2016 Archive

For the first time in Earth’s history, our planet is experiencing rapidly accelerating changes prompted by one species: humans. Climate change is the most visible, and our current behavior threatens not only our own future but that of countless other creatures. As we stand at this pivotal juncture, Dr. Grinspoon calls upon all of us to be planetary engineers, conscious shapers of our environment and caretakers of Earth’s biosphere.
Dr. David Grinspoon

Entanglement phenomena are the closest thing we have to reproducible magic, and even physicists can't agree as to what’s really going on. Is it spooky action at a distance, or retrocausality, or conspiracies that govern our choices? And what is a good skeptic to do when every explanatory option seems unacceptable — when nature forces us to train skepticism inward, towards our strongest intuitions? (General audiences welcome!)
Dr. Ken Wharton

From Aristotle to Einstein, fine minds have failed to grasp key ideas in basic physics. Join the Sonoma JCC for lunch AND for an exploration of the juiciest misconceptions that plague our “common-sense” understanding of how the world works:

• The Earth moves through space.
• "Now" has universal meaning.
• The "Old One" does not play dice with the universe.

Tucker Hiatt

We’ve all been fooled. Understanding how and why we’re fooled is the beginning of wisdom. Wonderfest, the Bay Area Beacon of Science, presents experts in physics, psychology, and magic to help us avoid getting fooled, again. Our speakers/performers are:

• Dr. Luigi Anzivino, neuroscientist
• Marc "Zeke" Kossover, physicist
• Robert Strong, master magician

Visionary physician and spiritual seeker Larry Brilliant helped to eradicate smallpox in South Asia and to restore sight to 3.5 million blind people in 20 countries. Brilliant has worked with global leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, the Dalai Lama, and Barack Obama. Here, he will discuss his new book Sometimes Brilliant, "a riveting and fascinating epidemiological adventure," and "a testament to faith, love, service, and what it means to engage with life’s most important questions in pursuit of a better, more brilliant existence."

Produced in collaboration with the Commonwealth Club Silicon Valley. Purchase discount tickets through THIS LINK with promo code WONDERFEST.

Whether you're a NightLife regular or rookie, Wonderfest's ORIGINS NightLife is not to be missed. It features three great speakers who will offer insights into fundamental beginnings: the origin of the cosmos, the origin of life, and the origin of civilization. Here's the schedule and line-up:

7:00pm – Eliot Quataert (Director, UC Berkeley Theoretical Astrophysics Center) on "How the Universe Evolved from Smooth to Lumpy" — The infant universe was remarkably uniform, with only tiny differences in its properties from one part to another. By contrast, the present universe exhibits enormous differences: some regions host planets, stars, and galaxies (and even humans!) while others do not. Prof. Quataert will describe how the universe evolved from its smooth beginnings to its current state, emphasizing how gravity reigns supreme and builds up the planets, stars, and galaxies required for biological evolution to proceed.

8:00pm – Dave Deamer (Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, UC Santa Cruz) on "Salty Sea or Darwin's Pond: Where Did Life Begin?" — Many undersea hydrothermal vents are loaded with bacteria, so scientists propose that life could have begun in similar sites four billion years ago. But science works best when there is competition between ideas. Prof. Deamer will describe field studies in the hydrothermal fields of Hawaii, Iceland, Kamchatka, and Mt. Lassen’s Bumpass Hell. He’ll discuss lab simulations that argue in favor of life’s origin in the fresh water environment suggested by Charles Darwin in 1871.

9:00pm – Henry Gilbert (Associate Professor of Anthropology, Cal State East Bay) on "Human Civilization from a Paleoanthropologist's Perspective" — Webster’s defines civilization as “the condition that exists when people have developed effective ways of organizing a society and care about art, science, etc.” Is civilization a useful term in academia? … in geopolitics? Does the term unite or divide humanity? Using numerous visual presentations of artifacts, excavations, and prehistoric societies, Prof. Gilbert will address the archaeological origins of intelligence, art, and other aspects of modern human behavior that may constitute civilization.

TICKETS: Get general NightLife info, and purchase tickets here.

• WHAT:  Wonderfest's "ORIGINS NightLife" at the Cal Academy
• WHO:  Eliot Quataert (UC Berkeley); Dave Deamer (UC Santa Cruz); Henry Gilbert (Cal State East Bay)
• WHEN:  6:00 PM, Thursday, May 12
• WHERE:  California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
• HOW: Purchase tickets via the Cal Academy.
• WHY: Because we're curious creatures.