Might modern geology offer insight into the poetry of William Blake?
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
By some measures, modern geology has pushed our knowledge of Earth's birthdate backward in time by a factor of a million: from 4,000 BCE to 4,000,000,000 BCE! Detrital zircon geochronology is a geological dating technique that affords insights into the structure and origin of planet Earth’s diverse components. Even locally, including on Mount Tamalpais, the rocks are speaking to us. Can we really see a world in a grain of sand?
Our speaker, Dr. Owen Anfinson, is Associate Professor of Geology at the Sonoma County campus of California State University.
Dr. Owen Anfinson
WHAT: To See a World in a Grain of Sand
WHO: Dr. Owen Anfinson, Associate Professor of Geology, Sonoma State University
WHEN: 2023-05-30 — 7pm, Tuesday, May 30th (1.5 hour)
HOW:
Since this event is COVID-cautious, consider wearing a mask. The warm feeling of Wondernaut(!) camaraderie radiates through masks and across wide seat-spacing. Also, please consider donating to nonprofit Wonderfest in the Eventbrite space, below. (This event is free and unticketed; ignore any mention of "sales" or "tickets.")
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these two Science Envoys will answer questions with insight and enthusiasm:
• Stanford biologist Billie Goolsby on Family Feud: Familial Decision-Making in Poison Frogs — Cooperation between parents tends to ensure family success, especially among poison frogs. Through direct observation, sound recordings, and hormone analysis, researchers test how coordination of parenting happens in nature — and how it predicts offspring survival.
• UC Berkeley physicist Ashwin Singh on Exploring Quantum Chemistry with Earth's Strongest Laser — Quantum mechanics helps describe cold chemical reactions, like those that occur in outer space. By building the world's strongest laser to hold molecules in place, we can watch quantum chemistry happen in real time.
WHAT: Ask a Science Envoy: Poison Frogs & Quantum Chemistry
WHEN: 2023-05-11 — 8pm PDT, Thu, May 11th (1 hour)
HOW:
This free, online, science presentation is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with the Berkeley Public Library.
What value do these science insights have for you? Accordingly, please consider making a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite box, below. (Note: No "sales" or "tickets" are involved; it's just a thoughtful contribution to help Wonderfest promote science understanding and the scientific outlook.)
My previous encounters with reality contribute to my internal mental predictions about the world that, in turn, help to shape my actual future experiences. So, seeing the "real world" (or hearing sounds, or feeling pain, or ...) involves a personal, ideosyncratic filter/kaleidoscope. This prediction-based theory of mind is quite hopeful. More than a facile version of "positive thinking," it suggests a realistic optimism where well-tuned expectations can actively help to bring about desired states and experiences.
Our speaker, Dr. Andy Clark, is Professor of Cognitive Philosophy at England's University of Sussex. He will present ideas from — and answer questions about — his new book, The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality.
Dr. Andy Clark
WHAT: The Experience Machine: Mental Prediction & Perceived Reality
This free, unticketed event is a joint production of Wonderfest and San Francisco's BookShop West Portal. In the space below, please support Wonderfest's nonprofit work in science outreach. (NOTE: Despite the Eventbrite wording, your thoughtful donation is not a "sale.")
The geometry of the ancient Greeks took place on an ideal, infinite, flat plane. In the millenia since then, mathematicians have opened our minds to the more general and flexible geometries of curved spaces — from the fabric that makes up our clothing, to the spacetime around a black hole. Now, we can develop an 'insider's view' of such geometries. This newfound intuition has intriguing applications, including to recent images from the James Webb Space Telescope! Such understanding allows us to better appreciate Einstein's greatest insight: that gravity is not a force, but rather a consequence of living in a curvy world.
Our speaker, Dr. Steve Trettel, is Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of San Francisco. He is a geometric topologist who loves computer graphics and a good bike ride.
Dr. Steve Trettel
WHAT: Curved Spaces — Geometry from the Inside
WHO: Dr. Steve Trettel, Asst. Professor of Mathematics, University of San Francisco [https://stevejtrettel.site]
WHEN: 2023-04-25 — 7pm, Tuesday, April 25 (1.5 hr)
HOW:
Since this event is COVID-cautious, please consider wearing a mask; the warm feeling of Wondernaut(!) camaraderie radiates through masks and across wide seat-spacing. Also, kindly consider donating to nonprofit Wonderfest in the Eventbrite space, below. (This event is FREE; ignore any mention of "tickets" or "sales.")
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these two Science Envoys will answer questions with insight and enthusiasm:
• Stanford marine biologist Ceyenna Tillman on A Unique Case Study in Fish Behavior — We don't often think of fish as individuals with independent minds, making their own decisions about how to react to the world around them. We often study them through important and informative large-scale lenses such as population size and spatial distribution. But what do we lose when we leave out the choices that each individual makes? And, in general, how can humanity benefit from studying such fish behavior?
• UC Berkeley biological anthropologist Gustav "Tavi" Steinhardt on Primate Behavior and Microhabitat — Tamarins are squirrel-size Amazonian monkeys with big ecological impacts. Known for their ability to survive (and even thrive) in disturbed areas, Tamarins help the forest recover from damage by spreading seeds. Now, using aerial laser scans, machine learning, and countless hours trekking through jungle mud, we are beginning to understand the important ecological "business" of these tiny primates in exquisite detail.
WHAT: Ask a Science Envoy: Fishy Ways & Monkey Business
This free, online, science presentation is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with the Berkeley Public Library.
What value do these science insights have for you? Accordingly, please consider making a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite box, below. (Note: No "sales" or "tickets" are involved; it's just a thoughtful contribution to help Wonderfest promote science understanding and the scientific outlook.)
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these two Science Envoys will answer questions with insight and enthusiasm:
• UC Berkeley seismologist Sarina Patel on Earthquake Science Using Crowdsourced Data from Smartphones — MyShake is a free citizen-science smartphone app which has been downloaded globally 2.5 million times. MyShake delivers earthquake early warnings(!) to users in California, Oregon, and Washington. It also uses the vibration sensor built into all smartphones to record earthquake motion for scientific analysis. How can the gadget in your pocket contribute to earthquake early warning, shake-hazard mapping, and structural-health monitoring?
• Stanford biophysicist Kevin Aris on Genetic Engineering Refined with Single-Molecule Microscopes — CRISPR enzymes allow precise genetic engineering, cleaving DNA molecules to improve the health and function of organisms. However, naturally compact and twisted pieces of DNA, under stress due to mechanical deformation, are tough to cut precisely. Single-molecule microscopy helps us design novel CRISPR enzymes that become highly-accurate molecular scissors — new tools for beneficial gene modification.
WHAT: Ask a Science Envoy: Earthquake Warning & Genetic Engineering
WHO: Sarina Patel & Kevin Aris, Wonderfest Science Envoys
This free, online, science presentation is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with the Berkeley Public Library.
What value do these science insights have for you? Accordingly, please consider making a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite box, below. (Note: No "sales" or "tickets" are involved; it's just a thoughtful contribution to help Wonderfest promote science understanding and the scientific outlook.)
Wonderfest celebrates the 10th annual National Evening of Science on Screen with the new sci-fi comedy-drama LINOLEUM and with the expert commentary of planetary scientist Dr. Pascal Lee. LINOLEUM chronicles the reality-jarring challenges of a midwest dreamer who decides to build his own rocketship. Early reviews give the movie a RottenTomatoes rating of "86% Fresh." Angie Han of the Hollywood Reporter calls LINOLEUM'S final minutes "even more startling in their heart-wrenching effectiveness than in their mind-bending twists." After this special screening, a real rocket scientist, Dr. Pascal Lee, will discuss "how to spend a month on Mars" and will answer questions about the vast beyond.
Dr. Pascal Lee is co-founder and chairman of the Mars Institute. He is also a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, an artist & author, and the Principal Investigator of the Haughton-Mars Project at NASA Ames Research Center.
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these two Science Envoys will answer questions with insight and enthusiasm:
• Stanford paleobiologist Dr. Maria Viteri on Exhuming the Dead to Save the Living — Earth is experiencing a crisis in biodiversity. Surprisingly, the fossil record offers key insights for understanding this crisis, and one scientist's lifelong fascination with dinosaurs — leading to a career in conservation biology — is helping to combat the biodiversity challenge of the present ... and of the future.
• UC Berkeley astrophysicist Tyler Cox on Creating the Largest-Ever Maps of the Universe — New datasets from the James Webb Space Telescope have begun to reveal some of the oldest known galaxies in the universe. But what lies beyond these extremely remote objects, and what more can we learn by going deeper? Next-generation experiments are working to map the most distant regions of the universe to help explain the origins of the first galaxies.
WHAT: Ask a Science Envoy: Biodiversity & Cosmic Maps
WHO: Maria Viteri & Tyler Cox, Wonderfest Science Envoys
This free, online, science presentation is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with the Berkeley Public Library.
What value do these science insights have for you? Accordingly, please consider making a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite box, below. (Note: No "sales" or "tickets" are involved; it's just a thoughtful contribution to help Wonderfest promote science understanding and the scientific outlook.)
In 1858, two friends and colleagues, Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin, independently proposed one of the deepest ideas in all of science, evolution by natural selection. However, Wallace's extraordinary — and extraordinarily successful — quest to understand how evolution works is not well known. The story is riveting: a man of modest backbround, driven by curiosity, and persisting through immense hardships in remote lands, Wallace finally discovers the process which drives the evolution of all life on Earth.
Our speaker, Dr. George Beccaloni, is a zoologist, evolutionary biologist, and science historian who served as an entomologist at London's Natural History Museum for more than 20 years. He was the historical consultant for a multiple award-winning BBC series about Alfred Wallace, and he is the founding director of the Wallace Correspondence Project.
Dr. George Beccaloni
WHAT: Wallace, Darwin, and the Discovery of Evolution by Natural Selection
WHO: Dr. George Beccaloni, Zoologist, Evolutionary Biologist, Science Historian
WHERE: ONLINE via Zoom, Find the Zoom URL at the REGISTRATION website, below.
WHEN: 2023-03-26 — 1:00pm PDT, Sun, Mar 26 (1 hour)
HOW:
Wonderfest co-presents this online event with the Alameda Free Library and the San Francisco Public Library. In order to take part, please register with the SF Library via the weblink below. Also, kindly support science outreach by making a donation to Wonderfest in the space, below. [This Wonderfest event is free and unticketed; please disregard Eventbrite's mention of "sales" and "tickets."]
Collaborators: Alameda Free Library San Francisco Public Library
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these two Science Envoys will answer questions with insight and enthusiasm:
• UC Berkeley arachnologist Trinity Walls on Creepy or Captivating: A Spider Scientist's Perspective — How have recent discoveries about spiders changed beliefs that have been passed down for generations? Can we see that the study of spiders is beneficial to society? One person's life-long journey — from curious child to rigorous researcher — reveals spider science to be an avenue of creative self-expression that offers rich insights into nature.
• Stanford physicist Jyotirmai "Joe" Singh on Exploring the Dark Side of the Universe — Deeply mysterious dark matter constitutes a staggering 85% of the material universe. What is the evidence for dark matter's ubiquitous existence, yet why has it been so difficult to detect in the laboratory? Cutting-edge theories and experiments within modern physics do give us hope that we can understand dark matter, unlocking key mysteries of the cosmos.
WHAT: Ask a Science Envoy: Spider Love & Dark Matter
WHO: Trinity Walls & Joe Singh, Wonderfest Science Envoys
This free, online, science presentation is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with the Berkeley Public Library.
What value do these science insights have for you? Accordingly, please consider making a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite box, below. (Note: No "sales" or "tickets" are involved; it's just a thoughtful contribution to help Wonderfest promote science understanding and the scientific outlook.)
Upon opening a new deck of cards, have you ever attempted a so-called perfect shuffle? A perfect shuffle splits a deck into two equal stacks, and then perfectly interlaces the cards from the two stacks. (Eight successive perfect shuffles puts the cards back into their original, fresh-out-of-the-pack order!) Only experienced card handlers can reliably perform even a single perfect shuffle, and yet the mathematics behind perfect shuffles has a rich history, including everything from mathematical card tricks to sophisticated research.
Our speaker is Dr. Cornelia Van Cott, Professor of Mathematics at the University of San Francisco. As a geometic toplogist, she studies knots, surfaces, and the interplay between 3- and 4-dimensional objects.
Dr. Cornelia Van Cott
WHAT: The Mathematics of Card Shuffling
WHO: Dr. Cornelia Van Cott, Professor of Mathematics, University of San Francisco
WHEN: 2023-02-21 — 7pm, Tue, February 21st (1.5 hour)
HOW:
For full enjoyment, please bring a deck of cards. Also, since this event is COVID-cautious, consider wearing a mask; the warm feeling of Wondernaut(!) camaraderie radiates through masks and across wide seat-spacing. Finally, kindly consider donating to nonprofit Wonderfest in the Eventbrite space, below. (This event is FREE; ignore any mention of "tickets" or "sales.")
We have a new supersensitive eye in the cosmic sky. Parked nearly one million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is ~100 times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope. JWST observes at "low" frequencies, from the red to the mid-infrared parts of the spectrum, offering new insights into a vast array of objects and processes including solar system formation, star birth and death, galaxy evolution, and, perhaps, the origins of life.
Our speaker, UC Berkeley's Professor Alex Filippenko, will present early findings from JWST. Alex was voted UC Berkeley's "best professor" nine times; he is the only astronomer to contribute to both research teams whose work earned the 2011 Physics Nobel Prize; and among his many awards is Wonderfest's Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization.
Wonderfest co-presents this online event with theSan Francisco Public Library. In order to take part, please register with the SF Library via the weblink below. Also, kindly support science outreach by making a donation to Wonderfest in the space, below. [This Wonderfest event is free and unticketed; please disregard Eventbrite's mention of "sales" and "tickets."]
Experiences at different times in life may alter aspects of personality: appetite for risk, tolerance for delayed gratification, interest in music, etc. Our brains seem to develop particularly rapidly during a staggered sequence of "sensitive periods" that stretch late into the second or third decade of life. Such periods of high neuroplasticity are ripe for specific types of learning; they are also susceptible to negative experiences that can lead to mental illness. Understanding sensitive-period brain plasticity will help us to improve education and personality development.
Our speaker, Dr. Linda Wilbrecht, is Professor of Psychology and of Neuroscience at UC Berkeley. Dr. Wilbrecht conducts research through the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, and she directs The Wilbrecht Lab.
WHAT: Neuroplasticity, Sensitive Periods, & the Adolescent Brain
WHO: Dr. Linda Wilbrecht, Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience, UC Berkeley [https://wilbrecht.org]
WHEN: 2023-01-31 — 7pm, Tuesday, Jan 31 (1.5 hour)
HOW:
This unticketed, admission-free, Wonderfest event is COVID-cautious. Mask-wearing is encouraged. The warm feeling of Wondernaut(!) camaraderie radiates through masks and across wide seat-spacing. Please join us! Also, kindly consider donating to nonprofit Wonderfest in the Eventbrite space, below. (Ignore any mention of "tickets" or "sales.")
Physics has always sought to deepen our understanding of reality, particularly our concept of matter. Today, city-size machines crash together particles — at nearly the speed of light — that are a trillion times smaller than a grain of sand. The resulting insights have both theoretical and practical value: a more profound (and weird) concept of existence, and new technologies such as diagnostic imaging and radiation therapy. Wonderfest joins BookShop West Portal — online — to present physicist Dr. Suzie Sheehy in discussion of her new book The Matter of Everything: How Curiosity, Physics, and Improbable Experiments Changed the World. [Image: The ATLAS detector of CERN's Large Hadron Collider]
Dr. Suzie Sheehy is a physicist, science communicator, and academic who divides her time between research groups at England's University of Oxford and Australia's University of Melbourne.
Dr. Suzie Sheehy
WHAT: Probing the Heart of Matter
WHO: Dr. Suzie Sheehy, Accelerator Physicist, Universities of Oxford & Melbourne [https://www.suziesheehy.com]
To purchase Dr. Sheehy's new book, The Matter of Everything, visit BookShop West Portal's "Collaborators" link, below. And to support the cause of science outreach, please consider a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest — via the Eventbrite space below. Ignore any mention of Tickets or Sales because this event is entirely free and unticketed.
After nearly three years of increased "sheltering at home," you may have noticed more six-legged critters sharing your shelter. Scientists, too, have been taking a closer look at these more numerous (and more brazen?) insect invaders. What surprising findings have the researchers uncovered?
Our speaker is Dr. Vernard Lewis, Cooperative Extension Specialist (emeritus) at UC Berkeley. Dr. Lewis is a global authority on termites, and his research has explored other home-invading creepy-crawlers: ants, bedbugs, and cockroaches.
Dr. Vernard Lewis
WHAT: Never Home Alone: Six-Legged Invaders Under Your Roof
WHEN: 2023-01-10 — 8pm , Tue, January 10th (1 hour)
HOW:
This event is free and unticketed. To support Wonderfest's nonprofit mission of science outreach, please make a modest (or immodest!) donation in the Eventbrite space, below. (Kindly ignore Eventbrite's mention of "sales;" it really is a donation!)
The stars beckon. Alas, interstellar distances are fantastically challenging. (A lightbeam needs 1/7th of a second to go around the world, but over 4 years to reach our Sun's nearest-neighbor star, Proxima Centauri.) Determined explorers at Breakthrough Starshot are developing miniature robot space probes — to be accelerated by laser light from Earth — whose cameras can reach Proxima Centauri in just 20 years! Among the wonders to be explored are Proxima's three known planets, including Proxima b, which orbits in this red dwarf star's "habitable zone."
Our speaker, Dr. S. Pete Worden, is Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation and Executive Director of the Breakthrough Initiatives (of which Breakthrough StarShot is one program). Formerly, Dr. Worden was Director of NASA Ames Research Center.
WHERE: Castro Valley Library, 3600 Norbridge Ave, Castro Valley, CA 94546
WHEN: 2023-01-09 — 7:00pm, Mon, January 9 (1.5 hr)
HOW:
This COVID-cautious FREE event will take place in the spacious Castro Valley Library. For your own COVID safety — and that of others — please consider wearing a protective mask.
How long will the people in a particular population live? How do we know if a cancer treatment works, or whether parents pass their socioeconomic status to their children? How often do formerly incarcerated people return to prison, and how long (on average) will current marriages last? All these questions seem straightforward. However, answering each of them can go awry in a similar way. A single mathematical relationship, length-biased sampling, allows analysis of a diverse set of phenomena, and it presents new, easy-to-understand insights into human populations.
Our speaker, Dr. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, is Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Sociology and at the Minnesota Population Center.
Please use the Eventbrite space, below, to support Wonderfest's nonprofit mission of science outreach. Make a modest (or immodest!) donation, and share the scientific outlook with others. (This Zoom event is free and unticketed; please ignore all mention of "sales," below.)
Wonderfest joins St. Helena's Cameo Cinema to present a heavenly double feature: first, the remarkable true story of NASA's Opportunity rover (which ventured to Mars for a 90-day mission, but survived — and explored — for 15 years!), followed by Q&A with legendary astrophysicist Dr. Alex Filippenko (discussing both the exploration of Mars AND the promise of NASA's new James Webb Space Telescope, JWST). This special two-for-one event is a national Science On Screen presentation.
Dr. Alex Filippenko is the Richard & Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Physicsal Sciences and Professor of Astronomy at UC Berkeley. Alex has earned Wonderfest's Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization, and he is an esteemed member of Wonderfest's Board of Directors.
Dr. Alex Filippenko
WHAT: Good Night Oppy + James Webb Space Telescope
WHERE: Cameo Cinema, 1340 Main Street, St. Helena, CA 94574
WHEN: 2022-12-04 — 1pm, Sunday, December 4 (2 hr)
HOW:
Purchase tickets for both the screening of Good Night, Oppy and for the post-screening interview and audience Q&A with Prof. Filippenko at the Cameo Cinema "Tickets" link, below. (Each ticket covers both experiences.)
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a pioneering tool of cosmic discovery. Beyond its beautiful initial images, JWST promises to show us an "invisible universe" of infrared light, particularly allowing astronomers to learn about cosmic evolution — the birth and eventual death of stars, galaxies, and the cosmos itself.
Our JWST explorer is Andrew Fraknoi, emeritus chair of the Astronomy Department at Foothill College and first recipient of Wonderfest's Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization.
This event is produced by the Commonwealth Club in collaboration with Wonderfest. We can enjoy it in either of two ways: in person or online. Access to the two different ticket types is described in the HOW space, below. Each type is deeply discounted for Wondernauts who use discount code Wonderfest2022.
Andrew Fraknoi
WHAT: The James Webb Space Telescope: Our Giant Eye on the Invisible Sky
WHO: Andrew Fraknoi, Astronomy Department Chair Emeritus, Foothill College [https://www.fraknoi.com]
WHERE: Commonwealth Club, 110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco — or — Online
WHEN: 2022-11-30 — 5:30pm, Wed, Nov 30 (1 hour)
HOW:
For tickets to either the in-person event or the online event, start at the Commonwealth Club "Tickets" website presented below. Be sure to use the discount code Wonderfest2022 (and click "Apply") to reduce the cost of the in-person ticket by $10, and to render the online ticket completely FREE.
Collaborators: The Commonwealth Club of California
If your native language (Irish, Igbo, Ilocano, . . .) is threatened by competition from another language (likely English!), and if preserving that language is important, what options do you have? Which approach to language preservation is most likely to be effective? Or... How much time do you have before the language is effectively dead? Surprisingly, tools from mathematical ecology, physics, and other seemingly remote fields have been adapted to answer questions about the evolution, competition, and even origin of human languages.
Our speaker, Dr. Ben Ford, is Professor of Mathematics at Sonoma State University. His research background lies in combinatorics and group theory, and he works to further equity in math education.
Dr. Ben Ford
WHAT: The Mathematics of Language
WHO: Dr. Ben Ford, Professor of Mathematics, Sonoma State University
WHEN: 2022-11-29 — 7pm, Tuesday, Nov 29 (1.5 hour)
HOW:
This unticketed, admission-free, Wonderfest event will be COVID-free, as well. Please be vaccinated, and kindly wear a mask (except when dining/drinking). The warm feeling of Wondernaut(!) camaraderie radiates through masks and across wide seat-spacing. Please join us! Also, kindly consider donating to nonprofit Wonderfest in the Eventbrite space, below. (Ignore any mention of "tickets" or "sales.")