SciSchmooze Softcore Smorgasbord
Greetings, dear reader. I trust you will find some delectable items in this week’s science smorgasbord.
SPACE
Learned geophysicists years ago concluded that Mars has a hot liquid inner core, unlike Earth with its hot solid inner core. They calculated that Mars’ gravitational pressure is insufficient to make molten iron solid, as is the case with our home planet. But there’s nothing like good data: the seismometers on NASA’s Insight mission clinched that theory using seismic waves generated by marsquakes on the opposite side of the red planet.
JWST has taken remarkable pictures of other planets in our solar system that are nicely explained by Dr. Becky Smethurst, but i think you will also enjoy Dr. Becky’s other space news in her enthusiastic video.
¿Want to practice your high school latin? A new ‘childrens’ book written in elementary Latin features astronomer Maria Mitchell (1818-1889): Astronomia: Fabula Planetarium.
HEALTH
The United States’ COVID-19 Public Health Emergency ends on May 11. In the U.S:
– over 30% of us are known to have had the disease
– nearly 1.2 million died with COVID-19 as the major cause of death
– since January 2022, new cases are down 92% and new deaths are down 80%
Not surprisingly, due to COVID teenage sex was down and longevity took a plunge. You may be surprised to learn that the United State ranks 47th in the world in male longevity. KQED recently had a one-hour live program on the reasons for our poor longevity. (Program begins at a minute and 45 seconds into the recording.) ¿Is a plant from New Guinea partly responsible for our poor longevity?
Vishnu won the Caffeine Beaker with a guess of 113; closest of 17 entries. The raffle prize this time is a Galileo Thermometer. It wasn’t invented by Galileo but by a pupil of his in the mid 1600s. Just send an email before noon Friday to david.almandsmith [at] gmail.com with an integer between 0 and 1,000.
My Picks of the Week
– Climate and Energy in Africa: What We're Getting Wrong 10am Monday, Stanford
– Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge Livestream 6pm Tuesday
– The Insect Crisis is a Human Crisis 6pm Thursday, Berkeley
– All the Little Things (EcoCenter Event) 10:30 - Noon Saturday, Palo Alto, Ages 6 - 11
PLANET EARTH
No catastrophic flooding in California - yet. Anticipating a faster snowmelt, agencies are clearing ‘flood channels’ in the Central Valley of trees and overgrowth that have been allowed to take root for decades. Arrangements are being made to divert flood waters to other courses, if necessary. Communities are erecting sandbag barriers and reinforcing levees. Dams are releasing water at measured rates in anticipation of rapid filling from snowmelt. Residents in 1862 had no such options. Flood waters created a 480 x 32 km lake in the Central Valley. Over 4,000 people died along with 200,000 cattle.
Atmospheric CO2 concentration is now at 420 ppm and continues to climb. Globally, energy-related CO2 emissions hit a new record high in 2022. Things we can do:
– consider using your bicycle or public transportation when/where feasible
– install (or add) solar panels and a wall battery
– buy less; waste less
– rideshare
– shop for an EV or plug-in hybrid automobile (smaller and lighter is better)
– consider Amtrak for longer trips
– convert your gas appliances to electric
Fun nerdy videos
Gwyneth Paltrow and Goop - Dr. Mike - Dr. Mikhail Varshavski - 9 mins
Beaming Solar Energy from Space - Sabine Hossenfelder, PhD - 14 mins
Ethylene Oxide - The Right Chemistry - Joe Schwarcz, PhD - 5 mins
Concrete - Veritaseum - Derek Muller, PhD - 24 mins
Celera 500L - Future Lab - [If dreams were eagles . . . ] - 5 mins
Let me know whether you liked watching “Fun nerdy videos.”
Empathy for those you’ve never met requires a little bit of effort. Get to work!
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“It might be helpful to realize that very probably the parents of the first native born Martians are alive today.”
— Jack Schmitt (1935 - ) Geologist, Apollo 17 moonwalker
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Monday, 05/01/2023
Climate and Energy in Africa: What We're Getting Wrong - 05/01/2023 10:00 AM
Encina Hall Stanford
Via the SDGs and COP, the world is committed to tackling the big global crises of poverty and climate change. But the policies for fostering net zero emissions, universal access to energy, and full employment are confused when it comes to Africa, a region that will soon be home to one in four people. Todd Moss will lay out the shortcomings to the dominant approaches and outline more effective ways to support both a greener planet and prosperity for everyone.
Speaker: Todd Moss, Energy for Growth Hub
Goldman Conference Room
Targeted DNA Editing Within Microbial Communities - 05/01/2023 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Speaker: Dr. Brady Cress, UC Berkeley
Using proxies to assess anthropogenic effects on under-monitored equatorial Pacific reefs - 05/01/2023 12:30 PM
Environment and Energy Building (Y2E2) Stanford
Coral reefs are struggling as anthropogenic warming fuels an increase in the frequency and intensity of Marine Heat Waves, causing widespread bleaching and coral death. Yet some reefs, including those in the bullseye of El Niño’s impact, endure. Uncovering their secret could shed critical new light on the mechanisms by which coral reefs could withstand 21st century climate change. However, a paucity of ocean temperature and coral bleaching observations in the remote equatorial Pacific renders conclusions elusive. Massive, centenarian corals have lived through the effects of anthropogenic warming, archiving ocean conditions in their skeletons as they grow. In this seminar I will use novel geochemical and structural proxy techniques to access past ocean conditions, and the reef response. I will showcase a new thermometer sampled with laser ablation ICPMS to extract monthly resolved ocean temperatures from coral skeleton. I will then use reconstructed bleaching histories of the reefs based on CT images revealing skeletal stress bands formed during bleaching. Using these tools, I uncover a long history of bleaching in the CEP, and reef-specific differences in thermal tolerance linked to past heatwave exposure. Over time, reef communities have adapted to tolerate their unique thermal regimes - but are they prepared for the future?
Speaker: Nathan Mollica, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Editor's Note: This talk was originally scheduled for April 3, 2023
Getting information from quantum black holes - 05/01/2023 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
Black holes are the most extreme objects in the universe, which makes them interesting for theorists trying to understand how the foundational theories of physics — quantum mechanics and general relativity — work together. I’ll describe recent progress on this problem, driven by looking at black holes through the lens of a quantum information theorist. This allowed us to calculate the information content of a black hole and its Hawking radiation, shedding new light on old paradoxes and on the quantum nature of spacetime.
Speaker: Henry Maxfield, Stanford University
Development, regeneration, and repair of blood vessels in the heart - 05/01/2023 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford
Dr. Kristy Red Horse is an Associate Professor at Stanford University’s Department of Biology and Institute for Stem Cell Biology & Regenerative Medicine. She is interested in cardiovascular development and regeneration. Current research in the Kristy Red-Horse Lab, centers on how coronary vessels of the heart develop duing embryogenesis and how they regenerate following cardiac injury. The long-term goal is to discover novel developmental mechanisms while contributing knowledge towards the advancement of clinical treatments for cardiovascular disease.
Room: Auditorium
Testing Remote Sensing Aerial and Satellite Methane Detection Capabilities - 05/01/2023 04:30 PM
Stanford University Energy Seminar Stanford
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with anthropogenic emissions serving as a key contributor to climate change. In the oil and gas sector, “super-emitters” are a relatively small number of methane sources that are disproportionately responsible for a large fraction of total methane emissions. However, advances in remote sensing technologies are enabling airplanes and satellites to rapidly identify and quantify these large emitters, changing our understanding of the overall methane budget and advancing mitigation efforts. In Fall 2022, Stanford conducted a 2-month field campaign to test five airplanes and nine satellites used for detecting methane. We performed over 700 single-blind controlled releases to evaluate to evaluate their detection and quantification capabilities. In this talk, I will share results of aircraft and satellite performance, and discuss implications for methane mitigation efforts.
Speaker: Sahar El Abbadi, Stanford University
Attend in person or online.
Tuesday, 05/02/2023
Symmetry, topology, and the many faces of condensed matter - 05/02/2023 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
Symmetry is powerful principle in physics, allowing us to make exact statements even in regimes where controlled calculations are challenging or impossible. Thus, understanding the ways in which different types of symmetries can constrain phases of matter is an important component of understanding what nature is capable of. In this talk, I will describe how exploring new types of symmetries, including symmetries with unusual spatial structure, or symmetries that act on particles in exotic ways, has expanded our understanding of these possibilities, including identifying new classes of phases of matter, and new platforms with which to realize these.
Speaker: Fiona Burnell, University of Minnesota
Global reorganization of deep-sea circulation and carbon storage after the last ice age - 05/02/2023 03:30 PM
Natural Science Annex Santa Cruz
Using new and published marine fossil radiocarbon (14C) measurements, a tracer uniquely sensitive to circulation and air-sea gas exchange, we establish several benchmarks for Atlantic, Southern, and Pacific deep-sea circula- tion and ventilation since the last ice age. We find the most 14C-depleted water in glacial Pacific bottom depths, rather than the mid-depths as they are today, which is best explained by a slowdown in glacial deep-sea overturning in addition to a “flipped” glacial Pacific overturning configuration. These observations cannot be produced by changes in air-sea gas exchange alone, and they underscore the major role for changes in the overturning circulation for glacial deep-sea carbon storage in the vast Pacific abyss and the concomitant drawdown of atmospheric CO2.
Speaker: Patrick Rafter, UC Irvine
Stanford Symbolic Systems Forum: Radhika Koul and Filippos Nakas - 05/02/2023 04:30 PM
Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg 460) Stanford
Speaker: Radhika Koul and Filippos Nakas, Stanford University
Room 126
Lecture: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge - 05/02/2023 06:00 PM
San Mateo Public Library San Mateo
Increasingly severe and frequent floods and droughts inevitably spur calls for higher levees, bigger drains, and longer aqueducts. But as we grapple with extreme weather, a hard truth is emerging: our development, including concrete infrastructure designed to control water, is actually exacerbating our problems. Because sooner or later, water always wins.
Join the San Mateo Public Library for a virtual talk by science journalist Erica Gies, who will introduce us to innovators in what she calls the "slow water movement" who start by asking a revolutionary question: What does water want? Using close observation, historical research, and cutting-edge science, these experts in hydrology, restoration ecology, engineering, and urban planning are already transforming our relationship with water.
About the speaker: Erica Gies is the author of Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge, an award-winning independent journalist, and National Geographic Explorer who writes about water, climate change, plants, and animals for Scientific American, The New York Times, Nature, The Atlantic, and other outlets. She is based in San Francisco and Victoria, British Columbia.
This is a virtual event. Registration is required:
This program is coordinated by the library's Biotechnology Learning Center.
Birdy Hour - Birding the Bay Area Part 3 - Livestream - 05/02/2023 06:30 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
With hundreds of bird species found throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, we are fortunate to have several birding organizations dedicated to appreciating and conserving the birds here. In the third part of SFBBO's Birding the Bay Area series, Madrone Audubon and Napa-Solano Audubon will share a few of their favorite birding hotspots in the areas they serve, which include the counties of Sonoma, Napa, and Solano. Join us to learn about great spots to check out, some of the birds you can find, and what makes these areas special!
Speakers:
Susan Kirks, President of Madrone Audubon SocietyTom Slyker, Vice President of Napa-Solano Audubon Society
Register at weblink to receive connection information
Wave-like Dark Matter: Listening Through A Dark Matter Radio - Rescheduled - 05/02/2023 07:00 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
The nature of dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries of the modern era. All the matter that we see makes up just one sixth of the total mass of the Universe - there’s five times as much again in this mysterious stuff we call ‘dark matter’. We know it’s there, but we know close to nothing about what it’s made of. Different people have proposed new particles and objects ranging from the very small - lighter than a single subatomic particle - to the very large - heavier even than the Sun. The lighter, wave-like and heavier, particle-like dark matter candidates, behave differently and require different strategies to detect. In this lecture, Dr. Maria Simanovskaia will discuss a particular, promising dark matter candidate called an ‘axion,’ which, if detected, would also explain why the neutron is missing an electric dipole moment. She will also introduce the DMRadio collaboration, a team she is part of to build the world’s most sensitive radio that interacts with axion dark matter. Dr. Simanovskaia will wrap up the lecture by discussing the requirements needed for detecting a weak dark matter signal and the current technology development for tackling these challenges.
Speaker: Maria Simanovskaia, KIPAC
Register at weblink to attend in person or online
This event has been rescheduled for May 8
Wednesday, 05/03/2023
Polycentric governance in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta - 05/03/2023 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center Tiburon
Dr. Rittelmeyer is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior at UC Davis where she researches science integration into policy in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Her dissertation examined perceptions of flood risk through interviews, media coverage of past flood events, and the timing of floods during atmospheric river events over the past 40 years.
Speaker: Pamela Rittelmeyer
Attend in person or online.
Thursday, 05/04/2023
Climate Displacement in the Shadow of War: Feminist Refugee Perspectives on Hydro-disaster - 05/04/2023 03:30 PM
Dwinelle Hall Berkeley
“Climate-related migration,” “disaster mobility,” and “climate refugees” have become salient topics in the last decade in both the political and scholarly realms. Most of the discourse looks to the future, with mass migrations expected in the wake of ever more severe climate change. These climate mobilities tend to be regarded as a novel phenomenon. Yet, they are not new: Although the scope of these mobilities has never been larger, environmental factors and disasters have played a role in the movement of people throughout history. This lecture series explores this relation between human mobility and climate change and disaster from the early modern period to our own time. It charts various ways in which people in the Middle East, North America, and Asia have grappled with the need to move out of harm’s way, whether that harm was a sudden flood or a slow drought leading to famine. Sometimes, these people may only have had to relocate by several miles, while other times they had to traverse continents, but in their mobility, both they and the environments they came to inhabit (either permanently or in transit) were transformed. The lectures examine a wide range of mobilities that climate change and disaster have provoked and the economic, social, and cultural developments they sparked. They also draw attention to the immobilities caused by choice or specific mobility regimes, as well as their interactions with the mobilities of others. With the help of some historical perspectives and contemporary considerations, the lecture series aims to explore new ways of thinking about climate-related mobilities today and in the future.
Speaker: Heidi Amin-Hong, UC Santa Barbara
Registration required at weblink
Drop. Cover. Hold On. - 05/04/2023 05:30 PM
Ocean View Brew Works Albany
Amy Williamson from UC Berkeley Seismology Lab presents a talk on earthquakes in California.
The Insect Crisis is a Human Crisis - 05/04/2023 06:00 PM
David Brower Center Berkeley
Insects can seem to be everywhere, all at once, sometimes to an annoying extent. Three out of four every four known animal species on Earth are insects, after all. But these dazzlingly adept creatures, which pre-date the dinosaurs, are suffering a silent yet hugely consequential crisis, with their numbers plummeting around the world. Oliver Milman, environment correspondent for Guardian US, has outlined the ramifications of this loss in his book The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires that Run the World, a publication that has received widespread praise, from the environmentalist Bill McKibben to the New York Times. What does it mean when the world’s pollinators crash at a time when the global demand for food is only increasing? What crucial roles to insects play to prop up ecosystems and food webs and what happens when this status quo is threatened? What does it mean to us to us - culturally, morally, artistically - to lose the beauty of a butterfly, the flicker of a firefly, the industrious buzz of a bumblebee? What is causing all of this to happen? Milman will draw from his interviews with dozens of entomologists and his travels to the frontlines of the insect crisis, from the dwindling monarch butterfly stronghold in the Mexican mountains to the overstretched beekeepers trying to keep agriculture going in California, to explain why the decline of insects is a loss for us all.
NightLife: Feel the Force - 05/04/2023 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
The force is strong with this NightLife.
You have been invited on a mission to party like a rebel in a galaxy not-so far, far away. Gather the droids, alert the Jedis, load up your X-wing, and get ready for an epic galactic adventure featuring a live lightsaber duel, cosmic marketplace, and so much more.
Don’t wait: Tickets are moving faster than the Millenium Falcon on the Kessel Run. Grab yours today - you’re our only hope!
Featured events:
Get your groove on with out-of-this-world jams from Emmy Award winner DJ Jedi. Cheer your favorite villain or hero to victory during a thrilling lightsaber duel reenacted by the Lux Saber Corps. Say hello to wandering droids from Bay Area R2 Builders as they meander around the museum. Marvel at the mastery of artist Robert Xavier Burden while watching one of his detailed Star Wars-inspired oil paintings come to life in a time-lapse video.
Ages 21+
After Dark: Roots - 05/04/2023 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Uncover the underground life of plants! Find out how plant roots serve up necessary carbon, water, and more for healthy life - then hear from researchers about how roots adapt to climate change. Get an up-close look at root systems, and learn about the vast underground networks that connect plants to each other across species to communicate and share resources.
Michio Kaku: Quantum Supremacy - 05/04/2023 07:30 PM
Sydney Goldstein Theater San Francisco
The incomparably dynamic theoretical physicist and futurist Michio Kaku is a correspondent for CBS: This Morning, host of two weekly science radio programs, and the author of many books including The Future of the Mind, Physics of the Impossible, and The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything. With his signature clarity and enthusiasm, his newest book, Quantum Supremacy: How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything, suggests how quantum computing might eventually solve some of humanity’s biggest problems like global warming, world hunger, and incurable disease.
Moderator: Caterina Fake, entrepreneur and podcaster
Friday, 05/05/2023
Bair Island Walking Tour - 05/05/2023 10:00 AM
Bair Island Wildlife Refuge & Trail Redwood City
Join Peninsula Open Space Trust for a walking tour at Bair Island! You’ll be guided by POST ambassadors who will share the history of this beautiful protected space, information about the species that live there, and what you can do to contribute.
This easy 1.5 mile walk with little to no elevation gain will highlight the wetlands and the marine life that live within, such as: Endangered Ridgeway’s rails and salt marsh harvest mice. Also cottontail rabbits, peregrine falcons, pelicans, egrets, terns, and stilts. We recommend bringing binoculars to catch sight of some of the beautiful birds at Bair Island.
To sign up, please complete the Eventbrite form at the link below. Please register using a valid e-mail so you receive your e-ticket & the pre-event instructions.
Please note that dogs are not allowed at this Community Walk and that all minors must be accompanied by a parent and guardian for the entirety of the walk.
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics Seminar - 05/05/2023 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Speaker: Yuexin Li, CalTech
First Friday Climate Series: What is Weather? - 05/05/2023 06:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Ever wonder what happens in our atmosphere that can make it cold and rainy one day and hot and dry the next? Weather is a series of events that result in some amazing and downright fascinating effects. But how does this all work? Come learn from meteorologists and scientists how our weather works and what researchers do to track its changes. Learn about our own microclimates in the Bay Area, make a real cloud and learn all about lightning. Expand your understanding of what weather in this fun filled First Friday.
The Future of the Past with New Technology and Ancient Fossils - 05/05/2023 06:00 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
Cutting-edge technology is revolutionizing human origins research and changing the way we understand our uniquely human traits. In this lecture, Gordon P. Getty Award laureate Dr. Carol Ward will guide us through the process of finding fossils and using modern approaches to unlock their secrets.
Attend in person or online
Introduction to the Dobs Telescope - 05/05/2023 08:00 PM
College of San Mateo Bldg 36 San Mateo
Speaker: Kevin Simpson, SMCAS Board Member
Saturday, 05/06/2023
Drop-in at Palo Alto Baylands - 05/06/2023 09:00 AM
Palo Alto Duck Pond Palo Alto
Drop-in anytime between 9 am and 11 am to bird with us! SCVAS volunteers will be stationed at Palo Alto Baylands on the north side of the duck pond with binoculars to help you identify the huge variety of shorebirds and ducks that call the Bay Area home. No RSVP required.
Bringing Back the Natives In-Person Garden Tours - 05/06/2023 10:00 AM
Bringing Back the Natives
Bayside Cities gardens will be opeon on Saturday, Inland Cities on Sunday
Register at weblink and view the schedule for the tour
'All the Little Things' - EcoCenter Family Event - 05/06/2023 10:30 AM
Environmental Volunteers EcoCenter Palo Alto
In this special public program, join the Environmental Volunteers to learn about the importance of the "little things" in our ecosystem - insects, decomposers, etc. Discover how these organisms that we don't always see help the environment in big ways. This event will feature 3 separate activity stations, each with a separate learning activity led by an environmental volunteer helping participants find out what makes the "little things" so special!
This event is intended for ages 6-11. Each family group must have an accompanying adult to participate.
Reserve space at weblink for children. Accompanying adults do not need to reserve a spot.
The Experience Machine: Mental Prediction & Reality - Livestream - 05/06/2023 01:00 PM
Wonderfest
Every human's previous encounters with reality are the source of internal mental predictions that help to shape future experiences. So, seeing the "real world" (or hearing sounds, or feeling pain, or ...) involves a personal, ideosyncratic filter/kaleidoscope. This prediction-based theory of mind is quite hopeful. More than a facile version of "positive thinking," it suggests a realistic optimism where well-tuned expectations can actively help to bring about desired states and experiences.
Our speaker, Dr. Andy Clark, is Professor of Cognitive Philosophy at England's University of Sussex. He will present ideas from - and answer questions about - his new book, The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality.
WHISPERS FROM THE COSMOS: The Dawn of Gravitational Wave Astronomy - 05/06/2023 07:30 PM
San Jose Astronomical Association San Jose
Virtually everything we know about the Universe has been discovered from the study of photons --- light in all its myriad forms from radio waves, to visible light, to x-rays and beyond. At the dawn of the 21st century, advanced technology is providing access to the Cosmos through detection of sub-atomic particles like cosmic rays and neutrinos, and through detection of ripples in the fabric of spacetime itself.
These ripples in spacetime, called gravitational waves, carry information not in the form of light or particles, but in the form of gravity itself. Gravitational waves are messengers which carry the stories of what happens when two black holes collide, of how the inner core of a star destroys itself during a supernova explosion, and of how the graveyard of the galaxy is filled with the quiet whisper of binary white dwarf stars that spiral together ever so slowly as they fade into oblivion.
This talk will explore the modern description of gravity, what gravitational waves are and how we hope to measure them, and what we hope to learn from their detection. Gravity has a story to tell, and in this talk, we'll explore some of discoveries we hope to make by listening.
Speaker: Dr. Shane L. Larson, CIERA, Northwestern University
Sunday, 05/07/2023
Bringing Back the Natives In-Person Garden Tours - 05/07/2023 10:00 AM
Bringing Back the Natives
Bayside Cities gardens will be opeon on Saturday, Inland Cities on Sunday
Register at weblink and view the schedule for the tour
Monday, 05/08/2023
Landscape of Particle Accelerators, Snowmass Planning for Future, and Ultimate Colliders - 05/08/2023 03:30 PM
Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) Colloquium Series Menlo Park
For over half a century, high-energy particle accelerators have been a major enabling technology for particle and nuclear physics research as well as sources of X-rays for photon science research in material science, chemistry and biology. We will briefly review recent advances worldwide to increase the energy and improve the performance of accelerators, reduce their cost, and make them more power efficient.
Numerous ideas and proposals of future accelerators were discussed in the course of the “Snowmass’21" - the US HEP community forum to develop a scientific vision for the future of particle physics in the U.S. and worldwide. One of the main outcomes of the Snowmass’21 Implementation Task Force was a comparative evaluation of future HEP accelerator facilities, their realization strategies, costs, timelines, and challenges. Finally, we will take a look into limits of the ultimate future colliders based on traditional as well as on advanced accelerator technologies.
Speaker:Vladimir Shiltsev, Fermilab
Attend in person or online (see weblink)
A Personal Reflection on Thirty Years of Energy Transitions - 05/08/2023 04:30 PM
Stanford University Energy Seminar Stanford
Mike Morgan will share his reflections and lessons learned from 30 years as a leader and venture investor in a range of energy businesses that have seen significant transitions, including: natural gas infrastructure, residential solar, batteries + AI, and energy-optimizing software.
Michael Morgan is Founder, Chairman and CEO of Triangle Peak Partners
Attend in person or online.
May LASER Event - 05/08/2023 07:00 PM
LASER Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous Stanford Ravi Majeti(Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine) on "Stem Cells and Reprogramming in Human Acute Leukemia"TBA ...
Thomas Haakenson(California College of the Arts) on "Kurt Schwitters and the Space, Sound, Sexuality of Dada Resistance"The year 2023 marks roughly the centennial of some of the avant-garde’s most radical revisions of Western art and culture...Read moreDavid Stork(Visiting Lecturer, Stanford University) on "Rigorous computer-assisted lighting analysis of the works by Johannes Vermeer"Computer vision techniques provide a powerful and enhanced view into the lighting in Vermeer's paintings...Read morePaige Emery(Media Artist) on "On Divinatory Ecologies for More-Than-Human Time"A poetics of divination for how humans might relate to more ecologically-conscious futures through sensing alongside space for otherness...Read more
LiKaShing Building, Room LK101
Wave-like Dark Matter: Listening Through A Dark Matter Radio - 05/08/2023 07:00 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
The nature of dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries of the modern era. All the matter that we see makes up just one sixth of the total mass of the Universe - there’s five times as much again in this mysterious stuff we call ‘dark matter’. We know it’s there, but we know close to nothing about what it’s made of. Different people have proposed new particles and objects ranging from the very small - lighter than a single subatomic particle - to the very large - heavier even than the Sun. The lighter, wave-like and heavier, particle-like dark matter candidates, behave differently and require different strategies to detect. In this lecture, Dr. Maria Simanovskaia will discuss a particular, promising dark matter candidate called an ‘axion,’ which, if detected, would also explain why the neutron is missing an electric dipole moment. She will also introduce the DMRadio collaboration, a team she is part of to build the world’s most sensitive radio that interacts with axion dark matter. Dr. Simanovskaia will wrap up the lecture by discussing the requirements needed for detecting a weak dark matter signal and the current technology development for tackling these challenges.
Speaker: Maria Simanovskaia, KIPAC
Register at weblink to attend in person or online
This event was originally scheduled for May 2.
A Star is Born - 05/08/2023 07:30 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
The birth of stars is one of the most complex problems challenging modern astrophysics. Understanding their origins is of fundamental importance to many areas of astronomy, from exoplanet studies to cosmology. While the study of the initial conditions of star formation in molecular clouds has accelerated during the past couple of decades, at the same time, new data and discoveries have exposed new mysteries regarding the birth of stars. In this talk, Dr. Imara will outline the current state of our understanding of stellar nurseries and present some innovative approaches toward advancing our knowledge of these environments in the Milky Way Galaxy and beyond. With an eye toward the future, she will highlight some breakthroughs that have been achieved - as well as those we would like to achieve - in our journey to unravel the mysteries of star birth.
Speaker: Nia Amara, UC Santa Cruz
Tuesday, 05/09/2023
Whole Earth Seminar - 05/09/2023 03:30 PM
Natural Science Annex Santa Cruz
Stanford Symbolic Systems Forum: Jonathan Rosa - 05/09/2023 04:30 PM
Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg 460) Stanford
Wednesday, 05/10/2023
How our sensory/cognitive biases influence our study of visual modalities: Three tales of failure from the open sea - Livestream - 05/10/2023 11:00 AM
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Women in Astrophysics - 05/10/2023 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
An Eclipse Double-Header: Two U.S. Eclipses of the Sun in 2023-2024 - 05/10/2023 07:00 PM
Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series Los Altos Hills
Thursday, 05/11/2023
Nightlife - 05/11/2023 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
After Dark: Thought and Action - 05/11/2023 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Fiction and Medicine - 05/11/2023 07:30 PM
Sydney Goldstein Theater San Francisco
Extraterrestrial Life? - Livestream - 05/11/2023 07:30 PM
Bay Area Skeptics
Tick, tick, tick pulsating star, how we wonder what you are - Livestream - 05/11/2023 07:30 PM
Stanford University
Ask a Science Envoy: Poison Frogs & Quantum Chemistry - Livestream - 05/11/2023 08:00 PM
Wonderfest
Friday, 05/12/2023
Coastal Walk at Pillar Point Bluff - 05/12/2023 10:00 AM
Pillar Point Bluff Moss Beach
Second boiling of the Long Valley Caldera resolved by fiber-seismic tomography - 05/12/2023 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Nocturnal: Climate Conversations - 05/12/2023 06:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Climate Fiction Storytellers The Climate Parables: Reporting from the Future - 05/12/2023 08:00 PM
St. Joseph's Art's Society San Francisco
Saturday, 05/13/2023
Family Nature Walks - Foothills Nature Preserve - 05/13/2023 11:00 AM
Foothills Nature Preserve Los Altos
Climate Fiction Storytellers The Climate Parables: Reporting from the Future - 05/13/2023 08:00 PM
St. Joseph's Art's Society San Francisco
Monday, 05/15/2023
Stanford Energy Seminar: Meagan Mauter - 05/15/2023 04:30 PM
Stanford University Energy Seminar Stanford