SciSchmoozing Our Warming Planet

March 5, 2023

Mar 6

Greenland’s rapidly shrinking Helheim Glacier (Photo by Nick Cobbing © Greenpeace International)

Welcome dear science-aware reader,

I’ve been slogging through The Climate Book created through the efforts of Greta Thunberg. It is an astounding collection of 84 short ‘essays’ by scientists, economists, visionaries, philosophers, and respected authors. The book has 5 sections:

– How Climate Works
– How Our Planet is Changing
– How It Affects Us
– What We’ve Done About It
– What We Must Do Now

The 5 sections are divided into 18 subsections, each with an introduction by Greta Thunberg. Some ‘essays’ are lyric descriptions of an idyllic planet - that we are despoiling - while others contain scientific analyses with charts and graphs. And everything in between. Bottom line: it had a powerful effect on me -- i’m now using an electric bicycle for most of my errands under 12 miles. Recommendation: It is a powerful tome, so read it in small doses, but do read it.

¿How well are measures working to reduce global CO₂ emissions? Dismally. CO₂ emissions last year, 2022, were the highest ever. Subsidies (implicit and explicit) from the United States to oil and coal companies amount to about $62 billion annually - or $115,000 per minute. Globally, fossil fuel subsidies amount to 11 million dollars per minute. Currently, asset managers are permitted to ‘factor in’ climate change in their investment decisions - after all, change is happening. That policy has been condemned by fossil fuel supporters in Congress as “woke” capitalism and they hope to rescind that directive this week.

¿What can we, what should we do about this crisis? #1) Assess your own situation. ¿Are you still driving a fossil-fuel-only vehicle? ¿Do you still have gas appliances? ¿Are there solar panels on your roof? #2) Communicate this global situation with as many people as possible. (That’s sorta what i’m doing here.) A 50-minute talk to college students about the environmental cost of eating meat reduced their meat consumption over the next three years. Communicate.

Eva H. won the Constellation Mug with her guess of 433, just 9 off from the target of 442. The prize this time is a Crooke’s Radiometer. Just send an email before noon Friday to david.almandsmith [at] gmail.com with an integer between 1 and 1,000.

Last time, i recommended you check out a Namib Desert webcam. The recommendation still stands and now i also recommend a Kalahari Desert webcam where you can see wild kudu, ostrich, springbok, gemsbok, eland, duiker, zebra, giraffe, jackal, warthog, weaver finch, lapwing, canary, et al.

My Picks of the Week

– Mycorrhizal fungi & the future of forests in a changing climate Berkeley Noon Wednesday
– National Geographic Women Explorers celebrate International Women’s Day Wednesday 5:30 - 8pm San Francisco
– A Conversation with Senator Josh Becker on Climate Change, Equity, and California’s Sustainable Future Livestream 12:30 Thursday
– Confronting Mainstream Pseudoarchaeology Livestream Thursday 7:30
– North Bay Science Discovery Day Santa Rosa 10 - 4 Saturday
– EV Ride and Drive: Electrify your Ride Sunnyvale 11 - 3 Saturday

Although it doesn’t begin this week, you can sign up now for a fun online course: Aliens in Outer Space: The Science and the Fiction taught by Andrew Franknoi. The first session is on April 4.

COVIDiocy:

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic met last week. Here are a few quotes from that session:

Rep. Debbie Lesko: “COVID was intentionally released [from a Chinese lab because] it would be impossible for the virus to be accidentally leaked.”
Rep. Richard McCormick: “[Coronavirus booster shots] do more harm than good.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: “Researchers found that the vaccinated are at least twice as likely to be infected with COVID as the unvaccinated and those with natural immunity.”
Marty Makary, M.D.: “The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government.”

If you aren’t getting enough help from people you know, perhaps you should instead turn to dolphins, orcas, birds, and wolves.

Havana Syndrome was first reported in 2016 and the cause was frequently attributed to sonic or radio frequency weapons. Psychologists, on the other hand, often opined that the illnesses were most likely due to “conversion disorder” or “mass psychogenic illness.” Last Wednesday, the United States Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported that Havana Syndrome “available intelligence consistently points against the involvement of US adversaries in causing the reported incidents.” Without explicitly saying it, they were agreeing with the psychologists.

You may be familiar with “Physics Girl” Dianna Cowern since i have linked to several of her videos before. Bad news. She is suffering from a severe case of long COVID. (Scroll down to pictures of her in the hospital.) We wish her well. Here is what is currently recommended about diagnosing and treating long COVID.

Fun nerdy videos:

Sabine Hossenfelder The Effects of Greenhouse Gases 20 minutes
SciShow Muonium - Lighter than Hydrogen 8 minutes
PBS SpaceTime Are Space & Time Real or Relational? 26 minutes
Dr. Becky Why is this Kilonova Spherical? 14 minutes
Just Have a Think Reducing Emissions from Steel-Making 12 minutes
Cup o’ Joe History of Cotton Candy 4 minutes

Be bold yet understanding this week,
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics

“Human kindness is working to overcome nature, aiming for the survival of every human being, hence our effective and growing health-care systems. While this would seem to stifle evolutionary improvement, doing otherwise seems unthinkable.”
– Marilyn vos Savant (1946 - ) German-American magazine columnist

Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.

Monday, 03/06/2023

Drug Discovery: Concepts and Case Study - 03/06/2023 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park

Speaker: Dr. Jeanne Baker, Merck

The Cold Worlds Absent in our Solar System - 03/06/2023 12:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 A Berkeley

The standard core accretion planet formation theory predicts numerous "failed gas giant cores" in the wide orbits (> 1 AU), with masses less than about 10 Earth mass, but such planets are absent in our solar system. The gravitational microlensing technique is currently the only method that can probe low-mass wide-orbit planets. Before 2020 only a few such planets were detected, indicating a paucity of "failed gas giant cores". Since 2020, I have been leading two projects to capture "failed gas giant cores", which have discovered about 10 planets smaller than the detection record by 2020. These detections suggest that "failed gas giant cores" are more common than previously believed.

Speaker: Weicheng Zang, UC Berkeley

Following the water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Watershed: Where the water goes, controversy follows - 03/06/2023 12:30 PM
Environment and Energy Building (Y2E2) Stanford

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has been the focus of water woes and wars in California for over 100 years. The conflict involves upstream water uses, in-Delta water uses, Delta water exports, Delta outflow needed to repel seawater intrusion into the Delta, and freshwater flows needed to provide adequate habitat for aquatic species. This seminar briefly reviews changes in Delta regulations over time, and changes in the estimates of Delta outflow needed to keep the Delta fresh. It then reviews the results of Public Policy Institute of California studies that examined watershed unimpaired runoff, stored water, imported and exported water, upstream and in-Delta uses, and Delta outflow from 1980 to 2021 on daily to annual time scales. Delta outflow was classified according to flows needed for system requirements (to keep the Delta fresh enough for human uses of Delta water), Delta ecosystem requirements, and uncaptured flow. The change in the amounts of water used in these categories largely follows the changing climate and evolving regulations. The analysis dispels some myths about the quantities of water used in the various categories and their trends. It also demonstrates the State’s high reliance on runoff from snowmelt which has seriously declined over the last 20 years as temperatures rose, and it shows that the system essentially “broke” in 2021 when total upstream and in-Delta uses exceeded runoff, leaving only stored water to meet Delta outflow requirements and Delta water exports. In contrast, the analysis shows that large amounts of water could have been exported in wet years even with stringent ecosystem protection requirements in place, but those exports were foregone due to lack of available storage.

Speaker: Greg Gartrell, Public Policy Institute of California

How Hole-y is your Spacetime? aka How to Measure Topology in Quantum Gravity - 03/06/2023 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park

In this talk, I will introduce the field of Quantum Gravity and my favorite candidate framework: String Theory. Furthermore, I will discuss the AdS/CFT (Gauge/Gravity) duality, which is a tool for answering questions in Quantum Gravity. Finally, we will explore how to measure the topology of a quantum spacetime and specifically address whether topology can be represented by a linear operator on your spacetime or not.

Speaker: Alexandra Miller, Sonoma State University

Role of mobile genes in the community interactions of the intestinal microbiota - 03/06/2023 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford

Speaker: Leonor Garcia-Bayona, University of Chicago

UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - 03/06/2023 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley

Speaker: Lars Bildsten, UC Santa Barbara

The Limits of Language - RESCHEDULED - 03/06/2023 04:30 PM
Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg 460) Stanford

Speaker: Asifa Majid, University of Oxford

Room 126

This event will now be held on March 7, 2023.

Accelerants for Building Decarbonization - 03/06/2023 04:30 PM
Huang Engineering Center Stanford

Long-standing barriers to participation in the clean energy economy have produced well-mapped landscapes of underserved communities, yet even after key financial barriers are removed, additional cultural and capacity challenges remain acute. With sustained investment in a seeding strategy, community anchor institutions can host revenue-generating microgrids that fuel local job creation and hiring, improve community resilience to hazards, and mitigate cultural barriers to adoption of clean energy upgrades. This seminar will illuminate insights about the essential role of cultural competency and community seeding alongside more accessible financial solutions to accelerate building energy upgrades for rapid decarbonization.

Speaker: Dr. Anthony Kinslow II, Gemini Energy Solutions

Attend in person or online (see weblink)

Hearing the Stars: New Insights into Stellar Interiors - 03/06/2023 05:30 PM
International House Berkeley

Space-based observations have provided a remarkable new tool for studying stars within our galaxy, the Milky Way. Simply by measuring how bright a star is over many years, we can now directly measure its mass and radius, as well as the properties of its deep interior, such as the rate of rotation. This has been done for tens of thousands of stars across the Milky Way, also allowing us to unravel how the galaxy was formed over cosmic time. It's a great story of how theory and observation, together, can make a remarkable impact on our understanding of the universe.

Speaker: Lars Bildsten, UC Santa Barbara

This event was originally scheduled on January 24, 2023.

Searching for Planet B - What can humanity learn from other planets if it is to survive into the future? - 03/06/2023 07:30 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco

Do alien worlds hold the answers to humanity’s future? Can we use the discoveries from astronomy and modern space science to address the climate crisis here on Earth? Synthesizing the last 15 years of research lectures and science visualization at the California Academy of Sciences, this immersive talk was originally presented at last fall’s Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria. We will explore what we know about potentially habitable worlds, but also how modern space-based observations of our home planet can guide us toward a regenerative future.

Speaker: Dan Tell, Planetarium Engineering, California Academy of Sciences

Tuesday, 03/07/2023

Women in Data Science at UC Berkeley - 03/07/2023 09:00 AM
Sutardja Dai Hall Berkeley

The UC Berkeley School of Information and CITRIS are excited to partner with Stanford University to bring the Women in Data Science (WiDS) conference to Berkeley, California.

The Global Women in Data Science (WiDS) Conference is an annual technical conference based at Stanford, which brings together data scientists and professionals in adjacent fields from around the globe to discuss the latest research and applications of data science in a broad set of domains. Participants learn how leading-edge companies are leveraging data science for success and connect with potential mentors, collaborators, and others in the field.

The event will also be live streamed.

All genders are invited to participate in the conference, which features exclusively female speakers.

In partnership with the main conference, WiDS Berkeley features on-location events with distinguished speakers from the Bay Area in academia and industry. This time we will also feature a student poster session, showing off ongoing student projects.

Whole Earth Seminar - 03/07/2023 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz

Speaker: Speaker: Sara Tenamoeata Kahanamoku, Ulana ʻIke Center of Excellence Hawaiʻi Sea Grant College Program

The Deep Synoptic Array: fast radio burst probes of the unseen universe - 03/07/2023 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford

The origins of fast radio bursts (FRBs) at extragalactic distances remain shrouded in mystery. FRBs nonetheless form exquisite tracers of the contents and physical conditions of baryons along their sightlines. For example, FRBs are dispersed in intervening plasma columns, and these columns are typically dominated by gas around and in between galaxies. Much of the cosmic baryon content is locked in this hot (>10^6 K) and diffuse (<10^-3 cm^-3) phase, making it difficult to observe the processes whereby galaxies grow out of and impact their baryonic environments. The Deep Synoptic Array (DSA-110) radio telescope, nearing the end of construction at Caltech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory, is pinpointing FRBs to host galaxies at a world-leading rate. I will present the first results from a DSA-110 FRB sample. These results shed new light on the origins of FRBs, highlighting the roles of multiple progenitor channels. Certain DSA-110 discoveries also enable tantalizing measurements of the content of the Milky Way CGM, and the ICM of nearby massive galaxy clusters. I will conclude by introducing the upcoming DSA-2000 radio camera, which will transform our access to the radio sky. With unmatched survey speed for continuum, spectral-line and short-timescale emission in the 0.7-2GHz band, the DSA-2000 will address frontier questions on our cosmic history, and in multi-messenger and time-domain astrophysics.

Speaker: Vikram Ravi

The Limits of Language - 03/07/2023 04:30 PM
Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg 460) Stanford

Why are some things relatively easy to express in language (e.g., geometric shapes) but others hard (e.g., odors)? Various explanations have been suggested for this differential ineffability (i.e., the impossibility of putting phenomena into words). Perhaps it is due to something fundamental about the cognitive architecture of our minds~brains. The ease of naming visual as opposed olfactory entities, for example, has been attributed the amount brain area devoted to processing each sensory modality. Accordingly, there appear to be asymmetries in our ability to represent sensory information - studies show people generally report vivid visual and auditory imagery, for example, but only weak smell and taste imagery. Based on fieldwork and laboratory studies, I illustrate how differential expressibility across the senses reflects cultural, not cognitive biases. Things that elude description in English are nevertheless easily conveyed in other languages, highlighting the role culture and experience play in understanding the nature and limits of language and cognition.

Speaker: Asifa Majid, University of Oxford

Room 126

This event was originally scheduled for March 6, 2023.

Who makes the Earth habitable? From a metaphysics of production to a metaphysics of alliance - 03/07/2023 05:00 PM
Levinthal Hall (Humanities Center) Bldg 02-100 Stanford

Among the founding myths of modern Western cosmology, there is one that would almost go unnoticed, so much has it shaped our ways of thinking and acting. It is the dominant philosophical belief that we humans produce our own sustenance and make the Earth habitable. We have invented a civilization built on the belief that it is human activity, whether in the form of agricultural practices or land management and development, that feeds and shelters us. This is what I call the metaphysics of production, a world-view according to which we humans are those who make the Earth nourishing and habitable. But this self-fulfilling myth is now cracking on all sides: this is what the disappearance of wild insects, which are undergoing an unprecedented phenomenon of defaunation, is telling us, revealing themselves to us as irreplaceable nourishing actors who make agricultural production possible; this is what we are learning from the multiplication of droughts, mega-fires and floods, which are making us rediscover the beaver as the initiator of ecological dynamics that are essential for defending the habitability of the living environments. If we are to imagine a society that does not undermine the conditions of its own sustenance and the myriad wild life forms that contribute to it, it is important to radically reject this metaphysics of production, in order to foster and spread a metaphysics of alliance: a world-view that acknowledges non-human life forms and the wild dynamics they create, as irreplaceable producers of the earth's habitability for all life forms of which we are a part. An in-depth analysis of the contemporary ecological crisis makes it clear that it is not only human societies that are in crisis on the one hand, and the living world that is in crisis on the other, but that it is fundamentally a crisis of our relations to the living. It is these relationships that must be rethought and transformed: this calls for imagining politics of interdependence, supported by local-based concrete alliances, which work for the good of the mutualistic and constitutive relationship between humans and the rest of life on Earth.

Speaker: Baptiste Morizot, Aix-Marseille University

Chat-GPT, LLMs and the Future of Finance and Accounting Panel - 03/07/2023 05:30 PM
Decker Communications San Francisco

Chat-GPT has taken the world by a storm, with an estimated 75 million users already, but this is just the beginning for Large Language Models (LLMs). Much has been written about the applications of this technology for Marketers and Engineering teams, but what does it mean for finance and accounting leaders? What changes should they be making to workflows or roadmaps? Where should they be looking to invest in the long term? specifically?

For this panel, we’ve asked thought leaders from different parts of the industry to share their thoughts on the future we can expect to see with the explosion of LLMs, including tools like Chat-GPT. We’ll have finance leaders, VCs who invest in the space as well as founders and engineers to share their views.

Panel: Benny Huang, Crowdstrike; acob Nibley, Tola Capital; Nischal Nadhamuni, Klarity

Programming with Rust - Livestream - 03/07/2023 06:00 PM
UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Extension

Join us in learning more about Rust, one of the fastest-growing programming languages, which continues to be ranked the most-loved language by its users. Its user base, aka “Rustaceans,” has tripled in just two years as more and more software products are being developed in Rust.

In this fast-paced overview with Danesh Forouhari we’ll talk about:

The history of RustProblems Rust solvesComparing Rust to other programming languagesBenchmarking data (vs. C & Go)The good, the bad, and the ugly of programming with RustRunning some sample Rust code, if time permits

Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock - 03/07/2023 07:00 PM
Long Now Foundation San Francisco

"What first appears to be a wish for more time may turn out to be just one part of a simple, yet vast, desire for autonomy, meaning, and purpose." -Jenny Odell

Artist and writer Jenny Odell brings her acutely insightful observations to the dominant framework of time, based on industrial and colonial worldviews, that is embedded within our societies. Addressing the inability to reconcile the artificially constructed time pressures of modern culture with planetary-scale crisis, she offers a series of histories, concepts, and places as "provocations that can defamiliarize an old language of time, while pointing in the direction of something else."

Odell's newest book is Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock (March 02023) and her first book is the widely-read How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (02019). Her visual work is exhibited internationally, and she's been artist in residence at Recology SF (the dump), the San Francisco Planning Department, the Internet Archive, and the Montalvo Arts Center. Previously, Odell taught digital art at Stanford University.

Wednesday, 03/08/2023

The role of Instagram in diversifying women in STEM - Livestream - 03/08/2023 11:00 AM
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

What does a scientist look like? We investigate the power of social media in shaping the vision of diverse female scientists using the popular Instagram page Women Doing Science as a case study. This social media platform has featured photos and stories from over 800 international women in STEM between 2018 and 2022. We analyzed posts from the page for trends in photo/caption content and engagement and cross referenced these data with results from several demographic surveys to both featured scientists and page followers. Our analysis revealed that Women Doing Science features reflected diverse, international female scientists that audiences not only rewarded with higher engagement, but also specifically sought out. This highlights the power of social media to portray role models with myriad identities for students that may lack real-life examples in their family or university. However, until the burden for DEI work shifts from students to those with greater institutional power, racial and gender gaps will persist and scientists will continue to rely on social media for inspiration.

Speaker: Alexandra Phillips, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis

Mycorrhizal fungi and the future of forests in a changing climate - 03/08/2023 12:00 PM
Barker Hall, Rm 101 Berkeley

Kabir Peay’s research is filling critical gaps in our understanding of how mycorrhizal fungi respond to climate change through his use of large-scale DNA sequencing, biogeographic modeling, and manipulative experiments. Mutualisms forged by mycorrhizal fungi critically affect the resistance and resilience of forest trees faced with climate change, which impacts the carbon cycle through effects on plant productivity and the Earth’s massive pool of plant biomass.

Algal Solutions for a Sustainable Future - 03/08/2023 04:00 PM
Giannini Hall Berkeley

With the world's population approaching 10-billion people by 2050, society will be facing a significant increase in the demands placed upon its food production system as well as a major expansion of the human-built environment. At the same time, society must reduce its detrimental impacts on climate, energy use, land use, freshwater resources, and biodiversity. These challenges will require finding sustainable alternatives to today's carbon emissions-intensive agricultural and manufacturing practices. The premise of this talk is that marine algae-based aquaculture can help close the projected gap in society's future nutritional and manufacturing demands while simultaneously improving environmental sustainability.

Speaker: Chuck Green, University of Washington

Rebooting the Human Genome: New Variant Discovery in the Era of Complete Genomes - 03/08/2023 05:00 PM
UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Campus Santa Clara

Genomic scientist Karen Miga, assistant professor of biomolecular engineering at UC Santa Cruz, was named one of the 100 most influential people of 2022 by TIME magazine for her work co-leading an international team of scientists known as the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium to complete the first gapless sequence of a human genome.

Please join us for this fascinating and important lecture about the need to create a more sophisticated and complete human reference genome that better represents global genomic diversity.

National Geographic Women Explorers celebrate International Women’s Day - 03/08/2023 05:30 PM
CANOPY Jackson Square San Francisco

On International Women’s Day, join five inspiring women explorers as they share their work to understand rainforest conservation, citizen science, ethnobotany and the environmental impacts of deep-sea mining, and how this shared knowledge can empower us all to protect the natural world.

· Katlin L. Bowman, oceanographer

· Julia DeMarines, astrobiologist

· Maria Fadiman, geographer, ethnobiologist

· Kathy Ho, photographer

· Lyra Tyson, sociologist

Free Drinks At the Conference: How To Deliver a Compelling Technical Talk - Livestream - 03/08/2023 06:00 PM
IEEE San Francisco Bay Area Consumer Technology

Delivering a conference talk is a killer way to increase community knowledge, get jobs, and get free drinks at the bar, but only if you don’t put your audience to sleep first! In this experiential workshop, you will learn to structure your technical content so you can engage your audience in a deeper and more persuasive way. Bring your own content to develop or make it up in class. Topics include:- 3 critical pre-presentation audience questions so your audience understands what you want them to understand- 5 failsafe techniques for audience engagement to wake ‘em up and keep ‘em focused on your message- 5 techniques for technical storytelling to get your audience talking about your message in the hall after your talk- 3 methods for better data visualization, i.e. why the heck are we seeing this?- 3 ways to add humor to your talk that won’t get you banned- 2 technical presentation-specific rehearsal methods so you look like a pro speaker at TEDtalks (if that’s your thing)- 4 mind hacks to manage pesky presentation anxiety. If you have an upcoming conference talk or aspire to have one, then this workshop is for you.

Speaker: Don Colliver, Author

Emoji for Everyone - 03/08/2023 07:00 PM
Computer History Museum Mountain View

Over the past decade, emoji have become integral to digital communication and are currently used by 92% of the world’s online population. Emoji have not only become a friendly mode of self-expression , but also a crossroad of culture, creativity, and the struggle for inclusion and equity.

In recent surveys, most people say they believe emoji have the power to create positive change in the world. While the majority of Black, Asian, and Latinx emoji users in the US believe emoji contribute to important discussions around these issues, 41% of US emoji users said they feel their identities are not adequately reflected in the current roster of emoji.

Can a more inclusive library of emoji lead to a more inclusive world? How do we get there and who makes the decisions about new emoji? Join CHM as we explore these questions and more.

What You’ll Experience

Hear personal stories of the people who succeeded in advocating to add the dumpling

, hijab

and other emoji

to the global lexicon. Learn from the vicechair of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee about how these important decisions are made. Consider the unfolding evolution of human-computer interaction and how we can add our voices to help shape a more inclusive future.

Speakers: Jenny Lee, Producer, "The Emojy Story"; Rayouf Alhumedhi, Stanford University; Yiying Lu, San Francisco Arts Commission

First Results from the James Webb Space Telescope - 03/08/2023 07:00 PM
Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series Los Altos Hills

* We ask that attendees be vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19 and wear a mask while indoors at the event. Extra masks will be provided. Thank you.

We have a new supersensitive eye in the cosmic sky. Parked nearly one million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is 100 times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope. JWST observes at "low" frequencies, from the red to the mid-infrared parts of the spectrum, offering new insights into a vast array of objects and processes -- including solar system formation, star birth and death, galaxy evolution, and, perhaps, the origins of life. The talk will include images and results from the first months of the telescope's operation.

Professor Alex Filippenko was voted the University of California, Berkeley's "best professor" nine times! He is the only astronomer to contribute to both research teams whose work earned the 2011 Physics Nobel Prize for discovering the acceleration of the expanding universe. He has produced five astronomy video courses with The Great Courses, co-authored an award-winning astronomy textbook, and appeared in about 100 TV documentaries. Among his many awards are the Education Prize of the American Astronomical Society and the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization.

Thursday, 03/09/2023

A Star is Born - 03/09/2023 11:00 AM
Kavli Institute Astrophysics Colloquium Stanford

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, I 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, I 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 Imara, UC Santa Cruz

Attend in person or via Zoom

A Conversation with Senator Josh Becker on Climate Change, Equity, and California’s Sustainable Future - Livestream - 03/09/2023 12:30 PM
SF Planning + Urban Research Assoc. (SPUR)

Senator Becker has played a significant role in California's efforts to expand renewable energy sources, develop electric vehicle infrastructure, and decarbonize buildings. In addition, he has been at the forefront of climate equity efforts, working to ensure that marginalized communities are not disproportionately impacted by climate change and are able to fully participate in the transition to a more sustainable future. Don't miss this opportunity to hear from a leading voice on sustainability and learn about his ideas for a more environmentally conscious and equitable future.

Speakers:

Laura Feinstein, SPURState Senator osh Becker

Formed Too Fast: Massive Galaxies at Cosmic Dawn - 03/09/2023 12:30 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 A Berkeley

The pace of galaxy growth in the early Universe offers one of the strongest and most accessible tests of the Lambda-CDM cosmological framework. A growing number of surprisingly massive galaxies are now being found in the first billion years after the Big Bang that pushed the limits of theoretical predictions. Unusually bright high-redshift galaxies discovered by JWST challenge our most fundamental models of how fast stars form. Massive dusty starbursts found with ALMA are requiring new explanations about early dust production. The spatial distribution of massive galaxies within large scale structure may be more highly clustered than expected, which would impact the timescale and uniformity of reionization - the last major phase change of the Universe from a neutral to ionized medium.

I will present an overview of large, multi-wavelength observational campaigns I am leading to place the first comprehensive constraints on the rarest, most massive galaxies to emerge at z > 6 and the impact they in turn have on our interpretations of the early Universe. These efforts unite the unprecedented sensitivity of JWST together with ALMA and Keck to address fundamental challenges of massive galaxy formation using several independent tests and tracers. Looking ahead, the next Generation of facilities under development - ngVLA, the TMT, Roman, and future NASA probes - will definitively establish the story of when and how the first galaxies assembled.

Speaker: Caitlin Casey, UC Berkeley

Renewables and the Grid: Challenges & Opportunities in Our Energy Future - Livestream - 03/09/2023 04:30 PM
Acterra

Growing the capacity of the clean energy grid to ensure resilience, sustainability, and equity is one of society’s biggest challenges. This series will explore how we can meet the demands of a decarbonizing economy and upgrade infrastructure with new, smarter technology and strategies, at scale. How can we reduce inequities and bring the grid fully into a green, just future?

Speaker: Tom McCalmont, Paired Power

EXPO: Environmental Careers for Youth - 03/09/2023 05:00 PM
Advanced Energy Center Santa Rosa

Sonoma Environmental Education Collaborative (SEEC) presents: Environmental Careers for Youth

Program includes: Speakers + Job Fair + Resume Help

Age: Highschool and up

Panelists include:

Clint McKayIndigenous Education Coordinator, Pepperwood Preserve

Karen LopezGrizzlyCorps Fellow, Sonoma Resource Conservation District

Greg DesmundRecreation Supervisor, Sonoma County Regional Parks

Theodora BlockResearch Program Manager, Canine Companions

Attend in person or online by registering, which is required

Nightlife: Unladylike - 03/09/2023 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco

They broke rules, stereotypes, and glass ceilings. In honor of Women’s History Month, hear the inspiring stories of fearless Academy scientists from the past who challenged the status quo.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Buzzed Bios African Hall: 8 PM

Grab a cocktail and sip along as Kel Larkin, Institute for Biodiversity Science & Sustainability (IBSS) Program Manager, Marie Angel, Curatorial Assistant of Geology, and Chelsea Connor, IBSS Graduate Student, lead their version of drunk (Academy) history. Animations and stop motion art by Shayna Yasuhara will help bring a few famous Academy alumni to life during this scientifically silly look into the past.

Coastal Creations Swamp: 6 - 10 PM

How did a “feminine” Victorian era craft become a window to our changing oceans? In the 1870s, women weren’t allowed to swim in the ocean, so they got creative: Pressed seaweed art emerged as a way to enjoy the coast, and now give us glimpses of the state of our oceans over a hundred years ago. Join the Museum of Craft and Design and try a modern rendition of this artform yourself by making seaweed print art with DIY block printed tote bags.

Unladylike Collections Swamp: 6 - 10 PM

From insects to birds, Academy scientists will walk you through a collection of specimens previously deemed “unladylike” by societal standards

For adults 21+.

After Dark: Integrating Ecologies - 03/09/2023 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco

Where do the boundaries between the built and natural worlds blur? If you look, you can see the ties between these two ecologies in everything from nonhuman species that inhabit urban environments to design that responds to more powerful weather systems. Tonight at After Dark, explore how we can recognize the overlap, and how we can meaningfully integrate built and natural into one ecology. And enjoy a special screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary All That Breathes (2022, 94 min.), co-presented with SF Urban Film Fest.

A Light in the Dark - How Light Pollution Affects Avian Health - Livestream - 03/09/2023 06:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory

Light pollution affects birds in many ways, disrupting the natural cycle of dark and light and influencing the behavior and physiology of wildlife. Join us to learn about how artificial lights at night affect the health of birds. Murry Burgess will share her current research that includes a field experiment with Barn Swallow chicks, testing their physical development and metabolic health under artificial natural light at night and natural conditions.

Speaker: Murry Burgess, North Carolina State University

Netflix, Apocalypses, and the Lost Civilization: Confronting Mainstream Pseudoarchaeology - Livestream - 03/09/2023 07:30 PM
Bay Area Skeptics

The 2022 Netflix “docuseries” Ancient Apocalypse, hosted by former journalist and author Graham Hancock, has provoked a firestorm of discussion in the press and social media. In this series, the host claims that comets destroyed an advanced civilization that existed during the Ice Age and whose survivors were the progenitors of ancient complex societies around the world. Archaeologists contend that Hancock’s claims are a form of pseudoarchaeology that misrepresent science and revive Victorian-era explanations of the past that are associated with colonialism and notions of cultural superiority. Hancock’s attack on archaeology and archaeologists has been so dismissive that it prompted an open letter to Netflix from the Society for American Archaeology, outlining the potential harm to the profession in the minds of the public and alluding to the ways this series could contribute to issues of racism and white supremacy. The series is just one recent example of the rejection of academic expertise and the promotion of conspiracy theories about scientific authority. Hancock and his supporters complain that archaeologists are practicing “wokeism,” bringing the debate squarely into current culture wars that include the rejection of liberal higher education.

Speaker: John W. Hoopes, University of Kansas

See weblink for connection to the talk.

Friday, 03/10/2023

Long-term and continuous evaluation of hydro-geochemical changes in response to the earthquakes in Northeast India - 03/10/2023 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz

Speaker: Sourav Kumar, UC Berkeley

Sonoma State University Astronomy Public Viewing Nights - 03/10/2023 07:30 PM
Sonoma State University Public Astronomy Rohnert Park

Join members of the Sonoma State Physics - Astronomy department for public astronomy viewing. See weblink for map to the site.

Event is weather dependent. Check the weblink prior to attending for last minute cancelations.

Saturday, 03/11/2023

North Bay Science Discovery Day - 03/11/2023 10:00 AM
Sonoma County Fairgrounds Santa Rosa

Children, teenagers, and families are invited to attend the FREE science festival to spark wonder and curiosity about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The sponsors, exhibitors, and volunteers welcome you to the North Bay Science Discovery Day. The goals are to inspire kids to pursue STEM education and careers by engaging them with hands-on STEM activities. Continuing to work collaboratively with educators and employers, we support the next generation's interest and curiosity. Working together we witness the engaging and growing interest in STEM careers, build a global competitive workforce, and increase the economic vitality of the North Bay. Thank you for being here. We hope you enjoy the day!

Community discussion: Bolinas Lagoon, Duxbury Reef, and the Bolinas Field Station - 03/11/2023 10:00 AM
Audubon Canyon Ranch Stinson Beach

Please join Audubon Canyon Ranch and College of Marin (COM) for a presentation and discussion of the current and future science and state of Bolinas Lagoon, Duxbury Reef, and COM’s Bolinas Field Station. Post-presentation field trip led by Gwen Heistand and Joe Mueller.

Please bring your binoculars for the field trip.

SPEAKERS:

Gwen Heistand, Resident Biologist and Preserve Manager, Audubon Canyon Ranch, Martin Griffin, Preserve
Joe Mueller, College of Marin, Biology Professor
Kent Khtikian, Environmental Activist, California Academy Rocky Shores Partnership Naturalist

RSVP at weblink to attend

Family Nature Walks - Foothills Nature Preserve - 03/11/2023 11:00 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.

EV Ride and Drive: Electrify your Ride - 03/11/2023 11:00 AM
Sunnyvale Community Center Sunnyvale

Curious about Electric Vehicles?

Experience electric vehicles and take one for a test drive or ride. At this event you’ll have the opportunity to sit in, ride, or drive electric vehicles to experience the joy of switching to electric firsthand. Have all your questions answered about the vehicles, charging, and the financial incentives available.

Reserve a time slot for YOUR test drive or ride!

Check out the latest battery electric and plug in hybrid modelsTake a FREE test drive or rideLearn about charging, incentives and more!

Note: Drivers need to be 21 years or older, otherwise you can be a Rider.

Stories from Plants and Continents - 03/11/2023 01:00 PM
UC Botanical Garden Berkeley

Garden visitors are invited to experience a collection of presentations by students from Professor Kim Anno’s California College of the Arts Parks, Environment, and Leisure design class. “Stories from plants and the continents” will be a series of 5-minute stories inspired by the global collections of the UC Botanical Garden held in two locations. Students will use science, histories, cultural references, posters, tea ceremony, and more to present the wonder and uses of plants from various continents found in the Botanical Garden. This includes Chinese Medicinal plants, Asian blossoms and plants, Mediterranean, African, and Australian plants. Everyone is welcome. Presentations will start in the Redwood Grove amphitheater at 1pm and move to the Oak Knoll at 2pm for the second half. Join us and learn more about plants around the world and their associative histories and culture.

Sunday, 03/12/2023

Drop-in at the Charleston Slough Observation Deck - 03/12/2023 09:00 AM
Charleston Slough Observation Deck Palo Alto

Drop-in anytime between 9 am and 11 am to bird with us! SCVAS volunteers will be stationed at the Charleston Slough observation deck with binoculars to help you identify the huge variety of shorebirds and ducks that call the Bay Area home. No RSVP required.

Monday, 03/13/2023

Genomics (Plus Field Ecology) to Enhance California Biodiversity Conservation - 03/13/2023 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park

Speaker: Dr. Brad Shaffer, UC Los Angeles

A Heartbreak Star - 03/13/2023 12:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 A Berkeley

In this talk, I will describe tidal wave breaking on the surface of a massive "heartbeat" star. Each periapse passage in this eccentric binary system, tides with amplitudes so large that they lose phase coherence and break are raised. The chance to view this process in action gives us a window into the physics and consequences of nonlinear tidal dissipation. I will describe modeling and simulations of this system, in which we see that tidal wave breaking drives the system's orbit to decay observably, and spins the stellar surface to the breakup limit.

Speaker: Morgan MacLeod, UC Berkeley

Programmable adiabatic demagnetization: preparing low energy states by simulated cooling - 03/13/2023 02:30 PM
Physics North Berkeley

The ability to prepare ground states of many-body Hamiltonians on quantum devices is of central importance for a variety of tasks and applications in quantum computation and quantum simulation. In this talk I will describe a simple, flexible, and robust protocol to prepare low-energy states of arbitrary Hamiltonians on either digital or analog quantum hardware. The protocol is inspired by the “adiabatic demagnetization” technique, used to cool solid state systems to extremely low temperatures. A constant fraction of the available qubits serve as a renewable bath, enabling the cooling process to be run in a cyclic fashion. Measurements of the bath spins at the end of each cycle provide information on the progress of cooling. Importantly, we find that the performance of the algorithm in the presence of a finite error rate depends on the nature of the excitations of the system: the greater difficulty of cooling systems with topological excitations (which cannot be created or destroyed individually) is manifested in characteristic dependencies of cooling performance on error rate and system size, which can serve as signatures of the underlying ground state order. Finally, I will discuss prospects for beating this scaling through fermionization.

Speaker: Mark Ruder, University of Washington

Diving Deep Uncovers Deep Knowledge - 03/13/2023 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park

Speaker: Russell Lego, Adobe

Live Cell Force Dynamics - Do Cell Membranes Support or Resist Tension Propagation? - 03/13/2023 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford

Speaker: Shannon Yan, UC Berkeley

Illuminating Dark Matter with Accelerators - 03/13/2023 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley

Nearly a century after discovering Dark Matter, we have an impressive understanding of its astronomical and cosmological properties but remarkably little knowledge of its fundamental nature. One leading paradigm postulates new fundamental particles that were in thermal equilibrium with ordinary matter in the early universe - thermal relics - where the most familiar example is a new particle that interacts through the weak nuclear force, weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). As searches for WIMPs approach fundamental sensitivity limits, interest in the more general class of thermal relics has emerged, where these dark matter candidates give rise to clearly testable predictions in small, accelerator-based experiments. In this talk, I will review the fundamental ideas and motivations for these searches, describe how the experiments work, and discuss their ability to explore thermal dark matter, with a particular focus on two experiments, the Heavy Photon Search (HPS) at JLab, and the Light Dark Matter eXperiment (LDMX), proposed to operate at SLAC.

Speaker: Tim Nelson, Stanford University

Tuesday, 03/14/2023

Pi (π) Day - 03/14/2023 11:00 AM
ExplOratorium San Francisco

Ironing out Life’s First Breaths - 03/14/2023 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz

The Physics of the Cult Movie Interstellar - 03/14/2023 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford

Stanford Symbolic Systems Forum: Bruce McCandliss - 03/14/2023 04:30 PM
Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg 460) Stanford

Astronomy Beginner's Forum - Livestream - 03/14/2023 07:00 PM
San Jose Astronomical Society

Wednesday, 03/15/2023

Coastal Walk at Cowell-Purisima Trail - 03/15/2023 10:00 AM
Cowell Purisima Coastal Trailhead Half Moon Bay

What I Did On My Fall Vacations - Submersible Research on the Fishes of Southern California Oil/Gas Platforms - 03/15/2023 11:00 AM
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute Moss Landing

Succulent Plants of South Africa’s Western Cape - Livestream - 03/15/2023 12:00 PM
UC Botanical Garden

Marine Invertebrate Responses to Changing Environments - 03/15/2023 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center Tiburon

Gendered surplus people, food security, and maladaptation to climate change - 03/15/2023 04:00 PM
Giannini Hall Berkeley

Beyond ChatGPT: Stuart Russell on the Risks and Rewards of A.I. - Rescheduled - 03/15/2023 05:30 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco

White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi - 03/15/2023 06:00 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco

Cell Phone Astrophotography - Livestream - 03/15/2023 06:00 PM
San Francisco Amateur Astronomers

Human-Centered Design for VR Training - Livestream - 03/15/2023 07:00 PM
SF Bay Association of Computing Machinery

Wonderfest: Spider Love and Dark Matter - Livestream - 03/15/2023 08:00 PM
Wonderfest

Thursday, 03/16/2023

Key Technologies for Upgrading Cable Television Networks - Livestream - 03/16/2023 04:00 PM
Sonoma State Engineering Colloquium

Exposing Muybridge: A Special Documentary Screening and Presentation on the Life and Work of a Technological Disruptor - First screening - 03/16/2023 04:00 PM
The Guild Theater Menlo Park

Nightlife - 03/16/2023 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco

After Dark: Conversations About Landscape - 03/16/2023 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco

1.5 C - Methane: the 100x threat - 03/16/2023 06:00 PM
Manny's San Francisco

Birding while Disabled - Livestream - 03/16/2023 07:00 PM
Golden Gate Audubon Society

Exposing Muybridge: A Special Documentary Screening and Presentation on the Life and Work of a Technological Disruptor - Second screening - 03/16/2023 07:00 PM
The Guild Theater Menlo Park

NightSchool: Number 2 - Livestream - 03/16/2023 07:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences

Friday, 03/17/2023

Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics Seminar - 03/17/2023 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz

Unlocking the Sun: Spectroscopy in the 1800's - 03/17/2023 07:30 PM
Tri-Valley Stargazers Livermore

Saturday, 03/18/2023

BioBlitz at Kelley Park with Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful and Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society - 03/18/2023 09:00 AM
Kelley Park San Jose

Family Nature Walks - Baylands Nature Preserve - 03/18/2023 10:30 AM
Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve Palo Alto

Guided nature walk at Bouverie Preserve - 03/18/2023 11:30 AM
Bouverie Preserve Glen Ellen

Sunday, 03/19/2023

Presidio: Changes Through Time - 03/19/2023 11:00 AM
The Presidio San Francisco

Women in Archaeology: A Conversation with Members of the Society for California Archaeology - 03/19/2023 01:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco

Monday, 03/20/2023

Life and Science in an Absolute Monarchy - 03/20/2023 03:30 PM
Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) Colloquium Series Menlo Park

Principles of cellular behavior: integrating cellular structure, dynamics, and decision making - 03/20/2023 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford

UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - 03/20/2023 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley

SciSchmooze

SciSchmoozing Our Warming Planet

March 5, 2023