A Belated Happy Valentine's Day Science Fans,
This is a bit late for actual Valentine Day Science but it's not like we don't have the opportunity of extending some fun these days. It's hard to imagine that we have been in the Covid-19 mode for a year now. As they say, "it's been a hell of a year" between politics and science (note the date on that!). These days deciding what and who to believe can be a challenge. There are so many people with so many different ideas about what is a "fact" it is in some ways understandable why there are so many that don't seem to want to follow the advice of a large group of scientists that all agree. You can find almost any info that you want to support your idea that defies science, reason, and even manners. Yelling at someone who isn't wearing a mask is generally as effective as them yelling at you to take yours off.
So how do you decide what science authority you should believe? Not being a scientist myself I generally have to put my trust in people I trust. I think one of the better ways is to look at the range of ideas about a topic and look to see how deep the background goes. Are there a lot of "experts" that accept or support the same ideas, or does it look like there are very few who support them. As they say, consider the source. Add in some legal abundance of caution fear and it's hard to figure out what to think.
I'm fortunate enough to have met some people that I have come to place a high level of trust in. They are my go to gateways to information I can use. You should know that I am a serious fan and supporter of the explOratorium and through volunteering there I have met some amazing scientists and educators as well as the people who design and build the exhibits. Allow me to introduce you to Jennifer Frazier Phd. Here are some links to some her presentations. Here are a few of the comments and references she has shared recently…
- If you're really interested in some of the evolutionary biology happening, this is a really excellent piece in The Conversation that includes a "map" of where the mutations are across variants.
- The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is NOT an mRNA vaccine, but an adenovirus based vaccine. It will still be able to be tweaked for variants, but perhaps not as quickly. A primer on how the J&J vaccine is made in the NY Times by our viz advisor Jonathan Corum (nested in a great series on how all the vaccines work).
Scientific American made a video to explain the new variants and vaccines using animation and a lot of nice video clips of working researchers.
- This week the CDC also came out with stronger masking recommendations - including cloth over surgical and ways to make masks tighter fitting. NPR summary here and CDC study here.
- Some good animations of how it actually works, giving you a way to visualize the lipid droplets merging with cell membranes, where the mRNA goes, how it is translated into part of the spike protein and "presented".
Thanks for sharing all of that Jen. She knows a lot about beer yeasts as well!
There is a lot of excitement in space science this month as well. There are three big stories about Mars alone. Hope and Tianwen-1 are orbiting Mars and Perseverance is landing on Thursday! There are lots of ways to watch the landing and also programs about how to do it! Did you know that the explO has collaborative links with NASA?
Of course there are plenty of great presentations happening this week. Consider these… The Bay Area: Cradle of Truffle Science Tue @ 7:00, 'Rebuilding Paradise' Fri @ noon, A Rainforest at our Feet: Local wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area Thu @ 7:00.
And now for a blast of other things I find interesting! NextGenArecibo, Jeopardy? Really?, NextGenArecibo, Ed Yong at The Atlantic covers science, SciCheck at FactCheck, tips for better thinking, Do you see red like I see red?An interesting link to something you've never seen... never-been-seen, the Highest Resolution Photos Ever Taken of Snowflakes
So much to learn so little time (a bit more thanks to Covid though!)
herb masters
“Let me put it this way. Maybe I'd sleep with you if you were the last man on Earth. But we're not on Earth.” - Lieutenant Melanie Ballard (Ghosts of Mars)
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Monday, 02/15/2021
Not Necessarily Rocket Science Online - Livestream - 02/15/2021 04:00 PM
On Line
Have you dreamed of stars and galaxies far, far away? Join Kellie Gerardi, author of Not Necessarily Rocket Science: A Beginner's Guide to Life in the Space Age, in a conversation with Exploratorium astronomer Dr. Isabel Hawkins about her experiences in the commercial space industry. In her book, Kellie takes us on a tour of her nontraditional path in the space industry - from her adventures working at a spaceport to training for Mars to testing spacesuits in microgravity, to building a massive SciComm platform. In this live conversation she’ll share more stories about her experiences in this emerging frontier and offer insights and encouragement to anyone who dreams of donning a spacesuit.
Speaker: Kellie Gerardi, Project PoSSUM, with Isabel Hawkins, ExplOratorium
You can purchase a signed copy of Not Necessarily Rocket Science: A Beginner's Guide to Life in the Space Age at our Store. All of your purchases help support the Exploratorium’s educational mission.
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What Medical Physicists Do - Livestream - 02/15/2021 04:00 PM
What Physicists Do @ Sonoma State University
Speaker: Dr. Daniel Hernandez, St. Luke's Cancer Institute
Tuesday, 02/16/2021
Speaker: Jill Marshall, University of Arkansas
See weblink for Zoom information
Active Topology - Livestream - 02/16/2021 04:30 PM
Stanford Applied Physics/Physics Colloquium
Topology plays a key role in condensed matter physics, underlying much of our understanding of equilibrium matter in terms of defects in ordered media and topologically protected states. In active systems - collections of entities that consume energy to generate their own motion and forces - topological phenomena can take on new and surprising roles. I will describe some of these behaviors focusing on liquid-crystalline active matter in two dimensions, specifically active nematic liquid crystals, where defects become motile particles, drive spatio-temporally chaotic flows, and can themselves organize in emergent ordered states.
Speaker: Cristina Marchetti, UC Santa Barbara
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Healthy Food as Preventative Medicine: California and Beyond - Livestream - 02/16/2021 05:00 PM
SF Planning + Urban Research Assoc. (SPUR)
Can healthy food be preventative medicine, prescribed and paid for by health care providers? At food pharmacies and similar organizations that have launched in the Bay Area and across the country, doctors are writing prescriptions - and providing vouchers - for healthy food in an effort to reduce hunger, improve health and decrease health care spending. Hear from the leaders pioneering this movement about what the data shows and what these ambitious actions could mean for the future of health care.
Dr. Steven Chen / ALL IN Alameda CountyMariana Carranza / HealthRIGHT 360Katie Ettman / SPURKatie Garfield / Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School
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As vaccines for COVID-19 become more widely available, there are many questions. How do these vaccines work? What are the differences between the different vaccines made by different manufacturers? How effective are these vaccines in fighting this disease? Are these vaccines protective against the new variants of the COVID-19 virus? As we look at the road ahead, is there hope that we are nearing the end? Join our conversation with Marm Kilpatrick, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, as he returns to the Kraw Lecture series to help shed some light on these questions and others.
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Two Talks: Popping the Science Bubble - Livestream - 02/16/2021 05:30 PM
Berkeley Public Library
Juggling Sickness, Self-care, and Parenthood : A bird’s eye view
Speaker: Mattina Alonge (Integrative Biology)
Part of Me or Pathogen? How can you T(c)ell
Speaker: michael Manoharan-Laverio (Molecular and Cell Biology)
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The Bay Area: Cradle of Truffle Science - Livestream - 02/16/2021 07:00 PM
Mycological Society of San Francisco
Michael was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1956 and grew up in the Los Angeles, CA area and on Long Island, NY. I studied forestry at Paul Smith's College, NY and Oregon State University from where I received a Ph.D.Caz Castellano I began working for the Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station in 1980. For the last 41 years my research has focused on increasing our understanding of the natural history and identification of truffles in forest ecosystems. My current main interests include biodiversity of truffle species in forests, and managing rare, sensitive and endemic macrofungi.
Speaker: Michael Casetllano, Truffle expert and USDA Researcher
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Wednesday, 02/17/2021
Challenges of Decarbonizing the Grid - Livestream - 02/17/2021 08:30 AM
Stanford Energy
Climate change resulting from a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has taken on a new urgency over the past decade. Both U.S. and the EU aim to be carbon neutral by 2050 and China has pledged carbon neutrality by 2060. These commitments are driving new and more aggressive climate policy globally. Oversimplifying somewhat, the most promising strategy can be defined as “electrify energy demand” while “decarbonizing the electricity sector”. When we decarbonize the sources of electricity generation, we are also introducing high volatility and steep ramps of the generation mix into the electrical system. The traditional Tesla-Edison paradigm was never designed to handle these steep ramps and volatility.
This is the first in a series of workshops to explore these challenges. This workshop will frame the challenges of this effort through the perspectives of our expert panelists, setting the stage for the deeper investigations in the following weeks.
Panelists: Larry Bekkedahl - Vice President Grid Architecture and Systems Operations at Portland General Electric; Cameron Briggs - General Manager, Future of Energy at Origin Energy; Elizabeth Endler - Program Manager Advanced Energy Storage at Shell; Patrick Panciatici - Senior Scientific Advisor at RTE; Charles Kolstad, Stanford University, Moderator
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Covid-19 and the Ethics of Scarcity - Livestream - 02/17/2021 12:00 PM
California Section American Chemical Society
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Associate Director McLean lectures on ethics relating to health care, health care justice and equity, and biotechnology. She will discuss the ethics surrounding Covid-19 and resource scarcity, including ventilators and vaccines. The presentation will cover ethical justice related to hospital care and the challenges of the vaccine roll-out. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A.
Speaker: Margaret McLean, Santa Clara University
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The Science of Attraction - Livestream - 02/17/2021 01:00 PM
The Science & Entertainment Exchange
So, you’re at a bar and you notice someone, or maybe they notice you. The “why” of who we find attractive is a hard question to answer. Are some of us wired to be monogamous? Promiscuous? What do the mating habits of the animal kingdom tell us about human love and sex? Join us to learn from a variety of species about what advantages or disadvantages different animal mating strategies confer. The event will include an audience Q&A as well.
Speakers: Zoe Donaldson, Univ. of Colorade, Boulder; Hope Klug, Univ. of Tennessee, Chattanooga; Jennifer Verdolin, author
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Speaker: Thomas Epps III, University of Delaware
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Energy and Resources Group Colloquium - Livestream - 02/17/2021 04:00 PM
Energy and Resources Group
Speaker: Diana Hernandez
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Full-Spectrum Science Online: Countdown to Mars - 02/17/2021 04:00 PM
ExplOratorium
Mars is an unforgiving target for spacecraft. Less than half of all missions to the Red Planet have been successful - though all of NASA's rover missions there, including Pathfinder/Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity, have overwhelmingly succeeded. Next up, NASA deploys Perseverance, a rover specifically tasked with looking for past life on Mars in an ancient crater lake called Jazero. We'll examine past missions and look ahead to the landing and roving of Perseverance.
Speaker: Ron Hipschman, ExplOratorium
See weblink for YouTube and Facebook Live links
SETI Talks: Strange and Intriguing Exoplanets - Livestream - 02/17/2021 07:00 PM
SETI Institute
Astronomers estimate 400 billion planets orbiting stars in our galaxy, so the Milky Way is full of exoplanets. In the past two decades, researchers have discovered thousands, most of them with NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope and now its successor, the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).
Some of them are rocky, some are gaseous, and some are very, very odd. But there's one thing each of these strange new worlds has in common: All have advanced scientific understanding of our place in the cosmos.
We invited two renowned astronomers who have dedicated their careers to studying exoplanets to share their lists of the top weird exoplanets. Andrew Vanderburg is an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research has led to the recent discovery of a Jupiter-sized exoplanet around a White Dwarf star. Andrew will describe this incredible discovery and its consequences for the search for life beyond Earth. Jessie Christiansen, an astrophysicist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech, works on NASA’s TESS to find the nearest planetary systems to Earth.
Senior Planetary Astronomer Franck Marchis will moderate the conversation. It will be an opportunity to discuss the potential these space oddities have to teach us about the diversity of life we might find in our galaxy one day.
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How Galaxies are Influenced by the Largest Structures in the Universe - Livestream - 02/17/2021 07:30 PM
San Francisco Amateur Astronomers
When viewed at the largest scales, the distribution of galaxies in the Universe resembles a complex, tangled web: an interconnected network of filaments of galaxies that surround vast, empty voids. Simulations and theory have established that filaments - the largest, most densely populated structures in the Universe - have formed in the billions of years after the Big Bang, and serve as conduits for transporting gas into galaxies, which they then turn into stars.
Thanks to advances in telescope instrumentation the current generation of galaxy surveys is finally able to observe the night sky in sufficient detail to accurately map the Cosmic Web for the first time, and begin to understand the role it plays in influencing the evolutionary fate of galaxies. In this talk, Dr. Alpaslan will review advances in mapping out the filamentary network of the Universe using data from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, as well as discuss some recent advances in understanding how the galaxies that live in dense filament differ from those that exist alone in isolated voids.
Speaker: Mehmet Alpaslan, NASA Ames
Thursday, 02/18/2021
Should We Fear AI? - Livestream - 02/18/2021 11:00 AM
Computer History Museum
No current technology inspires such wild fears and hopes as artificial intelligence. Will AI steal my job? Drones hunt me down based on my social media profiles? Or, will my personal robot wake me with tea before carrying me to a steaming bath - then pick up the kids' socks and help me brainstorm the ending to my novel?
Such extreme feelings aren't new. Smarter machines have been putting people out of work since the printing press. Yet automation has also freed most of us from tilling the land and computers turned doctoral-level math into routine calculation, and the dishwashers we take for granted would have been fairy tales to our ancestors. But, as smart machines master ever more human-seeming skills they approach a final frontier, the uncanny promise of a powerful helper - or rival - explored in science fiction for a century.
What can we learn from the history of automation and AI? Are we even afraid of the right things? What actions can we take as technologists, as consumers, as students, and as citizens to realize our hopes and mitigate our fears? What are the key levers to make sure increased productivity benefits all? That algorithms uplift rather than oppress? How can we keep our fundamental liberties in a world of ever-smarter, more capable, and watchful machines?
In a virtual town hall format, a panel of top experts and innovators from tech companies, research institutes, and NGOs will explore these questions and others from our audience and our community.
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Panel: Cindy Cohn, Electronic Frontier Foundation; James Manyika, McKinsey Global Institute; Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Media; Kate Darling, MIT Media Lab; Sridhar Ramaswamy, Neeva
Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars - Livestream - 02/18/2021 11:15 AM
NASA Science
Live streaming of the landing of the Persevarance Rover on Mars.
SETI Live: Mars 2020 - The Perseverance Rover Landing! - 02/18/2021 11:15 AM
SETI Institute
Join us live to follow the landing and hear from engineers and scientists directly involved in the mission. Franck Marchis, a senior planetary astronomer at the SETI Institute, and Beth Johnson, a social media expert at the SETI Institute, will host this special SETI Live.
Scheduled Guests: Adrian Brown, NASA HQ, Deputy Program Scientist, Mars2020Janice Bishop, SETI Institute, Senior Research Scientist Elena Amador-French, JPL, Systems Engineer and Planetary Scientist David Deamer, UCSC, Research Professor Joby Hollis, JPL, Postdoctoral ScholarPascal Lee, SETI Institute, Planetary Scientist Casey Moore, Maxar, Space environments specialist Troy Hudson, JPL, Instrument System Engineer David Stafford, JPL, Mechanical Integration Engineer AND MORE . . .
Guests will discuss their roles with Mars 2020 and Perseverance. These include the site selection, the goal of the mission, some of the instruments onboard the rover, and of course the future of Mars exploration. Remember, landing on Mars is hard, so we need your support.
Landing Day! Countdown to Mars LIVE Online - 02/18/2021 12:00 PM
ExplOratorium
On February 18, 2021, the newest Mars rover, Perseverance, will attempt to land on the Red Planet. This is NASA's latest mission to Mars, and we'll bring you live coverage of Landing Day from the Exploratorium. Join us as we investigate the journey to Mars, the nail-biting excitement of landing, and learn about what the scientists will be looking for. #CountdownToMars
See weblink for Facebook and YouTube information
NASA Mars Perseverance Rover Landing Watch Party - Livestream - 02/18/2021 12:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center
Join our community for a special Mars rover landing watch party and Q&A. The Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover will make history when it lands on the red planet at 12:30 p.m. PST! We are coming together virtually to make observations, ask questions and celebrate this moment in history. Chabot astronomers and experts will be responding to comments during the launch. Look forward to learning all about the Perseverance Rover during this exciting event!
Tune in at 1 p.m. PST for a live Q&A with NASA’s Ames Research Center’s Shanna Withrow-Maser, Aerospace Engineer and Winnie Kuang, Mechanical Engineering Research Associate. NASA experts who worked on the mission will be discussing their roles in Mars exploration and answering your questions.
See weblink for Facebook Live and YouTube links.
SLAC Special Seminar - 02/18/2021 12:30 PM
SLAC Special Seminar
Speaker: Tomasz Biesiadzinski, SLAC
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Quantifying Haptics in Surgery: The New Value Proposition - Livestream - 02/18/2021 05:00 PM
Cafe Scientifique Silicon Valley
Digital surgery and the metrics of surgical performance are now mainstream goals in healthcare. There are several industry groups making huge waves in this space and the future is both bright and exciting. Despite the great potential for positive impact, patient care, and surgical outcomes, there are still many questions unanswered when it comes to surgical metrics and performance. Haptics, the science of touch, provides a lens into some of the unanswered questions by allowing us to understand and categorize technical decisions, efficiency, and surgical mastery. Dr. Pugh will share some of her research on surgical metrics and discuss how this work provides insight into the hidden world of haptics in surgery.
Speaker: Carla Pugh, MD, Stanford
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A Rainforest at our Feet: Local wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area - Livestream - 02/18/2021 07:00 PM
Golden Gate Audubon Society
In this talk, acclaimed plant ecologist John Zentner will discuss how wetland health impacts the health of birds and wildlife. John will guide participants through understanding different types of local wetlands, from marshes, vernal pools, riparian wetlands, and more. He will then outline methods of wetland conservation and how these projects are crucial to maintaining holistic and healthy ecosystems that sustain all life.
Speaker: John Zentner, Walnut Creek Watershed Council
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NightSchool: Sound Waves - Livestream - 02/18/2021 07:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences
Close your eyes and listen to music, nature, and the universe during an evening dedicated to surprising sounds - from the mind-bending theremin to the new songs birds are singing during the pandemic.
Ages 21+
See weblink to watch on YouTube or Facebook Live.
After Dark Online: The Universe - Livestream - 02/18/2021 07:00 PM
ExplOratorium
How does our understanding of the origins of the universe continue to expand and evolve? What tools and theories continue to push our understanding into further realms? Hear from Black scientists and leaders whose work is at the forefront of cosmology and essential to forming and informing humans’ deepening grasp of the science of the universe.
See weblink for YouTube and Facebook Live links.
Friday, 02/19/2021
The Solar Cycle - Livestream - 02/19/2021 11:30 AM
Astronomical Society of Edinburgh
“The Solar Cycle” covers a brief history of the solar cycle; a look back at the high points of the cycle just ending (Cycle 24); an update on current solar activity and a look forward to what Cycle 25 might be like.
Members will join via Zoom and visitors are welcome on our YouTube channel.
'Rebuilding Paradise' - Livestream - 02/19/2021 12:00 PM
SF Planning + Urban Research Assoc. (SPUR)
Wildfires have become a depressingly regular occurrence in California, Oregon and other western states. Due in part to climate change, as well as homebuilding that continues to encroach into the wildland - urban interface, the transition zone between human development and unoccupied lands, these disasters have progressed from annual rarity to expected season to ominously typical reality. But when cities and towns burn, who gets to say which get rebuilt, and for whom? The new film, Rebuilding Paradise, focuses on the rebuilding of Paradise, California, and raises questions of home, community and equity. Is it fair that the state carries the burden of the few? Why does Paradise get rebuilt, but not parts of cities devastated by decades of racist urban policies? Watch the film and then explore these questions with our panel.
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Cracking the case of ice shelf fracture - Livestream - 02/19/2021 12:00 PM
UC Santa Cruz
Speaker: Brad Lipovsky, Harvard University
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Building an 18' f/4.5 Newtonian on a GEM - Livestream - 02/19/2021 07:30 PM
Tri-Valley Stargazers
Dave made an 18" f/4.5 telescope using an "old school" design. It’s big, very big. It weighs about 520 pounds on an equatorial mount. It is capable of being a great visual scope as well as an amazing photographic instrument. Despite its size, it is portable and Dave can set it up in about 1 hour. His scope has some unique features that cannot be found on commercially made telescopes. In this presentation, maybe you’ll be inspired to make your own telescope. You’ll learn a little about why you might want to make a telescope and some things to consider when making it.
Speaker: David Childree
See weblink for contact info to receive Zoom information
Saturday, 02/20/2021
Biodiversity Virtual Program - 02/20/2021 01:30 PM
Environmental Volunteers
The Earth is full of many different kinds of plants and animals. In this virtual, interactive program, we will teach your kids about what makes animals similar and different, where animals and plants live and why they live there, and even how to identify animals with only a couple of clues! Appropriate for ages 6 - 11.
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SOFIA: Past, Present, and Future - Livestream - 02/20/2021 07:00 PM
San Mateo County Astronomical Society
Speaker: Dr. Dana Backman, NASA Ames
See weblink for Zoom information
Virtual Telescope Viewing - Livestream - 02/20/2021 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, 02/21/2021
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these two Science Envoys will answer questions with insight and enthusiasm:
UC Berkeley computer scientist Adam Gleave on "Collaborative Artifical Intelligence" - Many people interact with AI systems on a daily basis, whether viewing social media posts selected for them by an alogrithm, or interacting directly with a virtual assistant like Alexa or Siri. Current AI systems are limited to tasks with narrow and easy-to-specify objectives. What if, instead, we could teach AI systems what we value, and how we would like them to interact with us?Stanford marine biologist Nia Walker on "Between a Coral and a Hard Place" - Coral reef ecosystems are threatened by climate change impacts like ocean warming. To protect these vital systems for years to come, it's important to harness innate coral resilience for conservation. But what exactly makes one coral stronger than another, and what can we do - for their survival (and ours) - with this information?
A Top Predator in Hot Water: Effects of a Marine Heatwave on the Northern Elephant Seal - Livestream - 02/21/2021 01:30 PM
Seymour Science Center
Marine heatwaves, prolonged oceanic warm water events, are increasing in frequency and magnitude as global temperatures rise. One of the most dramatic marine heatwaves in recorded history was the Northeast Pacific Blob, a large marine heatwave that adversely affected ecosystems across the Northeast Pacific, from producers to top predators. What do these events mean for marine mammals like northern elephant seals, wide-ranging predators that forage on the abundant fish and squid populations of the deep Northeast Pacific Ocean? Discover how biologging technology deployed on elephant seals allows scientists to measure the ocean’s physical characteristics while simultaneously tracking elephant seal foraging behavior, changes in body condition, and reproductive success.
Speaker: Rachel Holser, UC Santa Cruz
Monday, 02/22/2021
Loops, Ladders and Links: The Recursivity of Social and Machine Learning - Livestream - 02/22/2021 12:00 PM
Berkeley Institute for Data Science
Machine learning algorithms reshape how people communicate, exchange and associate; how institutions sort them and slot them into social positions; and how they experience life, down to the most ordinary and intimate aspects. Drawing on this published paper and examples from the field of social media, we will review the commonalities, interactions and contradictions between the dispositions of people and that of machines as they learn from, make sense of, and jointly produce the world.
Speakers: Marion Fourcade, UC Berkeley; Fleur Johns, UNSW, Sydney, Australia
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Stanford Symbolic Systems Forum : Daniel Ho - Livestream - 02/22/2021 02:30 PM
Stanford Symbolic Systems Forum
Speaker: Daniel Ho
See weblink for Zoom link.
Kepler Computing: Condensed matter for ultralow power computing - Livestream - 02/22/2021 02:30 PM
UC Berkeley
Speaker: S. Manipatruni
See weblink for Zoom information on day of event
Testing Einstein’s theory of gravity using the first image of a black hole - Livestream - 02/22/2021 04:00 PM
What Physicists Do @ Sonoma State University
Speaker: Dr. Lia Medeiros, Institute for Advanced Study
Stanford Energy Seminar - Greg Mulholland - Livestream - 02/22/2021 04:00 PM
Stanford Energy
Speaker: Greg Mulholland is the CEO and cofounder of Citrine Informatics, which builds software to help materials scientists, chemists, and product designers discover, manufacture, and design with advanced materials in 90% less time than with traditional approaches.
Nematic Fluctuations in Iron-based Mott Insulators - Livestream - 02/22/2021 04:15 PM
UC Berkeley
My research focuses on how electrons organize according to their charge, spin, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom in order to exhibit novel phases of matter. A particular area of interest is iron-based superconducting materials and low-dimensional systems that exhibit emergent, quantum phenomena. This talk will discuss a combined experimental-theoretical study of quantum materials known as iron oxychalcogenides La2O2Fe2O(S,Se) 2, close cousins to the structurally similar to the iron pnictides but with a slightly increased iron unit cell. These materials are Mott insulators and their reduced kinetic energies, owing to narrowed Fe bands, are thought to lead to increased electron correlation. A combination of incoherent Hubbard features in x-ray absorption and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering spectra, as well as resistivity data, reveal that the parent oxychalcogenides are correlation-driven insulators. To uncover the microscopics underlying these findings, we performed local density approximation-plus-dynamical mean field theory (LDA+DMFT) calculations that reveaedl a novel Mott-Kondo insulating state. We also applied neutron diffraction in order to probe the establishment of long-range antiferromagenetic order. Neutron diffraction also indicates that global, structural C4 symmetry is preserved above and below Neel temperatures. However, local structure probes reveal C2 nematic fluctuations. Ideas will be presented on how the observed structural nematicity fits into the overall context of iron-based superconductivity. While, spin nematicity might manifest through geometrically frustrated magnetism and orbital selectivity, our findings highlight the interplay between orbital order and structural nematicity and the ubiquity of nematicity in strongly correlated Fe-based materials.
Speaker: Byron Freelon, University of Houston
See weblink for Zoom link, posted day of lecture.
Deep Networks Are Kernel Machines - Livestream - 02/22/2021 07:00 PM
SF Bay Association of Computing Machinery
Deep learning's successes are often attributed to its ability to automatically discover new representations of the data, rather than relying on handcrafted features like other learning methods. In this talk, however, Pedro Domingos will show that deep networks learned by the standard gradient descent algorithm are in fact mathematically approximately equivalent to kernel machines, a learning method that simply memorizes the data and uses it directly for prediction via a similarity function (the kernel). This greatly enhances the interpretability of deep network weights, by elucidating that they are effectively a superposition of the training examples. The network architecture incorporates knowledge of the target function into the kernel. The talk will include a discussion of both the main ideas behind this result and some of its more startling consequences for deep learning, kernel machines, and machine learning at large.
Speaker: Pedro Domingos, University of Washington
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Tuesday, 02/23/2021
ML pipelines for research: Stop doing R|D, start doing R&D - 02/23/2021 11:50 AM
Magnimind Academy
Whole Earth Seminars - Livestream - 02/23/2021 03:30 PM
UC Santa Cruz
Erin Brockovich: The Power of Community to Bring Change - Livestream - 02/23/2021 07:00 PM
Peninsula Open Space Trust
Vanishing Vaquitas: Lessons From a Humble Porpoise - Livestream - 02/23/2021 07:00 PM
American Cetacean Society
Searching With NASA’s SOFIA - Livestream - 02/23/2021 07:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center
Wednesday, 02/24/2021
Breaking waves, bubbles, light scattering and energy dissipation - Livestream - 02/24/2021 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center
Energy and Resources Group Colloquium - Livestream - 02/24/2021 04:00 PM
Energy and Resources Group
Science on Tap: Using Genetic Tools to Understand the Master Regulator: The Spliceosome - Livestream - 02/24/2021 07:00 PM
Science on Tap
Wonderfest: The Most Famous Equation - Livestream - 02/24/2021 08:00 PM
Wonderfest
Thursday, 02/25/2021
Tackling Global Challenges - Plastic - Livestream - 02/25/2021 04:00 PM
Stanford Energy
SFBBO Birdy Hour Talk: Almaden Lake - Evolution of the Environment and How Birds Adapt - Livestream - 02/25/2021 05:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
February LASER Event - Livestream - 02/25/2021 06:00 PM
LASER Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous
Hardcore Natural History: Sea Level Rise in Southern Monterey Bay: Process, Protection, and Habitat Impact - Livestream - 02/25/2021 06:00 PM
Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History
NightSchool: California Grizzlies- Livestream - 02/25/2021 07:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences
After Dark Online: (Re)Collections - 02/25/2021 07:00 PM
ExplOratorium
Friday, 02/26/2021
The Geometry of the Ancient Lunar Magnetic Field - Livestream - 02/26/2021 12:00 PM
UC Santa Cruz
How NASA’s Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars - Livestream - 02/26/2021 07:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center
Saturday, 02/27/2021
Science Saturday: Animal Athletes - Livestream - 02/27/2021 10:00 AM
Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History Pacific Grove
How to build the world’s biggest telescopes - Livestream - 02/27/2021 07:00 PM
East Bay Astronomical Society
Virtual Telescope Viewing - Livestream - 02/27/2021 09:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center
Monday, 03/01/2021
Social Medicine Data Storytelling & Clinician Burnout - Livestream - 03/01/2021 12:30 PM
Berkeley Institute for Data Science
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Lecture - Livestream - 03/01/2021 02:30 PM
UC Berkeley
Get ultracold! Cooling and trapping atomic gases for quantum simulation - Livestream - 03/01/2021 04:00 PM
What Physicists Do @ Sonoma State University
A Conversation on Wildfire Ecologies - Livestream - 03/01/2021 06:30 PM
UC Berkeley