Your Cosmic Skeptic Eclectic SciSchmooze
Hello again dear science aficionados,
Whew! The James Webb Space Telescope, JWST, folded open and made it to its destination orbit with no glitches. During the next few months, its 18 primary mirrors - each 1.3m across - will be wiggled and warped to become a single ‘perfect’ telescope mirror using wavefront sensing and control algorithms - and i have no effing idea how that works. Apparently images of the star HD 84406 will play a role. Here is an excellent site with videos and descriptions of the mirrors and their controls.
It took me some time to understand why JWST can orbit around the L2 point in space since L2 is not a place an object can remain. (If an object drifts a teeny distance farther or nearer than L2 along the line through the Earth and Sun, it will continue moving faster and faster away.) However, if an object drifts a distance at a right angle to a line from L2 through Earth and Sun, it will be gravitationally drawn back toward that line. Because of that, L2 can be the focal point of an orbit. JWST needs to stay out of the shadows of Earth and Moon since it needs sunlight to power its solar panels, so it is now orbiting around L2 at a distance of 450,000 to 832,000 kilometers. Each orbit will take about half a year, and minor course corrections will be made every three weeks.
Luisa won the JWST pin in our last contest. This time we are giving away a laser-cut kit for constructing an 8-inch JWST model. That equates to a scale of about 1:104. Just send an email to david.almandsmith@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 kit to the person who chose the closest number.
That was a powerful eruption near Tonga this month. ¿How about eruptions on the Sun?
We have all heard that Schrödinger’s cat was both alive and dead, but have you heard that Erwin Schrödinger was both brilliant and a pedophile?
One effect of all that rain we got is the return of salmon to places they have not been seen for almost 20 years: Oakland’s Lake Merritt, Geronimo Valley, and elsewhere. I had to refer to a map to find Geronimo Valley. To get there, the salmon entered Lagunitas Creek from Tomales Bay, swam up Lagunitas Creek past Point Reyes Station and Samuel P. Taylor Park, and made a left turn at Geronimo Creek - a distance of more than 32 kilometers (20 miles)! Herb Masters recently gave us a link to research on fish navigation, and i would like to direct you to a video from that study: Goldfish driving a ‘car.’ Another ‘fish story’ is the discovery of 60 million fish nests in the Antarctic.
Confession: I suffer from Mariko Aoki Syndrome. For example, i occasionally visit Goodwill Stores for odds & ends, clothing, and books. I can only briefly peruse the book shelves before the need to defecate becomes fairly strong, so i then shop elsewhere in the store until the urge subsides and i can briefly return to the books. Truly weird, weird, weird.
Recently, Britain’s The Skeptic publication came out with the opinion that the Havana Syndrome was likely psychogenic. Almost immediately after that, the CIA agreed with that assessment except for a few instances where they had not yet rendered a decision. Скептицизм это хорошо.
The American Red Cross announced earlier this month that it is facing its worst blood shortage in over a decade due largely to the damndemic. More blood donors are needed, so The Walking Dead coagulant - i mean The Walking Dead conglomerate - will soon be opening stores in the U.S. where you will be able to buy merchandise with your blood. But please don’t wait. Click here to locate a donor facility near you. I earned a 5-gallon pin some years ago. As teenagers, we would donate blood, ‘borrow’ a 6-pack, and feel drunk on a single beer. It’s not that easy with hamsters!
Livestream Picks for the week:
Stanford Energy Seminar: Lithium Extraction - Monday 4pm
The Dance Language of Honey Bees - Tuesday 4pm
Organizing Skepticism Online - Thursday 4pm
NightSchool: Fungi Underground - Thursday 7pm
Virtual Star Party - Bell Planetarium, Minnesota - Friday 5 - 7pm
Spectacular Spacecraft / Extraordinary Missions - Bell Planetarium - Saturday 9 - 10am
Moon, Mars, and Beyond - Bell Planetarium - Sunday 9 - 10am
Those Stanford science types are guaranteed to get a lump of coal next Christmas from the fossil fuel industry. They found another reason to ditch the gas stove in your kitchen. I’ve been looking for good deals on induction stove tops, but it will also cost to route a 240 volt line into the kitchen. Soon, maybe.
Climate Change
Oil Drilling: A court decision last year compelled the Biden administration to auction off oil-drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico, but a judge blocked the sales this week, citing that the government failed to fully consider how the extracted oil could raise global temperatures and what damage that may cause. This is a victory for climate activists and for all of us, but the fossil fuel industry is challenging the decision.
NOAA just released its Arctic Report Card video.
Paradoxically, snow depths in parts of Greenland have increased due to the warming climate. Overall, however, Greenland’s glaciers are rapidly melting.
Meanwhile, a threat from the Antarctic appears to be growing.
For your entertainment, the following videos will take you from an underground ant nest to Hamburg, Germany, to low Earth orbit, to the Moon, and on to Venus:
Australian Walking Stick
Modelleisenbahn Wunderland (Model Train Wonderland)
Badminton on the ISS
Breathing Moon dust
Exploring the Venusian atmosphere
Consider donating blood this week - with compassion and intelligence,
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“Pundits have urged people to “listen to the science,” as if “the science” is a tome of facts and not an amorphous, dynamic entity, born from the collective minds of thousands of individual people who argue and disagree about data that can be interpreted in a range of ways.”
- Ed Yong
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Monday, 01/31/2022
Sonar Jamming, Acoustic Deflection, and Visual Lures - Livestream - 01/31/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State Biology Colloquium
Speaker: Akito Kawahara, Florida Museum of Natural History
See link for Zoom information
Deep Learning and Biology: Predicting Where Proteins Bind DNA Across Species - Livestream - 01/31/2022 12:15 PM
Stanford Symbolic Systems Forum
What does research in computational biology look like, specifically at the intersection of deep learning and genomics? In this talk, we'll walk through an example research project to illustrate how comp-bio research can be driven by the knowns and unknowns of biology and how we can leverage deep learning to uncover biological insights. We'll begin with the concept of gene regulation: how our human bodies are made complex and kept alive by carefully orchestrated interactions between DNA and proteins. Other mammals have similar processes going on inside their cells - but how similar, exactly? Mice and humans both have hearts and lungs and livers, sure; but can we perform biological experiments in mice and reasonably expect the results to transfer to humans as well? We'll investigate this question through the lens of deep learning models trained to predict DNA-protein interactions. Note: no background in biology or machine learning is needed to follow this talk.
Speaker: Kelly Cochran, Stanford University
Johannes Eichstaedt, Stanford University, was originally scheduled to speak on this date.
See weblink for Zoom information
Symbolic Systems Forum - Rescheduled - 01/31/2022 12:15 PM
Stanford Symbolic Systems Forum
Speaker: Johannes Eichstaedt, Stanford University, will now speak on March 7, 2022.
See weblink to register
Ask the Experts: Omicron Update - Livestream - 01/31/2022 02:00 PM
Gladstone Institutes
In late 2020, scientists reported the emergence of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2: Omicron.
Today, Omicron accounts for about 98 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the United States. And many places throughout the country are seeing a record number of both cases and hospitalizations.
Recommendations continue to shift on how to prevent COVID-19, how long to quarantine after exposure, when to take a test, and what kind of test you should take.
In our next COVID-19: Ask the Experts webinar, Gladstone virologists explain the latest science about the Omicron variant and answer your questions about masking, testing, and more.
Panel: Warner Greene, MD, Gladstone Institutes; Melanie Ott, MD, Gladstone Institute of Virology; Deepak Srivastava, MD, Gladstone Institutes, Moderator
Many-body ground state problem and near-term quantum computer - Livestream - 01/31/2022 02:30 PM
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
It is well-known that solving the ground state of locally interacting quantum many-body systems can be computationally challenging in two spatial dimensions and higher. There are approaches to solve this problem using a quantum computer, but the quantum computers available these days are still noisy and small, posing a significant challenge in obtaining high-accuracy solutions. I will discuss an overview of known approaches, focusing on their promises and challenges. Then I will discuss an approach that can sidestep many of these practical challenges. This is an approach in which the variational calculation of already-established many-body ansatz (e.g., tensor network) is delegated to a quantum computer. This approach leverages the known structure of wave functions in many-body systems, leading to speedups using a modest amount of resources, while ensuring that the outcome of the computation is robust to experimental noise.
Speaker: Isaac Kim, UC Davis
Attend in person or online
Atoms and Photons: Quantum Technology meets Fundamental Physics - Livestream - 01/31/2022 03:30 PM
SLAC Colloquium
The power of quantum information lies in its capacity to be non-local, encoded in correlations among entangled particles. Yet our ability to produce, understand, and exploit such correlations is hampered by the fact that the interactions between particles are ordinarily local. To circumvent this limitation in the laboratory, we let distant atoms “talk” to each other with the aid of photons that act as messengers. By tailoring the frequency spectrum of an optical control field, we program the spin-spin couplings in an array of atomic ensembles, thereby accessing frustrated interaction graphs and exotic geometries and topologies. Such advances in optical control of interactions open new opportunities in areas ranging from quantum technologies to fundamental physics. I will touch on implications for quantum optimization algorithms, quantum-enhanced sensing, and simulating quantum gravity.
Speaker: Monika Schleier-Smith, Stanford University
We Cannot Build the New Energy System Using the Tools of the Old Energy System - Livestream - 01/31/2022 04:00 PM
Stanford Energy Seminar
The lithium ion battery is solidifying its role as the technology platform that underpins the new energy system. Fake solutions like hydrogen are falling by the wayside as they are becoming better understood as less efficient than batteries in competitive use cases or suffer significant contamination by legacy oil and gas interests, while investors are pouring tens of billions of dollars into lithium ion gigafactories all around the world. For the lithium ion energy technology platform to reduce the impacts of the global energy system as much as possible, the supply chains that underpin lithium ion must also be rapidly expanded and revolutionized.
In this talk, Alex Grant will discuss his work on lithium extraction technology innovation to produce lithium chemicals from previously neglected lower grade, less pure resources which have the potential to radically reduce CO2, water, and land use impacts of the battery supply chain. He will also discuss his work in life cycle assessment of lithium extraction and processing, and share with the battery technology ecosystem suggestions for how to help ensure the battery supply chain is as minimally impactful as possible.
The future of our forests in a rapidly changing world - 01/31/2022 04:00 PM
James H. Clark Center (Bldg 340) Stanford
Dr. Joan Dudney is a postdoctoral fellow based at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. She recently completed a David H. Smith Postdoctoral Fellowship at UC Davis and received her Ph.D. from the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley in May 2019. Her research is broadly focused on global change impacts in terrestrial plant communities. She uses interdisciplinary analytical approaches to disentangle the complex, interacting, and emergent relationships between plants and global change drivers, including climate change, invasive species, and altered disturbance regimes. Her research is motivated by the challenges humanity faces in an era of unprecedented environmental change.
From Dinosaurs to Nuclear Waste - an adventure in physics - Livestream - 01/31/2022 04:15 PM
UC Berkeley
My research in 1985 on the death of the dinosaurs led directly to my current work disposing of nuclear waste. After I retired from academic research, my daughter and I founded a company, Deep Isolation Inc, that offers an inexpensive method safely to disposal of high level nuclear waste. We drill a narrow borehole about a mile deep and then a mile horizontally.The waste is disposed in the horizontal section under a billion tons of rock. Detailed simulations show that the waste remains isolated from the biosphere for more than a million years, by which time most of the radioactivity has decayed. We currently have 50 employees and exploratory contracts in the US, UK, Finland, Japan, Estonia, Croatia, and several other countries. Life after retirement for a physicist can be interesting.
Speaker: Richard Muller, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
See weblink for Zoom information
Wonderfest: Secrets to the Study of Animal Behavior - Rescheduled - 01/31/2022 07:00 PM
Hopmonk Tavern Novato
This event is now scheduled for February 28, 2022
Tuesday, 02/01/2022
A spatial reconstruction of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum: Windows into a hothouse world - Livestream - 02/01/2022 12:15 PM
Stanford University
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; 55.8 Ma) is one of the best-studied hyperthermal events. Proxy data indicate large changes in temperature and hydroclimate during the PETM, but the data are sparse and not evenly distributed across Earth, which makes it challenging to infer spatial patterns of change. Here, we use paleoclimate data assimilation to combine information from isotope-enabled model simulations and temperature proxy data spanning the PETM to produce the first spatially-resolved reconstruction of PETM temperature and hydroclimate.
Speaker: Jessica Tierney, University of Arizona
The Water Table Model: global hydrology and sea level in the past and present - 02/01/2022 03:30 PM
Natural Science Annex Santa Cruz
Speaker: Kerry Callaghan, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University
Designing Artificial Quantum Materials with van der Waals Heterostructures - Livestream - 02/01/2022 03:30 PM
Stanford Applied Physics/Physics Colloquium
Speaker: Feng Wang, UC Berkeley
See weblink for Zoom information
The Dance Language of Honey Bees - Livestream - 02/01/2022 04:00 PM
Bees Beyond Borders
No introduction is needed for Dr. Tom Seeley. Famed Cornell University professor is a Rock Star in apiculture. Understanding Honey Bee behavior is his life work.
In this talk, we will look at the zig-zag path of investigation that Karl von Frisch blazed as he deciphered the famous waggle dance of the honey bee. We will also look at new studies that have recently deepened our understanding of this amazing communication system of the bees.
Learn about the dance floors in the hive. Q&A will follow the talk.
Secondary organic aerosol: current understanding of main formation pathways and knowledge gaps - 02/01/2022 04:00 PM
Latimer Hall Berkeley
Aerosols pose the number one environmental health risk according to WHO. They can be emitted directly into the atmosphere (primary) or formed through atmospheric chemistry processes (secondary). While there is ample observational evidence that the majority of ambient organic aerosol is secondary, we do not yet sufficiently understand the pathways and precursors leading to secondary organic aerosol. The talk gives an overview of the state of the art knowledge and highlights future research needs.
Speaker: Astrid Kiendler-Scharr, Institute of Energy and Climate Research
Using unique longitudinal administrative data of close to 6 million workers’ records, we examine how residential mobility within a high-cost housing market may have impacted the effect of Seattle's $15 minimum wage ordinance on low-wage workers. Specifically, we document residential patterns of low-wage Seattle workers and their impacts on commute times over the period 2013 - 2016. We find the ratio of low-wage workers living within the city decreased while the proportion of those living in the outskirts increased. Displacement appears to play a role in these residential mobility patterns, with low-wage Seattle workers being more likely to move than their non-low wage counterparts. Additionally, higher earners’ commutes times shortened relative to commute times of lower-paid workers. Our results indicate that the $15 minimum wage increase appears to be helpful for some but insufficient for many. Comprehensive measures, such as public investment in more affordable housing and expanded social programs for health insurance and housing, in conjunction with raising renters’ income, should be considered to sufficiently address the dual crises of housing and income inequity.
Speaker: Mahader Tamene, UC Berkeley
Register at weblink to receive connection information
Digitized data and computational methods have revolutionized the way we understand ourselves, society, and our place in society. On the one hand, this moment has revived calls for a social physics: a social science that can identify the underlying laws that govern social interaction and behavior. On the other hand, when it comes to prediction, one of the ways to evaluate the efficacy of computational methods to model social systems, even the most sophisticated methods are themselves inaccurate, and perform only marginally better than basic regression models. In this talk I propose that, despite its claims to elevate social science to the level of the physical sciences, the social physics perspective as it is currently practiced produces a decidedly unscientific and unobjective approach to social science. I propose an alternative framework, that of partial perspectives and situated knowledges, that I argue will enable us to better realize the full potential of this moment to truly advance a radically objective science of society.
Speaker: Laura Nelson, University of British Columbia
Register at weblink to receive Zoom information
This talk was originally scheduled for January 25.
Our Magnetic Universe - Livestream - 02/01/2022 07:00 PM
Kavli Institute for Particle Physics & Cosmology
The Universe is magnetic. From stars to galaxies to intergalactic space, magnetic fields thread the cosmos. Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, hosts a magnetic field that helps to shape the interstellar medium: the “stuff between the stars” out of which new stars are born. Join us on a tour of magnetism in the Milky Way galaxy and beyond, and learn how we measure magnetic fields in interstellar space.
Speaker: Susan Clark, Stanford University
Register at weblink to receive connection information.
Wednesday, 02/02/2022
Informatics Advances for Personalized Health Interventions - Livestream - 02/02/2022 12:00 PM
CITRIS Research Exchange
Health behaviors account for the most significant influence on overall health outcomes and healthcare costs, far outpacing genetic effects or the influence of access to medical care. As we move from an era of “reactive” medicine that is hospital and clinic-based toward more holistic and proactive care focused on the management of chronic conditions and prevention, informatics advances are needed to model patient state in real-time to deliver tailored just-in-time health interventions to the home. In this presentation, I will describe AI techniques for inferring patient state in real-time from streaming sensor data and mobile interactions, as well as a health coaching infrastructure for delivering tailored motivational and feedback mobile messaging. This architecture incorporates representations of user preferences, motivations, and barriers to change to enable the incorporation of known principles of health behavior change. Based on our needs assessment of stakeholders (elders, family caregivers, clinicians, service providers, researchers, government, and industry), we have focused on a design to facilitate the participation of family members and low-skilled caregivers as part of the care team. Our tested applications for this technology have ranged from interactive video exercise, socialization, and stress management to cognitive monitoring and cognitive health interventions. Bringing tailored and coordinated care interventions to the home offer a scalable and potentially cost-effective approach to improving health and quality of life for a growing population of individuals with chronic disease and conditions associated with aging.
Speaker: Holly Jimison, Northeastern University
Register at weblink.
Ask the Scientist - Ben Becker - Livestream - 02/02/2022 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 on Wednesdays from 2:30 - 3 PM.
Parents must give permission for children under 18 to participate.
Register at weblink
Post-aquaculture estuarine restoration and eelgrass recovery in Drakes Estero, California - Livestream - 02/02/2022 03:40 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center
Between August 2016 and May 2017 the National Park Service (NPS) removed 95 wooden oyster racks and associated mariculture debris from Drakes Estero, a shallow estuary within Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County, California. A total of 3.8 million lbs. of debris was removed from the estero, with the majority including shell, pressure treated wood, and plastic debris (2.8 million lbs.) from the estero floor where it precluded the growth of eelgrass (Zostera marina). In order to (1) detect any impacts on eelgrass, (2) document recovery of eelgrass post-restoration, and (3) track changes to benthic communities including non-native species, we implemented a subtidal monitoring program with control sites and analyzed before and after restoration images for percent cover of benthic communities. In general, eelgrass growth into disturbed plots was variable, with more rapid growth in less disturbed plots. Passive eelgrass restoration has been largely successful in this wilderness estuary.
Speaker: Ben Becker, California Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit
See weblink for Zoom registration
Speaker: Sujit Datta, Princeton University
See weblink for Zoom information
This Old Zero-Emission House: Climate Retrofits on a Limited Budget - Livestream - 02/02/2022 07:00 PM
City of Sunnyvale Sunnyvale
Is your old home running up your utility bills? By making small, affordable changes you can transform your old home into a healthy and efficient home. Join Sean Armstrong as he provides attendees with best practices for improving old homes. He will explain product and price options for replacing stoves, space heating, laundry dryers, water heaters, and more. Bring your questions about your own house, so we can help you save money and reduce pollution!
Register at weblink to receive Zoom information
Thursday, 02/03/2022
Brown Hares, Their biology, ecology, mythology and future - Livestream - 02/03/2022 11:00 AM
London Natural History Society
The presentation describes how the biology and physiology of this mammal superbly adapts it to its way of life. It explains their ecological and habitat requirements and how this fits in with the changing face of the British countryside. Finally, it explores the extensive superstition and mythology which has surrounded this animal over the centuries.
Bob Reed chairs the Bishops Stortford Natural History Society and has a special interest in mammals. He is Warden of the Sawbridgeworth Marsh Nature Reserve and Leader of the National Trust Coppicing Volunteers in Hatfield Forest.
Hydrology in the Supercomputing Age - Livestream - 02/03/2022 11:30 AM
Stanford University
We are in the midst of a revolution in computing and data. In the past 50 years we have moved from electrical analog models to massively parallel computer systems. The fastest computers in the world when landmark papers such as Freeze and Harlan were written are much slower than the average smartphone of today. Hydrology is taking advantage of this revolution in many ways. Computational Hydrology seeks to leverage modern computing capacity to study water and energy fluxes and stores across the hydrologic cycle at spatial scales and complexity not previously possible. Integrated hydrologic simulations that couple boundary layer, vegetation, and land energy processes with surface and subsurface hydrology have great potential to advance our understanding of terrestrial hydrology spanning small catchments to the continental scale. Several movements within hydrology, such as the so-called hyperresolution approach, have organized and accelerated this goal. Hydrologic simulation from a historical perspective, starting with the early watershed models to more modern, integrated and machine learning approaches that realize blueprints laid out fifty years ago will be presented. The lecture will discuss how computational advances are shaping our simulation capabilities, changing the questions that we are able to ask as scientist, and changing how we educate our students. High-resolution, continental-scale simulation is an exciting component of computational hydrology forecasting and scientific discovery. It will outline a path to move beyond our traditional siloed simulation platforms and to leverage these large datasets and massive community development investments to better connect our hydrologic models to the communities outside of hydrology.
Speaker: Reed Maxwell, Princeton University
See weblink for Zoom information
Cloud Computing - Livestream - 02/03/2022 04:00 PM
Sonoma State Engineering Colloquium
Cloud computing while mostly a research topic only a few years, now is part of every company’s strategy. Cloud computing touches a wide range of scientific and technical topics like Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Cyber Security. In this talk, I will give an overview of the Cloud computing, and its impact to companies such as Keysight, including impact to employees, customers, and investors.
Speaker: Qi Gao, Keysight Technilogies
See weblink for Zoom information
Herding Cats: Organizing Skepticism Online - Livestream - 02/03/2022 04:00 PM
Skeptical Inquirer
Herding Cats: In conversation with Susan Gerbic - A romp through the last 24 months - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia, the grief vampire investigations: Operation Lemon Meringue and Operation Onion Ring. Gerbic’s mission is to keep the community active and growing with SkeptiCamps, interviews, and a social trivia group that has not missed a Thursday night since May 28, 2020.
Register at weblink to receive connection information
Editor's Note: We incorrectly listed this with a 7 PM start. It starts at 4 PM PST.
Getting to the Core of Earth’s Magnetic Field - Livestream - 02/03/2022 05:00 PM
SLAC Public Lecture
Earth’s magnetic field does more than just help us to navigate. It is also used by animals for orientation and migration, and it protects life on Earth from charged particles that stream in from the sun and from deep space. This field is believed to be powered by a gigantic engine, or dynamo, created by electric currents carried by streams of molten iron in the Earth’s core. Scientists think these electric streams can start spinning spontaneously, driven by the Earth’s rotation. To test that theory, we need to know more about the properties of molten iron in the center of the Earth, where temperatures are a hundred times higher and pressures a million times greater than those on the surface. This lecture will describe studies underway at SLAC that re-create those extreme conditions, and describe a path towards measuring properties of molten iron using the unique capabilities of SLAC’s LCLS X-ray and ultrafast lasers.
Speaker: Ben Ofori-Okai, SLAC
See weblink for Zoom link.
Space Fest 2022 - 'Operation Moonglow' - Livestream - 02/03/2022 05:00 PM
Bell Museum
On July 20th, 1969, over half the world’s population witnessed Neil Armstrong’s first step on the Moon. While often remembered as a scientific and technological feat, the ambitions of the Apollo program aimed far beyond the Moon. Through spaceflight, America sought to win hearts and minds, foster alliances, and shape the political trajectories of newly independent nations. Drawing on a rich array of untapped archives and firsthand interviews, Operation Moonglow knits together a story of politics and propaganda; diplomacy and spaceflight; and decolonization and globalization to reveal the political forces that not only sent humans to the Moon but also attracted the largest audience in history. Register here.
Speaker: Dr. Teasel Muir-Harmony
Lunar New Year NightLife - 02/03/2022 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Ring in the Year of the Tiger with a NightLife Lunar New Year celebration to remember! Live drumming and breathtaking martial arts will get your blood pumping as the evening kicks off with a stunning traditional lion dance performance by Chinatown’s own Jing Mo Athletic Association. Join Kristina Cho, author of the cookbook Mooncakes and Milk Bread, for a cooking demonstration as she makes one of our favorite treats: char sui bao (steamed bbq pork buns). Set the tone for the year ahead while connecting to the rich history of Chinese tea ceremonies with Fabula Tea, who will lead an immersive Gong Fu Cha tea ceremony that invites participants to take charge of their well-being and elevate personal growth by slowing down, practicing mindfulness, and reclaiming inner peace and joy.
After Dark: See for Yourself - 02/03/2022 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Spark your curiosity at After Dark! As the sun sets, we’ll hit the rainbow lights, turn the music up, and open our doors, inviting you to take your imagination out to play. Fuel up with a cocktail and prepare to roam free through six spacious outdoor and indoor spaces. Be ready to bring fresh eyes to old favorites and uncover phenomenal new experiences.
NightSchool: Fungi Underground - Livestream - 02/03/2022 07:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences
Beneath the soil is a vast underground network of mycorrhizal fungi that’s unseen by humans, but crucial to thriving forests. From nutrient exchanges and complex warning systems, learn more about the fascinating relationship between trees and the fungi that support them.
See weblink for links to YouTube and Facebook to attend.
Friday, 02/04/2022
Solution-phase routes to inorganic solid-state materials - 02/04/2022 11:00 AM
Latimer Hall Berkeley
This talk will cover research being conducted in the Schimpf Lab, which focuses on solution-phase syntheses of inorganic solid-state materials. The talk will contain two parts: colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals and cluster-based coordination assemblies. In the first part, I will discuss the use of colloidal synthesis to access metastable phases of transition metal dichalcogenide nanocrystals. Specifically, coordinating ligands can be used to modulate precursor reactivity, allowing the synthesis of metastable phases and unique heterostructures. In the second part of the talk, I will present the use of polyoxometalates as building-blocks for all-inorganic coordination networks. Assembly of these anionic clusters with transition-metal or lanthanide cations is used to synthesize new metal oxide frameworks with widely tunable compositions and architectures. Factors directing the framework assembly as well as the role of cluster and cation building-blocks in dictating framework properties will be discussed.
Speaker: Alina Schimpf, UC San Diego
Planetary Seismology on Icy Ocean Worlds - 02/04/2022 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
Speaker: Angela Marusiak, NASA JPL
Regulating Thermal Radiation With Metal-Insulator Phase Transition - 02/04/2022 02:00 PM
LeConte Hall, Rm 4 Berkeley
As a textbook example of strongly correlated electron material, vanadium dioxide (VO2) features a metal-insulator transition (MIT) when temperature drops below 67oC. The physics of the MIT has challenged physicists for decades, while the potential of the MIT has inspired researchers for a wide range of applications. We have recently developed new applications of VO2 for smart regulation of thermal infrared radiation, including a platform where thermal emissivity can be engineered for infrared camouflaging [Advanced Materials, 32, 1907071 (2020)], a thermal imaging sensitizer that achieves milli-Kelvin resolution of thermography at room temperature [Science Advances, 6, eabd8688 (2020)], and a temperature adaptive radiative coating for all-season household thermal regulation [Science, 374, 1504 (2021)].
Speaker: Junqiao Wu, UC Berkeley
Virtual Star Party - Space Fest - Livestream - 02/04/2022 05:00 PM
Bell Museum
The future of space is as bright as the stars! From the JWST to LUCY to DART to VERITAS, there are more missions than ever before working to study our universe. Join the Bell Museum planetarium team as we explore the future of astronomy and share live views of the night sky through our telescopes (weather permitting).
Register at weblink to receive Zoom link
First Friday: Winter Skies - 02/04/2022 06:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Have a stellar night of after-hours fun as we relaunch our fan-favorite First Friday series. Get the inside scoop on everyone’s favorite dwarf planet, Pluto and winter’s constellations. Then, gaze into the depths of the cosmos with a virtual reality installation, live Sky Tonight Zeiss Planetarium Show, Telescope Viewing! For a discounted price, this event brings together the best of Chabot’s themed workshops, music, talks and more.
Saturday, 02/05/2022
Space Fest 2022 - Spectacular Spacecraft, Extraordinary Missions - Livestream - 02/05/2022 09:00 AM
Bell Museum
Cruise through the solar system with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. We’ll explore groundbreaking space missions to destinations such as Saturn’s exotic moon Titan, our neighboring planet Venus, and the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, the source of NASA’s first asteroid sample, which is aboard a spacecraft making its way back to Earth now. Register here.
Speaker: Staci Tiedeken
Sunday, 02/06/2022
Space Fest 2022 - Moon, Mars, and Beyond! - Livestream - 02/06/2022 09:00 AM
Bell Museum
Come along with our crew of regional NASA Solar System Ambassadors on an exciting tour of current and future NASA space exploration missions, including Artemis and Mars Perseverance. Our journey will include a hands-on activity that the whole family will enjoy as well as plenty of time for Q&A. Register here.
Speakers: NASA Solar System Ambassadors
Monday, 02/07/2022
Commercial Plant Nurseries as Habitat for Wild Bees - Livestream - 02/07/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State Biology Colloquium
Speaker: Jake Cecala, UC Davis
See link for Zoom information
Two Condensed Matter Physics Talks - Livestream - 02/07/2022 02:30 PM
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
Superexchange-induced valley splitting in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides
Breaking time-reversal symmetry via an external magnetic field or supporting magnetic substrate has been demonstrated to lift the degeneracy of the band gaps at the inequivalent K and K’ valleys in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), a phenomenon known as valley splitting. However, reported valley splittings thus far are modest, and a detailed structural and chemical understanding of valley splitting via magnetic substrates is lacking. In this talk I will present results from my density functional theory (DFT) investigation of magnetic atoms in proximity to monolayer WSe2 and MoS2 TMDs to demonstrate the sensitivity of this phenomenon to the overlap of TMD Bloch states at the valley extrema with the localized d states of the magnetic atom. I will rationalize these results with a model Hamiltonian with second-order spin-dependent exchange coupling to demonstrate that valley splitting via magnetic substrates is driven by a superexchange mechanism. Finally, I will use these results to offer general design principles and propose optimal magnetic substrates for large valley splitting.
Speaker: Liz Peterson, UC Berkeley
A unified ab-initio framework for studying phonon mediated and limited exciton diffusion in molecular crystals
Developing a predictive first principles framework to accurately describe exciton transport in complex materials remains an open challenge. In organic semiconductors - optoelectronic materials with strong light-matter interactions and chemical tunability - understanding exciton transport is further complicated by the fact that exciton bandwidths and exciton-phonon coupling strengths are similar in magnitude. For these systems, it is unclear a priori whether exciton diffusion is best described by phonon-limited Boltzmann-like or phonon-mediated thermally activated hopping theories. Several computational approaches have been put forward to understand exciton dynamics in the hopping or band-like regime separately; however to date, few approaches exist which are general enough to be applied to both regimes in solids. In this talk, using state-of-the-art density functional perturbation theory and the ab initio GW plus Bethe-Salpeter equation approach, we develop a self-contained framework for computing exciton diffusion coefficients for solids in both the band-like and hopping exciton-polaron regimes. We apply our method to a select set of acene crystals, comparing our results in the two limits with experiments and elucidating microscopic origins of exciton diffusion in these and related materials.
Speaker: Jonah Haber, UC Berkeley
Attend in person or online
Extreme Astrophysical Accelerators: A Microphysical Perspective - Livestream - 02/07/2022 03:30 PM
SLAC Colloquium
Astrophysical shock waves are among the most powerful particle accelerators in the Universe. Generated by violent interactions of supersonic plasma flows with the interstellar or intergalactic medium, shocks are inferred to amplify magnetic fields and accelerate electrons and protons to highly relativistic speeds. However, the exact mechanisms that allow these shocks to amplify magnetic fields and produce energetic particles so efficiently remain a mystery and cannot be directly resolved in distant astrophysical objects. I will discuss how the fast progress in numerical simulations and laboratory experiments, associated with powerful light sources and accelerator facilities, is opening new windows into the microphysics of these fascinating cosmic accelerators.
Speaker: Frederico Fiuza, SLAC
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Energy Seminar: Mayte Sanchez - Livestream - 02/07/2022 04:00 PM
Stanford Energy Seminar
Mayte Sanchez is Director of Energy at Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI).
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UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - Livestream - 02/07/2022 04:15 PM
UC Berkeley
Speaker: Manu Prakash, Stanford University
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Tequiologies: Indigenous Solutions Against Climate Catastrophe - Livestream - 02/07/2022 05:00 PM
UC Berkeley
It is a myth of the West’s choosing: perpetual economic growth, advancing through a digestive system of sorts, one that uses technology as one of its core components. In its churn, ecosystems became goods; people, mere consumers. The myth turned the world into a place increasingly inhospitable to human life. An alternative, offered by Abya Yala, lies in separating economic development and the development of new technologies from consumerism. This would place technological creation and ingenuity once again at the service of the common good, not of the market. Technology as tequio; technological creation and innovation as a common good.
Speaker: Yasnaya Elena Aguilar Gil, UC Berkeley
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Tuesday, 02/08/2022
Insights into runoff generation mechanisms in seasonally dry California from field observations and isotopic dynamics - 02/08/2022 03:30 PM
Natural Science Annex Santa Cruz
Pollinators in the Dark: Bats and their Flowers - 02/08/2022 06:00 PM
Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History Santa Cruz
Wednesday, 02/09/2022
Spatial and Temporal Variability in Processes Regulating Estuarine Fouling Communities - Livestream - 02/09/2022 03:40 PM
Estuary & Ocean Science Center
Time, Einstein, and the Coolest Stuff in the Universe - Livestream - 02/09/2022 04:10 PM
UC Berkeley
Artificial Intelligence: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Livestream - 02/09/2022 05:00 PM
Caltech
Finding Habitable Planets Here and Among the Stars - Livestream - 02/09/2022 07:00 PM
Silicon Valley Astronomy Series
Thursday, 02/10/2022
After Dark: Sexplorations - 02/10/2022 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Nightlife - 02/10/2022 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Where is the Wild After Wildfire? - Livestream - 02/10/2022 06:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
Skeptalk: Who’s Making All Those Scam Calls? - Livestream - 02/10/2022 07:30 PM
Bay Area Skeptics
Virtual Telescope Viewing - 02/10/2022 09:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center
Friday, 02/11/2022
Pyroclastic activity on Venus: what we know and don't know - 02/11/2022 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
VIPER - A Next Great Leap in Mapping Water on the Moon - Livestream - 02/11/2022 08:00 PM
San Mateo County Astronomical Society
Saturday, 02/12/2022
The Renaissance of Astrophysics: A landscape of opportunities in the era of observations with gravitational waves and light - 02/12/2022 11:00 AM
Valley Life Sciences Building Berkeley
Sunday, 02/13/2022
Afternoon Hike at Mindego Hill - 02/13/2022 01:00 PM
Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve Los Altos
Monday, 02/14/2022
Live from the Field: Conservation Through Art & Science - Livestream - 02/14/2022 12:00 PM
Sonoma State Biology Colloquium
Symbolic Systems Forum - Livestream - 02/14/2022 12:15 PM
Stanford Symbolic Systems Forum
Quantum Nanophotonics Hardware: From Nanofabrication to Quantum Circuit Mapping - Livestream - 02/14/2022 02:30 PM
UC Berkeley Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
Energy Seminar: Joel Swisher - Livestream - 02/14/2022 04:00 PM
Stanford Energy Seminar
UC Berkeley Physics Colloquia - Livestream - 02/14/2022 04:15 PM
UC Berkeley
Slugs & Steins : What is the Dark Matter? - Livestream - 02/14/2022 06:30 PM
UC Santa Cruz