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Upcoming science oriented lectures and events in the Bay area. This week's highlights include two science-cafe events: Down to a Science hosts a discussion on robots and democracy on Monday at the Atlas Cafe, and Tuesday is Ask a Scientist's 5th birthday party - to be celebrated with a physics circus!! - at the Axis Cafe. These science cafe events are very popular, so arrive early to grab a seat. Great food and drink too! For longer term planning, the Jewish Community Center has some great science events and lectures coming up during the next six months, including talks by the string theorist Brian Greene, and cognitive and linguistic scientist Steven Pinker in early September. These should be excellent talks and will probably sell out early, so sign up now! Headlines first, followed by the details. Monday, August 18th, 7-9 PM Tuesday, August 19th, 7:00 pm Thursday, August 21, 7:00 - 8:30 pm Sunday, August 24th, 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM Details: (text from source) Monday, August 18th, 7-9 PM Is there decision-making strength in numbers? Professor Goldberg and his students are looking into questions raised by robots and social networks -- and working on a new class of interfaces and games based on networked robots and cameras that quantify a measure of "leadership" to bring about group discovery and decision-making based on the power of crowds. Ken will report on experiments and questions raised by robots and social networks, ranging from Ouija boards to human "tele-actors,"and tell a true story about how invasions of privacy led him and his students to study how robots can assist in monitoring the natural environment. Ken will describe a robotic system they've deployed to assist the search for the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, a bird of extreme interest to birdwatchers, ornithologists, and conservationists whose last confirmed sighting was in 1944. Ken will also describe the Berkeley Center for New Media, a highly cross-disciplinary center with over 110 affiliated faculty from 30 Cal Departments.
Tuesday, August 19th, 7:00 pm Ask a Scientist is FIVE years old! To help us celebrate this momentous milestone, ringmaster Zeke Kossover and his crew of sensational sideshow scientists are returning to the big top to astound, confound, and expound! Tonight Zeke will perform a whole new set of dazzling demonstrations that illustrate physical principles — this time kicking it up a notch with torches, machetes, and broken glass! Why is a wooden stake better than steel for killing a vampire? What happens to an iPod dropped into liquid nitrogen? Will a toy boat float on gas? Can Zeke break a stack of wooden boards with his hand? How much fun is it to ride a hovercraft? Find out tonight! The crew: Tucker Hiatt, physics teacher at The Branson School and director of Wonderfest; Leif Steinhour, Constructor, One Off Shoppe.
Thursday, August 21, 7:00 - 8:30 pm Meeting the world's growing energy needs in a sustainable fashion is one of the most pressing problems of our time. Although there are multiple possibilities on the horizon for renewable and clean energy, many scientific and engineering challenges remain. This is an exciting time for researchers in the field of sustainable energy. This presentation will introduce the scope of the energy problem and some of the options for sustainable energy, then will focus on two main devices: solar cells and fuel cells. Solar cells convert the energy of the sun directly into electricity, while fuel cells convert chemical energy directly into electricity. Both devices will likely play an increasing role in future energy technologies. In this talk, Stacey Bent will touch upon current research at Stanford that is exploring the use of new materials to develop the next generation of solar cells and fuel cells. Stacey Bent joined the Stanford faculty in 1998 from New York University. Her research is focused on understanding surface and interfacial chemistry and materials synthesis, and applying this knowledge to a range of problems in semiconductor processing, nanotechnology, biomaterials, and renewable energy. She recently won the Tau Beta Pi Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. FREE; no registration required
Sunday, August 24th, 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM Have a science event you want listed?
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Link | The Perseid meteor shower, science comedy, and the search for aliens highlight this week in science. Events and lectures are headlined below, followed by the details.UPDATE: the event listed for August 16th is an error - it has already taken place.... Read More |
| The Earth is currently passing through a cloud of small particles and dust left behind in the wake of comet Swift-Tuttle. When this debris hits the Earth's atmosphere, it gives rise to meteor showers - large numbers of meteors occurring in a short period... Read More |
| Highlight: this month's Ask a Scientist event will feature a talk entitled "Robots!" by David Calkins. Great food for thought accompanied by great food to eat at the Axis Cafe. Headlines first, followed by the details Monday, August 4th at... Read More |
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| A total eclipse of the Sun took place on Friday, August 1st, at about 4 a.m. San Francisco time. Although not visible from the United States, the Exploratorium sent a team to a remote corner of China to capture the event. From 3:30 to 4:30 a.m., the... Read More |
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| A total eclipse of the sun will take place on August 1st. Although not visible from the USA, two local venues will host eclipse viewing parties with live video of the event from China. Otherwise, scientists seem to be on vacation this week, public presentation-wise.... Read More |
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| Science lectures and other events in the San Francisco Bay area this week. The toxic environment, black hole wars, asteroid impacts, raptors, and blue-eyed turtles! All ahead in the week to come. Headlines first followed by the details. Monday,... Read More |
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| For astronomers, a "transit" is an event where one celestial body passes in front of, and partially occludes, another, as viewed from the planet Earth. The moons of Jupiter are frequently recorded passing in front of that giant gas planet.... Read More |
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| Like any geographic locale here on Earth, the specific "location" where our sun and solar system reside in the galaxy has its own set of parochial features. With the aid of an incredibly well produced online "Atlas of the Universe,"... Read More |
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| It's summer! Time for all the out-of-town relatives, friends, inlaws, and outlaws, to come visit you in "sunny" San Francisco. What to do with them after you've bundled them all up in fleece? Horror of horrors! The sea lions are gone from Pier-39!... Read More |
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Christopher Langton is a scientist who works in the area where physics, biology, and computation overlap. He was one of the early scientists at the Santa Fe Institute, where he initiated the field of Artificial Life. He is currently working on a book about the origin and evolution of life and mind.
- This week in science: 8/18 - 8/24
- This week in science: 8/11 - 8/17
- Perseid meteor shower - peaking Tuesday, August 12th.
- This week in science: 8/4 - 8/10
- Total eclipse of the Sun
- This week in science: 7/28 - 8/3
- This week in science: 7/21 - 7/27
- Amazing image! Moon transiting Earth
- Our galactic neighborhood
- This week in science: 7/15 - 7/20
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