Hello, my fellow Earthlings. So glad you are reading this.
Tuesday at 0-dark-30 the entire moon will be fully covered by Earth’s shadow. (2:17 a.m. Pacific) It will begin emerging from the shadow at 3:42 a.m. Andrew Fraknoi has provided an informational page on the event.
Tuesday at 7 a.m. the polls open in California and will stay open until 8 p.m. The SciSchmooze isn’t really running for Emperox (cf. The Last Emperox by John Scalzi) but you should still vote, dammit !!
Asteroid 2022 AP7 is scheduled to smash into Earth in a few thousand years, but by then we will have been mining it for minerals and will have moved it into a safe orbit. Whew!
It is hoped that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to detect whether an exoplanet harbours life, but how? Lisa Kaltenegger is working on that.
It is fairly certain that we (Homo sapiens) wiped out the Neanderthals (homo neanderthalensis) but scientists at London’s Natural History Museum posit that we did it not by violence but by sex. Although violence may have played a role, sex could have been sufficient.
Significant Denisovan and Neanderthal genes were found in the genomes of early South Americans. By analysing remains of early residents of the Americas, researchers have posited possible migration routes of the earliest settlers.
Recently unearthed from a mere 2,500 years ago come bronze statues and hundreds of sarcophagi, beautifully carved and painted.
Of the 13 contestants (including Senator Mark Kelly), Amber Z was closest to the randomly generated 689 with her guess of 717. She won a JWST mirror lapel pin. This time the prize is Randall Munroe’s hardcover book, What If? 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 book to the person who was closest.
¿Would you like to receive the SciSchmooze in your mailbox each week? Go to https://www.bayareascience.org/calendar/index.php and enter your email address.
COP27 (27th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)) is underway in Egypt in an effort to ameliorate climate change and its effects. There is even a session to “highlight the importance of youth leadership” but Greta Thunberg is boycotting, in part due to Egypt’s poor human rights situation, and in part to COP ineffectiveness. “The COPs are mainly used as an opportunity for leaders and people in power to get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing.” “In order to change things, we need everyone – we need billions of activists.” “The Climate Book” by Thunberg will be released in the U.S. in February.
Some optimism regarding our climate crisis comes from recent developments and from research that indicates some species can quickly adapt to changing temperatures - given sufficient genetic variability.
COVID and Cuba
The Soviet Union - prior to its collapse in 1991 - helped build a modern biotechnology industry in Cuba which today remains top notch, and was able to quickly and independently create effective COVID-19 vaccines. That circumstance - in addition to a first-rate nationwide health-care system - resulted in a COVID fatality rate less than a fourth of that in the United States. I believe that our lack of a good nationwide health-care system led to 750,000 needless deaths.
In a sequence reminiscent of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, ever more COVID Omicron variants are marching forth. The Omicron variant may have come from mice that were infected by exposure to a COVID-infected person. If you are a mouse (Mickey or not), Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) might reduce the harms of cytokine storms caused by a COVID infection. Stay tuned.
(Departing from science & technology)
Lotteries and gambling are a sleazy marriage of moneyed interests, aberrant psychology, and short-sighted governments that result in de facto regressive taxation and malfeasance, in my not-so-humble-opinion. “[T}here are far more equitable and effective ways for the state to use its mighty powers to improve life for its citizens.”
(Returning to science & technology)
Your mobile phone knows its location using GPS if it is an Android 8, iPhone 11 or older. If your phone is a newer version, it knows its location using GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and BDS. Each of these is a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).
GPS (Global Positioning System) 24 satellites, United States
GLONASS (Global'naya Navigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema) 24 satellites, Russia
Galileo, 28 satellites, European Union
QZSS (Quasi-Zenith Satellite System) 4 satellites, Japan
BDS (BeiDou System) 35 satellites, China
Some devices employ NavIC (Navigation using India Constellation) that has 8 satellites.
Using multiple systems theoretically improves location accuracy but the computations required are mind boggling. Here is a video that explains how these systems work. QZSS and NavIC use fewer satellites because they only operate within specific regions by using geosynchronous orbits.
My Picks for the week:
Autonomous Vehicles and the City 1 - 4:30 Monday, Commonwealth Club, S.F., $
Lunar Eclipse Watch Party 11:30pm Monday - 4am Tuesday, Oakland
Pandemics, Planetary Health & Our Global Future 5 - 7 Thursday, Santa Cruz
Science Education in an Age of Misinformation Livestream 8:30 pm Thursday
What if the Moon Didn’t Exist? Livestream 8 - 9:30 pm Saturday
A Southern Right Whale has apparently adopted a Humpback Whale calf. Adoptions among whales and dolphins have been observed multiple times, suggesting they might be capable of interspecies empathy.
Why do some people reject science messaging? Three psychologists boiled it down to four factors:
when a scientific message comes from sources perceived as lacking credibility
when the recipients embrace the social membership or identity of groups with anti science attitudes
when the scientific message itself contradicts what recipients consider true, favorable, valuable, or moral
when there is a mismatch between the delivery of the scientific message and the recipient’s favored processes for making judgments
Fortunately they found two effective stratagems for communicating with anti science folk:
Find common ground with people who reject science—even if it has nothing to do with science. "Find some places where you agree and work from there."
Convey messages in a way that shows an understanding of their viewpoints.
Fun science videos:
Have a great week, expand your empathy sphere, and appreciate life,
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“Human morality is unthinkable without empathy.”
—Frans de Waal (1948 - ) Dutch Primatologist & Ethologist
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Monday, 11/07/2022
Stellar streams in the deforming dark matter haloes of the Milky Way and the LMC - 11/07/2022 11:00 AM
Varian Physics Building Stanford
The ongoing merger of the Milky Way and the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is deforming the dark matter haloes of both galaxies, effectively making these galaxies a local dark matter collider. With stellar streams being sensitive to the gravitational potential, the Orphan-Chenab (OC) stream is particularly insightful as it spans the inner and outer Milky Way, and it passes close to the LMC. I will present the first models of the OC stream in time-dependent halos of the Milky Way and the LMC that are described by basis function expansions of N-body simulations of the Milky Way-LMC passage. I will show how these deformations have an observable signature on the OC stream. In particular, we find that the Milky Way's dipole has the most significant effect. In order to determine which stellar streams best constrain these time-dependent haloes, I will present how to use information theory to probe the information content of the stream observables. This is a promising first step to using stellar streams as detectors in this dark matter collider to test the collisionless nature of dark matter.
Speaker: Sophia Lilleengen, University of Surrey
Attend in person or online here.
Elucidating Leopard Shark Life History with Stable Isotope Analysis - 11/07/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Speaker: Jonathan Kuntz, UC Merced
Autonomous Vehicles and the City 2022 - 11/07/2022 01:00 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
What are the issues and opportunities for cities as autonomous vehicles hit the road? How can we plan for and accommodate new forms of transport and smart city infrastructure that serves the public good?
Join us on November 7 as a part of the 6th international Autonomous Vehicles and the City symposium. We will feature international discussions on the different ways that new platforms are being used to serve diverse populations and help global cities meet climate goals.
Join conversations with leaders from the following organizations and more: Motional, Nissan, Aurora, Smartcar, San Francisco County Transportation Authority, Cruise, Zoox, and Populus.
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Survey (DESI) and Beyond - 11/07/2022 03:30 PM
SLAC Colloquium Series Menlo Park
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is mapping the sky with a 5000-fiber robotic focal plane and 10 optical spectrographs. I will describe the challenges in construction, installation, commissioning, operations, and data reduction. The 13 million galaxies mapped in the first year already promises to improve our understanding of cosmic expansion and dark energy.
Future upgrades of the DESI instrument will enable efficient mapping of the high-redshift (z > 2) universe, necessary for probing early universe inflation models. I will briefly describe the R&D for these upgrades.
Speaker: David Schlegel, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Attend in person or online here.
What is Physics Education Research (PER)? Why? - 11/07/2022 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
Physics Education Research or PER (pronounced P-E-R) was one of the first education research specialties. Physicists have long led the way for high-quality STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. Where did this history come from? And more importantly, why should we care? Spoiler alert, but the one of the quick answers was (and still is) war. With growing global challenges (World War II and the Cold War), the United States faced a rising storm of problems. There were not enough trained scientists and engineers to take on other nations. However, is the motivation for war, national security, and competitiveness enough to spur PER? What might be a new motivation for STEM education research? I end this talk with considerations of equity, social justice, and community as new models for why we should care about PER.
Speaker: Kevin Nguyen, Sonoma State University
Interdisciplinary approaches to reveal parasite vulnerabilities - 11/07/2022 04:00 PM
Stanley Hall Berkeley
Within the liver a single Plasmodium parasite transforms into tens of thousands of blood infective forms to cause malaria. The Derbyshire lab combines chemical biology, biochemistry and genomics to uncover molecular events that drive this transient developmental stage within the liver. Through an integrative approach, we utilize small molecule probes, gene sequencing technologies and a forward genetic screen in liver cells to discover parasite and host processes involved in Plasmodium parasite infection. Our findings highlight the dependence of Plasmodium on host factors and reveal parasite vulnerabilities that may be leveraged for future disease control efforts.
Speaker: Emily Derbyshire, Duke University
The Decarbonization Imperative - Livestream - 11/07/2022 04:30 PM
Stanford Energy Seminar
Michael Lenox is the Tayloe Murphy Professor in Business Administration at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business. He helped found and served as the inaugural president of the multiple-university Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability. Prior to joining Darden in 2008, Professor Lenox was a professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, where he served as the area coordinator for Fuqua's Strategy Area and the faculty director and founder of Duke's Corporate Sustainability Initiative. He received his Ph.D. in Technology Management and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999 and the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Science in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia.
See weblink for connection information
14 billion years on, what can we learn about original imperfection? - 11/07/2022 05:30 PM
International House Berkeley
The conventional wisdom is that if you want to learn more about the early universe, you build a bigger telescope, and that if you want to learn more about subatomic particles, you build a bigger accelerator. I will talk about a third and complementary way to get at both sorts of questions: table-top precision measurement. As an example I will discuss the result of our recent attempt to see tiny differences between the north pole and the south pole of the humble electron.
Speaker: Eric Cornell, University of Colorado, Boulder
Registration required
Note time has changed
Theoretically Speaking: PACE Tech: Physics and Algorithms Coupled to Enhance Technology - 11/07/2022 06:00 PM
David Brower Center Berkeley
The digital revolution affects every aspect of human society and infrastructure - communications channels, medical imaging, and radar systems, to name just a few. This revolution is based on sensing the physical signals around us and representing the acquired signals as digital bits that can be processed by a computer. But information is lost in this process: acquisition and digitization are limited by physical and mathematical bounds. In this talk, Yonina Eldar will consider how the interplay among science, physics, and algorithms can pave the way to enhanced technology that is not limited by these bounds.
Speaker: Yonina Eldar, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
For a Good Night's Sleep - 11/07/2022 06:00 PM
Commonwealth Club - Online Event
Research indicates that all animals sleep. For humans, sleep is essential for physical and mental health - as necessary as food, water, and oxygen. Yet many of us get insufficient and/or low-quality sleep. UCSF's Dr. Aric Prather has just written The Sleep Prescription: Seven Days to Unlocking Your Best Rest. During this online presentation, Dr. Prather will share many of his book's insights with the Commonwealth Club and Wonderfest.
Dr. Aric Prather is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. He directs UCSF's Behavioral Sleep Medicine Research Program.
This online event is produced by the Commonwealth Club in collaboration with Wonderfest. (The originally-planned, simultaneous, in-person event has been cancelled.) For tickets, start at the Commonwealth Club "Registration" website presented below. Be sure to use the discount code WonderfestPromo to reduce the ticket price by $10, thereby rendering admission completely FREE.
https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/2022-11-07/aric-prather-how-get-good-nights-sleep
Compress Deep Learning models 10,000x with Probabilistic Hash Functions - Livestream - 11/07/2022 07:00 PM
SF Bay Association of Computing Machinery
Neural Scaling Law informally states that an increase in model size and data automatically improves AI. However, we have reached a point where the growth has reached a tipping end where the cost and energy associated with AI are becoming prohibitive.
This talk will demonstrate the algorithmic progress that can exponentially reduce the compute and memory cost of training and inference with neural networks. We will show how data structures, particularly randomized hash tables, can be used to design an efficient "associative memory" that reduces the number of multiplications associated with the training of the neural networks. Implementation of this algorithm challenges the common knowledge prevailing in the community that specialized processors like GPUs are significantly superior to CPUs for training large neural networks. The resulting algorithm is orders of magnitude cheaper and energy-efficient. Our careful implementations can train billions of parameter recommendations and NLP models on commodity desktop CPUs significantly faster than top-of-the-line TensorFlow alternatives on the most potent A100 GPU clusters, with the same or better accuracies. The same idea can also result in more than 50x faster and cheaper inference.
In the end, I will highlight a cache-friendly compression scheme that can compress embedding models by 10000x (100GB Embedding Table to 10MB) and still achieves the MLPerf benchmark AUC of 0.8025 on the Terabyte click-through Criteo data, getting significant inference speedup for free.
Speaker: Anshumali Shrivastava, Rice University
Register at weblink to receive connection information
JWST: NASA's Greatest Observatory and Its Great Science! - 11/07/2022 07:30 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the most complex and powerful astronomical space observatory ever built. It launched on Christmas Day in 2021 and has recently been commissioned in its final orbit in the Sun - Earth system. The large 6.5-m diameter JWST primary mirror and its science instruments will allow it to see some of the very first galaxies that formed in the Universe shortly after the Big Bang. Other major science themes of JWST encompass studying the assembly of galaxies, the birth of stars and planetary systems, and studying planetary systems and the origins of life. JWST will be the premier astrophysics space observatory for NASA and the European and Canadian Space Agencies (ESA and CSA), and it was in development for over 20 years. Scientists from all over the world will use it during its mission lifetime - which could be 20 years or more! JWST will augment the Hubble Space Telescope, which primarily works at shorter visible and ultraviolet light wavelengths. In this talk, Dr. Greene will illustrate the mission's science goals and highlight some aspects of its design, technologies, and initial science results. In addition to these topics, many scientists will use JWST to make discoveries that we have not yet imagined.
Speaker: Thomas Greene, NASA Ames Research Center
Total Lunar Eclipse - 11/07/2022 11:30 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Join Chabot's astronomers for a live watch party of one of the two great eclipses of 2022. The moon will pass the earth's shadow. Once covered, the moon will appear red in color, often referred to as a Blood Moon. Arrive by 11:30pm to learn from our astronomers. Our expert Astronomer Gerald McKeegan will give a live presentation about the eclipse at 12am. Visibility from Chabot will begin at 1:09am. At 2:59am the eclipse will be at its peak. The full eclipse will end at 3:41am and we will end our Chabot viewing at 4am. A partial eclipse will continue concluding at 5:56am.
This event is weather permitting. In the event of rain, fog or cloud cover the event will be cancelled and tickets will be refunded on request.
Tuesday, 11/08/2022
Total Lunar Eclipse - 11/08/2022 01:09 AM
Out your window!
There will be a total Lunar Eclipse, visible from all of North America, starting early in the morning November 8. The moon will be high in the sky throughout, so the eclipse should be easy to see, weather permitting.
The eclipse starts at 1:09 PST, with totallity running from 2:16 AM until 3:42 AM. The eclipse ends at 4:49 AM.
Melvin Calvin Seminar Lecture in Organic Chemistry - 11/08/2022 11:00 AM
Tan Hall Berkeley
Non-covalent interactions between biomolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids coordinate all cellular processes through changes in proximity. Tools that perturb, control, or reprogram these interactions have and will continue to be highly valuable for basic and translational scientific endeavors. Evolution, nature's design philosophy, is not only a powerful method for optimizing molecular function but can also lead to the de novo discovery of novel mechanisms of activity of molecules. However, focusing Darwinian evolution on specific functions of molecules of interest is challenging. Here, I will present our groups work toward developing continuous in vivo evolution platforms to solve complex biophysical puzzles dealing with biomolecular interactions. I will describe our group's proximity-dependent split RNAP biosensing technology, which when combined with Phage-Assisted Continuous Evolution (PACE), allows us to perform deep-mutational scanning experiments of biomolecular interfaces, to reprogram the specificity between biomolecular interfaces using evolution, to evolve "molecular glues" that drive biomolecular interactions, to evolve biocatalysts, and finally, to evolve selective inhibitors of target biomolecular interactions. Collectively, our work highlights how advances in synthetic biology can lead to novel functional molecules that provide solutions to challenges in biotechnology and medicine.
Speaker: Bryan Dickinson, University of Chicago
Whole Earth Seminar - 11/08/2022 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Speaker: Borja Reguero
Quantum Matter Out of Equilibrium - 11/08/2022 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
A central goal of condensed matter physics is to study the universal emergent properties of macroscopic quantum systems with large numbers of interacting particles. Due to a variety of conceptual and experimentally motivated reasons, the traditional approach of many-body physics is largely built around the study of low-temperature and near-equilibrium properties of time independent Hamiltonians. A confluence of developments across a range of subfields --- particularly experimental advances in building programmable quantum devices --- have opened up a vast new territory of studying many-body phenomena in completely novel regimes: highly excited, "post Hamiltonian", and far from equilibrium. The natural evolutions implemented by these novel experiments are out-of-equilibrium dynamics generated by quantum circuits of unitary gates, possibly interrupted by measurements, and starting from initial states that are not low energy in any useful sense. I will describe some highlights of an active research program to advance many-body theory beyond the regime of near-equilibrium time-independent Hamiltonians, with a view towards uncovering novel emergent phenomena in the non-equilibrium dynamics of many-body systems, and the physics of quantum circuits.
Speakers: Vedika Khemani, Stanford University
Cutting Edge: Treating Depression Safely and Successfully - Livestream - 11/08/2022 04:00 PM
Commonwealth Club - Online Event
We are living through a transformative time in mental health research. There is overwhelming demand for new and safe ways of addressing various states of depression. Dr. Nolan Williams and Stanford University are leaders in cutting-edge research that is generating worldwide attention.
Attend this fascinating program to learn what is currently being done in research settings as well as the breakthrough technology that is in the process of being developed so it can be in every medical setting and available to people who need treatment and support.
At Stanford, Dr. William's Brain Stimulation Lab developed a now-FDA-cleared, personalized, accelerated neuromodulation treatment known as Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy (SAINT). The innovative SAINT approach is having a very positive impact on the treatment of severe depression. In a double-blind, randomized controlled trial, high doses of magnetic brain stimulation, given on an accelerated timeline and individually targeted, brought rapid remission to 79 percent of trial participants with severe depression compared to people in the sham treatment arm, where 13 percent of the people entered remission.
The SAINT approach provides a novel form of rapid-acting, non-invasive, individually targeted neuromodulation that uses electromagnetic pulses to relieve symptoms of treatment-resistant depression. For the first time, advanced tools for processing MRI-based images of the brain are used to steer a specialized, high-dose pattern of magnetic pulses to induce neurons to fire. The stimulation modifies activity in brain networks related to depression, changing the brain's circuitry to more effectively treat major depression.
SAINT has additionally been studied in open-label studies. Overall, the therapy has been shown to be effective in the treatment of major depressive disorder, with approximately 80 - 90 percent of patients achieving remission of depression symptoms following the five-day treatment protocol.
Speaker: Dr. Nolan Williams, Stanford University; Adrea Brier, Integrative Cancer Consultant and Advocate, Moderator
Following the lecture, Commonwealth Club members may also attend a post-program conversation with the speaker.
Ultrasensitive detection of spins by a quantum sensor - 11/08/2022 04:00 PM
Physics North Berkeley
Speaker: Joerg Wrathcrup, University of Stuffgart
Can We Eat Our Way Out of Climate Change? - 11/08/2022 05:00 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
Providing nutritious, safe and affordable food in the face of the Earth's changing climate is an urgent global challenge. How can we produce enough food for everyone at the same time as improving our relationship with our environment? And can what we eat contribute to a more sustainable future for communities on the West Coast, across North America and around the world?
Join the conversation with Peter Dhillon, chairman of Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc., and Steve Banwart, dean for global development at the University of Leeds, as they explore how we begin to tackle the tensions between climate change and food supply.
They'll discuss how fostering closer collaboration and partnership between researchers, food producers, policymakers, communities and businesses worldwide will help us find pathways toward a radically different global food system - one that works with nature and adapts to our changing climate. They'll also delve into how we challenge assumptions to break new ground in developing climate-smart, socially just solutions that will create a positive future for our people and planet.
Speaker: Peter Dhillon, Ocean Spray and Richberry Group; Steve Banwart, University of Leeds, Moderator
Attend in person or online
Wednesday, 11/09/2022
The Critical Role of Cybersecurity in M&A: A Framework for Mitigating and Managing Risk - Livestream - 11/09/2022 09:00 AM
Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity
With the ever-increasing threat landscape impacting businesses globally, understanding cybersecurity risk has become an essential component of the mergers and acquisitions process. M&A decision-makers need to understand the potential cybersecurity risks of the company they are acquiring, which, left unchecked, could result in a series of negative consequences, including delayed deal close, diminished market value, or tarnished brand reputation.
On November 9, join the UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity and Cisco for a webinar discussion about a new Cybersecurity M&A Model Framework designed to guide executives, cyber auditors, investing teams, and boards as they consider cybersecurity risk during the M&A process. The conversation will consider how firms can tailor their approach to the cybersecurity audit process based on deal type, industry, and firm size. Panelists will share insights from developing and utilizing the framework, examples from experience on both sides of the M&A process, and discuss what challenges remain for the future.
Speakers: Jason Button, Cisco; Mohammad Iqbal, Cisco; Prakash Krishnan, UC Berkeley, Ann Cleaveland, Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, Moderator
Register at weblink to attend
Night-time Operations at Rubin Observatory - 11/09/2022 11:00 AM
SLAC Colloquium Series Menlo Park
Speaker: Alysha Shugart, Rubin Observatory
Attend in person or online here.
Good thing, bad thing: Rapid evolution of native salt marshes and an introduced seaweed - Livestream - 11/09/2022 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center
Speaker: Erik Sotka, College of Charleston
Register at weblink to receive Zoom information
I'm a Botanist (and unfortunately I don't know why your succulent isn't flowering!) - 11/09/2022 07:30 PM
Marin Science Seminar San Rafael
Speaker: Sarah Jacobs, California Academy of Sciences
Thursday, 11/10/2022
2022 Bay Area Chemistry Symposium - 11/10/2022 07:00 PM
Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union Berkeley
This symposium, unique in the Bay, will provide an ideal forum for students, postdocs, and industrial chemists to meet and exchange ideas covering themes in chemical biology, synthesis, and computational chemistry. The 2022 symposium will feature keynote seminars from leading local academics & industrial chemists, as well as short talks from students, post-docs, and industry researchers. A lively poster session promises a much-anticipated return to networking with local chemists through this opportunity to learn about cutting-edge chemistry happening across the Bay Area's outstanding institutions.
This year's featured academic speakers:
Prof. Tom Maimone UC Berkeley
Prof. Annaliese Franz UC Davis
Prof. Ian Seiple UC San Francisco
Room: Pauley Ballroom, 2nd Floor
Coastal Walk at Cowell-Purisima Trail - 11/10/2022 10:00 AM
Cowell Purisima Coastal Trailhead Half Moon Bay
Join Peninsula Open Space Trust for a beautiful walk along the Cowell-Purisima trail that POST helped create by protecting adjacent farmland. While it may be foggy, we hope to catch gorgeous views of the ocean, nearby farmland, and glimpses of harbor seals, pelicans, hawks, rabbits, and whales during the winter season.
You will be guided by POST ambassadors who will share details about POST's work with farmers on the coast, and to create recreational opportunities along one of the most scenic stretches of our state's coastline!
The walk is moderate at about 5 miles round trip with about 400 feet of gradual elevation gain. It is mostly flat throughout, however, it is quite a long walk.
Register at weblink
Elves, Dwarfs, and (mini) Monsters - 11/10/2022 11:00 AM
Kavli Institute Astrophysics Colloquium Stanford
Our Local Group has been a rich testing ground for small-scale predictions of the Lambda Cold Dark Matter model, along with the impact of reionization and stellar feedback on the evolution of dwarf galaxies. However, we urgently need other samples of satellite systems around MW-mass hosts. I will present results from the Exploration of Local VolumE Satellites (ELVES) survey, that constructs the largest known sample of satellites around Milky Way-like hosts. If time permits, I discuss what we know about black holes in dwarf galaxies, and how their demographics sheds light on the formation of the seeds of supermassive black holes.
Speaker: Jenny Greene, Princeton University
What it Will Take to Prevent the Next Big One: Pandemics, Planetary Health and Our Global Future - 11/10/2022 05:00 PM
Hay Barn Santa Cruz
Please join us for an evening with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and UC Santa Cruz alumna Laurie Garrett (Merrill 75). Named by the New York Times "Cassandra" for predicting the COVID-19 pandemic and other outbreaks, Garrett will discuss what it will take to prevent the next pandemic, and protect both the health of our planet and the future of global health. UCSC faculty Alicia Riley, assistant professor of sociology, core faculty in global and community health, and Valerie Cortez, assistant professor of molecular cell, and developmental biology will join her in the conversation.
SpiceLife - 11/10/2022 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Spice up your Thursday night by taking your tastebuds for a ride at our hottest NightLife yet. We're bringing the heat with a crew of local culinary experts who specialize in fiery flavors from around the world. Learn about the cultural significance of spices and sample a range of gourmet spicy condiments, from Vietnamese hot sauce to Mexican salsa. Is your mouth watering, yet? Yeah, ours too.
Keep it real and keep it spicy with Chef Haejin Chun of Big Bad Wolf, Pooja Bag of Diaspora Co,Tess Melody of Dose of Saucy and Chef Wendy Zeng, creator of "Chili Party" - a panel of trailblazing women representing their culture through spice. Discover how they're owning their recipes and changing the culinary game with every bite.Ready to feel the burn? Join us for a tour of some of the most delectable hot sauces and spices in the Bay Area. Get spicy with:Diaspora Co- Let the spice experts at Diaspora Co. guide you through a smelling station to experience the unique aromas of various spices. Smell the difference fresh spices can make in this interactive demonstration. Dose of Saucy- Transport to Texas with Texan-style barbeque sauce samples from Dose of Saucy. Sample four of their delicious sauces on an array of small bites! Kula Nursery- Skip the sauce and put your spice tolerance to the test with chili peppers from Kula Nursery. Learn about the cultural significance behind these potent plants and their many culinary uses. Papalote Salsa- Known as "La Salsa de San Francisco," this famous salsa is the culmination of nearly 50 years of family tradition, secret recipes, and culinary expertise right here in San Francisco. Get a taste of their iconic habañero salsa and experience maximum flavor and heat. Tia Lupita Hot Sauce- Bringing the authentic flavors of Mexico with sustainably sourced ingredients, Tia Lupita proves that simple ingredients don't mean simple flavors. Try one of their hot sauces for yourself with a side of nopales (cactus) chips, a grain-free superfood alternative to tortilla chips. Xot Be Long- Inspired by the variety of authentic Vietnamese and Mexican food throughout San Jose, Xot Be Long offers a one-of-a-kind family recipe that will make you want to put their sauce on everything. Taste what the hype is all about with a sample of their Xot (sauce) on top of some fresh tater tots!
Thriving Parrots, Thriving Planet - Livestream - 11/10/2022 06:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
Seeing wild Macaws fly across the sky is a sight that leaves few people untouched. Travel with us to Costa Rica with Dr. Sam Williams from the Macaw Recovery Network to learn about these flying rainbows and how besides being stunning, their incredible intelligence and charisma have been the downfall of their existence in the wild. With fewer than 1,000 Great Green Macaws left in the wild and 1 of every 3 parrot species also endangered with extinction, Dr. Williams fights to protect populations that remain and the wilds they inhabit, while empowering local communities in conservation.
Speaker: Sam Williams, Macaw Recovery Network
Register at weblink to attend
After Dark: See for Yourself - 11/10/2022 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
The Exploratorium is your playground after dark! Wander the galleries, sip a cocktail, and let a DJ from Hip Hop for Change set the vibe. We think you're phenomenal, so why not head over to our Human Phenomena Gallery (Osher Gallery 1)? Experiment with thoughts, feelings, and social behavior. Here, you and others are the exhibits - so play with social interactions, observe others, and contribute your reflections.
Cell Phone Miniscope 6:00 - 10:00 p.m. Crossroads
We invite you to open your eyes to the amazing world of the ultra-tiny! Be sure to grab a miniscope kit and directions - then convert your cell phone into a portable, picture-taking miniscope using a simple plastic lens from a laser pointer. Use it to see the Exploratorium at its smallest scale, then take it home to continue exploring new environments!
Science Education in an Age of Misinformation - Livestream - 11/10/2022 08:30 PM
Bay Area Skeptics
How can science education improve young people's ability to evaluate science-related claims? Online, young people are confronted with information of wildly varying quality made by those who would claim to have expertise. The complexity of science has made the key issue one of evaluating the credibility of the so-called "expert" rather than trying to evaluate the scientific claims per se. For this, what is needed is a combination of innovative basic skills of digital media literacy, and a good understanding of the "social practices" of science - the norms and values - which form the foundation of reliable knowledge. As does a fact-checker or journalist, the student should begin by looking for evidence that the source is independent, objective, trustworthy, and lacks a conflict of interest or ideological/political bias. Once past this test, students need an understanding of the social practices of science: the significance of consensus, the role of peer review, the importance of relevant scientific expertise, and the nature of uncertainty. Although much remains to be done to bring these ideas to the classroom, there are some extant models and curricula from both US and Finnish researchers that are being used successfully.
Speaker: Jonathan Osbourne, Stanford University
See weblink for connection information
Saturday, 11/12/2022
Community Day at Cypress Grove - 11/12/2022 10:00 AM
Cypress Grove Preserve Marshall
Meet Audubon Canyon Ranch's science staff - Join a guided bird walk - Explore the preserve
No reservation needed - light snacks and beverages will be provided, but feel free to bring a picnic lunch to enjoy with your neighbors beside Tomales Bay!
This is an outdoor event so dress accordingly - think layers!
Parking is limited - carpooling is recommended
Rain cancels
Empowering Women Scientists: In Your Past, Present, and Future - Livestream - 11/12/2022 10:30 AM
California Section American Chemical Society
Lucinda Jackson worked for decades in the male-dominated science world and faced sexism, harassment, and discouragement. But along the way Jackson learned how to empower herself by recognizing and utilizing her past, identifying her vision and core values for decision-making in the present, and intentionally planning for her future Next Acts after a long, structured academic and corporate career. With real-life, personal examples, Jackson shares tried-and-true tips, tricks, and behaviors that worked in overcoming shame, self-blame, and lack of confidence to become an authentic, purposeful leader.
Speaker: Lucinda Jackson, LJ Ventures
What if the Moon Didn't Exist? - Livestream - 11/12/2022 08:00 PM
San Jose Astronomical Society
Assuming that the Moon formed as the result of a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized asteroid, Neil will explore how the Earth would be different today if that event had never occurred. As you will see, the consequences extend from geology to meteorology to oceanography to ecology to botany to the evolution of virtually all life on Earth.
Speaker: Neil Comins, University of Maine
Register at weblink to attend
Sunday, 11/13/2022
Family Friendly Tour - California Native People and Plants - 11/13/2022 02:00 PM
Regional Parks Botanic Garden Visitors Center Berkeley
Please join us at the East Bay Regional Parks Botanic Garden for a Special Family Friendly Tour, California Native People and Plants. On this tour, you'll play the traditional Miwok game of staves, grind acorns, and even wash your hands with soap plant root. You will see California Native artifacts and the plants that are used to make them, as well as learn about plants that are important food sources. This is a free Docent-led Family Friendly Tour.
Rain cancels.
Monday, 11/14/2022
Environmental Gradients and Seaweed in Tomales Bay - 11/14/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State University - Biology Colloquium Rohnert Park
Speaker: Angela Korabik, UC Davis
Quantum Computing and Entrepreneurship - Livestream - 11/14/2022 12:30 PM
Stanford University
Quantum computing is a rapidly advancing field that is poised to take on complex problems that elude even the most powerful supercomputers. In this talk, I will discuss the following:
What is quantum computing and how can it be applied?
My journey from Symbolic Systems into quantum technology
Starting a company in quantum, and the ever evolving challenges founders face including product development, fundraising, and building teams
What the next 10 years will look like in quantum, as well as entrepreneurship opportunities in the space
Getting into the quantum computing field for non-quantum physicists
Quantum entrepreneurship for good
Speaker: Rebecca Krauthamer, QuSecure
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar - 11/14/2022 02:30 PM
Physics North Berkeley
Speaker: Cheng Gong, University of Maryland
See weblink for Zoom information.
Opening the Infrared Treasure Chest with JWST - Livestream - 11/14/2022 03:30 PM
SLAC Colloquium Series
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Dec. 25, 2021, and commissioning was completed in early July 2022. With its 6.5 m golden eye, and cameras and spectrometers covering 0.6 to 28 µm, Webb is already producing magnificent images of galaxies, active galactic nuclei, star-forming regions, and planets. Scientists are hunting for some of the first objects that formed after the Big Bang, the first black holes (primordial or formed in galaxies), and beginning to observe the growth of galaxies, the formation of stars and planetary systems, individual exoplanets through coronography and transit spectroscopy, and all objects in the Solar System from Mars on out. It could observe a 1 square centimeter bumblebee at the Earth-Moon distance, in reflected sunlight and thermal emission. I will show how we built the Webb and what we hope to find. Webb is a joint project of NASA with the European and Canadian space agencies.
Speaker: John Mather, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
An Astronomical Perspective on Globular Clusters, Planet Earth, and the Climate Crisis - 11/14/2022 04:00 PM
Sonoma State University - What Physicists Do Rohnert Park
Globular clusters are beautiful and ancient structures that have been providing insight into the structure of our galaxy and the evolution of stars for more than 100 years. I will describe the role that binary stars play in their fascinating internal dynamics and examples of how binaries are revealed in clusters using space-based observatories. Spending time focused on things that are impossibly distant and vast gives astronomers and astronomy enthusiasts an unusual perspective on our own small planet. Astronomers for Planet Earth (A4E) was founded in 2019 to harness this perspective to mobilize the global astronomical community to take action on the climate crisis. A4E now comprises more than 1600 astronomy educators, students, amateurs, and researchers from 74 countries. I will describe our goals, some current activities--including plans for an upcoming A4E symposium--and invite you to share your thoughts on how physicists and astronomers can do our part to respond to the climate emergency.
Speaker: Adrienne Cool, San Francisco State University
Overturning the Paradigm: What systems approaches tell us about glycosylation and non-coding RNA - 11/14/2022 04:00 PM
Stanley Hall Berkeley
Glycans offer cells a rich coding space, integrating information from the genome, transcriptome and proteome that reflects both cell status and the function of cells within an organism. Their position at the outer edge of cellular space makes them ideal partners for immune cell recognition and targets for pathogens including viruses and bacteria. This talk focuses on decoding structure-function relationships in the glycome related to host-response and cancer and how exploring the control mechanisms of the glycome have led us to re-evaluate the paradigm of how microRNA regulate the proteome and thus the glycome.
Speaker: Lara Mahal, University of Alberta
Narrowing the search for axion dark matter - 11/14/2022 04:15 PM
Physics North Berkeley
The quantum chromodynamics axion and axion-like particles are some of the most sought-after beyond the Standard Model particles at present because of their possible connections with the strong-CP problem, dark matter, and ultraviolet physics such as Grand Unification and String Theory. Laboratory searches are underway around the world to search for these hypothetical particles. However, these searches are notoriously difficult because the axion mass is currently unknown. The axion mass is in principle calculable by solving the axion dynamics in the early Universe, but such calculations are made difficult by nonlinear effects in the equations of motion. I will show how state-of-the-art supercomputing facilities are being leveraged to simulate axion cosmology and inform axion experiments. The early Universe simulations are part of a broader program, which I will overview, to rule out or confirm the existence of the axion in nature in the coming years. This broad program ranges from precision laboratory experiments such as ABRACADABRA to studies of small changes in the cooling rates of stars.
Speaker: Benjamin Safdi, UC Berkeley
Jay Apt, Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business - Livestream - 11/14/2022 04:30 PM
Stanford Energy Seminar
Jay Apt is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business and in the CMU Department of Engineering and Public Policy. He is the Co-Director (with Granger Morgan) of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center and Director of the RenewElec (renewable electricity) project. He has authored over 80 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He has published op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Professor Apt received an A.B. in physics from Harvard College in 1971 and a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1997 and the Metcalf Lifetime Achievement Award for significant contributions to engineering in 2002.
Tuesday, 11/15/2022
Whole Earth Seminar - 11/15/2022 03:30 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Stanford Applied Physics/Physics Colloquium - Rescheduled - 11/15/2022 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
Lessons from scale for large language models and quantitative reasoning - 11/15/2022 03:30 PM
Hewlett Teaching Center Stanford
Two Talks: Popping the Science Bubble - Livestream - 11/15/2022 05:30 PM
Berkeley Public Library
IceCube: A Neutrino Window on the Universe - Livestream - 11/15/2022 06:00 PM
Astronomical Society of the Pacific
ACS San Francisco Bay Chapter 2021 Grant Recipients Present their Cetacean Research - Livestream - 11/15/2022 07:00 PM
American Cetacean Society
From Informed Collector to Professional Mycological Contributor - Livestream - 11/15/2022 07:00 PM
Mycological Society of San Francisco
Wednesday, 11/16/2022
Morning Hike at La Honda Open Space Preserve - 11/16/2022 10:00 AM
La Honda Creek Open Space Preserve La Honda
The Lady and the Octopus: How Jeanne Villepreux-Power Invented Aquariums - Livestream - 11/16/2022 11:00 AM
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Envorinmental and Energy Economics Seminar - 11/16/2022 12:10 PM
Giannini Hall Berkeley
Light at Night: A Glowing Hazard - Livestream - 11/16/2022 01:00 PM
Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society
The role of microbial symbioses in reef coral conservation under climate change - Livestream - 11/16/2022 03:30 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center
November LASER Event - 11/16/2022 06:30 PM
LASER Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous Stanford
Policymaker's Perspective: 13 Tips for Successful Advocacy - 11/16/2022 06:30 PM
The Foster Palo Alto
The Active Social Lives of Big Black Holes - 11/16/2022 07:00 PM
San Francisco Amateur Astronomers
Urable Worlds: Where and How can Life Start in the Universe? - 11/16/2022 07:00 PM
SETI Institute: SETI Talks Mountain View
The Genetics Behind Eye Degeneration in Cave-dwelling Crustaceans - 11/16/2022 07:30 PM
Marin Science Seminar San Rafael
Thursday, 11/17/2022
Machine Learning for Policymakers: Decoding AI Technology Development, Responsibility, and Policy - Livestream - 11/17/2022 10:00 AM
Computer History Museum
Coastal Walk at Pillar Point Bluff - 11/17/2022 10:00 AM
Pillar Point Bluff Moss Beach
2022 Ogawa-Yamanaka Stem Cell Prize Ceremony - Livestream - 11/17/2022 11:00 AM
Gladstone Institutes
Science at Cal - The Road to Vehicle Electrification - Livestream - 11/17/2022 12:00 PM
UC Berkeley
Snap-Shot 3D Cameras - Livestream - 11/17/2022 04:00 PM
Sonoma State Engineering Colloquium
Two talks: chinese American Chemical Society - 11/17/2022 04:15 PM
History Corner (Bldg 200) Stanford
From Mono Lake to Mar Chiquita - A Future for Phalaropes and Saline Lakes - Livestream - 11/17/2022 06:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
Panel of Remediaiton and Permaculture Experts: Fungi for Bioremediation - 11/17/2022 06:00 PM
Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation Heron Hall Santa Rosa
NightLife - 11/17/2022 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
After Dark: Glow Opening - 11/17/2022 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Endangered Bumble Bees - Science on the Threats and Recovery - Livestream - 11/17/2022 06:00 PM
US Geological Survey Public Lecture Series
Lincoln Family Science Night - 11/17/2022 06:00 PM
Lincoln Elementary School Richmond
On the Cosmic Dimension of Human Stories - 11/17/2022 06:00 PM
California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) San Francisco
NightSchool: Aquarium Without Walls - Livestream - 11/17/2022 07:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences
Earthquake Science of the Bay Area and How to Prepare- Livestream - 11/17/2022 07:00 PM
Peninsula Open Space Trust
Friday, 11/18/2022
Berkeley Lab Virtual Public Tour - 11/18/2022 11:00 AM
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics Seminar - 11/18/2022 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Frank Drake - Livestream - 11/18/2022 03:00 PM
SETI Institute
Pulling Back the Dusty Curtain on Luminous Infrared Galaxies - 11/18/2022 07:30 PM
Tri-Valley Stargazers Livermore
Saturday, 11/19/2022
Raptor Fest at Rancho San Vicente - 11/19/2022 09:30 AM
Challenger School - Almaden San Jose
Fall Friends & Family Day at Bouverie Preserve - 11/19/2022 10:00 AM
Bouverie Preserve Glen Ellen
Investigating Space: Supersonic Flight - 11/19/2022 01:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Sunday, 11/20/2022
Science Sunday - What is "Managed Recharge?" How to Improve our Groundwater Supply and Quality - Livestream - 11/20/2022 01:30 PM
Seymour Marine Discovery Center
Monday, 11/21/2022
Insect Endosymbionts Mediate Adaptation to Changing Environments in a Montane Leaf Beetle - Livestream - 11/21/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State Biology Colloquium
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar - 11/21/2022 02:30 PM
Physics North Berkeley
UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - 11/21/2022 04:15 PM
UC Berkeley