Biorhythms; Decarbonization – Apr 2
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 Mila Pamplona-Barbosa on Biological Rhythms: From Ants to You — How can ants possibly organize their behavior? An ant colony can have hundreds to millions of individuals and, even with all that complexity, the colony still manages to get work done. How does this time-dependent self-organization happen? And what does this have to do with the internal timings of the human body?
• UC Berkeley climate policy scientist Ari Ball-Burack on Complexity in Controlling Greenhouse Gases — Social, technological, and economic systems are complex: they exhibit both balancing and reinforcing feedbacks, and they strongly interact. Wise policy can use this very complexity to advance the “decarbonization” of the atmosphere. Complexity-aware decarbonization policy addresses climate change at local, national, and global scales.
This interactive science presentation, free and unticketed, is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with Marin Science Seminar.
Marin Science Seminar [https://marinscienceseminar.com]
What value does this free science experience have for you and, indirectly, for society? Accordingly, please consider making a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite box, below.
BlackBerry Psych – Mar 26
How and why do corporations decline? BlackBerry (98% FRESH at Rotten Tomatoes) offers a tragicomic portrait of decline in Earth’s foremost business smartphone maker, 1999-2016. Following this special Science on Screen presentation of BlackBerry, UC Berkeley researcher Dr. Don Moore will illuminate the psychological challenges that face all businesses and, in fact, virtually all human relations.
Psychologist Dr. Donald A. Moore is Professor and Chair in Leadership & Communication at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. His most recent book is Perfectly Confident: How to Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely.
Dr. Don A. Moore, UC Berkeley
Please pre-purchase tickets for this Science on Screen event via the "TICKETS" link below.
The Sense of Fairness – Feb 20
Do non-human animals possess a sense of fairness? In particular, do non-human individuals react negatively when they get fewer resources than others? New evidence suggests that the sense of fairness is a human-unique adaptation to our cooperative lifestyles, typically developing in children by age 8. Further, a new theory suggests that, maybe surprisingly, fairness is not about resources, but about social respect.
Our speaker, Dr. Jan Engelmann, is Assistant Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley. He runs Cal’s Social Origins Lab, dedicated to the study of human cognition and behavior from an evolutionary perspective.
Dr. Jan Engelmann
This event is FREE and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have for YOU? Accordingly, please consider a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite window, below.
Most Famous Equation – Feb 17
Around the world, people recognize that E=mc^2 oozes cosmic insight. But what does this “most famous equation” really say? What are energy and mass? And what makes the speed of light, c, so important? [Hint: mass, moving at speed c, doesn’t turn into energy!] Using little more than common experience and middle-school math, Einstein’s “special relativity” gem can come to life — with surprising insights into the nature of reality.
This event is co-produced by Wonderfest and the East Bay Astronomical Society. Our speaker is long-time physics teacher Tucker Hiatt, founding director of Wonderfest. Tucker has been a Visiting Scholar in the Stanford Chemistry Department, and is a recipient of the Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence.
Tucker Hiatt
East Bay Astronomical Society [https://eastbayastro.org]
This event is free, unticketed, ... and valuable. Please assess its value for you, and, in the Eventbrite space below, consider a corresponding donation to nonprofit Wonderfest.
Future Nuclear Power – Feb 13
Currently, nuclear power provides ten percent of world electricity generation. As physicists and engineers strive to make new reactors that are small, clean, and safe, what does the future hold for nuclear power in a warming world? Join this discussion of the current status and future directions for nuclear energy.
Dr. Per Peterson
This science event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have for YOU? Accordingly, please consider a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite window, below.
Most Famous Equation – Jan 31
Around the world, people recognize that E=mc^2 oozes cosmic insight. But what does this “most famous equation” really say? What are energy and mass? And what makes the speed of light, c, so important? [Hint: mass, moving at speed c, doesn’t turn into energy!] Using little more than common experience and middle-school math, Einstein’s “special relativity” gem can come to life — with surprising insights into the nature of reality.
Around the world, people recognize that E=mc^2 oozes cosmic insight. But what does this "most famous equation" really say? What are energy and mass? And what makes the speed of light, c, so important? [Hint: mass, moving at speed c, doesn't turn into energy!] Using little more than common experience and middle-school math, Einstein's "special relativity" gem can come to life — with surprising insights into the nature of reality.
This event is co-produced by Wonderfest and Marin Science Seminar. Our speaker is long-time physics teacher Tucker Hiatt, founding director of Wonderfest. Tucker has been a Visiting Scholar in the Stanford Chemistry Department, and is a recipient of the Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence.
Tucker Hiatt
Marin Science Seminar [https://marinscienceseminar.com]
This event is free, unticketed, ... and valuable. Please assess its value for you, and, in the Eventbrite space below, consider a corresponding donation to nonprofit Wonderfest.
Self Confidence – Jan 23
How confident should we be? Overconfidence leads people to delude themselves with wishful thinking, take too many risks, pursue impossible goals, and waste their time on doomed ventures. Underconfidence dissuades people from taking risks that would pay off, and scares them away from trying things they would enjoy. Psychological studies offer evidence pointing to a middle way between these twin risks.
Our speaker is Dr. Don A. Moore, Professor and Chair in Leadership & Communication at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. His most recent book is Perfectly Confident: How to Calibrate Your Decisions Wisely.
Dr. Don A. Moore
This science event is FREE and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have for YOU? Accordingly, please consider a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite window, below.
Human Hibernation? – Jan 9
Sci-Fi movies often depict hibernation as the secret to long-duration human spaceflight. (Note: Even with ideal starship acceleration and deceleration — AND with the benefit of relativistic effects — the nearest exoplanet is 3.6 years away!) Of course, the boundary between science fiction and science fantasy is hazy. Advances in anesthesia may facilitate hibernation. Physiologically, however, general anesthesia is detrimental in the short term, and worse in the long term. Will long-spaceflight medical advances ever be able to deal with this sobering hibernation fact: roughly half of naturally-hibernating animals never revive!
Our speaker is Dr. Art Wallace, Professor and Vice-Chair of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Care at UC San Francisco. He is also Chief of Anesthesia at San Francisco's Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
Dr. Art Wallace, MD, PhD
This event is FREE and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have for YOU? Accordingly, please consider a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite window, below.
Forensic Science – Dec 19
In some ways, forensic science (also known as criminalistics) has changed little since the 1880s when fictional detective Sherlock Holmes first solved a crime with a thumbprint. While modern forensic scientists continue to embrace the tried-and-true methods of the past, modern innovations in ciminalistics have enabled technogical advances that are anything but “Elementary!”
Our speaker, Hillary Daluz, is a fingerprint examiner for the US Army, and a director of the International Association for Identification. She is the author of five books including Fundamentals of Fingerprint Analysis and Courtroom Testimony for Fingerprint Examiners.
Hillary Daluz
This event is FREE and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have for YOU? Accordingly, please consider a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite window, below.
Loving Chocolate – Dec 17
“It comes from cocoa, a leafy-green plant; … chocolate is salad!” Why do so many of us love chocolate despite its non-saladesque qualities? Wonderfest joins St. Helena’s Cameo Cinema for the Science On Screen® presentation of Wonka, portraying the wondrous backstory of Earth’s greatest magician, inventor, and chocolate-maker. Q&A with UC Berkeley happiness expert Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas will follow the special screening. Ticket purchase includes a small-size popcorn and chocolate treats from the Master Chocolatier at Yountville’s Kollar Chocolates.
Our interviewee, Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas, is Science Director at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. She is a leading researcher on the neuroscience and psychology of prosocial skills that bolster human happiness. Disclaimer: Dr. Simon-Thomas may not suggest that eating chocolate is a prosocial skill, or that chocolate is salad, but she does attribute her life-long love of chocolate to Willy Wonka (and, perhaps, to a biological affinity for theobromine).
Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas
Doors open at noon for the 1:00pm showtime; early arrival and ticket purchase ($25, via the link below) are advised.
Fast & Faraway – Nov 28
In astronomy, the redder a galaxy appears, the faster it is fleeing, and the older a tale its light can tell. Such “redshifts” in the spectra of galaxies (symbolized with the letter “z”) allow compelling cosmic insights. The recently-launched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has allowed astronomers to study the properties of high-z galaxies in existence only 250 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only 2% of its current age! How are these objects detected in such very “deep” space, and what are the early science results from this JWST research?
Our speaker is Dr. Thomas Targett, Associate Professor of Physics & Astronomy at the Sonoma campus of California State University. Dr. Targett’s Wonderfest history includes an eye-opening talk entitled Popular Myths of Astronomy, presented as part of the Mt. Tam Astronomy Program.
Dr. Thomas Targett
This event is FREE and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have for YOU? Accordingly, please consider a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite window, below.
Jaws of Life – Nov 14
One of the defining features of all mammals is, surprisingly, the set of bones that form the hearing system. Those bones evolved from jaw components in our mammalian ancestors. In the evolutionary process of repurposing them for hearing, mammals came to possess a jaw configuration different from all other jawed vertebrates. Here is the story of how the unique jaws of mammals fundamentally changed the form and function of how we bite.
Our speaker is Dr. Jack Tseng, Associate Professor of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, where he directs the Functional Anatomy and Vertebrate Evolution (FAVE) Laboratory. Dr. Tseng’s specialties include the evolution of humanity’s best friend, the dog.
Dr. Jack Tseng
This event is FREE and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have for YOU? Accordingly, please consider a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite window, below.
Annular Solar Eclipse – Oct. 14, 2023
A partial solar eclipse can be fun to watch, though it’s not even *close* to being as spectacular as a total solar eclipse — and I hope all of you travel to the path of totality to see the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, in Mexico or the USA. (More about that later…)
We are fortunate to have a chance to see a partial solar eclipse from all of North America and most of South America on Saturday, October 14, 2023. Indeed, in the USA, from a relatively narrow path, an “annular eclipse” will be visible. This occurs when the the Moon is farther from Earth than average in its elliptical orbit, so it looks too small to fully cover the Sun, which thus appears as an annulus (“ring of fire”) at mid-eclipse. No corona will be visible, unlike the case in a total solar eclipse, so it’s not as spectacular, but still fun to view. (Some articles in the media are making a big deal out of the Oct. 14 event, claiming it’s a total eclipse or as good as a total eclipse — it’s *not*!) A photo is attached here.
The path of annularity is shown at https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/map/2023-october-14 , and you can type various cities in the Search box to see whether they are within it (broadly speaking: parts of Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and Oregon; small sections of Colorado, Arizona, and California). Other places in the USA will experience a partial eclipse shaped more or less like a “C” — but not the full “ring of fire.”
I encourage you to view the partial eclipse, even if you don’t go to the path of annularity. For example, seen from Berkeley, CA, about 77% of the Sun will be covered. The beginning, middle, and end of the eclipse will be at 8:05 am, 9:19 am, and 10:42 am PDT (respectively) — I got this information by clicking on Berkeley on the map at
https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/map/2023-october-14 .
When looking at the Sun, be sure to use a “CE certified” solar filter that blocks 99.999% of the visible light and 100% of the ultraviolet and infrared light. These can be purchased online for a small price (about $1-2 each, depending on how many you buy); for example, go to Amazon.com and type in “solar eclipse glasses CE certified.” For a more durable viewer, you could purchase a small (2″ x 4″, or 4″ x 5″) piece of Shade 14 welder’s glass from a welding supply store; cut a rectangular hole in a sheet of cardboard and tape the glass to it, to make the filter easier to hold and to shield the rest of your face from sunlight (but put on sunscreen, anyway). Also, or instead, make a “pinhole camera” (a pencil-width hole in a sheet of cardboard) and project an image of the Sun onto a shaded surface.
If you’d like to take photographs of the Sun, be sure to use a filter in front of your camera. Also, do *not* look directly at the Sun through the camera viewfinder lens unless you have a filter (though it’s okay to look directly at the LCD display of the Sun without a filter).
Feel free to share all of this information with your family and friends.
Wishing you clear skies,
Alex
Next Scientist #2 – Nov 7
Next Scientist is a new Wonderfest series of online presentations. Every Next Scientist Zoom consists of two 30-minute presentations (including 10 minutes of Q&A), each featuring a young researcher describing next-level science:
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.
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.
This free, online, science presentation is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with the Castro Valley Educational Foundation and Castro Valley Science.
What value does this experience — and these insights — have for YOU? Accordingly, please support nonprofit Wonderfest, the Bay Area Beacon of Science, by donating via the Eventbrite space, below.
Next Scientist #1 – Nov 2
Next Scientist is a new Wonderfest series of online presentations. Every Next Scientist Zoom consists of two 30-minute presentations (including 10 minutes of Q&A), each featuring a young researcher describing next-level science:
UC Berkeley seismologist Sarina Patel on Earthquake Science Using Crowdsourced Data from Smartphones — MyShake is a free citizen-science smartphone app that delivers earthquake early warnings(!) to users in California, Oregon, and Washington. It also uses a phone’s vibration sensor 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?
Exelixis medical chemist Trevor Chang on Advances in Cancer Treatment: Synthetic Lethality — Chemotherapy is a standard component of both the treatment and study of cancer. Conventional chemotherapeutic agents are toxic to cells, underscoring the continued focus on precision medicines. Research in synthetic lethality aims to develop medicines that target specific genetic mutations expressed only in cancer cells while sparing healthy cells.
This free, online, science presentation is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with the Castro Valley Educational Foundation and Castro Valley Science.
What value does this experience — and these insights — have for YOU? Accordingly, please support nonprofit Wonderfest, the Bay Area Beacon of Science, by donating via the Eventbrite space, below.
Warped Universe – Oct 30
The warping of space becomes noticeable near small massive objects — black holes, in particular. Beyond “noticeable,” that curvature becomes beautiful when rendered with the skilled artist’s hand and described with the poetic physicist’s verse. Lia Halloran and Kip Thorne team up to describe an odyssey through black holes, wormholes, time travel, and gravitational waves. In fact, that is the subtitle of their soon-to-be-published book, The Warped Side of Our Universe. Kirkus Reviews calls the book “Beautiful art in the service of cutting-edge astrophysics.”
Award-winning artist Lia Halloran is Associate Professor and Chair of the Chapman University Art Department. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Kip Thorne is Emeritus Professor of Physics at Caltech. These two authors will be in conversation with the Commonwealth Club’s George Hammond.
Visit the Commonwealth Club event webpage (link below) to purchase tickets for this in-person event. During the final steps of ticket acquisition, use code WonderfestPromo for a $10 discount.
Curved Spaces – Oct 25
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.
PLEASE REGISTER BELOW
Dr. Steve Trettel
Castro Valley Education Foundation [https://www.cvef.org]
Castro Valley Science [https://cvscience.us]
Pills For Aging – Oct 24
How did society enable the distribution of drugs and supplements — principally in the form of pills — to billions of people? How, in particular, did “anti-aging treatments” come about? Can vitamins be efficacious against aging? Finally, what is the promise of recent supplements — developed based on our understanding of cellular biology — that influence aging in cells and model organisms, mainly mice?
Our speaker, Dr. Steve Cummings, is Professor Emeritus of Medicine, Epidemiology, and Biostatistics at UCSF. Dr. Cummings directs the San Francisco Coordinating Center, having designed and led many of the most important medical studies of human aging.
Dr. Steve Cummings
This event is FREE and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have for YOU? Accordingly, please consider a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite window, below.
Joy of Science – Oct 16
How do the methods of science enrich the world for us? The latest book by physicist Jim Al-Khalili, The Joy of Science, invites us to engage with the world as scientists do. It discusses the nature of truth and uncertainty, the role of doubt, the pros and cons of simplification, the value of guarding aginst bias, the importance of evidence-based thinking — all ideas that can empower us to think more objectively, see through the fog of our preexisting beliefs, and lead a more fulfilling life.
Dr. Jim Al-Khalili is Distinguished Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Surrey in England. Having written 14 popular books and having earned the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, he is also a university chair in the public engagement in science. Dr. Al-Khalili will discuss The Joy of Science with Kishore Hari, Science Correspondent at Tested.com.
Dr. Jim Al-Khalili
Please register for this event with the Commonwealth Club via the "Tickets" link, below. Use discount code WonderfestPromo for $10 off, rendering that ticket completely FREE. Upon registration, you will receive an email containing a link to this live-stream event.