Hello Fans of Science and Reason,
I have to admit to being a bit overwhelmed by what has been going on these days. The Science Schmooze is about science and reason. I think science is the best tool we have to understand how the universe works and reason is the responsibility of all of us who are involved in making decisions. What Is an Old-Growth Tree Actually Worth? These can’t answer every question though. There is a fuzzy boundary between science and how we all get along personally, locally, nationally, and internationally. Some day that may even extend to extraplanetary! What some accept as a fact isn’t always what others might think. Many times these disagreements end up being decided by someone or a group that is unqualified to decide or understand the consequences of the decision. We are entering the home stretch for many decisions being made in the upcoming years.
I can’t stress enough how important it is that you vote. There is so much anger and dissent in politics these days it is incredibly important for you and all of us to vote. There is lots of hand-wringing going on about the election. There are long term consequences in many areas where science has a lot to say. Consider environmental issues including climate change, resource management, vaccination and disease control, or pro-choice vs. anti-choice. Drifting a bit farther from “science and politics” here’s an interesting ACLU discussion that I think is very relevant to facts vs. science vs. belief.
It’s interesting how some scientists seem to reach in to the future more than others. On September 2 we lost one of the really great futurists and thought leaders, Frank Drake. Here’s one project that you may not think very often but Frank Drake helped make it really cool. Often we only get a very superficial exposure to how a scientist got to where they are. Last night I was able to see EINSTEIN! ~ Celebrating 100 Years of General Relativity at the Lick Observatory. It is about 7 years of Einstein’s life leading up to his figuring out General Relativity. It’s an amazing story. I’m sorry to have to tell you that you won’t be able to do that but you can catch it this coming weekend at UC Davis. It’s not that much of a coincidence that starting Sept 23 Einstein Was Right (there’s a premier 9.22 in the evening) is opening as the explOratorium is celebrating an eclipse that was seen in Wallal, Australia in 1922.
Of course there are a lot of interesting things to see, do, and learn here in the SF Bay area and on-line all over the world! Here are a few that I think look very cool…
How to Decide Which Medical and Health Information You Should Trust Mon @ 3:00
Getting Environmentalists to Vote: What we can learn from big data and behavioral science Wed @ 4:30
Coastal Walk at Pillar Point Bluff Thu @ 10:00
Family Nature Walks - Foothills Nature Preserve Sat @ 10:00
I think a lot of people don’t care for, or even resent, science because they think scientists are a bit arrogant by claiming they know exactly what is going on. Here’s an interesting article about how some thoughts are changing or being challenged about one of the most basic understandings in science… The second law of thermodynamics is among the most sacred in all of science So, what is a law of nature?
So what about science and art? I like to say that science is an art because it is very useful in understanding life, existence, the universe, or ourselves. Tomatoes, or How Not To Define "Art"
I hope you have a great week rethinking some of what you thought and continuing to learn. Equally important… Make sure you are registered to vote and vote as an informed voter.
herb masters
“It has often been said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher. Why then should it not be the right thing for the physicist to let the philosopher do the philosophising? Such might indeed be the right thing to do a time when the physicist believes he has at his disposal a rigid system of fundamental laws which are so well that waves of doubt can't reach them; but it cannot be right at a time when the very foundations of physics itself have become problematic as they are now … when experience forces us to seek a newer and more solid foundation.” — Albert Einstein
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Monday, 09/12/2022
Energetic Tradeoffs at Extreme Body Size - 09/12/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Speaker: Dr. William Gough, Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaii, Manoa.
Uncovering the spin-valley order of correlated phases in magic-angle graphene - Livestream - 09/12/2022 02:30 PM
Physics South, Room 325 Berkeley
The twist angle between adjacent two-dimensional layers provides a powerful tuning knob to tailor electronic properties. One archetypal example is magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG), whose flat low-energy bands host a variety of broken-symmetry ground states. However, despite intensive effort, the spin and valley order of these phases and their low-energy excitations remain poorly understood. In this talk, I will describe local electronic compressibility measurements that enable us to map out the flavor phase diagram and correlated Hofstadter spectrum in MATBG. We identify intervalley-coherent insulators and spin skyrmion excitations at low magnetic fields and deduce the spin polarization of Chern insulators at high field. I will discuss the implications of these findings and how microscopic parameters affect the delicate competition between distinct correlated ground states.
Speaker: Ben Feldman, Stanford University
See weblink for Zoom information.
How to Decide Which Medical and Health Information You Should Trust - 09/12/2022 03:00 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
Fake news? Alternative facts? Overly hyped "breakthroughs"? Irreproducible scientific research results? Preprints? Gaslighting the medical literature? What to do?
Finding and trusting the best published primary medical literature is the answer. Our speakers for the 12th Annual Lundberg Institute Lecture at The Commonwealth Club, JAMA Editor in Chief Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo and BMJ Editor in Chief Kamran Abbasi, are among the premier guardians of that literature. Hear their advice, and then ask them your own questions about whom and what to trust - especially now when deciding which medical information is trustworthy has become so crucial and so confusing.
Speakers: Kamarn Abbasi, Editor, British Medical Journal; Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Editor, Journal of the American Medical Association; George Lundberg, Editor, Cancer Commons; George Hammond, Author, Moderator
Attend in-person or online
UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - 09/12/2022 04:15 PM
UC Berkeley
Speaker: Andrea Young, UC Santa Barbara
See weblink for Zoom information. In person attendance TBD.
Conversational AI virtual assistants (e.g., Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, chatbots for business etc.) are becoming popular in different channels (social media, text messages, voice, phone, email, in car, physical robots, etc.). They communicate with humans through natural language dialogs to achieve social, informational or task oriented goals. Drawing from her research and industry practice, Yi Zhang will talk about how computers learn to understand human intention and get things done, their current limitations, and how we can better teach those AI systems in the future.
See weblink for connection information
Astronomers for Planet Earth: A Cosmological View on Climate - 09/12/2022 07:30 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Astronomers for Planet Earth (A4E) was founded in 2019 to empower and mobilize the global astronomical community to take action on the climate crisis. The network now includes more than 1500 astronomy students, researchers, amateurs, educators, and Nobel laureates from 70 countries. Members of this all-volunteer organization are united by the recognition that the astronomical perspective is valuable in the struggle to preserve our planet’s habitability. By gathering, creating, and sharing information and resources, we help each other speak, write, teach, and advocate for climate action and sustainable practices within the field of astronomy and beyond. Dr. Cool will describe the origins of A4E, its current work, and some directions for the future.
Tuesday, 09/13/2022
Advancing Long-Read De Novo Genome Assembly Methods in Clinical Research - Livestream - 09/13/2022 09:00 AM
UC Santa Cruz
The Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium has finished the first truly complete 3.055 billion base pair (bp) sequence of a human genome, representing the largest improvement to the human reference genome since its initial release. The new T2T-CHM13 reference includes gapless assemblies for all 22 autosomes, plus chromosomes X and Y, corrects numerous errors, and introduces nearly 200 million bp of novel sequence. The newly completed regions include all centromeric satellite arrays and the short arms of all five acrocentric chromosomes, unlocking these complex regions of the genome to variational and clinical research for the first time.
Satellite DNAs, which contribute to the majority of newly introduced sequences, contribute to centromere function and chromosomal aneuploidies and are critical to proper cell function. Mitotic errors in cancer cells are a common feature of tumors and hematological malignancies and are often associated with the proper regulation of centromeres, which can now be studied at the base level. Long-read sequencing technologies provide potential improvements on the cost and detection of genetic variants relative to existing methods, allowing researchers to expand clinical research to study genomes comprehensively.
In this webinar, Karen Miga, co-founder of the T2T Consortium and assistant professor of biomolecular engineering at the UC Santa Cruz Baskin School of Engineering, will discuss her team’s work using nanopore sequencing to broaden studies of clinically important variants in T2T genomes.
Register at weblink to attend
The Vision for the EU’s Digital Decade - Livestream - 09/13/2022 10:10 AM
UC Berkeley
In this special presentation, guest speaker Roberto Viola, Director-General of the European Commission’s department for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT) will discuss how the EU is positioning itself in the face of fast digitalisation of our societies and our economies. How is Europe promoting strategic digital technologies and digital sovereignty in an increasingly challenging geopolitical context? What is Europe’s vision regarding the rules and responsibilities that should apply in the online environment in order to ensure that its values, its democracies and the rule of law are reinforced, and not weakened? The lecture will address Europe’s regulatory initiatives such as the recently agreed rules for tech platforms (Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act), safe AI, data governance and cyber security. It will also touch upon Europe’s digital projects in critical technologies such as chips, data, cyber security, supercomputing, quantum and AI. Last, Dr Roberto Viola will share views on the EU’s digital diplomacy and the cooperation with the US in the Trade and Technology Council.
Register at weblink to receive connection information
UC Berkeley Cosmology Seminar - 09/13/2022 01:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 A Berkeley
Speaker: Dylan Jow, University of Toronto
Tiny critters, huge impacts: Ocean microbes, climate, and health - 09/13/2022 04:00 PM
Physics North Berkeley
It is critical to improve our understanding of the impacts of the ocean/atmosphere system on climate as Earth undergoes unprecedented change. Current models are limited in their treatment of marine aerosols, atmospheric chemistry, and clouds. A particularly challenging area involves determining the impact of ocean microbial emissions on the atmosphere. The ability to determine the impact of ocean biology on clouds and climate in field studies has been impaired by the additional complexities from added human pollution, even out over the open ocean. This lecture will provide an overview of unique ocean/atmosphere-in-the laboratory studies in the NSF Center for Aerosol Impacts on Chemistry of the Environment (CAICE;
https://caice.ucsd.edu
) designed to unravel the composition of the marine atmosphere with a major focus on the factors controlling the chemical mixing state, cloud formation, and ice nucleating ability of marine aerosols. Over the past decade, CAICE scientists have been able to successfully transfer the full physical, chemical, and biological complexity of the ocean/atmosphere system into the laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This presentation will highlight results obtained using this unique approach and how they are now being used to explain marine field observations and improve climate models. This lecture will describe how CAICE studies have been able to finally account for changes in clouds in regions with phytoplankton blooms. This lecture will also discuss the new Scripps Ocean-Atmosphere Research Simulator (SOARS) that will use winds and waves to simulate the complex marine atmosphere boundary layer under varying scenarios of temperature, from tropical to polar, atmospheric gas phase concentrations, and ocean pH. SOARS will be able to simulate the current and future states of the ocean/atmosphere system thus uniquely capable of simulating Earth’s rapidly changing ocean-atmosphere system. Finally, a discussion will be presented on recent field and laboratory studies investigating the factors controlling the ocean-to-atmosphere transfer of bacteria, viruses, and gases and the implications for the health of residents living in and near coastal regions. These studies are yielding insight into how our atmosphere and climate will change as climate and oceans warm.
Speaker: Kim Prather, UC San Diego
California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric - and What It Means for America's Power Grid - 09/13/2022 05:30 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
Author Katherine Blunt provides what is being called a "revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications," exploring the decline of California’s largest utility company that led to countless wildfires - including the one that destroyed the town of Paradise - and the human cost of infrastructure failure
Pacific Gas and Electric was a legacy company built by innovators and visionaries, establishing California as a desirable home and economic powerhouse. In California Burning, Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer finalist Katherine Blunt examines how that legacy fell apart - unraveling a long history of deadly failures in which PG&E endangered millions of Northern Californians, through criminal neglect of its infrastructure. She says that as PG&E prioritized profits and politics, power lines went unchecked - until a rusted hook purchased for 56 cents in 1921 split in two, sparking the deadliest wildfire in California history.
Beginning with PG&E’s public reckoning after the Paradise fire, Blunt chronicles the evolution of PG&E’s shareholder base, from innovators who built some of California's first long-distance power lines to aggressive investors keen on reaping dividends. Following key players through pivotal decisions and legal battles, California Burning reveals the forces Blunt says shaped the plight of PG&E: deregulation and market-gaming led by Enron Corp., an unyielding push for renewable energy, and a swift increase in wildfire risk throughout the West, while regulators and lawmakers pushed their own agendas.
Speaker: Katherine Blunt, reporter for The Wall Street Journal; Andrew Dudley, Commonwealth Club, Moderator
Wednesday, 09/14/2022
CIDER, a New Drone Education and Research Program at UC Santa Cruz - Livestream - 09/14/2022 12:00 PM
CITRIS Research Exchange
Becca Fenwick will present on her work with the CITRIS Initiative for Drone Education and Research (CIDER) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the first UC undergraduate drone training program. CIDER offers training and research support for the use of drone technology across academic disciplines and industry sectors. Students benefit from experiential learning opportunities and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) licensure, and faculty gain access to licensed pilots who can conduct flights for research and teaching purposes, plus access to drone equipment. Industry partnerships and services contract provide internships and field training for students and research collaborations for faculty. CIDER values diversity and encourages students from backgrounds underrepresented in STEM to participate. The initiative recently received $1 million from the James Irvine Foundation to develop a workforce training program in the Salinas region.
Speaker: Becca Fenwick, UC Santa Cruz
Register at weblink to attend.
Eelgrass Conservation Policy in SF Bay and Across CA - Livestream - 09/14/2022 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center
Speaker: Rebecca Lesberg, Coastal Policy Solutions
Register at weblink to receive Zoom information
Mapping nanoscale inhomogeneity to reveal flow through polymer membranes - 09/14/2022 04:00 PM
Tan Hall Berkeley
Reverse osmosis modules comprised of composite polymermembranes represent a leading technology in desalination and purification of brackish water. Nanoporous polymeric membranes are key for prefiltering of such reverse osmosis systems, as well as for purification of biopharmaceutical products, such as monoclonal antibodies. The field has relied on intricate control of membrane properties through systematic perturbations to membrane chemistries and processing, yet many fundamental questions remain on the mechanisms that govern water transport and separations.
Speaker: Professor Enrique Gomez, UC Berkeley
Nathaniel Stinnett is the Founder & Executive Director of the Environmental Voter Project, a non-partisan nonprofit that uses data analytics and behavioral science to mobilize environmentalists to vote. Named one of five global “climate visionaries” by The New York Times in 2018, and dubbed “The Voting Guru” by Grist magazine, Stinnett is a frequent expert speaker on cutting-edge campaign techniques and the behavioral science behind getting people to vote. He has held a variety of senior leadership and campaign manager positions on U.S. Senate, Congressional, state, and mayoral campaigns, and he sits on the Board of Advisors for MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative. He holds a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Boston College Law School, and he lives in Boston with his wife and two children.
Nerd Nite SF #127: Sand Banks & Food Banks! - 09/14/2022 07:00 PM
Rickshaw Stop San Francisco
On this special 2nd Wednesday edition of Nerd Nite SF, we will learn about sand and sustenance. Is sand sustenance? Well no, but it is important to life on earth!
Thanks, Sand! The miraculous story of how the sediment cycle enables life on earth
Speaker: Jeremy Snyder, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs
Sand is something that most people think of as a homogenous, inert substance that does little more than line our beaches. But the story of how sand goes from bedrock to beach is really the story of why earth’s landscapes look the way they do, and how all living things get the minerals and nutrients that make life possible. In this talk, Jeremy will take you on a photographic journey along the length of the Amazon and Colorado Rivers to illustrate the wonders of sand and why disruptions to this system (such as hydropower dams) pose a threat to us all.
In an age of chronic dis-ease, are food banks a nexus for healing?
Speaker: Kevin Liu, Project Open Hand
Have you volunteered at a food bank and asked yourself if the edible plants, animals, and their derivatives being distributed actually promote physical health? What about mental health? If so, you may be familiar with the concept of food as medicine we know food is the sustenance that keeps us alive and energized, but it also supports the conditions for health and discourages the conditions for disease. Kevin Liu, a community nutritionist, will share the different paths for food from food banks to folks’ plates, and in doing so, help us realize how food can be an agent for individual and collective wellbeing.
Thursday, 09/15/2022
Coastal Walk at Pillar Point Bluff - 09/15/2022 10:00 AM
Pillar Point Bluff Moss Beach
Join Peninsula Open Space Trust for an afternoon walk at Pillar Point Bluff just north of Half Moon Bay! You will be guided by a POST representative who will share details about the area’s interesting natural history, from the coastal scrub habitat to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve that hosts tide pools and breeding grounds for harbor seals.
The walk is moderate at about 2.5 miles round trip with around 350 feet of gradual elevation gain.
In 2004, POST stepped in to fund protection of the bluff, restore it to ecological health, and construct a 1.6-mile section of the California Coastal Trail that now runs across it. Today, all 161 acres of the bluff are fully protected in perpetuity - a process that took four transactions, 11 years of work, and an array of visionaries, landowners and donors, both public and private.
Register at weblink to receive directions.
Science at Cal - Outer Space’s Hottest and Brightest Objects - Livestream - 09/15/2022 12:00 PM
UC Berkeley
At this month’s Midday Science Cafe, we’ll take a star-studded intergalactic journey to see some of the universe’s hottest and brightest objects. First stop: quasars. Berkeley Lab’s Dr. Satya Gontcho A Gontcho will explain how quasars - the most luminous astronomical objects in the universe - are used as “lighthouses” to help locate hidden matter. Although this matter makes up most of the universe, because it does not emit light, Dr. Gontcho A Gontcho has to use ingenious techniques like this to study it. We’ll then travel to solar systems with stars hotter than the Sun that emit extreme amounts of ultraviolet radiation and can fully strip nearby planets of their atmospheres. UC Berkeley’s Steven Giacalone studies this phenomenon in order to determine how prevalent this process is and, more importantly, if planets orbiting these hot stars can be habitable. So grab your sunscreen and hop in for a trip that’s out of this world!
Register at weblink
AI Inference with Intel® FPGA AI Suite - Livestream - 09/15/2022 04:00 PM
Sonoma State Engineering Colloquium
Intel® FPGAs enable real-time, low-latency, and low-power deep learning inference combined with the following advantages:
I/O flexibility Reconfiguration Ease of integration into custom platforms Long lifetime
Intel® FPGA AI Suite was developed with the vision of ease-of-use of artificial intelligence (AI) inference on Intel® FPGAs. The suite enables FPGA designers, machine learning engineers, and software developers to create optimized FPGA AI platforms efficiently.
Utilities in the Intel FPGA AI Suite speed up FPGA development for AI inference using familiar and popular industry frameworks such as TensorFlow* or PyTorch* and OpenVINO toolkit, while also leveraging robust and proven FPGA development flows with the Intel Quartus Prime Software. The Intel® FPGA AI Suite tool flow works with the OpenVINO toolkit, an open-source project to optimize inference on a variety of hardware architectures. The OpenVINO toolkit takes Deep Learning models from all the major Deep Learning frameworks (such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, Keras*) and optimizes them for inference on a variety of hardware architectures, including various CPUs, CPU+GPU, and FPGAs.
Speaker: Kevin Drake, Intel
Fungi for Bioremediation - 09/15/2022 06:00 PM
Bay Area Mycological Association Santa Rosa
Bioremediation refers to cost-effective and environment-friendly method for converting the toxic, recalcitrant pollutants into environmentally benign products through the action of various biological treatments. Fungi play a major role in bioremediation owing to their robust morphology and diverse metabolic capacity.
Speaker: TBD
Attend in person or online
Nighty NightLife - 09/15/2022 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Even us night owls could use a little more sleep. Hit the snooze button on life’s stressors and chill with us at our dreamiest NightLife yet.
Featured Programming:
Not feeling like yourself? That’s probably because you’re not getting enough sleep. Discover why a good night’s rest helps restore our minds to a more positive and social state with neuroscientist and a sleep researcher, Eti Ben Simon. We dream every night. Some dreams are exciting, some are scary, and some are just plain weird. Enter the dream world with Allison McCarthy (recently featured in Netflix and Vox Media’s The Mind, Explained) as she teaches us how to unlock the hidden potential of dreams.Imagine this: a king size bed, your fluffiest pillow, and the coziest blanket. Sounds like the makings for a perfect snooze, right? Well, a few members of the animal kingdom would beg to differ. Learn what different animals find comfy (from sleeping upside down to floating) in an intimate chat and Q&A with Dr. Renske Lok and Dr. Alejandra Echeverri.Create and take home your very own unique ‘sleep in a bottle’ signature scent with Nomad Botanicals. Use it as a pillow spray, room spray, or a body spray in your bedtime routine for a restful slumber.
After Dark: See for Yourself - 09/15/2022 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
The Exploratorium is your playground after dark! Wander the galleries, sip a cocktail, and let a DJ from Hip Hop for Change set the vibe. New exhibits are constantly being developed at the museum, but can you spot some classics from decades past? For a hint, check out the 1974 short film Exploratorium, which explores the museum through imagery and sound.
Cell Phone Miniscope 6:00 - 10:00 p.m. Crossroads
We invite you to open your eyes to the amazing world of the ultra-tiny! Be sure to grab a miniscope kit and directions - then convert your cell phone into a portable, picture-taking miniscope using a simple plastic lens from a laser pointer. Use it to see the Exploratorium at its smallest scale, then take it home to continue exploring new environments!
Hardcore Natural History - Pollinator Conservation - 09/15/2022 06:00 PM
Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History Pacific Grove
Our popular Hardcore Natural History Panel series returns in September with a focus on pollination. Pollinators like bumblebees, wild bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, wasps, and beetles all fill vital niches in our ecosystems. All are also facing significant challenges from habitat loss, pesticides, disease, and stresses from climate change. What is the current status of these important species, and what can we do to help, both in our own backyards and around the world? Join Wildlife Biologist Jessica Griffiths, Xerces Endangered Species Biologist Angela Laws, and Bee Biologist Dr. Angie Ashbacher to answer these questions, and learn all about current science and conservation efforts for these essential pollinator species. Each panel member will have a chance to talk with audience members, and tickets include food and beverages. Register below to come to this important and timely panel discussion and remember: Museum Members get a discount!
Algae, Genetics, and iNaturalist - Livestream - 09/15/2022 06:00 PM
Sonoma County Mycological Association
Algea Bloom updates, Genetic Sequencing updates, and a presentation on how to make observations in iNaturalist.
Speaker: Damon Tighe
See weblink for Zoom information
NightSchool: Swamp Party - Livestream - 09/15/2022 07:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences
Claude, our beloved American alligator, is celebrating his 27th hatchday, so we’re throwing a party dedicated to the crocodilian icon himself and his swampy home. Tune in to learn about the plants and animals that live in Claude's native habitat, the swamps of the Southeastern United States.
It's not easy being green: Understanding Plant Immunity - 09/15/2022 07:00 PM
Ocean View Brew Works Albany
Speaker: Chandler Sutherland, UC Berkeley
Rising from the Ashes - how fungi survive and thrive after fire - 09/15/2022 07:30 PM
Valley Life Sciences Building Berkeley
Dr. Monika Fischer is a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Matt Traxler's at UC Berkeley. She collaborates with Prof. Tom Bruns and started exploring burned ecosystems after the 2013 Rim Fire burned through Bruns Lab field sites in Stanislaus National Forest. The Rim Fire was the first fire of its kind, giving researchers a unique opportunity to observe and investigate the mechanisms driving the behavior of fire-following fungi.
Friday, 09/16/2022
Einstein! - 09/16/2022 07:00 PM
Wright Hall Davis
One-man show about the life of Albert Einstein.
At the end of the play, you will have the chance to engage the playwright/actor and a UC Davis astronomer in a Q&A session.
Saturday, 09/17/2022
Family Nature Walks - Foothills Nature Preserve - 09/17/2022 10:00 AM
Foothills Nature Preserve Los Altos
Environmental Volunteers’ Family Nature Walks program is designed to help students and their families get to know our local open space areas. Small family groups will be guided by a knowledgeable environmental educator during an exploration of a local open space. These small groups will be introduced to fun nature-based activities, and a chance to learn more about the plants and animals all around us. Join us for some fun, outdoor learning!
Each group will have a maximum limit of 12 participants.
Families/groups are welcome to sign up for as many as they like. The nature walks are intended for children aged 6 to 11, and we ask that each group is accompanied by an adult.
Investigating Space: Asteroid Impact - 09/17/2022 12:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Asteroid Impacts NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the world’s first full-scale mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards is on it’s it’s way and will be impacting an asteroid soon. Learn more about this once in a lifetime event at this special program.
Sunday, 09/18/2022
Connecting the Dots Between Sick Sea Otters and Land-Based Pollution - Livestream - 09/18/2022 01:30 PM
Seymour Marine Discovery Center
Register at weblink for details
Speaker: Melissa Miller, California Department of Fish and Wildlife
Monday, 09/19/2022
Sonoma State University Biology Colloquium - Rescheduled - 09/19/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State Biology Colloquium
Speaker: Dr. Alyssa R. Frederick , UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab.
This speaker has been rescheduled to September 26.
Foothill Yellow Legged Frog Conservation Biology - 09/19/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
This speaker was originally scheduled for September 26, 2022.
Speaker: Dr. Sarah Kupferberg, UC Berkeley
Van Hove charge density waves on hexagonal lattices and kagome superconductors - 09/19/2022 02:30 PM
Physics South, Room 325 Berkeley
I show that the charge density waves (CDWs) can realize a host of unconventional phenomena at the Van Hove singularity on the hexagonal lattices, especially in the recently uncovered kagome metals AV3Sb5 with A = K, Rb, and Cs. According to a renormalization group analysis, the imaginary CDW can develop as a leading instability and realize a chiral-flux Chern insulator. The interplay of real and imaginary CDWs further establishes a Haldane-model phase diagram, where the Chern insulator phase explains the time-reversal symmetry breaking CDW in the kagome metals AV3Sb5. Meanwhile, the real CDW can host the in-gap corner states with fractional corner charges. Finally, I discuss the onset of multidome child superconductivity in the parent CDW.
Speaker: Yu-Ping Lin
See weblink for Zoom information.
What Physicists Do - 09/19/2022 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
Speaker: Curtis Asplund, San Jose State University
What is elementary particle physics today and where is it going? - 09/19/2022 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley
At best, I have minimal qualifications to be giving such a colloquium - grad student in particle theory at SLAC in the 1970s, pioneer in particle cosmology, HEP fellow traveller for many years, and now as co-chair of the NAS "future of particle physics study" (https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/elementary-particle-physics-p...). I suspect that my perspective will be very different than that heard in similarly titled colloquia that you have attended in recent years, and I hope that my talk will stimulate much conversation - both from insiders and outsiders - before and after the talk. (This talk derives from my career-long attempt to make sense of this field that has awed and inspired me for 50 years and does not represent anyone’s views except my own.)
Speaker: Michael Turner, University of Chicago
The Bird Genoscape Project: Harnessing the Power of Genomics for Migratory Bird Conservation - Livestream - 09/19/2022 06:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
Most populations of migratory birds are now threatened. It is estimated that the populations of 1 out of every 2 songbirds are declining in the Western Hemisphere with impacts predicted to worsen with climate change. However, because migratory birds have breeding, migratory, and wintering areas and may move vast distances between them, understanding where the steepest population declines are occurring has been difficult or impossible. Join us for a presentation by Dr. Kristen Ruegg to learn about her work to address this critical issue as part of The Bird Genoscape Project - an effort to bring together scientists from across the Western Hemisphere to map the migratory routes of migratory songbirds using genomics.
This event was originally scheduled for August 25.
Register at weblink to receive connection information
Tuesday, 09/20/2022
Impacts of Fire on Reptiles and Amphibians in Sonoma County - Livestream - 09/20/2022 10:00 AM
Audubon Canyon Ranch
Weekday Morning Hike at Rancho Cañada del Oro - 09/20/2022 10:00 AM
Rancho Canada Del Oro Open Space Preserve Morgan hill
The Biggest Ideas: Space, Time, & Motion - Livestream - 09/20/2022 03:00 PM
Commonwealth Club - Online Event
What a Mushroom Lives For: Matsutake and the Worlds They Make - Livestream - 09/20/2022 07:00 PM
Mycological Society of San Francisco
Wednesday, 09/21/2022
When Do Local Governments Use Tech To Improve Transparency? The Case of California Transit - Livestream - 09/21/2022 12:00 PM
CITRIS Research Exchange
September LASER Event - 09/21/2022 06:30 PM
LASER Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous Stanford
Searching for Black Holes in the Milky Way - Livestream - 09/21/2022 07:00 PM
San Francisco Amateur Astronomers
Cutting Edge Research on Elephant Seals at Año Nuevo Reserve - 09/21/2022 07:30 PM
Marin Science Seminar San Rafael
Thursday, 09/22/2022
NightLife - 09/22/2022 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
You Can be Powered by ShakeAlert - Earthquake Early Warning for All - Livestream - 09/22/2022 06:00 PM
US Geological Survey Public Lecture Series
After Dark: Evidence - 09/22/2022 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Birds and Ohlone’s Past, Present, and Future - Livestream - 09/22/2022 07:00 PM
Golden Gate Audubon Society
Friday, 09/23/2022
Design Principles for Metalloprotein Chemistry - 09/23/2022 04:00 PM
LeConte Hall, Rm 1 Berkeley
Sunset Science: Mysteries of Deep Space - 09/23/2022 06:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Astro 101: Sights of the Cosmos, Intro to Astronomy - 09/23/2022 06:30 PM
San Jose Astronomical Association San Jose
Saturday, 09/24/2022
Family Nature Walks - Foothills Nature Preserve - 09/24/2022 10:00 AM
Foothills Nature Preserve Los Altos
Sharktoberfest Movie Night! - 09/24/2022 05:30 PM
Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary San Francisco
Monday, 09/26/2022
Foothill Yellow Legged Frog Conservation Biology - Rescheduled - 09/26/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Sonoma State University Biology Colloquium - Livestream - 09/26/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State Biology Colloquium
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar - 09/26/2022 02:30 PM
Physics South, Room 325 Berkeley
Observing Dark Matter in the Wild - 09/26/2022 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - 09/26/2022 04:15 PM
UC Berkeley
A new neural network for optimal time series processing - Livestream - 09/26/2022 07:00 PM
SF Bay Association of Computing Machinery