Hello again Science Fans!
It is now officially the fall season, with the autumnal equinox occurring last Wednesday. The word equinox is derived from Latin and roughly translates into equal night. Happening twice a year, it is the time when night and day are approximately equal all over the planet.
Last month I wrote about an Israeli study that showed many people who were among the first to receive COVID vaccines were now catching the virus. Those with later vaccination dates did not have similar issues, drawing the conclusion that immunity was beginning to wane. I made the point that there was a lot of conflicting information out there too.
Shortly after that, many in the scientific community said that there were more complex issues at work here. Those include the tendency of those who are vaccinated to engage in more risky activities, therefore increasing chances of exposure to the virus. Protection from the vaccine may not be waning, but exposure to it increases.
David Leonhardt from The New York Times wrote about all this on August 30, and while additional information continues to come out frequently, his analysis is worth consideration.
Another viewpoint from a Family Physician.
As I said last month, each of us has to decide what’s right for our own situations. I felt it was important to follow up on last month’s article with some different analysis.
The earth’s oceans cover 70% of the planet and account for 97% of it’s water. How much do you know about this 70%? Scientists have only explored about one fifth of it. Here then is a geography lesson about our oceans from the surface down.
That beautiful picture at the top of the Schmooze comes from the Hubble Space Telescope and shows “a sparkling starfield” near the center of the Milky Way. While Hubble continues to work away in space, the follow-up James Webb Space Telescope has completed its final testing phase and may finally be launched next month. Originally scheduled to fly in 2007, the James Webb Telescope won’t be able to be repaired in space like the Hubble due to its final position and orbit. Let’s hope they got it right and that the launch is successful.
Meanwhile on Mars, the Ingenuity Helicopter continues to amaze. As the seasons change on Mars, the already thin atmosphere will get thinner which changes the physics of flight. Ingenuity’s mission has already been extended and it has successfully flown farther than ever expected.
Elsewhere on Mars, scientists have learned that repeated supervolcano eruptions buried portions of the planet under as much as one kilometer of ash. Mars is also quite active seismically with a recent 4.2 earthquake lasting an hour and a half!
From time to time I attend lectures that don’t sound all that exciting, or cover an area of science that I don’t find that interesting. Based on my past experiences, I should not be surprised when these turn out to be excellent talks, yet I was once again surprised by one this week. SETI asked two scientists to weigh in on the question “Is a Sixth Mass Extinction the future of living species on Earth?” The conclusion is not, it is not the future but the present! We’re in the midst of it right now! Watch for yourself!
Have a great week in Science!
Bob Siederer
Monday, 9/27/2021
UC Berkley Theoretical Astrophysics Center Seminar - 09/27/2021 12:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
Speaker: Maya Fishback
Unraveling soil community dynamics in the face of global change - Livestream - 09/27/2021 04:00 PM
Stanford University
Dr. Matthew McCary studies the relationship between soil biodiversity and ecosystem functioning within the context of global change. He received his PhD in Ecology and Evolution from the University of Illinois-Chicago in 2016, where he studied the impacts of invasive plants on forest soil communities. He then investigated how variation in soil resources can alter ecosystem dynamics as an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2017-2019) and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University (2020). His research program is multidisciplinary, which includes observational and experimental studies, mathematical and statistical modeling, and molecular techniques. Matthew recently joined the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology faculty of the BioSciences Department at Rice University in 2021.
See weblink for Zoom link
Stanford Energy Seminar: Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves, CPUC - 09/27/2021 04:00 PM
Stanford Energy Seminar
Martha Guzman Aceves was appointed Commissioner at the CPUC by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. on Dec. 28, 2016. Her portfolio includes issues related to distributed energy (Net Energy Metering, Demand Response Programs, and Energy Storage), fiscal oversight of utilities (Energy Resource Recovery Accounts), broadband access (California Advanced Service Fund, High Cost Funds A and B, Broadband Deployment), water affordability and conservation, increasing access to clean energy programs for Disadvantaged Communities (San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy, SOMAH, DAC SASH, DAC Community Solar) and preventing disconnections of basic utilities. She spearheaded the Interagency Solar Consumer Protection Taskforce, a collaboration with the Contractor State License Board and Department of Financial Protection and Innovation. Additionally, Commissioner Guzman Aceves serves as co-chair of the Emerging Trends Committee, and is one of two Commissioners on the Senate Bill 350 Disadvantaged Communities Advisory Group in coordination with the California Energy Commission. She also represents the CPUC on the California Broadband Council, the Lithium Valley Commission. In May 2021, Commissioner Guzman Aceves was appointed to the NRRI Board of Directors.
See weblink for Zoom information
From black holes to fireworks: Understanding astrophysical jets - Livestream - 09/27/2021 04:00 PM
What Physicists Do - Sonoma State University
Black holes are among the most compelling cosmic mysteries known to science. They launch powerful jets with velocities close to the speed of light. Light emitted from these jets reaches Earth and can be detected, allowing us to learn more about how matter behaves under such energetic conditions. Just a few years ago, gravitational waves from compact object mergers were detected for the first time, giving us a brand new view of the Universe and a revolution in the field of Astrophysics. In this talk, I will discuss our current efforts to understand astrophysical jets from neutron star mergers in the context of gravitational wave astronomy.
Speaker: Dr. Rodolfo Barnoil Duran, Sacramento State University
Studies of light and matter interactions in the x-ray regime have long been instrumental to the advancement of condensed matter physics, lifted by synchrotron radiation sources that deliver high-throughput x-ray photons. Today, widespread initiatives exist to add the element of spatial coherence to the x-ray beam, which is believed could render new information about the nature of quantum matter at various spatiotemporal scales. However, there are still open questions about how the beam’s coherence can be utilized in clever ways to yield completely new information. In this talk, we show a possibility of exploiting the coherence in a completely new way. By confining the sampling to a simple spatial structure with only a few elements, a well-defined Fourier transform is easy to track (like a slit interference pattern). This simplification occurs naturally at the onset of a first order phase transition when domains begin to form.
Using resonant coherent x-ray diffraction (RCXD), we study the formation of antiferromagnetic domains in the correlated antiferromagnet PrNiO3. We demonstrate that it is possible to quantitatively extract the arrangements and sizes of the first-formed domains from single resonant coherent x-ray diffraction patterns. At the onset of the antiferromagnetic transition, the ordered domains are dilute in the beam spot, thus resulting in relatively simple coherent diffraction patterns, which can be inverted manually through a combination of visual inspection, system knowledge and trial and error. The success of our analysis suggests that a resonant Bragg coherent diffractive imaging approach with iterative phase retrieval algorithms may be effective in studying both these and even more complex antiferromagnetic spin textures. As an outlook, we argue that the same approach could be extended to a time-structured light source in order to study the motion of dilute dynamically driven domains, or to track the motion of topological defects in an antiferromagnetic spin texture.
Speaker: Alex Frano, UC San Diego
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Where Big Tech Went Wrong - 09/27/2021 05:00 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
In the era of big tech, groundbreaking technological innovation has given rise to an increasingly efficient and methodical society. But these advances are not without consequence, as unbounded technological growth demands control over how we work, think, consume and communicate. Our panelists say too many have accepted biased algorithms, job-displacing robots, and surveillance-based capitalism as an inexorable cost of innovation, giving a powerful few the reins over our evolving society. Technologists, the venture capitalists who fund them, and the politicians who allow for this unregulated growth have stepped into the seat of power, often prioritizing technological optimization and efficiency over fundamental human values.
System Error, authored by three Stanford professors, offers an alternative to this dystopian vision of a world controlled by big tech. Armed with the combined knowledge of philosopher Rob Reich, a leading thinker at the intersection of technology and ethics, political scientist and former Obama staffer Jeremy Weinstein, as well as the director of Stanford’s undergraduate computer science program Mehran Sahami, System Error reveals how big tech can be held to account for the power it wields over our society.
Join us as professors Reich, Weinstein and Sahami uncover the gripping reality of big tech and explain how we can chart a new path forward to control technology before it controls us.
Presentation is in-person and online. Register at weblink.
Embattling for a Deep Fake Dystopia - Livestream - 09/27/2021 07:00 PM
SF Bay Association of Computing Machinery
Recent advances in the democratization of AI have been enabling the widespread use of generative models, causing the exponential rise of fake content. Nudification of over[masked] women by a social bot, impersonation scams worth millions of dollars, or spreading political misinformation through synthetic politicians are just the footfall of the deep fake dystopia.As every technology is simultaneously built with its counterpart to neutralize it, this is the perfect time to fortify our eyes with deep fake detectors. Deep fakes depend on photorealism to disable our natural detectors: we cannot simply look at a video to decide if it is real. On the other hand, this realism is not preserved in physiological, biological, and physical signals of deep fakes, yet. In this talk, I will begin with presenting our renowned FakeCatcher, which detects synthetic content in portrait videos using heart beats, as a preventive solution for the emerging threat of deep fakes. Detectors blindly utilizing deep learning are not as effective in catching fake content, as generative models keep producing formidably realistic results. My key assertion follows that such signals hidden in portrait videos can be used as an implicit descriptor of authenticity, like a generalizable watermark of humans, because they are neither spatially nor temporally preserved in deep fakes. Building robust and accurate deep detectors by exhaustively analyzing heartbeats, PPG signals, eye vergence, and gaze movements of deep fake actors reinforce our perception of reality.Moreover, we also innovate novel models to detect the source generator of any deep fake by exploiting its heart beats to unveil residuals of different generative models. Achieving leading results over both existing datasets and our recently introduced in-the-wild dataset justifies our approaches and pioneers a new dimension in deep fake research.
Speaker: Ilke Demir, Intel
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Wonderfest - Decoding the Blueprints of Life with Synthetic Biology & Physics - 09/27/2021 07:00 PM
Hopmonk Tavern Novato
Although humanity now knows the genetic sequences of many animals (including ourselves), the functions of these sequences -- the blueprints of life, so to speak -- often remain a mystery. In recent years, we have harnessed the power of synthetic biology and theoretical physics to glean new understanding of these mysterious genetic sequences. This presentation will highlight some new ways of thinking that have led to breakthroughs in decoding the blueprints of life.
Speaker: Jonathan, Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub
Our AI Future - Livestream - 09/27/2021 07:00 PM
Commonwealth Club - Online Event
Within the next two decades, Kai-Fu Lee says, artificial intelligence will become the defining development of the 21st century, making aspects of daily human life today virtually unrecognizable. AI will revolutionize medicine and education through human-machine symbioses. It will challenge the social and economic order by creating brand-new forms of communication and generating unprecedented wealth. AI is at its tipping point, and if our society doesn’t prepare for both the exciting and possibly perilous pathways ahead, we will lose the ability to control our collective future.
In their new book AI 2041, Kai-Fu Lee, bestselling author and former president of Google China, teams up with Chen Qiufan to create an image of what a world with artificial intelligence will look like in 20 years. In 10 gripping short stories, the authors introduce readers to an array of eye-opening concepts, such as the rogue scientist in Munich who uses AI technologies in a revenge plot that endangers the world. Or the teenage girl in Mumbai who rebels when AI’s crunching of big data gets in the way of romance. Through these stories, Lee and Qiufan draw on the ominous possibilities of autonomous weapons and human bias in smart technology as well as the incredible liberating power of artificial intelligence and its unprecedented ability to strengthen societal connections.
Kai-Fu Lee is the CEO of Beijing-based Sinovation Ventures and the co-chair of the Artificial Intelligence Council at the World Economic Forum. Formerly the president of Google China, Lee was also a senior executive at Microsoft, SGI and Apple.
Join us as Kai-Fu Lee delves into the intriguing future of artificial intelligence.
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Tuesday, 09/28/2021
Ultrafast Domain Wall Dynamics in Metallic and Insulating Ferrimagnets - Livestream - 09/28/2021 02:30 PM
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
A promising approach to encode bits of information for next-generation memory and logic is by using solitons, such as chiral domain walls (DW) or topological skyrmions, which can be translated by currentsacross racetrack-like wire devices. One technological and scientific challenge is to stabilize small spin textures and to move them efficiently with high velocities, which is critical for dense, fast memory. However, despite over a decade of research on ferromagnetic materials, current-driven spin texturedynamics faced a “speed limit” of a few hundred m/s, and room-temperature-stable magnetic skyrmions were an order of magnitude too large to be useful in any competitive technologies. These problems were rooted in two fundamental characteristics of ferromagnets: large stray fields, which limit spin texture size (packing density), and precessional dynamics, which limit speed. By using a broader class of multisublattice magnetic materials, namely compensated metallic and insulating ferrimagnets, fundamental limits plaguing ferromagnets can be overcome.
Here, we engineer compensated chiral ferrimagnets with reduced magnetisation and angular momentum, realizing order-of-magnitude improvements in both bit size and speed. In metallic, ferrimagnetic Pt/Gd44Co56/TaOx films with a sizeable Dzyaloshinskii - Moriya interaction (DMI), we realize currentdriven DW motion of 1.3 km s-1 near the angular momentum compensation temperature and roomtemperature- stable skyrmions with minimum diameters close to 10 nm near the magnetic compensation temperature. Moreover, by exploiting reduced angular momentum and low-dissipation in ferrimagnetic insulating garnets, we drive DWs to their relativistic limit using pure spin currents from the spin Hall effect of Pt, achieving record velocities in excess of 4300 m/s, within ~10% of the relativistic limit. We observe key signatures of relativistic, motion including Lorentz contraction and velocity saturation. The experimental results are well-explained through analytical and atomistic modeling. More broadly, these observations provide critical insight into the fundamental limits of the dynamics of magnetic solitons and establish a readily-accessible experimental framework to study relativistic solitonic physics. Technologically, this work shows that high-speed, high-density spintronic devices based on currentdriven spin textures can be realized using materials in which magnetization and angular momentum are compensated.
Speaker: Lucas Caretta, UC Berkeley
See weblink for Zoom information
230Th/U burial dating of eggshells - 09/28/2021 03:30 PM
Natural Science Annex Santa Cruz
Many Pleistocene archaeological and paleontological sites beyond the c. 50-thousand-year 14C limit remain poorly constrained in age or undated entirely. Yet, they host key evidence about terrestrial ecosystems, the biological and cultural evolution of H. sapiens, and human geographic range expansion out of Africa. Many such deposits host giant avian eggshells, as large flightless birds producing giant eggs have resided on five continents in the Pleistocene and eggs served as a food source for foraging humans. Eggshells are furthermore made of calcite and are resistant to diagenesis in deep time, making them potential candidates for uranium-series (230Th/U) geochronology; however, eggshells do not have primary U in them, rendering conventional 230Th/U dating ineffective. Laser ablation measurements that compare modern and ancient avian eggshells indicate that while modern eggshells have negligible U, ancient eggshells host significant concentrations of U and Th that vary with the eggshells’ petrographic structures. I’ll share a novel approach to dating eggshells, first tested with ostrich eggshells, called 230Th/U “burial dating”, which explicitly accounts for U in ostrich eggshell acquired from soil pore water. U and Th concentration profiles from laser ablation data optimize subsampling approaches to correct for post-depositional U uptake, and 232Th/U profiles allow screening to avoid “dirty” samples that may produce imprecise, inaccurate 230Th/U ages. Careful subsampling and the use of a simple model of U uptake provide reliability criteria inherent to the U-Th data to determine accurate 230Th/U burial ages. Resultant 230Th/U burial ages of ostrich eggshells from African archaeological sites preserve stratigraphic order and agree with independent dates. In other avian eggshells, laser ablation data suggest primary petrographic structures control secondary uptake of U, indicating that 230Th/U burial dating may apply to well-preserved eggshells of other avian taxa.
Speaker: Elizabeth Niespolo, Caltech
Disaggregating data by race and ethnicity is a critical method for shining light on racialized systems of privilege and oppression. Imputation is a powerful tool for disaggregating data by generating racial and ethnic identifiers onto datasets lacking this information. But if used without a proactive focus on equity, it can harm Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color. In this talk, we will share lessons we learned from a case study in which we proactively incorporated equity in imputing race and ethnicity onto a nationally representative sample of credit bureau data. We organize these lessons around a set of “ethics checkpoints” that researchers, analysts, and practitioners can use to identify and address potential racial bias and inaccuracy: checkpoint 1: before imputation, audit input data for bias; checkpoint 2: during imputation, examine where bias could be introduced at each step; and checkpoint 3: after imputation, assess whether imputed race/ethnicity data are accurate enough to used ethically for your analytic purpose.
Speakers: Alena Stern and Ajjit Narayanan, Urban Institute
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Seeing to the Event Horizons of Supermassive Black Holes - Livestream - 09/28/2021 04:30 PM
Kavli Institute for Particle Physics & Cosmology
Supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies power some of the brightest objects we see in the Universe; active galactic nuclei (AGN). Much remains unknown, however, about exactly how energy is released from the material falling in through the accretion disk, and from the black hole itself, to power these extreme systems, form a luminous X-ray emitting corona, and launch jets at almost the speed of light. The X-rays emitted from the corona illuminate the material falling into the black hole and by measuring its reflection, we obtain a unique insight into the processes occurring just outside the event horizon. Most recently, measuring the echoes of X-ray flares emitted by the corona, we have been able to obtain the most detailed map of the structure of the inner accretion disk and corona, and have been able to detect the reverberation of the X-ray flare from material that should classically be hidden behind the shadow of the black hole. The reverberation of X-ray flares is letting us see the corona evolve in real time and witness the effects of strong gravity and general relativity as the X-rays are bent around the black hole. This gives us important insight into the small-scale processes close to the event horizon that allow black holes to power these extreme objects and play their important feedback role in the formation of structure in the Universe.
Speaker: Dan Wilkins, KIPAC
Perfect Storm: Climate Change in Asia - Livestream - 09/28/2021 05:00 PM
Stanford University
The Asia-Pacific region is the world’s most vulnerable region to climate change risks. With its densely populated low-lying territories and high dependence on natural resources and agriculture sectors, Asia is increasingly susceptible to the impacts of rising sea levels and weather extremes. The impacts of climate change encompass multiple socioeconomic systems across the region, from livability and workability to food systems, physical assets, infrastructure services, and natural capital.
The Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center’s Fall 2021 webinar series, “Perfect Storm: Climate Change in Asia,” explores climate change impacts and risks in the region, adaptation and mitigation strategies, and policy responses.
Join us for the series kickoff event, featuring a keynote address by former UN Secretary-General and former South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, who is known for putting sustainable development and climate change at the top of the UN agenda, and a discussion with Stanford social ecologist Nicole Ardoin, a leading expert in environment, sustainability, and climate change education. Mr. Ban’s keynote will focus on COVID-19 and climate change.
Register at weblink to receive connection information
Sharktober - Celebrating Sharks: Why We Need Them, Why We Need to Protect Them - Livestream - 09/28/2021 07:00 PM
American Cetacean Society
Join us for an exciting presentation by David McGuire, Founder of Shark Stewards. Mr. McGuire will discuss his research and work to save and protect sharks around the world. Sharks are an apex species, critical to the health of ocean ecosystems, yet shark populations are under relentless pressure. An estimated 73,000,000 - 100,000,000 sharks are killed for their fins each year. There is much to be done and each of us can play a role. Get ready to learn and discover a new or deeper fascination with sharks!
Register at weblink to receive connection information.
Wednesday, 09/29/2021
Digital Redlining - Livestream - 09/29/2021 12:00 PM
CITRIS Research Exchange
Speaker: Shara Tibken, CNET News
Register at weblink to receive Zoom information
Plastics & Climate: How Single-Use Packaging is Fueling the Crisis - Livestream - 09/29/2021 02:00 PM
Plastic Polution Coalition
Over 99% of plastic is made from fossil fuels, and greenhouse gases are emitted at every stage of the plastics life cycle. Yet, even as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that “climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying,” big brands like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé (including BlueTriton, formerly Nestlé Waters North America) are increasing their production of single-use plastics and packaging - driving a petrochemical expansion that threatens the global climate as well as communities and ecosystems around the world.
This webinar will feature Judith Enck, President of Beyond Plastics and former Regional Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama, who will discuss the nexus between plastic production and climate change, including the immense environmental justice impacts, and Graham Forbes, Global Project Leader of the Plastic-Free Future campaign at Greenpeace, who will discuss how consumer goods companies’ reliance on single-use plastic packaging is providing a lifeline for Big Oil. This important conversation is especially relevant ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference 2021 in November, where world leaders are scheduled to gather in Glasgow, Scotland, with the goal to accelerate action on climate change.
Register at weblink to receive connection information.
Ask the Scientist - Peggy Lehman - Livestream - 09/29/2021 02:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center
How do scientists go from OMG to PhD? How do they turn their passion for science into their profession? What advice do they have for future scientists?
If you are a 5th-12th grade student, undergraduate, teacher or parent, join us to ask these questions and more in a Q&A session with our weekly Seminar speakers.
Peggy Lehman received her PhD in Ecology from the University of California at Davis. She has conducted field and laboratory research on phytoplankton ecology in the upper San Francisco Estuary for nearly 40 years. Her research includes open water, floodplain, and wetland habitats. Over the past 15 years, in collaboration with university and agency colleagues, her research has focused on the harmful cyanobacteria blooms in the Delta. She is considered a state expert on cyanobacteria and has published widely on many aspects of the bloom. Her most current publication in the journal Frontiers in Aquatic Microbiology describes the use of genetic techniques to characterize the plankton communities that co-occur with the toxic cyanobacteria Microcystis. In addition to this research, she recently led a team of scientists in the development of a collection of 35 scientific papers on the estuary for young people with the journal Frontiers for Young Minds.
Harmful cyanobacteria blooms in upper San Francisco Estuary since 2004: What we know based on 15 years of field and laboratory research - Livestream - 09/29/2021 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center
Toxic cyanobacteria have bloomed in the upper San Francisco Estuary since 1999. The initial blooms were small and locally abundant. Today these blooms stretch across the upper estuary and can reach dangerously toxic levels of 1,000 ug/L of microcystins. These blooms now threaten the health of humans and aquatic species, as well as the economy of the Delta. During this talk I will share the field and laboratory research, monitoring, and research tools that we have employed in the upper San Francisco Estuary over the past 15 years to address key questions. Some of the topics in the talk will include: How has the species composition changed over time? What makes it more dangerous today than before? What factors control growth? How does the bloom affect other aquatic species from plankton to fish in the estuary? What will happen next?
Speaker: Peggy Lehman, Senior Environmental Scientist, CA Department of Water Resources
Register at weblink for Zoom information
September LASER Event - Livestream - 09/29/2021 06:00 PM
LASER Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous
Cindy Cohn (Executive Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation) on "Imagining A Future with Real Digital Privacy"
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett (University of Southern California's Price School of Public Policy) on "Inconspicuous Consumption and Cultural Capital: the New Inequality"
Alvy Ray Smith (Co-founder of Pixar, live from Montreal) on "A Biography of the Pixel"
Thursday, 09/30/2021
Creating a Brighter, Greener Future for Coyote Valley Together - Livestream - 09/30/2021 11:00 AM
Peninsula Open Space Trust
How can we work together to create a plan for the future of Coyote Valley’s conserved lands? Tune in to this webinar to hear from some of the many voices that care about Coyote Valley’s future including local accessibility and youth justice advocates. Learn what to expect from the Coyote Valley Conservation Areas Master Plan process over the next few years, as well as how to get your communities involved, and make your voice heard.
Speakers:
Sam Liccardo, Mayor, City of San JoséNick Perry, Coyote Valley Project Manager, Santa Clara Valley Open Space AuthorityJamie Minden, Chapter Co-lead, Sunrise Silicon ValleyMark Hehir, Local Disability Advocate
Stroke 101 - 09/30/2021 11:00 AM
San Mateo Public Library
What are the signs and symptoms of a stroke? Stroke is a disease that affects the arteries leading to and within the brain, and is the number five cause of death and a leading cause of long-term disability in the United States. Learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of a stroke, which can save a life and limit severity of stroke. This program is presented by Susan Peloquin, RN, in conjunction with the Pacific Stroke Association, and is coordinated by the San Mateo Public Library. Registration is required:
https://smplibrary.as.me/?appointmentType=25816081
UC Berkeley Astronomy Colloquium - 09/30/2021 12:40 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
Speaker: Shri Kulkarni, Caltech
Oak Galls for Natural Dyes - Livestream - 09/30/2021 01:00 PM
UC Botanical Garden
Oak galls are a fascinating source of color and tannin that have been used for centuries and cross culturally for deep colors on cloth. Join author, dyer, and owner of A Verb for Keeping Warm, Kristine Vejar, for an illustrated slideshow of the wonder of natural dyeing with oak galls followed by a live demonstration.
The Tug of War that Shapes the Universe - Livestream - 09/30/2021 05:00 PM
SLAC Public Lecture
As the universe expanded from the Big Bang, regions where the density of matter was higher than average grew into galaxies and clusters of galaxies. The overall form of the universe and the evolution of galaxies within it have been shaped by a delicate balance of two competing forces - the inward gravitational pull of matter, dominated by dark matter, and the outward stretching of space, controlled by a mysterious force called dark energy. In this lecture, I will describe how we can gain an understanding of these hidden elements by measuring the properties of galaxies and the web of structure they form. The Dark Energy Survey (DES) has done this for one-eighth of the sky, observing and measuring more than 100 million galaxies. I will illustrate how we use DES images of this huge number of galaxies to trace the growth of structure and measure the expansion of the universe under the influence of its dark components.
Speaker: Justin Myles, Stanford University
See weblink for Zoom link and password
All the Humpback Whales of the Pacific Ocean Building a knowledge of the individual whales of the entire hemisphere - 09/30/2021 05:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
Over the past six years, Ted Cheeseman has led a team building the research collaboration and citizen science Happywhale project, gathering ID images of individual humpback whales worldwide. In the North Pacific they have achieved a milestone: the project now has identified the majority of living humpback whales in the entire ocean basin. Individual humpback whales can be identified by unique tail patterns, a powerful tool to spy into their individual lives as they migrate between wantering areas in the tropics and feeding areas in higher latitude coastal waters. Join us for an exploration of how the public has contributed to whale science, what can be learned by following an entire ocean's worth of whales, and a few good fish stories, too.
Speaker: Ted Cheeseman
NightLife: Culture Clash - 09/30/2021 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Come together and connect with the Bay’s AAPI community in an evening of music, storytelling, and fashion. Full event details to come!
See weblink for additional restrictions and information.
After Dark: Discover the Wonder - 09/30/2021 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Find your aha moment at tonight’s After Dark - follow your bliss among hundreds of exhibits and installations exploring art and science. Enjoy a cocktail at Seaglass Restaurant, dance to a live DJ, and find out what happens when an artist, a scientist, and a magician walk into the Gold Beams Social Club.
Friday, 10/01/2021
Pumpkin Days - 10/01/2021 10:00 AM
CuriOdyssey San Mateo
Celebrate the spirit of Autumn all month long during CuriOdyssey’s Pumpkin Days, a harvest celebration for families! This immersive daytime pumpkin experience features Halloween-themed science experiments, animal ambassadors, a pumpkin patch, jack-o-lanterns, and more. Pick out your very own pumpkin to purchase and bring home with you!
Grab your costume and bring family and friends to CuriOdyssey’s Pumpkin Days, an exciting and fun-filled Autumn festival for families!
Pumpkin Days entry included with purchase of admission.
How to Get Started in Night Photography - Livestream - 10/01/2021 11:30 AM
Astronomical Society of Edinburgh
This Night Photography 101 presentation will give you everything you need to know to photograph the night sky with your DSLR or mirrorless camera. Aimed both at those who are brand new to nightscape photography and seasoned veterans, topics will include how to photograph the Milky Way, the moon, meteor showers, constellations and more. In addition, you’ll learn about night photography gear, recommended night photography camera and exposure settings, and most importantly, how to focus and compose in the dark. You’ll also explore the aspects of the nightly and monthly seasonality of the night that are the most important for night photography. These insights will allow you to plan and shoot any night photography image you wish - as long as the weather cooperates!
Speaker: Mike Shaw, astrophotographer
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics Seminar - 10/01/2021 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Speaker: Eben (Blake) Hodgin, UC Berkeley
Saturday, 10/02/2021
All about Bats - 10/02/2021 01:30 PM
Environmental Volunteers EcoCenter Palo Alto
Bats are fascinating animals with many special characteristics - they aren’t just a spooky Halloween decoration! Join us in an interactive program which will teach you all about what bats are like and why they are so interesting and important. All ages are welcome - activities will be accessible and enjoyable for kids and adults alike.
See weblink for important location information.
Registration required
Virtual Telescope Viewing - Livestream - 10/02/2021 09:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center
Join our resident astronomers on Facebook Live every Saturday evening live from Chabot’s Observation deck!
Each week, our astronomers will guide us through spectacular night sky viewing through Nellie, Chabot‘s most powerful telescope. Weather permitting we will be able to view objects live through the telescopes and our astronomers will be available for an open forum for all of your most pressing astronomy questions.
Sunday, 10/03/2021
Virtual Butterfly Walk- October's Focus on Monarchs - 10/03/2021 11:00 AM
UC Botanical Garden
Join our resident caterpillar lady Sal Levinson and butterfly guy Sarab Seth for an illustrated slideshow of butterflies found in the Garden at this time of year. This month we'll learn all about butterfly behavior and then go on a virtual tour of the Garden in search of butterflies. Our fun Zoom event is suitable for all ages, and this October we will focus in on monarchs.
Wonderfest - Winning the Climate and Social Justice Crises - 10/03/2021 02:00 PM
Alameda Free Library Alameda
Climate change and social justice are two intersecting crises that will define the coming decades on Earth. According to Prof. Kammen, addressing both challenges together makes each campaign more effective, both for meeting and setting new domestic climate and social justice targets, and as part of a coherent pro-justice, pro-poor, pro-job, and pro-climate export policy. Examples will be drawn from US domestic initiatives, as well as those in China, East Africa, and the Mekong region.
Speaker: Daniel Kammen, UC Berkeley
Monday, 10/04/2021
Chemically tuning the exotic ground states of pyrochlore magnets - Livestream - 10/04/2021 10:00 AM
UC Berkeley
Pyrochlore lattices, which are found in two important classes of materials -- the A2B2X7 pyrochlore family and the AB2X4 spinel family -- are the quintessential 3-dimensional frustrated lattice architecture. Pyrochlore magnets are renowned for their exotic magnetic ground states, ranging from classical spin ice to quantum spin liquid. While historically rare-earth titanium oxides (B = Ti, X = O) have played the starring role in this field, the past decade has seen material's synthesis breakthroughs that have lead to new families of oxide pyrochlores (B = Ge, Pt) as well as the emergence of fluoride (X = F) and chalcogenide (X = S, Se) pyrochlore lattice materials. In this talk I will describe how chemical substitutions can modify the single ion spin anisotropy due to crystal electric field effects, stabilize new magnetic atom combinations, or dramatically alter the exchange pathways and thereby lead to new magnetic ground states.
Speaker: Alannah Hallas, University of British Columbia
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UC Berkley Theoretical Astrophysics Center Seminar - 10/04/2021 12:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
Speaker: Michael Pajkos
Innovation, Conservation and Repurposing in Root Cell Type Development - Livestream - 10/04/2021 04:00 PM
Stanford University
Siobhan Brady received her PhD at the University of Toronto in 2005, and was a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at Duke University from 2005 - 2008. In 2009 she began an Assistant Professor position and became Professor in 2020 at the University of California, Davis in the Department of Plant Biology and in the Genome Center. In 2016 she was named as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Research Scholar. Research in the Brady lab focuses on the global regulation of gene expression and its contribution to root morphology and development in Arabidopsis thaliana, Solanum species, Sorghum bicolor and maize. The Brady lab is also committed to developing publicly available data and resources for the community and to the mentoring of scientists from diverse and under-represented backgrounds.
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The molecules and materials for tomorrow, today - 10/04/2021 04:00 PM
Latimer Hall Berkeley
The challenges we face in the 21st century require, in many cases, accelerated molecular and materials discovery. In this talk, I will discuss the research in my group towards the realization of "self-driving laboratories", which have the goal of accelerating the long materials discovery timescales by an order of magnitude. These AI-driven experimental workflows are composed of different integrated aspects. In particular, we have integrated high-throughput virtual screening, machine learning, software-controlled automated synthesis and characterization into a single platform.
Speaker: Alán Aspuru-Guzik, University of Toronto
What Physicists Do - Livestream - 10/04/2021 04:00 PM
What Physicists Do - Sonoma State University
Speaker: Dr. Alex Kinsella, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
We have developed an electronic method to screen cells for their phenotypic profile, which we call Node-Pore Sensing (NPS). NPS involves using a four-terminal measurement to measure the modulated current pulse caused by a cell transiting a microfluidic channel that has been segmented by a series of inserted nodes. Previously, we showed that when segments between the nodes are functionalized with different antibodies corresponding to distinct cell-surface antigens, immunophenotyping can be achieved. In this talk, I will show how we have significantly advanced NPS by simply inserting between two nodes a straight “contraction” channel through which cells can squeeze. “Mechano-NPS”, as we now call our method, can simultaneously measure a cell’s size, resistance to deformation, transverse deformation, and ability to recover from deformation. When the contraction channel is sinusoidal in shape, resulting in cells being periodically squeezed, mechano-NPS can also measure the viscoelastic properties of cells. I will describe how we have used mechano-NPS to distinguish chronological age groups and breast-cancer risk groups of primary human mammary epithelial cells and identify drug-resistant acute promyelocytic leukemia cells - all based on mechanical properties. I will also describe the development of the next-generation NPS platform which utilizes advanced signal processing algorithms - Barker and Gold codes - directly encoded in the NPS channels to thus achieve multiplexing.
Speaker: Lydia Sohn, UC Berkeley
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Tuesday, 10/05/2021
Cultural Practices of Conservation in Morocco's High Atlas Mountains - Livestream - 10/05/2021 01:00 PM
UC Botanical Garden
Study on Topological Spin Textures utilizing Full-Field Soft X-ray Microscopy - Livestream - 10/05/2021 02:30 PM
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
Whole Earth Seminar - Why does the Earth stay habitable? - 10/05/2021 03:30 PM
Natural Science Annex Santa Cruz
Local Decisions, Regional Impacts: Informing Sea-Level Rise Adaptation - Livestream - 10/05/2021 05:00 PM
SF Planning + Urban Research Assoc. (SPUR)
Wednesday, 10/06/2021
What Happened in the Big Bang? - Livestream - 10/06/2021 12:30 AM
Speakeasy Science
Doing Inclusive Design: From GenderMag to InclusiveMag - Livestream - 10/06/2021 12:00 PM
CITRIS Research Exchange
Winds of Change: Technical Progress and Learning in Wind Power - Livestream - 10/06/2021 12:00 PM
Environmental and Energy Economics
October LASER Event - Livestream - 10/06/2021 06:00 PM
LASER Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous
Thursday, 10/07/2021
Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World - Livestream - 10/07/2021 10:00 AM
Commonwealth Club - Online Event
UC Berkeley Astronomy Colloquium - 10/07/2021 12:40 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
Nightlife - 10/07/2021 01:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Bird-friendly Chocolate - 10/07/2021 05:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
After Dark: Extraterrestrials - 10/07/2021 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Micromitigation: Fighting Air Pollution with Activated Carbon - Livestream - 10/07/2021 07:00 PM
Counter Culture Labs
AI 2041 - 10/07/2021 07:00 PM
Computer History Museum Mountain View
NightSchool: Resilient Forests - Livestream - 10/07/2021 07:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences
Friday, 10/08/2021
The Case of the Disappearing Dynamo: Constraining the decline of the Moon’s magnetic field through experimental analyses of Apollo samples - 10/08/2021 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Sunset Science - 10/08/2021 06:30 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Saturday, 10/09/2021
Virtual Telescope Viewing - Livestream - 10/09/2021 09:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center
Monday, 10/11/2021
UC Berkley Theoretical Astrophysics Center Seminar - 10/11/2021 12:10 PM
Campbell Hall, Rm 131 Berkeley
The genetic basis of complex traits: from understanding to engineering - Livestream - 10/11/2021 04:00 PM
Stanford University
Energy Seminar: Andrew Ponec, Antora Energy - Livestream - 10/11/2021 04:00 PM
Stanford Energy Seminar
What Physicists Do - Livestream - 10/11/2021 04:00 PM
What Physicists Do - Sonoma State University