Hello again Science Fans!
Have you ever suddenly wondered about a perfectly normal English word that you probably use now and then? I woke up the other day with the word “bushel” stuck in my thoughts. The more I wondered about why it was there, the stranger the word seemed.
I know how the word came into my head. The night before, I was in the YouTube rabbit hole again, watching a post from a young farmer in Nebraska who was talking about how many bushels of corn from her farm she was taking to the storage facility. My subconscous must have been working on this for me to wake up with it foremost in my mind though.
Bushel is a word we used to use more often. I can remember seeing bushel baskets of apples and potatoes at farmer’s markets and in stores. You can still get them, but they aren’t as common as they used to be.
While bushel was originally the container itself, it became a unit of measure, and, of course, the size of a bushel depends on whether it is dry or liquid, and whether you are talking about an imperial or US bushel. The imperial version holds 9.6076 US liquid gallons, while the US version holds 9.3092.
Once I woke up and thought about this, I just had to look up all these facts, as well as the origin of the word (Old French), although they probably pronounced it boo-SHELL in French.
Well, now you’re down the rabbit hole with me.
January set another monthly heat record around the world, despite a colder than usual US, and a cooling La Nina current. The next four years won’t offer much help for the climate from the US as the new administration wants to pull us from the Paris Climate Accords (again!), as well as removing any reference to climate change from government websites, documents, policy, etc. If we ban the terms, the problem simply doesn’t exist.
Sigh.
In news from the animal kingdom, this cute little guy is a Mount Lyell shrew. Apparently they are very camera shy as no photographs of them exist…until now!
These shrews live in the high Sierra Nevada and were first identified almost 100 years ago. Some UC Berkeley and University of Arizona students decided to try to capture them on film, and succeeded.
There’s another thing you probably don’t think about much, and that is how, as a young child, you learned to distinguish one word from another. Think about it. When we speak, our words don’t have space between them, yet over time we learn to identify where one word ends and another word begins. It turns out we aren’t the only species to learn this. New research finds that whales also use the same mechanism, known as Zipf’s law, to learn whalesong. This “law” applies to all languages Humans speak. And this may apply to other animals as well, not just whales.
The Perseverance Mars rover has been collecting rock samples on Mars since it arrived in 2021. The plan was to send another mission to Mars at some point that would pick up all these samples and return them to Earth. That mission is in jeopardy due to rising costs and complexity, so NASA is looking at alternative missions to the original. Of course, this will delay the return of the material a few (more) years. The latest sample, #26, is unlike anything we’ve seen on Mars before and is believed to be ancient crust that was brought to the surface through an ancient impact.
While the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) continues to send us breathtaking images from deep in space and time, a new space telescope is set to launch later this month. Named SPHEREx, it will take images of the entire celestial sky in 102 infrared colors! SPHEREx will launch no earlier than February 27, and will share the SpaceX rocket with PUNCH, a group of 4 small satellites meant to study the sun.
What a time to be an astronomer!
Have you been to the island of Santorini? When most people think of a Greek island, Santorini is probably the one they picture, and it is a beautiful place. I attended a wedding there 9 years ago. Santorini owes its existance to a volcano. Apparently, the magma under this volcano is moving, as a 5.2 earthquake this past Wednesday was the strongest of a swarm of quakes that have happened there in the recent weeks. Thousands have fled the island as a state of emergency was declared. Let’s hope things settle down.
The new administration’s attacks on science and research continue. One announcement this week that came from the National Institutes of Health said grant money for “indirect” research costs would be cut from grants, starting tomorrow. This indirect money pays for buildings, labs, equipment, and utilities. The money isn’t being totally eliminated, just cut from an upper limit of 30% of a grant, to 15%. Apparently some grant recipients are believed to use more than 30% of a grant to fund indirect costs, or even costs not related to the grant at all. So why not go after the offending institutions and leave the rest alone?
Why, indeed.
Have a great week in Science! I will be back in two weeks.
Bob Siederer
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Monday, 02/10/2025
The Insect Barcoding Initiative - 02/10/2025 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Speaker: Brad Balukjian, California Academy of Sciences
What in the Galaxy is Scattering Cosmic Rays? - 02/10/2025 12:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
Cosmic rays with energies << TeV affect galaxy evolution on all scales, from ionizing protoplanetary disks and molecular clouds to driving galactic outflows that alter the gas phase hundreds of kiloparsecs from the galactic disk. All models of cosmic-ray physics on "marco" scales (> pc) are sensitive to the assumed models of cosmic-ray scattering on "micro" scales (~ au), which are observationally and theoretically unconstrained. These effects are amplified in the circumglactic medium, where models that fit existing data can vary by many orders of magnitude in their predictions for the cosmic-ray transport rate. Traditional first-principles models, which assume these magnetic fluctuations are weak and uniformly scatter CRs in a homogeneous ISM, struggle to reproduce basic observables such as the dependence on CR residence times and scattering rates on rigidity. In this talk, I will explore a new category of "Patchy" CR scattering models, wherein CRs are predominantly scattered by intermittent strong scattering structures with small volume-filling factors.
Speaker: Iryna Butsky, Stanford University
Quantifying and extracting multi-scale information from nanoscale heterogeneity using coherent X-ray scattering - 02/10/2025 02:30 PM
Birge Hall Berkeley
The question of fluctuation and population growth at the local level and how that influences global properties has been studied extensively in physical, biological and social sciences. In liquids and colloidal solutions, fluctuations are ubiquitous. In quantum material interplay of fluctuation and phase transitions is an important topic of research.
In this talk I will show how we can work at the interface of condensed matter and statistical physics using coherent X-ray scattering and obtain information about local events that provides pathway for phase transition. We show that phase transition in amorphous FeGe (a-FeGe) magnetic thin films involve existence of nanoscale fluctuation "hot-spots" whose origin lies in local non-equilibrium states. The fluctuating hot spots start over a small fraction of the domains at random length scales, and the fluctuating population gradually grows non-linearly into collective fluctuations. The growth of the fluctuation population resembles dynamic coherence length which forms the basis of phase transition. We also studied the distribution of the fluctuation amplitude and it followed a gaussian distribution implying ergodic dynamics whereas few kelvins below this transition temperature the distribution becomes skewed or asymmetric due to non-ergodic behavior. Our approach provides a new way to evaluate the statistics of the fluctuations in many classes of heterogeneous materials.
Finally, I will show our recent studies on generating soft X-ray orbital angular momentum (OAM) beams. I will show how we have used the OAM beam to distinguish degenerate ground state in an artificial antiferromagnet. OAM beam has the potential to unravel new information about quantum properties in materials.
Speaker: Sujoy Roy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Queueing Solutions for Scheduling Today's Data Center Jobs - 02/10/2025 03:30 PM
Etcheverry Hall Berkeley
Most queueing models assume that each job runs on a single server. But this one-server-per-job model is not a good representation of today's compute jobs, particularly Machine Learning jobs. A typical data center job today occupies multiple cores concurrently, often thousands of cores. We refer to a job that concurrently occupies multiple cores as a multiserver job. Unfortunately, very little is known about response time in multiserver job queueing models. We present the first results on minimizing response time for multiserver job queueing models. We also consider today's parallel speedup jobs, which can run on any number of cores, but whose speed depends on the number of cores on which the job is run. Here it is even more complicated to understand how to best share a limited number of cores among a stream of jobs, each governed by a different speedup function. We discuss some recent optimality results in this nascent area.
Speaker: Mor Harchol-Balter, Carnegie Mellon University
Room 3108
Nucleic acid-driven self-assemblies: from viral RNA sensors to transcription factors - 02/10/2025 04:00 PM
Stanley Hall Berkeley
My laboratory focuses on the molecular mechanisms of self vs. non-self discrimination by the immune system. Our research has uncovered several protein polymerization processes - distinct from phase separation - that are triggered by nucleic acids in various immune functions. Our earlier work centered on the molecular mechanisms of a family of immune receptors known as RIG-I-like receptors (RLRs), revealing how the innate immune system utilizes protein polymerization to detect viral RNA during infections and link RNA detection to the activation of antiviral signals. More recently, we have broadened our focus to explore the transcriptional regulatory mechanisms involved in T cell self-tolerance. In this presentation, I will discuss our recent findings on multimeric assembly of two key transcription factors, FoxP3 and Aire, in T cell development. In both cases, we have identified protein homo-multimerization as a common molecular principle driving cognate nucleic acid recognition and immune functions.
Speaker: Sun Hur, Harvard Medical School
Barcoding of episodic memories in the hippocampus of a food-caching bird - 02/10/2025 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford
Speaker: Selmann Chettih, Columbia University
Room: Auditorium
What are quantum computers good for? - 02/10/2025 04:00 PM
Soda Hall Berkeley
Quantum computers - computers which exploit quantum mechanics - are poised to reshape the landscape of computation. But understanding when "quantum' can help speed up algorithmic tasks is tricky, particularly for those tasks which have the greatest potential for real-world impact. In this talk, I will survey my work in quantum algorithms to understand where quantum computers will be useful. I will argue that this research can shed light, not only on quantum computation, but also on its proposed applications.
Speaker: Ewin Tang, UC Berkeley
Hunting for Hidden Order - 02/10/2025 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley
Most magnetic materials, phenomena and devices are well described in terms of the magnetic dipoles arising from the spin of their constituent electrons. There is mounting evidence, however, of intriguing magnetic behaviors that can't be explained in terms of electron spin dipole moments; these behaviors are often attributed to "hidden order" since their origin is difficult to decipher with conventional experimental probes. In this talk I will discuss some unusual magnetic effects, such as electric-field induced magnetism, magnetism on apparently non-magnetic surfaces, and unconventional spin splitting of energy bands, and show that they can be understood in terms of a "hidden order" of higher-order magnetic multipoles, beyond the magnetic dipole. While there are clear experimental signatures of such hidden multipolar order, and it is captured nicely in our computer simulations, attempts at direct measurement have so far proved elusive, and I will close with a plea for better ideas.
Speaker: Nicola Spaldin, Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich
Fraud and Tragedy In the Quest to Cure Alzheimer's - 02/10/2025 06:00 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
Award-winning investigative journalist Charles Piller joins us in San Francisco for an in-depth look at what he says is a world of fraud, corruption, deceit, and greed that have set back important work on treating Alzheimer's disease.
Nearly seven million Americans live with Alzheimer's, a tragedy that is projected to grow into a $1 trillion crisis by 2050. While families suffer and promises of pharmaceutical breakthroughs keep coming up short, investigative journalist Piller says that we've quite likely been walking the wrong path to finding a cure all along - led astray by a cabal of self-interested researchers, government accomplices, and corporate greed.
Drawing on the work in his new book Doctored, Piller highlights a whistleblower - Vanderbilt professor Matthew Schrag - whose work exposed a massive scandal. Schrag alleged that a university lab led by a precocious young scientist and a Nobel Prize - rumored director delivered apparently falsified data at the heart of the leading hypothesis about the disease.
From there, based on years of investigative reporting, Piller says he's exposed a vast network of deceit and its players, all the way up to the FDA. He points to evidence that hundreds of important Alzheimer's research papers are based on false data. In the process, he says even against a flood of money and influence, a determined cadre of scientific renegades have fought back to challenge the field's institutional powers in service to science and the tens of thousands of patients who have been drawn into trials to test dubious drugs.
Speaker: Charles Piller; Rachel Myrow, KQED, Moderator
Attend in person or online
Tuesday, 02/11/2025
UC Berkeley Organic Chemistry Seminar - 02/11/2025 11:00 AM
Latimer Hall Berkeley
Speaker: Mark Carrington, UC Berkeley
Unlocking the (in)finite potential of natural killers - A tale of two CRISPR screens - 02/11/2025 11:00 AM
Weill Hall Berkeley
Speaker: Lei Peng, Yale University
Load-Shifting Strategies for Cost-Effective Emission Reductions at Wastewater Facilities - 02/11/2025 12:00 PM
Green Earth Sciences Building Stanford
In this talk, Fletcher will discuss how energy flexibility can help reduce Scope 2 emissions of wastewater treatment facilities. Using a facility from the Bay Area as a case study, he investigates three load shifting mechanisms: a raw wastewater storage tank, a low-pressure biogas holder, and a Li-ion battery. Simulating operations using a data-driven model demonstrates how cost-optimal and emissions-optimal operation vary widely, and as a result the cost of carbon used when co-optimizing has a large impact on the resulting operation.
Speaker: Fletcher Taliesin Chapin, Stanford University
Prospects and challenges for in situ beta decay geochronology by tandem mass spectrometry - 02/11/2025 12:00 PM
Braun (Geology) Corner (Bldg 320), Rm 220 Stanford
The development of tandem mass spectrometers equipped with collision cells has enabled online interference removal for ICP-MS, with special attention paid to beta decay systems used for geochronology (e.g., Rb-Sr, Lu-Hf). Looking toward the future, novel applications of LA-MC-ICP-MS/MS will expand many fields that utilize high precision isotope geochemistry, including geochronology, biology, and nuclear forensics.
Speaker: alicia Marie Cruz-Uribe, University of Maine
Attend in person or online (see weblink to request information)
Bill Gates and Partick Collison, In Conversation - Livestream - 02/11/2025 01:00 PM
Computer History Museum
Join us for an extraordinary CHM Live event as we welcome Bill Gates to discuss his deeply personal new memoir, Source Code, in conversation with Patrick Collison, cofounder and CEO of Stripe.
The business triumphs of Bill Gates are widely known: the twenty-year-old who dropped out of Harvard to start a software company that became an industry giant and changed the way the world works and lives; the billionaire many times over who turned his attention to philanthropic pursuits to address climate change, global health, and U.S. education.
Source Code is not about Microsoft or the Gates Foundation or the future of technology. It's the human, personal story of how Bill Gates became who he is today: his childhood, his early passions and pursuits. It's the story of his principled grandmother and ambitious parents, his first deep friendships and the sudden death of his best friend; of his struggles to fit in and his discovery of a world of coding and computers in the dawn of a new era; of embarking in his early teens on a path that took him from midnight escapades at a nearby computer center to his college dorm room, where he sparked a revolution that would change the world.
Bill Gates tells this, his own story, for the first time: wise, warm, revealing, it's a fascinating portrait of an American life.
What You'll Experience
A fireside chat with Bill Gates discussing his new memoir, Source Code, moderated by Stripe CEO Patrick Collison.Lessons, insights, and stories from the formative early years of one of the world's most impactful leaders.
In-person tickets are sold out. This event will be available to watch on the Museum's YouTube channel, here.
Discovering the Highest Energy Astrophysical Neutrinos - 02/11/2025 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
The detection of high energy astrophysical neutrinos is an important step toward understanding the most energetic cosmic accelerators. IceCube, an observatory at the South Pole, has observed the first astrophysical neutrinos and identified potential sources. However, the best sensitivity at the highest energies comes from detectors that look for coherent radio Cherenkov emission from neutrino interactions. I will give an overview of the state of experimental efforts, including a new suite of new experiments that are currently being constructed to discover neutrinos at the highest energies. These include the ground-based experiment RNO-G, which is under construction at Summit Station in Greenland, and the balloon-borne experiment PUEO, which is scheduled to launch in December 2025.
Speaker: Abigail Vieregg, Stanford University
Ultrafast Quantum Photonics: Beating Decoherence with Light - 02/11/2025 04:00 PM
Latimer Hall Berkeley
Ultrafast optical pulses - femtoseconds to picoseconds in duration - are gaining interest for quantum processing due to their potential to encode information in brief time-bins, especially in scenarios with rapid decoherence.
The development of two essential components for optical quantum technologies are discussed: an optical Kerr effect switch in single-mode fibres and a fibre cavity photon memory. The switch controls single photon routing without adding noise, while the memory addresses a key scaling challenge by temporarily storing quantum states without loss of coherence, enabling quantum process synchronization.
We then explore the application of these components in photonic quantum processing and quantum sensing, including random walks and more general processing, as well as quantum enhanced ranging and approaches to imaging and spectroscopy using correlated photons.
Speaker: Benjamin Sussman, Adjunct Professor, Univeristy of Ottowa
Ambient IoT: Powering and Connecting the Next Information Frontier - 02/11/2025 04:00 PM
Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley
The Internet of Things (IoT) is envisioned to open up exciting new opportunities to gather and use data - from insights about our environment and food supply, to monitoring our health, and beyond. However, most current IoT deployments are rather uninspiring: nobody cares about a new smart toaster, for example. Instead, the future of IoT will be driven by small, ambiently-powered sensors, designed to communicate directly with smartphones, WiFi routers, and other existing infrastructure in order to provide for ultra-low-cost and pervasive deployment, all while providing insightful, actionable information to end users. In order to get to the enabling sizes and power levels needed to enable this vision, research in ultra-low-power wireless communication technologies, sensor interfaces, power management, and energy harvesting is needed. This presentation will outline my vision and research progress on each of these topics towards the next generation of Ambient IoT applications. Specifically, we will dive into the design of energy-efficient RF receivers that wake-up in response to standards-compatible signatures, discuss standards-compatible backscatter modulators that consume 1,000x lower power than conventional transceivers, demonstrate ultra-high-dynamic range sensor interface electronics robust to motion artifacts, introduce new topological innovations in integrated power electronics that improve efficiency and power density, and describe new directions in biofuel-based energy-harvesting and self-powered sensing systems. Together, innovations in these areas will help pave the way for small, efficient, and cost-effective ambiently-powered devices.
Speaker: Patrick Mercier, UC San Diego
'Legion 44' - 02/11/2025 05:00 PM
Traitel Building Stanford
You are invited to a screening of Legion 44, a documentary film about the rise of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR).
Join film director Leila Conners and Stanford Energy Club, Stanford Founders Club, and the Bay Area sustainability community in an opportunity to learn and engage with the innovators and thought leaders around CDR.
For those wanting an introduction to several compelling CDR strategies, this film captivates with stunning environmental footage and lets you hear first-hand from CDR ecopreneurs.
Register at weblink to attend
Birding in the Amazon - 02/11/2025 07:30 PM
Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History Pacific Grove
Peru has the second highest bird diversity of all countries on the globe, with 1877 species of bird reported there. The topography of Peru is very complex, resulting in a delightful variety of habitats and bird species. Jenn will cover birding in the Peruvian jungle and mountain highlands, an area with the world's greatest bird diversity and share best practices to plan and pack for a rugged, high altitude adventure.
Jenn Jackson is a lifelong nature fan. After a 26-year career with the San Francisco Police Department, she transferred her observational skills to bird watching.
Hear all about Jenn's incredible birding trip!
Wednesday, 02/12/2025
AI in the Enterprise: What Works, What Doesn't, and What's Next - Livestream - 02/12/2025 10:00 AM
Stanford University
Join us for a conversation with Yoav Shoham, a leading AI expert who has received multiple awards for his significant contributions to the field. Shoham is the founder of several successful AI companies, the most recent being AI21 Labs. He is also a professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford University.
In this event, Haim Mendelson, faculty director of the Value Chain Innovation Initiative at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, will lead the conversation with Professor Shoham. Together, they will delve into the evolving landscape of enterprise AI, examining its current state and future trajectory. They will address key questions such as why enterprise deployments often lag behind consumer adoption, the limitations of LLMs in enterprise applications, and whether AI agents represent meaningful progress or simply the latest hype.
Register at weblink to receive connection information
Modernizing analytical measurement of marine inorganic carbon - Livestream - 02/12/2025 11:00 AM
Monterey Bay Research Institute
As a newly appointed engineer in Todd Martz's lab at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, I have been working with Dr. Martz as well as Andrew Dickson and Ralph Keeling on modernizing how we make the highest quality marine inorganic CO2 system measurements with the intention of renovating the presently used systems at SIO that are now near end of life. Rather than swapping out obsolete components on systems designed decades ago, we are exploring new pathways to update and improve how we measure the marine CO2 system. In this talk I will share some preliminary work on our proposed redesign of pH and Total Alkalinity bench systems. Â Additionally, I will provide updates on my ongoing work of measuring Total Alkalinity in situ and new collaborative efforts with MBARI.
Speaker: Ellen Briggs, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Register for Zoom at weblink
Know Your Newts - Livestream - 02/12/2025 12:00 PM
UC Botanical Garden
Love and poison are in the water! The peaceful waters of the Japanese Pool - a haven for amphibian mating season - also house a deadly surprise: the cute newts that live there have a powerful neurotoxin in their skin. Thankfully, the only way to be poisoned by a newt is to eat it, and newt predators have evolved fascinating strategies to survive the toxin. In this presentation, we will cover the basics of newt toxins, life cycles, ecology, and the history of newt research in California. You will also learn about the exciting newt science projects underway in the Botanical Garden.
Speaker: Kannon Pearson, UC Berkeley
Register at weblink
Monitoring and Modeling Net Ecosystem Carbon Balance in Wetlands - 02/12/2025 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Speaker: Patty Oikawa, CSU East Bay
From Peru to California: How ocean processes influence prey and predator abundance in coastal areas? - 02/12/2025 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center Tiburon
Speaker: Jaime Jahncke, Director, California Current Group, Point Blue Conservation Science
Attend in person or click here to watch on Zoom
28 Months Later: Inside the Sprint to Implement the Inflation Reduction Act - 02/12/2025 04:30 PM
Stanford University Energy Seminar Stanford
The legislative history of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the most significant climate and clean energy legislation in U.S. history, has been widely covered by the political press. Since President Biden signed the bill into law - and particularly since Donald Trump won re-election in November - reporters have continued to focus on the politics of the IRA - Is it popular? Is it vulnerable to repeal? Are Republicans coming around to support it after all? Less well understood is what it takes to turn an ambitious but flawed piece of legislation into action. What do you do first, second, third? How much certainty do businesses need to invest? Where should federal grant dollars go? What happens when a major bill still doesn't do enough? And, critically, what happens now? This talk will take attendees inside the nuts and bolts of implementation, highlight what the law has already accomplish and is poised to achieve in the years to come, and discuss areas where, despite its massive ambition, the Inflation Reduction Act's programs and incentives may still fall short in spurring a clean energy economy of sufficient scope and scale to address climate change.
Speaker: Kirstina Costa, former Dirctor, Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, Biden White House
Ask an Epidemiologist! Everything you wanted to know about the flu (and vaccines) but were afraid to ask - 02/12/2025 07:30 PM
Marin Science Seminar San Rafael
Ever wondered how the flu spreads and how scientists predict what it's going to do? How about the flu vaccine? Join us to learn all about that and more from two local public health researchers!
Speakers: Michaela George and Brett Sayles, Dominican University
Thursday, 02/13/2025
Silicon Valley Leaders Symposium - 02/13/2025 12:00 PM
Silicon Valley Leaders Symposium San Jose
Speaker: Madhubala Ayyamperumal, Five Design Architecture and Interiors
The Nature of Adolescence - 02/13/2025 12:30 PM
Valley Life Sciences Building Berkeley
Humans have a multi-year life stage that begins with pubertal onset and ends with a shift into full adulthood. This period is rife with behavioral and emotional vulnerabilities that include rejection, injury, and the onset of lasting mental health problems. To illuminate the evolution of this life stage, my research among both our closest living relatives - chimpanzees and bonobos - confirms not only the existence of an prolonged adolescent transition but further suggests that vulnerabilities experienced during adolescence may arise from behavioral adaptations aimed at both learning and the forging of social bonds with peers, mates and potential mentors. In developing this research, I'll draw on both my fieldwork on bonobos at Kokolopori and Lola ya Bonobo in the Democratic Republic of Congo and my ongoing studies of chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda, where I co-direct the Ngogo Chimpanzee Project.
Speaker: Rachna Reddy, University of Utah
Architecting Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computers for Today and Tomorrow - 02/13/2025 01:00 PM
Cory Hall Berkeley
Quantum computers represent a new computing paradigm and have the potential to serve as a disruptive tool for scientific discovery and practical applications. However, they face the fundamental challenges of errors and decoherence. Quantum error correction (QEC) and fault-tolerant quantum computation (FTQC) are therefore crucial for realizing the promise of quantum computing. In this talk, I will describe how recent experimental and theoretical advances motivate new architectures for fault-tolerant quantum computers. I will first present our realization of early-FT logical algorithms and key building blocks of large-scale universal FTQC in neutral atom quantum computers. Motivated by these emerging capabilities of hardware architectures, I will then describe how theoretical advances, such as quantum low-density parity-check codes and improved fault tolerance constructions, can enable drastic reductions in the space and time overhead of FTQC. Altogether, this co-design of hardware architecture, quantum error correction, and quantum algorithms represents a promising path to architecting utility-scale quantum computers.
Speaker: Hengyun Zhou, QuEra Computing
SETI Live: Earth Detecting Earth - Livestream - 02/13/2025 02:30 PM
SETI Institute
If an extraterrestrial civilization existed with technology similar to ours, would they be able to detect Earth and evidence of humanity? If so, what signals would they detect, and from how far away? Researchers used a theoretical, modeling-based method, and this study is the first to analyze multiple types of technosignatures together rather than separately. The findings revealed that radio signals, such as planetary radar emissions from the former Arecibo Observatory, are Earth's most detectable technosignatures, potentially visible from up to 12,000 light-years away. Join Simon Steel, Deputy Director of the Carl Sagan Center, for a chat with lead author Sofia Sheikh about the research's findings and their implications for the search for technosignatures.
The Neural Basis of Affective States - 02/13/2025 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford
Speaker: Amit Vinograd, California Institute of Technology
Room: Auditorium
Human-AI Systems for Accessible Visual Communication - 02/13/2025 04:00 PM
Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley
Communication dictates our ability to learn, connect, and act in the world. Visual media such as images, videos, and presentations are now central to communication across education, work, and personal life. While such media is engaging and informative, current interfaces make it difficult for millions of people with disabilities or limited technology experience to fully participate in understanding and authoring digital communication.
What future interactions can make digital communication accessible to all users???
In this talk, I will share a thread of work from my lab on Human-AI systems that integrate multiple communication modalities (e.g., text, video, and audio) to: (1) make video consumption accessible for blind and low vision audiences, and (2) enable blind and low vision creators to produce visual content.
Speaker: Amy Pavel, University of Texas, Austin
NightLife - 02/13/2025 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.
Step inside the iconic Shake House and our four-story Osher Rainforest, where you can explore the Amazon's treetops surrounded by free-flying birds and butterflies.
Venture into our 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 Cafe and head to the West Garden outdoor bar to drink and dine under the stars.
Ages 21+
After Dark: Sexplorations - 02/13/2025 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Slip into something comfortable and learn about all the ways the natural world gets it on.
Ages 18+
Can Star Trek teach us about Evolution? Yup! - Livestream - 02/13/2025 06:30 PM
Bay Area Skeptics
While some people choose to learn about evolution through coursework, a large number of people could be interested in the subject if brought to them wrapped in another subject in which they are already engaged. In this talk, Prof. Noor introduces evolutionary concepts, thinking, and approaches framed using depictions from the Star Trek television franchise.
Speaker: Mohamed Noor, Duke University
Click HERE to watch.
Bay Area Wildlife Guide - Livestream - 02/13/2025 07:00 PM
Marin Audubon Society
Jeff Miller will discuss his book "Bay Area Wildlife: An Irreverent Guide", a quirky and entertaining wildlife guide to the greater San Francisco Bay Area, which invites readers to connect with and conserve local species. Featuring over 100 native creatures, from mammals to invertebrates, this informative primer is a treasure map for regional wildlife. Learn about the Bay Area's furred, feathered, and fork- tongued neighbors - from "screaming death parrots" (aka peregrine falcons) to "bad-ass Looney Tunes velociraptors" (roadrunners). The book's colorful descriptions cover each species' natural history and fun facts, tips on when and where to find watchable wildlife, and notes on each animal's conservation status.
Jeff Miller is an amateur naturalist and professional conservationist, and is the founder of the nonprofit Alameda Creek Alliance
Register at weblink for Zoom information
Friday, 02/14/2025
Morning Hike at Rancho Canada del Oro - 02/14/2025 09:00 AM
Rancho Canada Del Oro Open Space Preserve Morgan hill
Join Peninsula Open Space Trust for an excursion where you'll explore the Mayfair Ranch - Longwall Canyon trails of Rancho Canada del Oro! You will be guided by POST Ambassadors who will share with you the history of the preserve, the region, and the importance of conservation in the area.
The hike is moderate to strenuous at about 4 miles round trip with about 700 feet of gradual elevation gain.
This wonderful preserve is a hub for wildlife, such as deer, bobcats, mountain lions, and more! In the Spring, you can expect a colorful array of wildflowers adorning the hillsides, and you may get a chance to see a beautiful little creek running through Llagas meadow.
Register at weblink.
Synthesis, Light Emission, and Lasing in Organic Semiconductor-Incorporated Perovskite (OSiP) - 02/14/2025 04:00 PM
Latimer Hall Berkeley
Halide perovskites are exciting new semiconductors that show a great promise in low cost and high-performance optoelectronics devices. However, the poor stability is limiting their practical use. In this talk, I will present a molecular approach to the synthesis of a new family of hybrid material - Organic Semiconductor-incorporated Perovskite (OSiP), which are more versatile and intrinsically stable. Energy transfer and charge transfer between adjacent organic and inorganic layers are extremely fast and efficient, owing to the atomically flat interface and short interlayer distance. In addition, the rigid conjugated ligand design dramatically enhances their chemical stability, suppresses solid-state ion diffusion, and modulates electron-phonon coupling, making them useful in many applications, particularly in solid-state lighting. Using these stable hybrid materials, we demonstrate efficient light emission and amplification in single crystalline nanostructures, epitaxial heterostructures, and polycrystalline thin films.
Speaker: Letian Dou, Purdue University
Feel The Future: A Valentine's Evening - 02/14/2025 06:30 PM
Herbst Theater San Francisco
This Valentine's Day, immerse yourself in an evening of thought-provoking conversation and imagination with Ahmed Best - award-winning actor, writer, producer, educator, and a true visionary of our shared future. From his groundbreaking role as the world's first major CGI character actor in Star Wars to his work as a Jedi Master in The Mandalorian, Best has continually redefined the boundaries of performance and technology.
But Best's impact reaches far beyond the screen. As a pioneer in Afrofuturism and co-creator of AfroRithm Futures Group, he has dedicated his career to exploring the intersections of culture, technology, and collective imagination. Drawing from his remarkable experiences??"from the birth of hip-hop to the forefront of the digital entertainment revolution??"Best will take us on a journey through the cultural movements that have shaped our present and illuminate how we can craft the future together.
Our evening is hosted by Long Now Board Member Lisa Kay Solomon, a best-selling author, educator, and Futurist in Residence at the Stanford d.school, who will explore with Ahmed the role of optimism, collaboration, and storytelling in shaping the world to come. Together, they will uncover how the joy of creative expression and the power of shared dreaming can inspire new possibilities for humanity.
Saturday, 02/15/2025
Robo Lab at CuriOdyssey - 02/15/2025 10:00 AM
CuriOdyssey San Mateo
Do you have an interest in building and design? Come check out our Robo Lab! Over four hours, participants will get to tour our exhibits workshop and see how the engineering process plays out. You will design your own circuits as an introduction to electricity, then build and test your own robot creations.
Dream Garden: New AI-Powered Immersive Exhibit at The Tech Interactive - 02/15/2025 10:00 AM
The Tech Interactive San Jose
Dream Garden is a first-of-its-kind, AI-powered immersive exhibit that transforms your ideas and movements into a vibrant, surreal ecosystem. Designed to spark curiosity and inspire wonder, this playful experience invites visitors of all ages and abilities to step into a dream-like world and explore the creative possibilities of AI. After immersing yourself in the beauty of the exhibit, peek behind the curtain to discover the innovative technology that brings it to life. Whether you're an AI enthusiast or new to the concept, Dream Garden offers a fun and inclusive way to better understand this ever-changing technology.
Dream Garden is permanent exhibit at The Tech Interactive, opening February 15th. You can visit on February 15 or any time after!
Career-Ready with AI, genAI & Agents - 02/15/2025 02:00 PM
UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Campus Santa Clara
The past two years have seen rapid advances in AI technologies. This has brought about a tectonic shift in the perception of AI. Be it a startup or a traditional business, adoption is only increasing.
Students and industry executives alike are keen on pivoting to AI and GenAI. Join the American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin for insights from speakers from industry and academia to share what it means to be ready with GenAI.
Agenda (tentative):
2 PM | Opening Intros & Welcome from ASEI and UCSC
2:30 PM | Keynote
2:45 PM | Panel 1: State of AI
3 PM | Panel: 2: Latest industry Applications and Use Cases
3:30 PM | Career Pivot with AI, Infra, LLMs & Agents
4 PM | Fireside Chat: Privacy and Responsible AI + Vote of thanks & Celebrating 10 years of ASEI in Silicon Valley
4:30 PM | Networking Mixer
See weblink to register, and for discount information for UC Santa Cruz student who join ASEI Silicon Valley
Valentine's Day at The Crucible: Pour Your Heart Out - 02/15/2025 05:00 PM
The Crucible Oakland
Celebrate Valentine's Day with an unforgettable evening of art, creativity, and molten magic at The Crucible! This one-of-a-kind event offers a perfect mix of hands-on artistry and community connection, whether you're with a partner, friends, or flying solo.
Live Iron Pour (Outside, All Night)Step outside to witness the mesmerizing process of a live iron pour, where molten iron is heated to over 2,000°F and poured into molds to create stunning cast-metal pieces. This rare and dramatic demonstration showcases the skill and artistry of our talented foundry team and is an event highlight you won't want to miss.
Live Music & Performances (Inside)Enjoy an evening with live music and captivating performances inside our space. Stay tuned for our lineup announcement!
Tasty Food & Drinks (Inside)Indulge in delicious food from Ollies American Cheese + Provisions and sip on beer from Drake's Brewing, available for purchase throughout the event.
Art in Action (Inside)Explore two floors of studios where local artists will be working and showcasing their craft. Unique, handmade art pieces will be available for purchase??"perfect for gifts or a treat for yourself.
Ghost-Inspired Photo Opportunity (Inside)
Channel your inner Demi and Patrick! Recreate the iconic pottery scene from Ghost with your partner or friend in a fun and memorable photo op. We'll provide the setup - you bring your phone to capture the moment.
Sunday, 02/16/2025
How to Live with a Calculating Cat: Part 1, The Lion Mind - 02/16/2025 10:00 AM
College Nine, Lewis Multipurpose Room Santa Cruz
For the past 15 years my lab has been exploring the biology of big cats from local pumas to African lions in Kenya and South Africa. Despite a size range of 1 to 250 kilograms, in terms of attitude, cats from our domestic pets to hunting prides all act just like...cats. In this talk I'll introduce the unique mind of felids, and how the way they think makes them both fascinating and a challenge to live around.
Speaker: Terrie Williams, UC Santa Cruz
Monday, 02/17/2025
Informing Better Forestry Management Techniques for Fire Hazard Mitigation Through Information and Tools - 02/17/2025 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Speaker: Sean Reilly, UC Berkeley
Adrienne Correa, UC Berkeley, who was originally scheduled to speak today, will instead speak on April 7, 2025
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Seminar - 02/17/2025 02:30 PM
Birge Hall Berkeley
Speaker: TBA
Analogies of the Higg's Field - 02/17/2025 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
Local artist Ned Kahn will show videos and discuss the analogies between his kinetic sculptures and some of the insights of Quantum Field Theory.
UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - 02/17/2025 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley
Speaker: TBA
Tuesday, 02/18/2025
Los Angeles Wildfires: Risk, Resilience and Collective Action - 02/18/2025 12:00 PM
Social Sciences Building Room 820 Berkeley
Quantum Mechanics, Identical Particles, and the Strange Case of Anyons¦ - 02/18/2025 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
Anomalous Low-Temperature Behavior of Glasses - 02/18/2025 04:00 PM
Latimer Hall Berkeley
Wonderfest: Other Humans - 02/18/2025 07:00 PM
Hopmonk Tavern Novato
Mushrooms of Ecuador - 02/18/2025 07:30 PM
Mycological Society of San Francisco San Francisco
Wednesday, 02/19/2025
Dolphin communication: past, present and future research directions - Livestream - 02/19/2025 11:00 AM
Monterey Bay Research Institute
UC Santa Cruz Whole Earth Seminar - 02/19/2025 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Creating Technology Solutions for the Energy Transition - 02/19/2025 04:30 PM
Shriram Center Stanford
In the Footsteps of Galileo - Livestream - 02/19/2025 05:00 PM
Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Living Longer, Living Better: The Art and Science of the New Longevity - 02/19/2025 05:30 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
The Pleiades Experience: Cross-cultural Connections in Polynesia, Mesoamerica, and the Andes - RESCHEDULED - 02/19/2025 07:00 PM
San Francisco Amateur Astronomers San Francisco
Exploring Astronomy Through Touch Using 3D Printing - 02/19/2025 07:00 PM
San Francisco Amateur Astronomers San Francisco
When Machines Meet the Universe: AI and the Future of Astronomy - 02/19/2025 07:00 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
Thursday, 02/20/2025
Lunch Break Science - Livestream - 02/20/2025 11:00 AM
The Leakey Foundation
UC Berkeley Integrative Biology Seminar - 02/20/2025 12:30 PM
Valley Life Sciences Building Berkeley
State of Secure Communications in 2025 - 02/20/2025 12:30 PM
South Hall Berkeley
Performance at The Core: Geostationary Satellite Payloads - 02/20/2025 04:00 PM
Sonoma State Dept. of Engineering Science Rohnert Park
Exploring Lunar Eclipses' - Prepare for the Lunar Eclipse on Mar 13/14 - Livestream - 02/20/2025 05:00 PM
Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Lend an ear: Studying Hearing in Songbirds - Livestream - 02/20/2025 06:00 PM
Golden Gate Bird Alliance
'Try It and See' Film Presentation - 02/20/2025 07:30 PM
Bay Area Mycological Society Berkeley
Friday, 02/21/2025
The Science and Policy of Energy and Climate Justice - Livestream - 02/21/2025 10:30 AM
UC Berkeley
UC Santa Cruz Geophysical & Planetary Physics Seminar - 02/21/2025 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Catalysis Achievements and Needs for the Refinery of the Future - 02/21/2025 04:00 PM
Latimer Hall Berkeley
Mushrooms + Culture of Greece - 02/21/2025 06:00 PM
Sebastopol Grange Sebastopol
In Town Star Party - 02/21/2025 07:15 PM
San Jose Astronomical Association San Jose
Saturday, 02/22/2025
Stewardship Saturday: A Walk through the Marshes with Cafe Ohlone - 02/22/2025 09:00 AM
Coyote Hills Parking Lot Fremont
AI Enhanced Project Management - 02/22/2025 09:00 AM
UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Campus Santa Clara
Science Saturday: Fabulous Fungi - 02/22/2025 10:00 AM
Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History Pacific Grove
Salamander Search at Sanborn - 02/22/2025 10:30 AM
Sanborn Science and Nature Center Saratoga
Foothills Family Nature Walk - 02/22/2025 11:00 AM
Foothills Nature Preserve Los Altos
When Giants Ruled the Sky - 02/22/2025 11:00 AM
Hiller Aviation Museum San Carlos
CuriOdyssey Weekend Workshop: Dissection Lab - 02/22/2025 01:00 PM
CuriOdyssey San Mateo
Radical Then, Critical Now: Interdisciplinary Strategies in Environmental Conservation - 02/22/2025 01:30 PM
Hay Barn Santa Cruz
Bair Island Walking Tour - 02/22/2025 02:00 PM
Bair Island Wildlife Refuge & Trail Redwood City
Starry Nights Star Party - 02/22/2025 06:30 PM
Rancho Canada Del Oro Open Space Preserve Morgan hill
The Dragonfly mission to Titan, and the search for life in other liquids - 02/22/2025 07:30 PM
East Bay Astronomical Society Oakland
Sunday, 02/23/2025
Twilight Tales at the Refuge - 02/23/2025 04:30 PM
Don Edwards Refuge Environmental Education Center Alviso
Monday, 02/24/2025
Habitat Conservation Planning, a Legal Framework for Reconciling Development and Ecological Needs - 02/24/2025 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Eccentric Binaries and their Disks - 02/24/2025 12:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
Symbolic Systems Forum - 02/24/2025 12:30 PM
Stanford Symbolic Systems Forum Stanford
Circuit assembly and plasticity of the vertebrate retina - 02/24/2025 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope: A quest to explore the restless, high-energy Universe - 02/24/2025 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
Building Advanced AI Applications and Agents in One Hour - 02/24/2025 06:30 PM
Valley Research Park Mountain View
Wonderfest: Ask a Science Envoy: Black Holes & Kelp Forests - 02/24/2025 07:00 PM
Hopmonk Tavern Novato