critical tech issues today. Hear personal stories and tributes from van Dam’s close colleagues and former students. Watch computer graphics artists create new images and visualizations using state-of-the-art tools. Explore current computing ethics issues from today’s thought leaders and experts. Add your voice by participating in real-time polls or by recording a video tribute, call to action, or idea for inspiration.
Register at weblink to receive connection information and to verify start time, which is subject to change.
Evening Tours of Lick Observatory - SOLD OUT - 09/23/2021 05:30 PM
Lick Observatory Mt. Hamilton
The event will last approximately 4 to 6 hours. Visitors should be prepared to walk about one mile during the evening, including taking stairs. Events are held rain or shine.
The tour will start at the main building’s Visitor Center. Participants can learn about the unique history of the world’s first permanently occupied mountain top observatory, the eccentric California pioneer James Lick, technology used for observing on different telescopes along the tour route, and current science being conducted at Lick Observatory.
A highlight of the tour will be visiting the dome of the 3-meter Shane Telescope to see the mountain’s largest telescope up close. After the walking tour, there will be an opportunity to enjoy the sunset, and the Gift Shop will be open. During twilight, a history lecture about James Lick and the construction of the observatory will be presented. Once the sky is dark (and weather permitting), viewing celestial objects through the historic 36-inch Great Refractor Telescope will commence. Insights will be provided throughout the evening on how we find planets beyond our solar system, how exploding stars teach us about the evolution of the universe, how we discern the nature of galaxies and black holes, how new technologies are used to undo the blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere, and about Lick Observatory’s rich astronomical history and bright scientific future.
Complimentary coffee, tea, and hot chocolate are included with the tour. The event will last approximately 4 to 6 hours. For safety reasons and due to late hours, children under the age of 8 cannot participate; this event is recommended for ages 12 years and up. Visitors should be prepared to walk about one mile during the evening, including taking stairs. Events are held rain or shine. Weather may restrict telescope viewings, but other activities will still take place. Due to historic construction of telescope domes and safety concerns, the telescopes are not wheelchair accessible at this time. Those having difficulty navigating stairs may also find the telescopes inaccessible.
Maximum of 30 people per tour.
TEDx Mountain View - The Heart of Technology - 09/23/2021 05:30 PM
TEDx Mountain View
Innovation, diversity, transformation: positive ideas to shape a positive world. An online TEDx event put on by volunteers to spread good ideas and model the innovation and diversity that make Silicon Valley thrive. From inside high tech companies and organizations, our speakers will share ideas that they have and projects they're working on that have grown out of the heart of technology. The heart of technology includes both innovative technology shaping the course of the world and using technology with care to make a difference in the world. The speaker lineup includes:1. Jin Zhang, Facebook Director of Engineering - How to Evolve From Moore's Law2. Shilpa Gulati, Waymo Head of Behavior Prediction - How autonomously driven vehicles become experienced drivers3. Scott Shute, LinkedIn Head of Mindfulness and Compassion - It's Time to Change Work For Good4. Uttam Tripathi, Google Head of Global Programs, Developer Relations Ecosystem - Building Self-sustaining and inclusive Digital Communities - To scale globally, think locally!!5. Stephanie Wu, Assistant Principal Cellist - Berkeley Symphony - Global Marketing Lead at Coursera - Finding Work Life Harmony and cello performance6. Shane Farritor, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln - Innovation and Invention on the Silicone Prairie7. TL Campbell, Program Management Lead at Facebook - Differences Build Togetherness8. Mark Antonson, Director, Design Studio, Jeffrey Raikes School of Computer Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln - A New Direction for Higher Education9. Irene Thomas, Senior Director of Global Marketing at Sailpoint, Ex-Googler - Social Impact as Habit: Hybrid Tech-Local Activism10. Mary Vincent, Manager Advanced AI Solutions at Lockheed Martin Space - Space Technologies Improving Life on Earth11. Karissa Bettendorf, Artist - An Artist's Rendition of Innovation
Register at weblink to receive connection information.
Nightlife - 09/23/2021 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 40,000 live animals (including familiar faces like Claude the albino alligator), the night is sure to be wild.
Step inside the iconic Shake House and our four-story Rainforest, where you can explore the Amazon’s treetops surrounded by free-flying birds and butterflies. Reservations for these exhibits are no longer required. However, please note that the last entry into the rainforest is 7:30 pm our animals need their sleep.
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 Big Picture exhibit in the Piazza to marvel at the most recent winners of the Big Picture Natural Photography competition.
Bask in the glow of one of the largest living coral reef displays in the world: our 212,000-gallon Philippine Coral Reef tank.
Take in the interstellar views from the Living Roof, then grab a bite from the Academy Cafe and head to the West Garden outdoor bar to drink and dine under the stars. For adults 21+.
See weblink for COVID restriction information.
After Dark: Sea Otters - 09/23/2021 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Get to know one of California’s most charming marine mammals - sea otters. These top predators boast hearty appetites, and they’re essential to maintaining the balance of nearshore ecosystems. This evening’s event, presented in partnership with Sea Otter Awareness Week, features talks by Ohlone Cafe co-founders Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino, recounting the long history of sea otters in Northern California - their thriving pre-colonial populations, being driven near to extinction through hunting, and today’s ongoing efforts to nurture and restore otter populations. And we’ll join Sea Otter Savvy’s Heather Barrett for the inside scoop on sea otter biology.
Micromitigation: Fighting Air Pollution with Activated Carbon - Livestream - 09/23/2021 07:00 PM
Counter Culture Labs
We would like to invite new members to join Counter Culture Labs' Micromitigation Meetup alternate Thursdays. We will be discussing ways to deploy existing adsorption technology using commodity granulated activated carbon for the mitigation of air pollution.
We welcome those interested in both the environmental justice and technical engineering aspects of air quality. Please sign up by joining the Counter Culture Labs' Meetup group, then RSVPing for the event. Weblink provided after signup.
National Water Information System Modernization and the National Water Dashboard - Livestream - 09/23/2021 07:00 PM
US Geological Survey Public Lecture Series
More rapid and accessible data delivery that will support the prediction of water hazards and water availability in near-real time. Decision support tools that will aid in managing water supplies, flooding, drought, inundation, debris flow, water quality degradation, or other water-related hazards during extreme events and under future scenarios of changing population and climate. A lean, consistent portfolio of national scale water web application will be available through a mobile friendly and unified online presence, including expansion of the National Water Dashboard.
Speaker: Daniel Pearson, USGS Texas Water Science Center
Friday, 09/24/2021
Absolute stress levels on mature faults: Bridging insight from the lab and field using physics-based modeling - 09/24/2021 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Speaker: Valere Lambert, UC Santa Cruz
The activity and lifetime of heterogeneous catalysts are intimately linked with their structural stability in reactive environments. However, it can be challenging to understand and predict how reactive environments lead to nanoparticle coarsening via center of mass motion and Ostwald ripening and how evaporation can lead to mass loss. In the first part of the presentation, I will demonstrate how atmospheric pressure electron microscopy can be used to understand how a model automotive catalyst - Pt/Pd bimetallic nanoparticles supported on Al2O3 - responds to reduction and oxidation. Significant metal vaporization and metal diffusion were observed at temperatures above 600 °C, both in pure oxygen and air. This behavior implies that material transport through the vapor during typical catalyst aging processes for oxidation can play a more significant role in catalyst structural evolution than previously thought. The observation of significant evaporation and metal diffusion led us to explore these phenomena in a different model system, Au supported on non-reactive SiN thin films. We developed and exploited advanced data analysis tools to track the temporal evolution of nanoparticles as a function of time, temperature, and reactive environment using transmission electron microscopy. We describe how a systematic investigation of dataset preparation, neural network architecture, and accuracy evaluation lead to a tool for determining the size and shape of nanoparticles in high pixel resolution TEM images. We use this algorithm to generate rich data regarding the complexities of nanoparticle coarsening, ripening, and evaporation. We have developed an analytical model that describes this process, showing how local and long-range particle interactions through diffusive transport affect evaporation process. The extensive data of the evolution of several hundred particles allows us to determine physically reasonable values for the model parameters, quantify the particle size at which Gibbs-Thompson pressure accelerates the evaporation process, and explore how individual particle interactions deviate from the mean-field model.
Speaker: Eric Stach, Univ. of Pennsylvania
Fear of a Black Universe - Livestream - 09/24/2021 02:00 PM
Commonwealth Club - Online Event
Join us for a conversation with cosmologist Stephon Alexander, who argues that great physics requires one to think outside the mainstream - to improvise and to rely on intuition. His approach has led him to three principles that shape all theories of the universe: the principle of invariance, the quantum principle, and the principle of emergence.
Alexander uses these three principles to explore some of physics' greatest mysteries, from what happened before the Big Bang to how the universe makes consciousness possible. Drawing on his experience as a Black physicist, Alexander makes a powerful case for diversifying our scientific communities because - after successfully incorporating a piece of life-changing advice that, in order to discover real physics, he needed to stop memorizing and start taking risks - Alexander has concluded that making further progress in physics probably requires embracing the excluded, listening to the unheard, and being unafraid of being wrong.
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This program was originally scheduled for September 8.
Saturday, 09/25/2021
VIRTUAL SHARKTOBERFEST 2021 - 09/25/2021 10:00 AM
Greater Farallones Association
Our annual celebration of sharks will be virtual again this year!
Join us for an online celebration of sharks to raise awareness of the importance elasmobranchs in our marine ecosystem, coinciding with the arrival of white sharks to the San Francisco area to feed on our abundant seal and sea lion populations. Tune in for fun and educational activities for adults and kids, shark art, shark science, shark films, shark conservation, and lots of great ukulele tunes!
With programs from: California Academy of Sciences COARE Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary Greater Farallones Association Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary International Ocean Film Festival Minorities in Shark Science Mote Marine Lab Marine Science Institute Randall Museum Shark Stewards The Marine Mammal Center
College of San Mateo's Family Science & Astronomy Festival + Makerspace - 09/25/2021 12:00 PM
College of San Mateo
Fall is in the air, which means College of San Mateo's Virtual Family Science Day is just around the corner! Our annual festival brings the wonders of science to our community. This year it will be held virtually through Zoom, featuring both live sessions and on-demand recordings! Join us for a day of activities and exploration led by dedicated STEM@CSM faculty and staff.
Activities include slime making, marshmallow molecules construction, and at-home physics and engineering experiments. We will have our astronomy team leading events like virtual stargazing and you'll have the opportunity to chat with real astronomers in our community! Our keynote speaker is research scientist, Pablo Sobron, who will be sharing his experience as a member of NASA’s Mars 2020/Perseverance Rover Science Team and their mission to seek signs of ancient life on Mars. All this...and more! Visit website to view our schedule and register for updates.
Evening Tours of Lick Observatory - SOLD OUT - 09/25/2021 05:30 PM
Lick Observatory Mt. Hamilton
The event will last approximately 4 to 6 hours. Visitors should be prepared to walk about one mile during the evening, including taking stairs. Events are held rain or shine.
The tour will start at the main building’s Visitor Center. Participants can learn about the unique history of the world’s first permanently occupied mountain top observatory, the eccentric California pioneer James Lick, technology used for observing on different telescopes along the tour route, and current science being conducted at Lick Observatory.
A highlight of the tour will be visiting the dome of the 3-meter Shane Telescope to see the mountain’s largest telescope up close. After the walking tour, there will be an opportunity to enjoy the sunset, and the Gift Shop will be open. During twilight, a history lecture about James Lick and the construction of the observatory will be presented. Once the sky is dark (and weather permitting), viewing celestial objects through the historic 36-inch Great Refractor Telescope will commence. Insights will be provided throughout the evening on how we find planets beyond our solar system, how exploding stars teach us about the evolution of the universe, how we discern the nature of galaxies and black holes, how new technologies are used to undo the blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere, and about Lick Observatory’s rich astronomical history and bright scientific future.
Complimentary coffee, tea, and hot chocolate are included with the tour. The event will last approximately 4 to 6 hours. For safety reasons and due to late hours, children under the age of 8 cannot participate; this event is recommended for ages 12 years and up. Visitors should be prepared to walk about one mile during the evening, including taking stairs. Events are held rain or shine. Weather may restrict telescope viewings, but other activities will still take place. Due to historic construction of telescope domes and safety concerns, the telescopes are not wheelchair accessible at this time. Those having difficulty navigating stairs may also find the telescopes inaccessible.
Maximum of 30 people per tour.
Coyote Point Movie Nights - 09/25/2021 07:30 PM
Coyote Point Recreation Area San Mateo
Gather friends and family, pack a picnic and join CuriOdyssey for a fun-filled summer evening during Coyote Point Movie Nights in July, August, September and October at Coyote Point Park in San Mateo. Watch your favorite movies, experiment with fun CuriOdyssey science experiments, play creatively with San Mateo County Libraries, and learn more about the San Mateo County Parks Foundation. Movies begin thirty minutes after sunset, the last Saturday of each month, activities will open one hour before the movie begins.
Virtual Telescope Viewing - Livestream - 09/25/2021 09:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center
Join our resident astronomers on Facebook Live every Saturday evening live from Chabot’s Observation deck!
Each week, our astronomers will guide us through spectacular night sky viewing through Nellie, Chabot‘s most powerful telescope. Weather permitting we will be able to view objects live through the telescopes and our astronomers will be available for an open forum for all of your most pressing astronomy questions.
Sunday, 09/26/2021
Día de la Ingeniería/Latinx Engineering Day 2021 - 09/26/2021 10:00 AM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Join us for a family-friendly collaboration between the Exploratorium and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE).
Our 22nd annual Latinx Engineering Day/Día de la Ingeniería combines a panel discussion, presentations on the science and engineering heritage of Latinx people, and playful hands-on activities. This annual program is conducted bilingually in Spanish and English and provides opportunities to meet with prominent engineers in the Latinx community, including guests from the Salinas-based biohub Xinampa.
Evening Tours of Lick Observatory - SOLD OUT - 09/26/2021 05:30 PM
Lick Observatory Mt. Hamilton
The event will last approximately 4 to 6 hours. Visitors should be prepared to walk about one mile during the evening, including taking stairs. Events are held rain or shine.
The tour will start at the main building’s Visitor Center. Participants can learn about the unique history of the world’s first permanently occupied mountain top observatory, the eccentric California pioneer James Lick, technology used for observing on different telescopes along the tour route, and current science being conducted at Lick Observatory.
A highlight of the tour will be visiting the dome of the 3-meter Shane Telescope to see the mountain’s largest telescope up close. After the walking tour, there will be an opportunity to enjoy the sunset, and the Gift Shop will be open. During twilight, a history lecture about James Lick and the construction of the observatory will be presented. Once the sky is dark (and weather permitting), viewing celestial objects through the historic 36-inch Great Refractor Telescope will commence. Insights will be provided throughout the evening on how we find planets beyond our solar system, how exploding stars teach us about the evolution of the universe, how we discern the nature of galaxies and black holes, how new technologies are used to undo the blurring effects of Earth’s atmosphere, and about Lick Observatory’s rich astronomical history and bright scientific future.
Complimentary coffee, tea, and hot chocolate are included with the tour. The event will last approximately 4 to 6 hours. For safety reasons and due to late hours, children under the age of 8 cannot participate; this event is recommended for ages 12 years and up. Visitors should be prepared to walk about one mile during the evening, including taking stairs. Events are held rain or shine. Weather may restrict telescope viewings, but other activities will still take place. Due to historic construction of telescope domes and safety concerns, the telescopes are not wheelchair accessible at this time. Those having difficulty navigating stairs may also find the telescopes inaccessible.
Maximum of 30 people per tour.
Tickets go on sale July 14 at noon and are expected to sell out quickly.
Sunset Science - SOLD OUT - 09/26/2021 06:30 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Enjoy a warm summer evening of activities and stargazing on Chabot’s stunning Observation Deck! Learn about stellar concepts and preview our new offerings with special demonstrations, hands-on challenges and more. When the Sun goes down, the stars come out for exploring the cosmos through historic telescopes.
Monday, 09/27/2021
UC Berkley Theoretical Astrophysics Center Seminar - 09/27/2021 12:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
Speaker: Maya Fishback
Unraveling soil community dynamics in the face of global change - Livestream - 09/27/2021 04:00 PM
Stanford University
Dr. Matthew McCary studies the relationship between soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning within the context of global change. He received his PhD in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Illinois-Chicago in 2016, where he studied the impacts of invasive plants on forest soil communities. He then investigated how variation in soil resources can alter ecosystem dynamics as an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2017-2019) and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University (2020). His research program is multidisciplinary, which includes observational and experimental studies, mathematical and statistical modeling, and molecular techniques. Matthew recently joined the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology faculty of the BioSciences Department at Rice University in 2021.
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Stanford Energy Seminar: Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves, CPUC - 09/27/2021 04:00 PM
Stanford Energy Seminar
Martha Guzman Aceves was appointed Commissioner at the CPUC by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. on Dec. 28, 2016. Her portfolio includes issues related to distributed energy (Net Energy Metering, Demand Response Programs, and Energy Storage), fiscal oversight of utilities (Energy Resource Recovery Accounts), broadband access (California Advanced Service Fund, High Cost Funds A and B, Broadband Deployment), water affordability and conservation, increasing access to clean energy programs for Disadvantaged Communities (San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy, SOMAH, DAC SASH, DAC Community Solar) and preventing disconnections of basic utilities. She spearheaded the Interagency Solar Consumer Protection Taskforce, a collaboration with the Contractor State License Board and Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. Additionally, Commissioner Guzman Aceves serves as co-chair of the Emerging Trends Committee, and is one of two Commissioners on the Senate Bill 350 Disadvantaged Communities Advisory Group in coordination with the California Energy Commission. She also represents the CPUC on the California Broadband Council, the Lithium Valley Commission. In May 2021, Commissioner Guzman Aceves was appointed to the NRRI Board of Directors.
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Studies of light and matter interactions in the x-ray regime have long been instrumental to the advancement of condensed matter physics, lifted by synchrotron radiation sources that deliver high-throughput x-ray photons. Today, widespread initiatives exist to add the element of spatial coherence to the x-ray beam, which is believed could render new information about the nature of quantum matter at various spatiotemporal scales. However, there are still open questions about how the beam’s coherence can be utilized in clever ways to yield completely new information. In this talk, we show a possibility of exploiting the coherence in a completely new way. By confining the sampling to a simple spatial structure with only a few elements, a well-defined Fourier transform is easy to track (like a slit interference pattern). This simplification occurs naturally at the onset of a first order phase transition when domains begin to form.
Using resonant coherent x-ray diffraction (RCXD), we study the formation of antiferromagnetic domains in the correlated antiferromagnet PrNiO3. We demonstrate that it is possible to quantitatively extract the arrangements and sizes of the first-formed domains from single resonant coherent x-ray diffraction patterns. At the onset of the antiferromagnetic transition, the ordered domains are dilute in the beam spot, thus resulting in relatively simple coherent diffraction patterns, which can be inverted manually through a combination of visual inspection, system knowledge and trial and error. The success of our analysis suggests that a resonant Bragg coherent diffractive imaging approach with iterative phase retrieval algorithms may be effective in studying both these and even more complex antiferromagnetic spin textures. As an outlook, we argue that the same approach could be extended to a time-structured light source in order to study the motion of dilute dynamically driven domains, or to track the motion of topological defects in an antiferromagnetic spin texture.
Speaker: Alex Frano, UC San Diego
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Embattling for a Deep Fake Dystopia - Livestream - 09/27/2021 07:00 PM
SF Bay Association of Computing Machinery
Recent advances in the democratization of AI have been enabling the widespread use of generative models, causing the exponential rise of fake content. Nudification of over[masked] women by a social bot, impersonation scams worth millions of dollars, or spreading political misinformation through synthetic politicians are just the footfall of the deep fake dystopia. As every technology is simultaneously built with its counterpart to neutralize it, this is the perfect time to fortify our eyes with deep fake detectors. Deep fakes depend on photorealism to disable our natural detectors: we cannot simply look at a video to decide if it is real. On the other hand, this realism is not preserved in physiological, biological, and physical signals of deep fakes, yet. In this talk, I will begin with presenting our renowned Fake Catcher, which detects synthetic content in portrait videos using heart beats, as a preventive solution for the emerging threat of deep fakes. Detectors blindly utilizing deep learning are not as effective in catching fake content, as generative models keep producing formidably realistic results. My key assertion follows that such signals hidden in portrait videos can be used as an implicit descriptor of authenticity, like a generalizable watermark of humans, because they are neither spatially nor temporally preserved in deep fakes. Building robust and accurate deep detectors by exhaustively analyzing heartbeats, PPG signals, eye vergence, and gaze movements of deep fake actors reinforce our perception of reality. Moreover, we also innovate novel models to detect the source generator of any deep fake by exploiting its heart beats to unveil residuals of different generative models. Achieving leading results over both existing datasets and our recently introduced in-the-wild dataset justifies our approaches and pioneers a new dimension in deep fake research.
Speaker: Ilke Demir, Intel
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Wonderfest - Decoding the Blueprints of Life with Synthetic Biology & Physics - 09/27/2021 07:00 PM
Hopmonk Tavern Novato
Although humanity now knows the genetic sequences of many animals (including ourselves), the functions of these sequences -- the blueprints of life, so to speak -- often remain a mystery. In recent years, we have harnessed the power of synthetic biology and theoretical physics to glean new understanding of these mysterious genetic sequences. This presentation will highlight some new ways of thinking that have led to breakthroughs in decoding the blueprints of life.
Speaker: Jonathan, Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub
Tuesday, 09/28/2021
Ultrafast Domain Wall Dynamics in Metallic and Insulating Ferrimagnets - Livestream - 09/28/2021 02:30 PM
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
230Th/U burial dating of eggshells - 09/28/2021 03:30 PM
Natural Science Annex Santa Cruz
Perfect Storm: Climate Change in Asia - Livestream - 09/28/2021 05:00 PM
Stanford University
Sharktober - Celebrating Sharks: Why We Need Them, Why We Need to Protect Them - Livestream - 09/28/2021 07:00 PM
American Cetacean Society
Wednesday, 09/29/2021
Digital Redlining - Livestream - 09/29/2021 12:00 PM
CITRIS Research Exchange
Plastics & Climate: How Single-Use Packaging is Fueling the Crisis - Livestream - 09/29/2021 02:00 PM
Plastic Pollution Coalition
Estuary and Ocean Science Center Seminar - Livestream - 09/29/2021 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center
September LASER Event - Livestream - 09/29/2021 06:00 PM
LASER Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous
Thursday, 09/30/2021
Creating a Brighter, Greener Future for Coyote Valley Together - Livestream - 09/30/2021 11:00 AM
Peninsula Open Space Trust
UC Berkeley Astronomy Colloquium - 09/30/2021 12:40 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
Oak Galls for Natural Dyes - Livestream - 09/30/2021 01:00 PM
UC Botanical Garden
The Tug of War that Shapes the Universe - Livestream - 09/30/2021 05:00 PM
SLAC Public Lecture
All the Humpback Whales of the Pacific Ocean Building a knowledge of the individual whales of the entire hemisphere - 09/30/2021 05:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
NightLife: Culture Clash - 09/30/2021 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
After Dark: Discover the Wonder - 09/30/2021 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Friday, 10/01/2021
Pumpkin Days - 10/01/2021 10:00 AM
CuriOdyssey San Mateo
How to Get Started in Night Photography - Livestream - 10/01/2021 11:30 AM
Astronomical Society of Edinburgh
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics Seminar - 10/01/2021 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Saturday, 10/02/2021
All about Bats - 10/02/2021 01:30 PM
Environmental Volunteers EcoCenter Palo Alto
Virtual Telescope Viewing - Livestream - 10/02/2021 09:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center
Sunday, 10/03/2021
Wonderfest - Winning the Climate and Social Justice Crises - 10/03/2021 02:00 PM
Alameda Free Library Alameda
Monday, 10/04/2021
Chemically tuning the exotic ground states of pyrochlore magnets - Livestream - 10/04/2021 10:00 AM
UC Berkeley
UC Berkley Theoretical Astrophysics Center Seminar - 10/04/2021 12:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
Innovation, Conservation and Repurposing in Root Cell Type Development - Livestream - 10/04/2021 04:00 PM
Stanford University