Dear science aware reader,
Last Monday, September 26, the 600 kg DART spacecraft struck the 4.8 billion kg asteroid Dimorphos. An Italian CubeSat detached from DART 15 days earlier to take pictures of the collision with cameras Leia and Luke. The collision ‘should’ slow the asteroid’s speed by 2 cm/sec from its initial (stellar) velocity of about 2.3 million cm/sec (about 0.00009%). It is impossible to directly measure that tiny change in velocity, but it ‘should’ detectably alter Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos, its parent asteroid weighing in at 523 billion kg. A spacecraft named Hera will launch in 2024 and rendezvous with the asteroids in 2027 to study effects of last Monday’s experiment. Stay tuned!
Curiously, bone-dry asteroids contributed most of Earth’s water. This video explores what we know about water on Earth.
The JWST continues to give us fabulous astronomy data and photos. I particularly enjoyed this “Science of the James Webb Telescope Explained'' video.
There is still time to register for the Zoom course, “Everyday Astronomy: Orienting Yourself in Space, Time, and the Sky” taught by none other than Andrew Fraknoi and presented by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of the San Francisco State University.
As people and communities recover from Hurricane Ian, one would scarcely expect talk of a “sluggish atmosphere.” In spite of sustained 200 kph winds, timely preparations limited Cuban fatalities to only three. Could have been much worse. My partner Carmen rode out the hurricane in a Habana, Cuba hotel with its own electrical generator.
Northern hemisphere heat records were broken in many thousands of locations this summer. Here is a summary of broken records in the U.S. Of course not everyone believes that climate change is occurring or that it poses risks.
Craig W guessed 436 and the random number generator churned out 395 making him the winner of Randall Munroe’s book, How To. This time we’re offering a coffee mug. It’s a 450ml glass beaker with a handle and the chemical formula for caffeine. Just send an email to david.almandsmith [at] gmail.com (only one) before noon Friday with an integer between zero and 1,000. We will then use a random number generator to select the target number and mail the mug to the person who chose the closest number.
¿How good is your puffling throw? Every August, youngster Atlantic Puffins (pufflings) get confused by electric lights and end up crash-landing in local towns. Kids and parents hunt down errant pufflings and throw them into the sea. For other consequences of ill-designed lighting, check out this short video. (Imagine: Immediately following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, the Milky Way was visible from downtown San Francisco and many other Bay Area cities that lost power.)
Although it sometimes seems discouraging, the process of fact-checking continues to be important in reining in mis- and dis-information. A few English-language websites for fact-checking are Snopes, PolitiFact, Poynter, and FactCheck.org. ¿But what about the African continent with its surfeit of misinformation and many dozens of regional languages? That is the task taken on by AfricaCheck.
My Picks for the week:
Flocktoberfest (Birds & Beer): 6-10pm Thursday, Cal Academy of Sciences, S.F., $
First Friday: Science Fiction: 6-10pm Friday, Chabot Space & Science Ctr, Oakland, $
Autumn Arachnids Nature Walk: 3-4:30pm Saturday, Tilden Park, Berkeley
Here are a few ‘fun’ videos for you this week:
History of counting systems
Neutrino-Antineutrino research (light-hearted)
Why Is 1/137 One of the Greatest Unsolved Problems In Physics?
Faster than light communication?
“The Right Chemistry” - Diethylene Glycol
Deaths of U.S. Presidents
Dragonfly Nymphs
I recently found good definitions for ‘empathy’ and ‘empathy sphere’:
“Empathy is the capacity to understand what another person is experiencing from within the other person's frame of reference.”
An empathy sphere is “the range of beings that we consider coequally a person with ourselves, deserving of the same rights, dignities, and protections.”
As a registered dork, i must give a tip of the propeller beanie to Counselor Deanna Troi of the Starship Enterprise, who is an empath owing to her being half-Betazoid.
Enjoy your week and add some folk to your empathy sphere,
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“We have exactly 6 months, 10 days, 2 hours, 11 minutes, and 41 seconds, until a comet twice the size of Chicxulub tears through our atmosphere and extincts all life on Earth.”
–Kate Dibiasky, Astronomy Ph.D. student (Jennifer Lawrence in "Don't Look Up")
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Monday, 10/03/2022
Cohesin and Chromosome Segregation in Oocytes: a Goldilocks Scenario - 10/03/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Speaker: Dr. Neil Hunter, UC Davis
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar - CANCELED - 10/03/2022 02:30 PM
Physics North Berkeley
Speaker: TBA
See weblink for Zoom information.
Layer by Layer: Adventures in Thin Films - 10/03/2022 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
Nanometer-scale thin films are both vital to current and future technology and can also yield fascinating physics that differs from macroscopic material properties. Perovskite oxide materials in particular are a ripe playground for interesting effects since a wide variety of materials sharing similar crystal structures means that they can be manipulated like atomic Legos. Here I will highlight some of the "adventures" I've had both making and measuring these materials, with a focus on novel ferroic materials, which includes magnetic and ferroelectric systems and the search for oxides where these properties coexist. This includes using x-rays to measure film growth in real time, how atoms in crystals can be stretched into changing their properties, and recent work involving undergraduate students at CSUSB.
Speaker: Sara Callori, CSU Santa Barbara
UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - Postponed - 10/03/2022 04:15 PM
UC Berkeley
Speaker: Annie Kritcher, Lawrence Livermore National Lab
This lecture will be rescheduled in Fall, 2023
Science, Exploration and the Human Experience - 10/03/2022 07:30 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
NASA's VIPER lunar mission (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) is a mobile robot that will go to the South Pole of the Moon to get a close-up view of the location and concentration of water ice that could eventually be harvested to sustain human exploration on the Moon, Mars - and beyond. Managed out of NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, VIPER represents the first resource mapping mission on another celestial body and presents a unique operational paradigm within the history of robotic spaceflight.
Speaker: Darlene Lim, NASA Ames
Tuesday, 10/04/2022
Granular mechanics in geotechnical engineering - critical state soil mechanics - 10/04/2022 03:30 PM
Natural Science Annex Santa Cruz
Speaker: Kenichi Soga, UC Berkeley
Manipulation and control of molecular beams - 10/04/2022 04:00 PM
Physics North Berkeley
State-selective manipulation of atoms and molecules with electric and magnetic fields has been crucial for the success of the field of molecular beams. Originally, this manipulation only involved the transverse motion. In the first part of my Lecture, I will present an historical overview of the development of the Stark-decelerator, that enables to also manipulate and control the longitudinal motion of neutral, polar molecules in a beam. Together with other elements like a buncher, a storage ring and a synchrotron - all well-known for charged particles - a whole new toolbox for molecular beam research has emerged [1]. In the second part of my Lecture, I will report on our molecular beam experiments on chiral molecules and on experiments to laser cool and trap diatomic molecules. In the study of chiral molecules, photo- electron circular dichroism (PECD) [2] - a forward-backward asymmetry in the photoemission from a non-racemic sample induced by circularly polarized light - and microwave three wave mixing (M3WM) [3] have emerged as powerful new techniques during the last decades. We have demonstrated that PECD can be observed for chiral molecules in solution as well as for anions in the gas phase. We have performed M3WM experiments on a jet-cooled beam of 1-indanol, in a scheme that has enabled the first quantitative comparison of experiment and theory for the transfer efficiency in what is the simplest triangle for enantiomer-specific state transfer (ESST) for any chiral molecule, that is, the one involving the absolute ground state level [4]. In our search for "the most ideal molecule" for laser cooling and trapping, that is, yielding the highest densities of ultracold molecular samples, we have identified and focused in on aluminum monofluoride. The AlF molecule has a binding energy of almost 7 eV and a bright beam of AlF can be produced, either pulsed or cw. The photon scattering rate on the A1 P - X1 S+ band around 227 nm is very high, the Franck-Condon matrix is highly diagonal, all Q-lines of a 1 P ¬ 1 S+ transition are rotationally closed and the hyperfine splitting in the 1 S+ state is within the natural linewidth of the optical transition. The distance needed for laser slowing a beam of AlF molecules to rest will therefore be only several centimeters and the capture velocity of a MOT will be exceptionally large. We have used pulsed beams of jet-cooled AlF and beams from a buffergas source in combination with radio-frequency, microwave and optical fields to experimentally determine the properties of the lowest rotational levels in the X1 S+, A1 P and a3 P states of AlF [5, 6] and we have demonstrated efficient optical cycling on the A1 P - X1 S+band [7].
Speaker: Gerard Meijer, Fritz Haber Institute
Grounds for Science: Illuminating the Brain and Programming Viruses to Harvest Solar Energy - 10/04/2022 05:30 PM
Cafenated Coffee Company Berkeley
Illuminating the Brain: How light, color, and a jellyfish protein help us study the mind
How do we study our own brains? What's going on in our neurons? A fluorescent protein from jellyfish revolutionized how we study what goes on in our cells. Learn the history of how we've made our brain signals glow by tracking brain electricity, neurotransmitters, and calcium. Then take a peek at the field today, as scientists develop new ways to watch the electricity in our brain.
Speaker: Anneliese Gest, UC Berkeley
Programming Viruses to Harvest Solar Energy
We typically think of viruses as infectious agents that should be eliminated, but what if they could be reprogrammed for good? Come see how a virus infecting tobacco plants can be adapted to harvest light energy. By mimicking photosynthesis, we can learn how to design more efficient solar technology to help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
Speaker: Amanda Bischoff, UC Berkeley
Wednesday, 10/05/2022
Why everything you know about shark conservation is wrong: An interdisciplinary look at misinformation along the science-policy interface - Livestream - 10/05/2022 11:00 AM
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
More people know that sharks face conservation challenges and need our help more than ever before, but much of what they "know" about shark conservation is misleading, extremist, or just factually incorrect. Interdisciplinary marine conservation biologist Dr. David Shiffman studies public knowledge and attitudes about ocean conservation, and works on the causes and consequences of misunderstandings of key issues concerning conservation threats and policy solutions. This talk will review new developments in the scientific and policy realms surrounding the conservation of threatened marine predators, and cover Dr. Shiffman's recent work on public misunderstanding of these important issues.
Speaker: David Shiffman, Simon Fraser University
Register at weblink
Telepresence Robots: Designing for an Inclusive Future - Livestream - 10/05/2022 12:00 PM
CITRIS Research Exchange
Innovative approaches to technology-mediated health care require holistic, patient-centered interventions to address health challenges. Emerging telepresence and social robots have the potential to transform the health experiences of people who are restricted to their homes due to medical conditions or disabilities. Use of these robots may promote social inclusion and enable connectedness within existing physical communities. This presentation will discuss telepresence, virtual inclusion and the growing use of social telerobots in public spaces. This will include an overview of conceptual, theoretical, methodological and translational approaches to robot-mediated behavioral and developmental interventions. The Presence and Social Connectedness Framework will be explored as a tool to measure perceived connectedness and inform development of robot design features that facilitate presence and inclusion. This presentation will also explore the intersection of three disciplines (developmental psychology, human-robot interaction, human-computer interaction) that work jointly to move beyond discipline-specific approaches to address a common problem.
Speaker: Veronica Ahumada, UC Davis
Register at weblink to attend.
Leveraging old monitoring programs for new insights into San Francisco Estuary dynamics - Livestream - 10/05/2022 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center
Speaker: Sam Bashevkin, Delta Stweardship Council
Register at weblink to receive Zoom information
Metrics in Action: Lessons Learned from 30 Years of the Global Burden of Disease Study - 10/05/2022 04:10 PM
International House Berkeley
The Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) began in 1991 sponsored by the World Bank and the World Health Organization to fill a critical gap in global health information. It has grown steadily to become an active collaboration of more than 8000 scientists, researchers and policy-makers from 156 countries working together to quantify health at the national and subnational level. The GBD provides a highly standardized approach for tackling the many challenges in producing a comprehensive assessment of health overtime. The issues that need to be addressed or at least reckoned with include missing data, inconsistent case definitions, diverse instruments and assays, conflicting data, and exclusion of disadvantaged groups from administrative data. The GBD has led to new and constantly evolving approaches for correcting for bias and data synthesis. The study has generated nearly 2000 publications in the peer-reviewed literature and wide policy impact; nevertheless, it continues to generate controversy. The GBD has many limitations and ongoing developments hope to address some of these limitations. This lecture will draw some general lessons learned from three decades of the GBD both on the analysis of global health and communicating results to decision-makers.
Speaker: Christopher Murray, University of Washington
Attend in person or online
Life in the Egg - Livestream - 10/05/2022 05:30 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
Have you ever wondered how chicks develop within an egg? This informative lecture will take you through avian reproduction, how eggs are produced, egg incubation and the development of a chick within the egg. Stephanie will also touch upon the different types of development within the bird world. You will never look at an egg the same way
Speaker: Stephanie Ellis, Wild Care
Register at weblink
Christian Schwarz, co-author of "Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast" - 10/05/2022 06:00 PM
Mill Valley Public Library Mill Valley
Christian Schwarz is a mushroom enthusiast and taxonomist and citizen science advocate from Santa Cruz, the land of milk (caps) and honey (mushrooms). He studied at UCSC, and now spends his time photographing, teaching about, and making scientific collections of macrofungi. He is co-author of "Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast", and is slowly building a mycoflora for Santa Cruz County. He also writes a blog called Notes of a Mycophile.
Thursday, 10/06/2022
Coastal Walk at Cowell-Purisima Trail - 10/06/2022 10:00 AM
Cowell Purisima Coastal Trailhead Half Moon Bay
Join Peninsula Open Space Trust for a beautiful walk along the Cowell-Purisima trail that POST helped create by protecting adjacent farmland. While it may be foggy, we hope to catch gorgeous views of the ocean, nearby farmland, and glimpses of harbor seals, pelicans, hawks, rabbits, and whales during the winter season.
You will be guided by POST ambassadors who will share details about POST's work with farmers on the coast, and to create recreational opportunities along one of the most scenic stretches of our state's coastline!
The walk is moderate at about 5 miles round trip with about 400 feet of gradual elevation gain. It is mostly flat throughout, however, it is quite a long walk.
Register at weblink.
Telling the Story of Sea Level Rise - Livestream - 10/06/2022 12:30 PM
SF Planning + Urban Research Assoc. (SPUR)
Sea-level rise is climate change's sleeper impact. By the end of the century, flooding could displace 80,000 homes, subject 30,000 socially vulnerable residents to daily flooding and expose bayshore communities to resurfaced toxic waste. But because the results of gradual increases in water levels are not immediately visible, these risks can slip out of sight and out of mind. How do we spread the word about these hidden but impactful consequences of climate change? Join this conversation with two journalists, who serve an essential role as expert storytellers, bringing the abstract notion of sea level rise to life.
Speakers: Laura Feinstein, SPUR; Ezra Romero, KQED, Lauren Summer, NPR
Class Modular Sensors: Used in Outdoor IoT Monitoring - Livestream - 10/06/2022 04:00 PM
Sonoma State Engineering Colloquium
The low-cost Internet of Things architecture is well suited for remote environmental monitoring. This talk covers a device designed to be low cost, solar powered, and used outdoors, for critical stream level monitoring in the drought stricken North Bay. The "open source" Stroud Water Research Center's "Modular Sensors" software and the Mayfly microcomputer facilitate environmental scientists collecting physical measurements from the "great outdoors". Low-cost board level sensors using ADC, I2C or 1Wire are well understood and relatively low power. External transducers have a wider range of sensing, and require interfaces using the newer USGS SDI-12 three wire water world protocol, and the older stable Modbus 4wire RS485. Each brings new powering challenges. The software code and hardware definitions are stored in git, a distributed "Version Control System" allowing easy incremental traceable improvements. The package comes with technical debt that needs characterizing and analyzing.
Speaker: Neil Hancock, Azonde
21st Century Global Health Priorities - 10/06/2022 04:10 PM
International House Berkeley
The world has lived through 2+ years of the COVID-19 pandemic heightening the awareness of the links between health and other aspects of life including education and the economy. Future pandemics are a real risk but there are a number of other threats to human health and well-being as well. These include climate change, the rise of obesity, inverted population pyramids, inter-state conflict, rising inequalities, antimicrobial resistance. Counterbalancing these threats are the opportunities that may come through health sector and broader innovation. Using a comprehensive future health scenario framework, this lecture will explore the range of future trajectories that may unfold in the 21st century.
Speaker: Christopher Murray, University of Washington
Attend in person or online
NightLife: Flocktoberfest - 10/06/2022 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Bird is the word! Flock over to NightLife for flights of beers and birds in honor of this Oktoberfest tradition.
After Dark: Risk - 10/06/2022 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Are you willing to risk it? Everyone has a threshold when it comes to the chances they're willing to take. From confronting superstitions to facing fears, calculating the difference between actual and perceived danger is a complex decision-making challenge we all undertake. Tonight, explore the science of risk with experiments and demonstrations designed to make your heart beat faster. Whether you're reckless or reserved, we wager you'll have a thrilling time at After Dark.
NightSchool: The Invisible Forest - 10/06/2022 07:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences
They live anywhere and everywhere there's water, they're invisible to the naked eye, and they're essential to life on Earth: They're diatoms!
Sometimes called "floating solar panels" and "nature's glass houses," diatoms are likely the most under-appreciated (and strikingly beautiful) organisms responsible for the air we breathe. Take a tour through the Academy's world-renowned diatom collection, get a closeup look at these microscopic jewels, and learn how researchers are studying phytoplankton in Antarctica through community science.
Join Chrissy Garcia, the Geology Collections Manager at the Academy, for a crash-course in diatoms: what they are, why they're important, and how the Academy acquired a world-renowned (and most well documented) diatom collection. The cell walls of diatoms are made of transparent silica (i.e. glass), which means they don't decompose and instead leave a jewel of a fossil record, which artists have been using as a medium since the 19th century. Take a journey through the incredible beauty of the Academy's collection with Steve Mandel, research associate at UC Santa Cruz and award-winning photographer. Yes, diatoms can even live in polar waters. Join Allison Cusick, biological oceanographer, and Martina Mascioni, phytoplankton ecologist, on a virtual trip to Antarctica, where they're harnessing the power of community science to investigate how melting glaciers are affecting the phytoplankton along the Antarctic Peninsula.
Charging Ahead: Batteries of the Future - 10/06/2022 07:00 PM
SLAC Public Lecture Series Menlo Park
To transform our energy sources to carbon neutrality, we need to power as much of modern society as possible with clean electricity. In doing so, electricity generated from solar and wind sources requires energy storage. To meet today's tough demands, however, energy storage designs must do many things - store more energy, charge faster, be capable of mass production, decrease costs for the consumer, be safe, and be made of materials that minimize harm to the environment. We can now address these issues not only through the overall battery chemistry but also by observing the structure and operation of batteries at the nano- and even the atomic scale. In this talk, I will present some new ideas about the design of batteries - from electric vehicles to consumer power on the grid - and share my perspective on the path to the batteries of the future.
Resister at weblink to attend in person, or watch online
President Biden recently stated that the Pandemic is over. The resumption of travel and in-person activities seems to corroborate this view. Meanwhile, the current COVID death rate in the US puts us on track for nearly 150,000 excess deaths (per year) and a marked lowering of overall life expectancy. This presentation, with a healthy amount of audience Q&A, will explore the relationship between science and narrative in confronting SARS-Cov2.
Speaker: Robert Siegel, Stanford University
See weblink for connection information
Friday, 10/07/2022
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine in February, an energy crisis has started to worry many countries dependent on Russian gas. The upcoming winter is expected to be a test not only for the French and European governments, but also for the climate and energy policy of the EU.
Speaker: Noelle Lenois, Lawyer, former Justice, French Constitutional Court
Attend in person or online. On-campus location TBA. Register at weblink
Making and breaking planets and moons: big simulations and giant impacts - 10/07/2022 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Speaker: Jacob Kegerreis, NASA Ames
First Friday- Science Fiction - 10/07/2022 06:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Science fiction writers, filmmakers, and artists have inspired us to think beyond the Earth and work towards traveling to the stars, and to pursue space exploration. Explore hands-on activities and learn about synthetic biology, learn all about liquid nitrogen, and what happens to objects in ultra-low temperatures. Make a sci-fi costume and take a space selfie! Listen to music and see costumed Star Wars characters out and about the Center. Enjoy a special interactive presentation of Space in your Face, that will explore the probability of alien characters and design your own alien based on special space conditions - suitable for all ages. Watch kitschy sci-fi films with host Lord Blood Rah and unpack how sci-fi became a reality with a presentation from Ron Hipschman. Beer, wine, music, and food are available.
Featured Presentation with Andy Weir:
Take a deep dive into our look into how science fiction influences science and plan to see our live virtual conversation (limited capacity) with The Martian and Project Hail Mary author Andy Weir in conversation with Dr. Jennifer Frazier.
Discovering Wonders of The Night Sky - 10/07/2022 07:00 PM
College of San Mateo Bldg 36 San Mateo
Star Chaserz is a non-profit organization dedicated to promote public awareness, education, appreciation, and preservation of one our most precious, wonderful and often overlooked natural resources - the night sky. To achieve this goal they offer both live and virtual events through their website (Starchaserz.org). Live events include scheduled star parties and public; virtual events include live video broadcasts through telescopes in remote mobile and stationary observatories located in dark sky areas of Northern California. Star Chaserz CEO Norman Nasise will present to us on the topics of his mobile observatory (once featured in Sky & Telescope), his recently-completed Red Bluff observatory, and his new public outreach initiative.
Attend in person or online via Zoom.
Saturday, 10/08/2022
Nature's Toxic Defenses: Why Don't Poison Frogs Poison Themselves? - 10/08/2022 11:00 AM
Valley Life Sciences Building Berkeley
While we might be most familiar with rattlesnakes, black widows, and poison frogs (oh my!), toxins are produced or acquired by organisms in nearly every major group of life. This means that animals must avoid toxins or adapt to them. In this talk, Dr. Rebecca (Becca) Tarvin of UC Berkeley's Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology will discuss why and how animals evolve to be both toxic and toxin resistant, including her research on how some poison frogs avoid poisoning themselves. In addition, she will discuss how studying toxins in organisms under pressure to survive their natural enemies also sheds light in fields across human biology, including the genetics of diseases, drug resistance, drug development, coevolution, and protein evolution.
Registration required at weblink
Speaker: Rebecca Tarvin, UC Berkeley
Autumn’s Arachnids! - 10/08/2022 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Tilden Nature Area Environmental Center, Berkeley
Come on a short walk and search for autumn arachnids! You'll learn why spiders and scorpions are beneficial friends! Rain cancels. Meet at the Visitor Center.
Monday, 10/10/2022
A Balance of Power: Shifts in Mitochondrial Homeostasis Lead to Metabolic Suppression in a Diapausing Beetle - 10/10/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Speaker: Dr. Jackie Lebenzon , UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar - 10/10/2022 02:30 PM
Physics North Berkeley
Speaker: Alex Thomson, UC Davis
See weblink for Zoom information.
The Fault In Our Numerical Stars: Dynamical Chaos in Stellar Evolution Models - 10/10/2022 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
Over the past century, stellar structure and evolution models (SSEMs) have become foundational to many areas of astrophysics - from exoplanets to cosmology. Thus, the accuracy of SSEMs continues to be a topic of intense interest with nearly continuous refinements to numerical methods, empirical inputs, and parameterizations of hydro- and magnetohydrodynamic effects. The accuracy of these models, however, may be fundamentally limited by dynamical chaos - the exponential growth of uncertainty in deterministic systems. Using the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) code, we show that indeed SSEMs can display dynamical chaos for rotating solar-like main sequence stars. The combination of coupled boundary-value and initial-value solves leads to an exponential growth in model uncertainty on relatively short timescales, causing models initially different by less than 1 part in 108 to show exponential divergence. We report initial work on the implications of this chaos, including fundamental uncertainties in the calculated stellar radii, effective temperature, and depth of the outer convective layer.
Speaker: Nicholas Nelson, CSU Chico
Understanding the Nature of Matter with Polarized Targets - 10/10/2022 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley
Since the discovery of the proton in 1917, physicists have been studying its properties: Asking questions about the internal structure and external phenomena of this basic piece of matter. This past century has been working to build an understanding that begins at the most fundamental quark level, builds up to protons and neutrons, and describes how they come together to form the atomic nuclei that make up everything we see around us. In just the past few decades, our understanding of this internal structure of nucleons has been greatly increased thanks to developments of high-energy electron accelerators and spin-polarized targets. From the quark sea through the internal electric structure of nucleons and beyond, this colloquium will cover the discoveries that have given us our current understanding of matter and detail current and future developments being led by the UNH Nuclear Physics Group that will teach us more about the nature of matter.
Speaker: Elena Long, University of New Hampshire
Sustainable Liquid Fuel Production | Measuring Solid-Electrolyte Interphase - 10/10/2022 04:30 PM
Stanford University Energy Seminar Stanford
This seminar will highlight the work of two of the winners of the Stanford Energy Student Lecture series.
Carbonate-catalyzed CO2 hydrogenation for sustainable liquid fuel production
Despite increasing electrification, generating carbon-neutral liquid fuels remains critical for decarbonizing sectors that cannot readily electrify. Recently commercialized gas fermentation, a technology that makes alcohols from CO and H2, has created a new opportunity for sustainable liquid fuel production provided that CO and H2 can be sourced renewably. While H2 can be made from water electrolysis, the renewable production of CO remains a challenge. Here, we demonstrate a scalable, selective, and stable thermochemical catalyst that upgrades H2 and CO2 into a CO-containing feedstock appropriate for gas fermentation to ethanol. The combination of water electrolysis, our process, and gas fermentation could convert electricity into ethanol fuel with nearly 50% overall energy efficiency, highlighting a unique opportunity to generate renewable liquid fuels at scale.
Speaker: Chastity Li, Stanford University
Quantification of solid-electrolyte interphase composition during nonaqueous electrochemical nitrogen reduction
To accommodate the growing population and decarbonize synthetic ammonia (NH3) production, electrified alternatives to Haber-Bosch must be developed. However, electrified methods are often hindered by poor selectivity to NH3, which is underpinned by a poorly formed solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer on the cathode surface. In this work, our novel quantitative SEI composition measurements reveal that SEI growth coincides with improved Faradaic efficiency to NH3, suggesting that the SEI acts as a membrane which selectively hinders transport of ethanol while still allowing N2 transport to the cathode surface. Our findings provide important insights for the rational design of electrolytes to impart beneficial SEI properties which can improve selectivity in emerging electrochemical NH3 synthesis systems.
Tuesday, 10/11/2022
October Bird Walk - 10/11/2022 09:30 AM
UC Botanical Garden Berkeley
Research Panel on the Energy System Resilience Challenge - Livestream - 10/11/2022 10:00 AM
Stanford Energy
Resiliency in the Face of Changing Climate - Livestream - 10/11/2022 12:30 PM
SF Planning + Urban Research Assoc. (SPUR)
Causes and consequences of the rise of atmospheric oxygen in Earth history - 10/11/2022 03:30 PM
Natural Science Annex Santa Cruz
Two Applied Physics/Physics Talks - 10/11/2022 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
Fishbowls, Fentanyl Test Strips, Patient Navigators: One Hospital's Team-Based Response to the Overdose Epidemic - 10/11/2022 05:30 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
The Plant Hunter: The Potential of Medicinal Plants to Fight Superbugs - Livestream - 10/11/2022 06:00 PM
San Mateo Public Library
KQED Live: Art & Tech in a Warming World with The New York Times - 10/11/2022 07:00 PM
KQED, The Commons San Francisco
Wednesday, 10/12/2022
A New Climate conference - Livestream - 10/12/2022 09:00 AM
The New York Times
Electric Propulsion in Agriculture Vehicles: Opportunities and Challenges - Livestream - 10/12/2022 12:00 PM
CITRIS Research Exchange
Environmental and Energy Economics Seminar - 10/12/2022 12:00 PM
Giannini Hall Berkeley
October LASER Event - Livestream - 10/12/2022 12:00 PM
LASER Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous
Understanding Air Quality Data in the Bay Area - 10/12/2022 07:30 PM
Marin Science Seminar San Rafael
Thursday, 10/13/2022
NightLife: Makes Sense - 10/13/2022 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
After Dark: Conversations about Landscape - 10/13/2022 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Space Paint & Sip - 10/13/2022 06:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Science vs. €¦ History? - Livestream - 10/13/2022 07:30 PM
Bay Area Skeptics
Friday, 10/14/2022
Investigating spectral distortion of volcano infrasound by nonlinear propagation - 10/14/2022 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Saturday, 10/15/2022
Family Nature Day at Huddart Park - 10/15/2022 10:00 AM
Huddart Park Woodside
Investigating Space: Understanding our Oceans - 10/15/2022 01:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Planet formation in disks around young stars - Livestream - 10/15/2022 08:00 PM
San Jose Astronomical Society
Sunday, 10/16/2022
Raindrops to Streamflow: The Pathways of Water Through a Central Coast California Landscape - Livestream - 10/16/2022 01:30 PM
Seymour Marine Discovery Center
Monday, 10/17/2022
Nature-Based Strategies to Support Resilient and Biodiverse Estuarine Wetlands in California - 10/17/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar - 10/17/2022 02:30 PM
Physics North Berkeley
Looking for Dark Matter with ultra-low threshold detectors - 10/17/2022 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - 10/17/2022 04:15 PM
UC Berkeley
Energy Seminar: Sarah Kearney, Founder & Executive Director, Prime Coalition - Livestream - 10/17/2022 04:30 PM
Stanford Energy Seminar