SciSchmoozing the Egg Shortage

February 5, 2023

Feb 6

Welcome dear science-appreciative reader,

When Avian Influenza H5N1 is detected in one chicken on an egg farm, it and all of the tens of thousands of other chickens there are destroyed. Over 50 million birds in the U.S. were destroyed this way last year. ¿Why not vaccinate chickens? It isn’t expensive. It’s because eggs and chickens sold for food are tested for infection and the vaccine causes a positive result. A vaccinated bird appears to be an infected bird and cannot be exported for food. ¿What is the danger of eating an infected bird or egg? None - if it is cooked properly, but possibly fatal if undercooked. Less than one thousand people worldwide are known to have become ill from avian flu H5N1, but half of them died of the disease. With each human infection - indeed with each mammalian infection - it becomes more likely that a highly contagious variant could evolve and initiate a deadly pandemic. Already the H5N1 virus has been found in otters, dolphins, grizzly bears, minks, foxes, and seals. Most likely, these predators became infected not by contagion but by eating infected wild birds. Even large bats eat wild birds.

¿Is there a long-term solution to our egg shortage issue? An NYU professor believes so.

Speaking of viruses and vaccines, the Anti-Vaxx movement is alive and well and the subject of the movie Virulent: The Vaccine War. Currently, it is available only at private screenings. Jonathan Jarry of McGill University wrote an insightful review. In it, Jarry mentions that a children’s hospital was ‘attacked’ by anti-vaxxers, and the “hospital put together a toolkit on how to prepare for, defend against, and clean up after this kind of organized warfare.” On Thursday of this week, there is a free livestream presentation, “The Cultural Logic of Vaccine Refusal” by Dr. Jennifer Reich that is sponsored by the Bay Area Skeptics. Submit your questions to Dr. Reich during the presentation.

The next topic takes us away from disease and death to talk about sex. But first, here’s a nifty segue: Death by Sex.

Some insectivorous plants lure their prey apparently by using sex pheromones.
Researchers suspect that male marsupial Northern Quolls (Dasyurus hallucatus) rarely survive to their second breeding season because of their over-the-top sexual desire and frenzied mating.

Some people, at some times, have little sexual desire. That’s pretty normal, but if it really bothers that person, then it is called a psychological disorder; HSDD Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. Who knew? Well, pharmaceutical companies know and are working on a ‘cure.’ Kisspeptin is a chemical that shows some promise. ¿Kiss?peptin. Actually, the chemical got its name from Hershey Kisses since it was first isolated in a Hershey, Pennsylvania laboratory near where Hershey’s Chocolate factory is located. The chemists had no inkling that the substance might influence desire; just a coincidence.

Michelle H’s guess of 842 was closer to the random generator’s 833 than guesses of the other 20 contestants. Michelle won a levitating globe gizmo. This time we’re offering a constellation coffee mug from The Unemployed Philosophers Guild. Empty, the mug displays stars. When filled with a hot liquid, the stars are identified by constellations. Just send an email to david.almandsmith [at] gmail.com (only one) before noon Friday with an integer between zero and 1,000. We will then use a random number generator to select the target number and mail the mug to the person who chose the closest number.

My Picks of the Week

– Insect Decline & the Importance of Insect Conservation Rohnert Park Monday Noon
– Beginning Birding Livestream Monday 7pm
– Searching for Life on Mars Livestream Tuesday 3:30pm
– Where’s the love? The Secrets of Chimpanzee Relationships Livestream Wednesday 6pm
– The Cultural Logic of Vaccine Refusal Livestream Thursday 7:30pm
– Water Equity, Affordability & Climate Change Livestream Friday 12:30pm

An article came out last week concerning mimosa leaf folding (not mimosa making). The next time you meet a mimosa plant, Mimosa pudica (from the Latin for "shy or bashful;” same root as for pudendum), take a moment to touch a ‘leaf’ and watch it fold up. Some minutes later it will unfold itself. The article reports on the anatomy of the ‘muscles’ that accomplish the folding.

Science Friday on February 3rd had a segment on “The Last of Us,” an apocalyptic TV series where people become zombie-like when infected by the fungus Cordyceps. (A recording of the segment will be available in a few days.) The mycologist, Dr. Patty Kaishian, was Ira Flatow’s guest on the segment who admitted to loving fungi. Indeed Cordyceps fungi are (in)famous for taking over control of various insect species for purposes of reproduction. Dr. Kaishian complimented the show for getting a lot correct - except that after many millions of years of evolution, none of the 600 species of Cordyceps has managed to enslave humans and is not likely to do so - anytime soon.

Fun nerdy videos:

The Right Chemistry: Melatonin 5 mins
Veritaseum: Can Humans Sense Magnetic Fields 14 mins
Sabine Hossenfelder: Hydrogen Will Not Save Us 20 mins
NOVA PBS: Can this Cuttlefish Pass an Intelligence Test? 10 mins

If you are not already a subscriber to the weekly SciSchmooze, just enter your email address at bayareascience.org.

Have a great week surrounded by well-watered trees and wildflowers,
Dave Almandsmith
Bay Area Skeptics

“If you are thinking a year ahead, sow seed. If you are thinking ten years ahead, plant a tree. If you are thinking one hundred years ahead, educate the people.”
- Kuan-Tzu, Chinese poet (ca. 500 BCE)

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

Monday, 02/06/2023

Insect Decline and the Importance of Insect Conservation - 02/06/2023 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park

Speaker: Dr Nathan Rank, Sonoma State University

On the Effect of Gaps on the Dynamics of Canopy Flows: From Seagrass to Wildfires - 02/06/2023 12:30 PM
Environment and Energy Building (Y2E2) Stanford

Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) canopies are found prevalently in coastal, fluvial, lake and other natural aquatic systems. By exerting drag on the flow, such vegetative structures lead to the formation of “canopy flows,” characterized by hydrodynamics analogs to the canonical mixing layer By altering the flow around them, canopies such as seagrass meadows provide numerous and varied ecological services. However, due to both natural and anthropogenic impacts, global canopy formations such as seagrass meadows have been greatly diminished. Many seagrass meadows display patchiness or gaps that persist for several years. Interruptions of canopies by gaps and patchiness alter the type of canopy flow that characterizes these systems. The interrupted systems observe increases in flow velocity and local erosion, and other modifications to mean and turbulent flow characteristics. Because disruptions in turbulence are known to persist and impact downstream flow conditions, we examine how local, gap-induced perturbations evolve and propagate downstream to effectively impact mean and turbulent flow properties in a nonlocal fashion.

Research and developments in wildfire management in terrestrial canopies formed by trees has focused a great deal on large synoptic and terrain scale and plume/scale aspects of wildfire spread. There is little work done on understanding the fluid mechanics of the flow and plumes at the canopy scale. In our study we focus on the canopy scale dynamics of wildfires by examining the intersection between turbulent, buoyancy driven plumes and canopy dynamics. Specifically, in a manner related to the study of submerged aquatic vegetative canopies we will examine how various heterogeneities in the canopies (as found in nature or via fuel breaks) can alter plume behavior.

Speaker: Jeffrey Koseff, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

The Pleiades Experience: How the Fuzzy Star Cluster Continues to Chart My Astronomy Career - 02/06/2023 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park

I was born and grew up in Córdoba, Argentina, as part of a big family that would gather often to share food and laughter. We’d spend several months on a ranch where we had neither running water nor electricity. The remote setting offered dark skies full of stars, and I loved seeing the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds, and the distinct Pleiades star cluster. On my tenth birthday, my father took me to “El Planetario” in Buenos Aires. The beauty of the night sky and that planetarium visit charted the course of my career. At age sixteen, I came to California as an American Field Service exchange student and the goal of studying astronomy. I have a B.S. in Physics from UC Riverside, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of California, Los Angeles. I have had a hybrid career - twenty years at UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory working on NASA satellites and twelve years as Senior Scientist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, my current position. My doctoral dissertation measured the Carbon abundance in the molecular clouds in the interstellar medium, particularly in the Pleiades star cluster. Since then, my work at the Exploratorium has focused on Cultural Astronomy, and my passion is to offer learning opportunities that help people rekindle their relationship with the stars. Last year, I completed a six-month Fulbright US-Global Scholar fellowship on cross-cultural research about the Pleiades star cluster with Indigenous communities in New Zealand, Guatemala, and Peru. The Pleiades continue to guide my path through life, and I hope to inspire you to follow their path across the sky and shift your gaze upward! Because it’s your Universe too.

Speaker: Isabel Hawkins, ExplOratorium

The Distributional and Equity Consequences of Environmental Policies - 02/06/2023 04:00 PM
Giannini Hall Berkeley

Low-income and minority communities experience the highest burden of environmental damages and pollution exposure in many settings around the world. By targeting polluting processes and altering the spatial distribution of pollution, environmental policies may have environmental justice consequences. This talk explores some of the sources of environmental injustice and the equity consequences of environmental policy in the context of two studies. The first study examines how incomplete regulation affects the spatial distribution of pollution and who bears its burden. Leveraging a policy intended to reduce pollution from sugar mills, I show that regulated facilities shifted sugar processing to the fields where sugarcane is grown, increasing pollution levels in disadvantaged communities. These results highlight a previously undiscussed implication of incomplete pollution regulation: its distributional consequences. The second study examines the environmental justice consequences of California’s carbon market. This paper shows that the program lowered average GHG, PM2.5, PM10, and NOx emissions for sample facilities. In addition, leveraging a pollution transport model to characterize resulting spatial pollution concentration changes, we find that the program caused pollution disparities to narrow.

Speaker: Danae Hernandez Cortes, Arizona State University

UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - 02/06/2023 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley

Speaker: Na Ji, UC Berkeley

The Stanford Energy Innovation Ecosystem - 02/06/2023 04:30 PM
Huang Engineering Center Stanford

Yi Cui (Precourt Institute for Energy) and Brian Bartholomeusz (TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy) will discuss the history and future of energy innovation at Stanford.

Beginning Birding - Livestream - 02/06/2023 07:00 PM
Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society

Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) is just around the corner and you’re invited to join SCVAS Executive Director, Matthew Dodder for a fun introduction to the fascinating world of birding. Matthew will present our local birds and answer your questions about where to look for them and how to identify some of our many local species in this online class.

Unveiling a Dark Universe: from Tiny Galaxies to Cosmic Maps - 02/06/2023 07:30 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco

The Universe is dominated by a mysterious, unseen substance known as dark matter, which makes up more than eighty percent of the cosmos. In recent decades, much has been learned about dark matter, including its density and spatial distribution, but its fundamental nature - for example, what kind of particle it is, how massive it is, and how it interacts - remains largely unknown. This lecture will explain how tiny galaxies, measurements of distorted spacetime, and the largest maps of the cosmos are giving us insights into the nature of dark matter, and will describe the enormous discovery potential provided by the next decade of cosmic surveys.

Speaker: Risa Wechsler, Stanford University

Tuesday, 02/07/2023

Searching for Life on Mars - Livestream - 02/07/2023 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz

Speaker: Andrew Czaja, University of Cincinnati

IXPE: Our First Look Around the X-ray Polarized Sky - 02/07/2023 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford

For 50 years, the only astronomical source with measured soft X-ray polarization was the Crab nebula, initially detected with sounding rockets. Now we finally have the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer mission on orbit, which has already measured complex X-ray polarization signals from dozens of neutron star and black hole sources, with over 100x the sensitivity of the initial experiments. I summarize the motivation for such polarization studies, the technology advances that made IXPE possible, and some exciting results from our first year's program. As the wider community gets involved, additional novel probes of high energy astrophysical sources are expected soon.

Speaker:

Roger W. Romani, Stanford University

First Results from the Webb Space Telescope - Livestream - 02/07/2023 04:00 PM
San Francisco Public Library

Professor of Astronomy Alex Filippenko explores the first images and studies from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The 21-foot-diameter, infrared-sensitive telescope launched in December 2021 and is now at its destination one million miles from Earth. Alex Filippenko is a Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at UC, Berkeley.

Connectivity Standards Alliance & Matter Introduction - 02/07/2023 06:00 PM
IEEE San Francisco Bay Area Consumer Technology

On October 4, 2022, the Alliance released Matter 1.0, a global, open-source standard that removes barriers to IoT device interoperability & sustainability by enabling smart home products to work together seamlessly, to help to improve efficiency and reduce energy use and cost. This industry-unifying standard is the foundation for connected things and eliminates the walled gardens of IoT with the promise of reliable, secure connectivity. Matter paves a new path to product innovation and adoption by creating increased connections between more objects, simplifying development for manufacturers, and improved compatibility and accessibility for consumers. We will share how to get involved in the Connectivity Standards Alliance and the nearly 500-plus global companies inspired to change the future of IoT.

Speaker: Chris LaPre, Connectivitiy Standards Alliance

Wednesday, 02/08/2023

Does Technology Development Need a Soul? - Livestream - 02/08/2023 08:00 AM
Commonwealth Club - Online Event

Natalie Zeituny was an accomplished software engineer in the Bay Area in the field of customer relations software, and she led her own technology consulting firm. Today she lives in Israel and is a therapist, futurist, studier of cosmology, and a writer on soul-based consciousness. She'll join us to talk about her journey to a more "soul-centered life."

She will be interviewed by Gerald Harris, chair of the Technology & Society Member-led Forum. They will cover her life story as well as her ideas about helping technologists direct their efforts toward the use and commercialization of technology for the enhancement of human potential and benefits for all of mankind.

Bioconvergence: Transforming How Humans Live and Age - Livestream - 02/08/2023 12:00 PM
CITRIS Research Exchange

Our lives today are filled with technologies that our grandparents, our parents and possibly even many of us could not have imagined growing up. Today, seamless communication on the go is taken for granted, and autonomous transportation is on the immediate horizon. The next revolution that will truly transform how humans live and age is the convergence of health care and electronics. The merging of these technology areas, which previously interacted just on the periphery, offers incredible opportunities for much more personalized medicine, faster and more effective novel drug discovery, novel disease treatments to not just prolong lifetimes but also the quality of life, and even new computing paradigms. The bioconvergence revolution is just starting, but will fundamentally improve all of our lives!

Speaker: Steven Johnston, Merck

The importance of place; Fish diversity observed using DNA metabarcoding - 02/08/2023 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center Tiburon

The importance of place cannot be overstated in biology, as place often drives the principal partition in genetic variance, is correlated with abundance, and underlies biodiversity. This project describes fish biodiversity observed using DNA metabarcoding within an evolving tidal wetland engineered as a living laboratory for habitat restoration (Dutch Slough Tidal Marsh Restoration Project). DNA metabarcoding approaches were incorporated into the Dutch Slough project performance assessment, as reticulated tidal habitat is challenging to survey effectively with nets. An EDNA sampling designed was executed pre and post breaching of levees surrounding the engineered habitat exposing the habitat to the San Francisco Estuary. The fish community observed at each survey event contributes to base condition assessment of 1) fish community trends as habitat evolves over time, 2) the presences of protected, native, and non-native species, and 3) seasonal differences in habitat use. Comparing pre and post breach eDNA surveys, fish biodiversity increased within restored habitat post breach. Fish in the project vicinity appeared to colonized habitat once access was provided. Non-native species outnumbered native species by approximately 2-to-1, reflecting the background condition of the Estuary. Among the 42 fish species observed during ongoing eDNA surveys, five protected native fish species have been observed within restored habitat (Chinook Salmon, Green Sturgeon, Longfin Smelt, Pacific Lamprey, and Rainbow Trout).

Speaker: Scott Blankenship, Cramer Fish Sciences - Genidaqs

Attend in person or online.

Durability of Electrochemical Systems - 02/08/2023 04:00 PM
Tan Hall Berkeley

In recent years, the importance of electrochemical systems has grown. This expansion is in part due to efforts to decarbonize our energy systems. The concurrent reliance on renewable energy has both heightened the importance of electrochemical energy storage but is also expected to drive down the cost of electricity.

Speaker: Dr. Thomas Fuller

Where’s the love? The secrets of chimpanzee relationships - Livestream - 02/08/2023 06:00 PM
Leaky Foundation

Are humans the only animals that experience love?

Primatologist Rachna Reddy and psychologist Jan Engelmann discuss possible evidence of love among chimpanzees and bonobos and share observations from new research aimed at understanding this complex emotion.

This program features a 30-minute discussion on Zoom with Dr. Rachna Reddy and Dr. Jan Engelmann followed by a chance to ask the experts your questions about love, primate behavior, and evolution.

Our Boldest Effort to Answer our Oldest Question: The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life Beyond Earth - 02/08/2023 07:00 PM
Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series Los Altos Hills

For centuries, humans have gazed at the night sky and wondered what is out there. Over time, we have come to know many of the answers; how our own planet Earth and Sun came to be, how they dance in a sea of other stars hosting their own planetary systems, and how the structure of the universe has evolved on the grandest scales. But one of our biggest questions remains unanswered: is anyone or anything out there staring back at us? Today we are answering that question using the tools of astronomy, surveying other worlds for the tell-tale indicators of technology. Dr. Siemion will describe the state-of-the-art in hunting for intelligent life in the cosmos and how the largest telescopes in the world are now being used to conduct searches of unprecedented scope and sensitivity.

Dr. Andrew Siemion is the Bernard Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute and Director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center.

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.

Arachnophilia! Using Museums to Understand and Conserve Arachnids - 02/08/2023 07:30 PM
Marin Science Seminar San Rafael

Speakers: Katherine Montana and Jacob Gorneau, California Academy of Sciences

Thursday, 02/09/2023

Inter-Chiplet Synchronization of Multi-Die VLSI Systems - Livestream - 02/09/2023 10:00 AM
UC Santa Cruz

In VLSI systems, computing is projected to contain hundreds of components from heterogeneous processors, memories, and interconnect, in order to achieve performance gains and energy-efficiency in the face of increasing power-density. However, both hardware and software designers are faced with limitations in the improvement of instructions-per-cycle and clock frequency. As a result, designers have sought out heterogeneous computing devices, in system architecture and VLSI packaging, to accelerate current and future workloads. At the VLSI packaging level, silicon interposer based heterogeneous integration of multi-die systems has provided a new avenue for scaling of in-package computation, memory, and interconnects. This talk will focus on the synchronization subset of our efforts for silicon interposer based integration of multi-die VLSI systems. In particular, a solution developed for inter-die synchronization in MDS that has a resonant clocking technology backbone. Resonant clocking technologies, which work on adiabatic, charge-recycling switching principles, generate very high frequency clock signals at a low power dissipation rate. In MDS, the presented implementation has a minimum footprint on the active interposer, which is important for yield and cost. The proposed solution provides a centralized, synchronized and lightweight clock generation and delivery system that eliminates the need for PLLs and various clock/phase correction/synchronization overhead, which could especially be prohibitive for large scale MDS systems. In addition to a superior synchronization profile, the proposed resonant clocking delivery leads to an average of ~40% total chiplet power savings (~72% on the clock network) in comparison to PLL-synchronized ARM Cortex M0-based 10mm by 12mm multi-core MDS simulation model. This talk will also highlight two specific solutions developed for increased heterogeneity in architectures (and their efficiency) using resonant-clocking based inter-chipset synchronization, where these architectures 1) demand frequency/voltage points distributed both spatially and temporally to achieve optimal performance, 2) require efficient I/O interface between chiplets.

Speaker: Baris Taskin, Drexel University

Zoom link

Combining spectroscopy, photometry and the CMB to unlock stage IV cosmology - 02/09/2023 11:00 AM
SLAC Building 48 Menlo Park

The next generation of surveys, including the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), Rubin Observatory and CMB S4, holds the potential to probe the fundamental nature of dark energy, dark matter, neutrinos and inflation. The unprecedented precision afforded by these surveys poses new and interesting challenges, and exploiting these surveys will require exquisite control of systematics. Our best hope of controlling these systematics will come by combining spectroscopy, photometry and the CMB. In this talk, I will discuss my work developing the methods necessary to exploit these combined analyses. First, I will describe new simulation based modeling techniques that make use of synergies with perturbation theory to overcome long-standing cosmological modeling challenges.I will then describe how machine-learning-accelerated simulations can provide a means to understand and remove observational systematics in cosmic survey data. Together these techniques will unlock the full power of combined analyses of DESI, Rubin Observatory and the CMB to probe fundamental physics.

Attend in person or online here.

A Cosmic Perspective: Searching for Aliens, Finding Ourselves - 02/09/2023 11:00 AM
Kavli Institute Astrophysics Colloquium Stanford

Are we alone? Humans have been asking this question throughout history. We want to know where we came from, how we fit into the cosmos, and where we are going. We want to know whether there is life beyond the Earth and whether any of it is intelligent.

Since the middle of the twentieth century we have had new tools that permit us to embark on a scientific exploration to try to answer this old question. We no longer have to ask the priests and philosophers what we should believe about extraterrestrial life; we can explore and discover what’s actually out there. Our tools are getting ever better. We have discovered extremophiles in the most unexpected places on this planet and we have discovered that there really are far more planets than stars out there. We haven’t yet found life beyond Earth. Evidence for extraterrestrial life may turn out to be ambiguous, as illustrated by the recent debate over the claim of Phosphine in the clouds of Venus, and whether this might imply biology. Evidence for technosignatures could be less ambiguous. There is a vast landscape of other potentially-habitable real estate to explore beyond our solar system, and there are many plans to do just that. The 21st century will be the century in which we will find some answers.

As we look up and look out, we are forced to see ourselves from a cosmic perspective; a perspective that shows us as all the same, all Earthlings. This perspective is fundamental to finding a way to sustain life on Earth for the long future.

Speaker: Jill Tarter, SETI

The Chemistry and Physics of Bipolar Membranes with Applications in Water, Energy, and Decarbonization - 02/09/2023 12:00 PM
Tan Hall Berkeley

Bipolar membranes are ionic analogues of semiconductor pn junctions made of laminated anion- and cation-selective ionomer layers which can convert electrical energy into pH gradients. Through fundamental study of the underlying rate-determining water dissociation reaction, we have improved them 10x (e.g. Science 2020, Nature Comm. 2022), opening tremendous new application space.

Speaker: Shannon Boettcher, University of Oregon

Mapping 12 Billion Years of Cosmic History in the Coming Golden Era of Type Ia Supernovae - 02/09/2023 02:00 PM
Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) Menlo Park

Type Ia Supernovae (SN) are a central pillar of the “Standard Model of Cosmology” - Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM), but they also uniquely elucidate persistent gaps in the theory. I will detail recent monumental leaps of progress in SN cosmology culminating in the recent Dark Energy Survey, Pantheon+, and SH0ES cosmological analyses that tell two distinct stories. The supernovae covering 10 billion years of cosmic history place strong constraints on dark matter, dark energy and potential modifications to LCDM. However, the SH0ES constraints of the local value of the Hubble Constant (the current expansion rate of the universe) may be casting LCDM in doubt. I will detail the robust systematic uncertainties that have built confidence in these measurements. Looking forward, I will also discuss the pathfinding work in the Dark Energy Survey that opens up new avenues for using SN with future telescopes such as the Vera Rubin Observatory's LSST. With the imminent gold rush of ~1 million SN across the entire night sky and covering more than 12 billion years of cosmic history, SN will continue to feature as a premiere probe in cosmology and will be used to perform new tests of general relativity, constraints on the growth of structure, and search for evolving dark energy to unprecedented levels and to better precision than ever anticipated.

Zoom link to watch the lecture, or attend in person

Serving Health: How California Can Usher in the Future of Food-based Interventions in Medi-Cal - Livestream - 02/09/2023 05:00 PM
SF Planning + Urban Research Assoc. (SPUR)

Medically supportive food and nutrition interventions such as produce prescriptions, food pharmacies and medically tailored meals can improve healthcare outcomes and reduce healthcare costs for people across the state. Starting in 2022, California authorized a pilot program to cover these interventions under Medi-Cal. However, they are currently optional pilot services, meaning millions of individuals who could benefit from food-based interventions are left out. Fortunately, California has the opportunity during this legislative session to expand the benefits of these interventions. Join us for a discussion of what that action would mean, how it would work and who would benefit.

Erin Franey / Food as Medicine CollaborativeKatie Ettman / SPUR

NightLife - 02/09/2023 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco

Calling all creatures of the night: explore the nocturnal side of the Academy at NightLife and see what's revealed. With live DJs, outdoor bars, ambiance lighting, and nearly 40,000 live animals (including familiar faces like Claude, our alligator with albinism), the night is sure to be wild.

Step inside the iconic Shake House and our four-story Osher Rainforest, where you can explore the Amazon’s treetops surrounded by free-flying birds and butterflies. Reservations for these exhibits are no longer required. However, please note that the last entry into the rainforest is 7:30 pm - our animals need their sleep.

Venture into our latest aquarium exhibit Venom to encounter live venomous animals and learn the power of venom to both harm and heal.

Visit the BigPicture exhibit in the Piazza to marvel at the most recent winners of the BigPicture Natural World Photography competition.

Bask in the glow of one of the largest living indoor coral reef displays in the world: our 212,000-gallon Philippine Coral Reef habitat.

Take in the interstellar views from the Living Roof, then grab a bite from the Academy Café and head to the West Garden outdoor bar to drink and dine under the stars. For adults 21+.

Feathers to Form - How Birds Can Shape an Art Practice - Livestream - 02/09/2023 06:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory

Walter Kitundu will discuss his history as an instrument builder and performer and share how birds impacted his artistic trajectory. This photo-rich presentation will span his early days as a DJ making instruments powered by wind, fire, and pigeons, his unique relationship with a wild Red-tailed Hawk, and his work as a raptor researcher with the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory. Walter will share the lessons he has learned from birds and discuss large scale projects he is currently working on that honor cultural histories using birdsong, language, storytelling, and volcanic eruptions.

Speaker: Walter Kitundu, artist and educator

After Dark: Sexplorations - 02/09/2023 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco

Looking for a hot night out on the town? Slip into something comfortable and take an intimate look at sex - you know, the transfer of genetic information through sperm and eggs, which has resulted in evolution and specialization among species over time. From the lengths we’ll go to for sex to the mating rituals of zebrafish to the naughty bits of flowers, learn from Exploratorium biologists about the varied and creative ways in which the natural world gets it on.

18+

Science of Cocktails @ After Dark - SOLD OUT - 02/09/2023 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco

Golden Eagles of the Northern Diablo Range, California - Livestream - 02/09/2023 07:00 PM
Peninsula Open Space Trust

The northern Diablo Range of west-central California supports one of the largest and densest known breeding populations of golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) in the world. This region includes the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area (APWRA) where collisions with wind turbines constitute a substantial source of mortality for golden eagles and other raptors. This presentation will provide an overview of an ongoing study by authors Patrick Kolar, M.S. and J. David Wiens of golden eagles in the area and discuss how their broader research in the Diablo Range is being used to avoid or mitigate impacts to breeding pairs of eagles at the APWRA. They will also discuss preliminary analyses of nest-site selection, occurrence and distribution of breeding and non-breeding subadults, and possible impacts of the 2020 SCU lightning-wildfire complex that affected an estimated 80 pairs of eagles monitored prior to this mega-fire event.

All registered attendees for this event will receive a Zoom webinar invitation the week of the event. Please monitor emails for required links.

The Cultural Logic of Vaccine Refusal - Livestream - 02/09/2023 07:30 PM
Bay Area Skeptics

Healthcare decisions are deeply personal. Yet infectious disease reveals how our personal choices inevitably affect others. Drawing on more than a decade of research on why parents reject vaccines for their children, this talk examines perceptions of vaccines and how parents come to see vaccines as unnecessary or risky. Rather than seeing parents who reject vaccines as ignorant, anti-science, selfish, or delusional, I show how vaccine hesitancy and refusal are in many ways logical responses to the cultural pressures placed on parents. I conclude by considering why vaccines work best when used by a critical mass of people and how we might encourage a culture of shared responsibility that in turn could increase participation in public health interventions like immunization, and thus lead to healthier communities.

Speaker: Jennifer Reich, University of Colorado at Denver

See weblink to join the event

Friday, 02/10/2023

Ganymede’s internal structure with Bayesian inference using Juno and Galileo data - 02/10/2023 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz

Speaker: Anton Ermakov, UC Berkeley

This talk was originally scheduled for December 2, 2022

Water Equity, Affordability and Climate Change - Livestream - 02/10/2023 12:30 PM
SF Planning + Urban Research Assoc. (SPUR)

As California’s drought continues to worsen, residents across the state are facing a water affordability crisis. Water rate increases for Californians are expected to accelerate as the climate continues to change and the state’s infrastructure continues to age, further burdening low-income communities. But that outcome isn’t inevitable. Join us for a discussion of ways to curb water rate increases and mitigate the disproportionate impact on low-income customers, including greater water efficiency, better long-term planning and more equitable rate structures.

Laura Feinstein / SPURHeather Cooley / Pacific Institute

Saturday, 02/11/2023

Chip Design Tool Workshop on RTL - 02/11/2023 08:00 AM
UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Campus Santa Clara

In this free, half-day workshop covering the fundamentals of power optimization - a critical component in today's chip design - you will expand your job prospects in the competitive and growing chip design industry.

We’ll discuss how to analyze, debug and optimize at RTL level - the principle abstraction used for defining electronic systems and the gold standard in design and verification.

You’ll leave with a basic understanding of the different components of RTL power and be better prepared for the numerous RTL-related open jobs in the San Francisco Bay area.

Topics

Inputs and outputs for a standard RTL level power tool
Understanding of early RTL level static checks towards power linting
Activity and power profiling for various applications
Average and time-based power analysis
Visibility of power across category and hierarchies using text and UI
Clock gating efficiency and related flavors
Exploration of flop level as well as architectural clock gating inefficiencies
Different power reduction techniques and related debugging
Power regression toward trend analysis

Who should attend?

Students of digital design, Verilog design, physical design, and timing closure courses
Experienced professionals working in the VLSI chip design space

Sunday, 02/12/2023

Darwin Day at Essig Museum - 02/12/2023 10:00 AM
Essig Museum Berkeley

Celebrate Charles Darwin's 214th birthday February 12, 2023 (Sunday) at the Essig Museum. It is also Alfred Russel Wallace's 200th birthday (January 8th, 1823).

Along with our display of insects from around the world, we will also have exhibits of Galapagos finches, rodents, and a tortoise shell, as well as orchids, carnivorous plants and other species that Darwin studied.

To avoid overcrowding of our limited exhibit space we will be limiting the number of people per hour time slot. At the time of posting this event, all tours except the 3pm, and 4pm tours, are sold out. Click More Options under When and Where to select which time slot you would like to attend.

Attendees will meet their tour guide at the feet of the Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in the center of the Valley Life Science Building at UC Berkeley.

Monday, 02/13/2023

Sonoma State University Biology Colloquium - 02/13/2023 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park

Speaker: Dr. Andre Szjener-Sigal, UC Berkeley

Dr. Szjener-Sigal was originally scheduled to speak February 6.

Adventures of an Energetic Photon: A Choose yo - 02/13/2023 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park

Follow a gamma-ray photon from birth to death in a talk that is formatted for audience engagement! Attendees will be able to choose the path of physics that the gamma ray experiences as it makes its way from the depths of one of the most energetic galaxies in the universe to its eventual detection and study by patient Earthling scientists. Watch your step or you are likely to destroy the photon!

Speaker: Amy Furniss, CSU East Bay

UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - 02/13/2023 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley

Speaker: Alan Robock, Rutgers University

Tuesday, 02/14/2023

Meteorite hunting in Antarctica to uncover Solar System mysteries - 02/14/2023 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz

Stanford Applied Physics/Physics Colloquium - 02/14/2023 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford

Wednesday, 02/15/2023

Beyond Salmon: A Native American Perspective on Water Quality - 02/15/2023 11:00 AM
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute Moss Landing

Pinniped Personalities: Ask an Expert - Livestream - 02/15/2023 12:30 PM
Marine Mammal Center

Harmful algal bloom hotspots and heatwaves - 02/15/2023 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center Tiburon

Designing Ecosystems for Education, Work, and Community Engagement - 02/15/2023 05:30 PM
UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Campus Santa Clara

1.5 C - Sustainable Batteries Panel Event - 02/15/2023 06:00 PM
Manny's San Francisco

Entra-Verified ID: A cheaper, faster & more trustworthy ID for remote employees - Livestream - 02/15/2023 07:00 PM
SF Bay Association of Computing Machinery

Nerd Nite SF #129 The Comeback: Love Never Dies! Lizards, Supernatural fandom, & a Valentine’s Contest! - 02/15/2023 07:00 PM
Rickshaw Stop San Francisco

February LASER talks - 02/15/2023 07:00 PM
LASER Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous Stanford

Satellite Constellations: An Existential Threat for Astronomy? - Livestream - 02/15/2023 07:00 PM
SETI Institute

Environmental Science / Aerospace Double Feature - Livestream - 02/15/2023 07:30 PM
Marin Science Seminar San Rafael

Thursday, 02/16/2023

Silicon Valley Leaders Symposium - 02/16/2023 12:00 PM
Silicon Valley Leaders Symposium San Jose

Paving the Way: California’s Road to Vehicle Electrification - Livestream - 02/16/2023 12:00 PM
UC Berkeley

Snap-Shot 3D Cameras - Livestream - 02/16/2023 04:00 PM
Sonoma State Engineering Colloquium

Medical Myths and Superstitions: How Our Instincts Can Lead Us Astray - Livestream - 02/16/2023 04:00 PM
Skeptical Inquirer

Bacteriophages in Human Health and Disease - Livestream - 02/16/2023 05:00 PM
Cafe Scientifique Silicon Valley

A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds - 02/16/2023 06:00 PM
Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society Cupertino

NightLife: Noise Pop - 02/16/2023 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco

After Dark: Black Excellence, Black Invention - 02/16/2023 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco

Fire and Wine: How Wildfire Affects Your Cabernet - 02/16/2023 07:00 PM
KQED Headquarters San Francisco

Friday, 02/17/2023

Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics Seminar - 02/17/2023 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz

Astro 101: Sights of the Cosmos, Intro to Astronomy - 02/17/2023 05:45 PM
San Jose Astronomical Association San Jose

Saturday, 02/18/2023

Coastal Walk at Pillar Point Bluff - 02/18/2023 10:00 AM
Pillar Point Bluff Moss Beach

Family Nature Walks - Foothills Nature Preserve - 02/18/2023 11:00 AM
Foothills Nature Preserve Los Altos

Sunday, 02/19/2023

Everything About Agar: How to Capture and Propagate Mushrooms - 02/19/2023 04:00 PM
Counter Culture Labs Oakland

Monday, 02/20/2023

Sonoma State University Biology Colloquium - 02/20/2023 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park

Solving Quantum Mechanics with Positivity - 02/20/2023 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park

Astronomy Beginner's Forum - Livestream - 02/20/2023 07:00 PM
San Jose Astronomical Society