2017 Archive

Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these four Science Envoys will answer your questions with insight and enthusiasm:

• UC Berkeley's Carina Cheng on "Observing the Night Sky" – What kinds of astronomical objects and phenomena can you observe in the night sky, and why is stargazing good for the soul?
• UC Berkeley's Mariel Goddu on "Where Do New Ideas Come From?" – Are the precursors to deviance, innovation, and productive rule-breaking evident in children's cognitive flexibility?
• Stanford's Ryan York on "Evolution Is All Around You" – How does the modern evidence of evolution in action have implications for how we think about evolution and nature itself?
• Stanford's Tyler McFadden on "Plantations, Pinochet, and a Paradigm Shift" — How can we navigate ecology, history, and politics to conserve biodiversity and solve Chile's largest environmental conflict?

Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these three Science Envoys will answer your questions with insight and enthusiasm:

• UC Berkeley computer scientist Dylan Hadfield-Menell on "What AI Researchers Can Learn from King Midas" – How do we build artificially intelligent systems that reliably do what we intend?
• Stanford botanist Therese LaRue on "The Plant's Ability to Survive" – How are plants so resilient to changes in their environments?
• UC Berkeley physicist Thomas Mittiga on "Magnetic Micro Mysteries" – How do we use artificial atoms to achieve technological breakthroughs and to understand exotic materials?

Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with special communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these three Science Envoys will answer your questions with insight and enthusiasm:

• Stanford's Anna Khazenzon on "Media on the Mind" – How do the ~7.5 hours/day(!) that youth spend with media relate to learning, thinking, and socializing within developing brains?
• UC Berkeley's Eric Copenhaver on "Vera's Veritable Dark Matter" – How was dark matter discovered, and how do we hope to identify this mysterious 80%(!) of the material universe?
• UC Berkeley's William Hawley on "The Earthquake Prediction Predicament" – Why is predicting earthquakes such an imposing (and perhaps impossible!) challenge?

Our memory bridges past and present. When coupled with experience, memory also helps us plan for the future. Modern psychology, neuroscience, and AI allow us to understand the mechanisms of memory AND the fallibility of memory. Stanford's Anthony Wagner will show how quantifying “neural time travel” reveals the correspondence between brain states and states of mind.

Dr. Anthony Wagner is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Stanford Memory Laboratory. He also co-directs the Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging.

Dr. Anthony Wagner

Experts estimate that some 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) insects crawl, burrow, swim, and fly on Earth. Roughly 80% of all the world's species are members of the class Insecta! Our speaker, entomologist Vernard Lewis, will present the latest research on the biology, detection, and control of three particularly villainous house guests: ants, termites, and bedbugs.

Dr. Vernard Lewis is emeritus Cooperative Extension Specialist in UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Sciences, Policy, and Management. He joined the Cal faculty in 1991, specializing in Urban Entomology, authoring or co-authoring more than 150 publications, and giving hundreds of lectures & presentations. Dr. Lewis was inducted into the Pest Control Hall of Fame in 2016.

Dr. Vernard Lewis

Cosmologists have now come to a detailed understanding of what our Universe was like as a child (400,000 years after the Big Bang) and what it is like as an adult (13.8 billion years later). But what was our Universe like as a teenager, when the very first stars and galaxies formed? Our speaker, Dr. Adrian Liu, will describe current efforts to use radio telescopes to make pictures of the teenage Universe. He will present a “sneak preview” of breakthrough results that will enlighten and excite us in the next few years.

Adrian Liu is a Hubble Fellow in the Astronomy Department of the University of California, Berkeley. In August 2018, he will become Assistant Professor of Physics at McGill University and at the McGill Space Institute.

Dr. Adrian Liu

Astrobiology is the study of life in the universe. However, the only place in this vast cosmos that is known to host life is our own planet. But now, science has revealed that several planetary bodies in our solar system have the potential to host primitive forms of life. This talk will describe why and how NASA plans to search for life on Mars and the icy ocean moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Our speaker, Dr. Carol Stoker, is staff planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View. She has led field experiments in the Arctic, the Antarctic, underwater, and in the deserts of the US southwest. Most recently, she has helped to develop robotic systems to search for life on other planets.

Dr. Carol Stoker

At a time when science faces increasing criticism, Dawkins issues a passionate defense, insisting that reason and empirical evidence take center stage. With growing threats of irrationality and hostility, his plea for a return to reason couldn’t be more timely. Come hear more from the legendary biologist and provocateur as he challenges faulty logic, bad science, and climate change deniers.

Do you ever wish we could look back in time? We can, by studying the cosmic microwave background (CMB), which reveals the fiery early universe when it was only 0.003% of its present age. This presentation will show how studying the CMB allows us to learn about the origin, composition, and ultimate fate of the universe.

Dr. Blake Sherwin is NASA Einstein Postdoctoral Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. He has also just earned the title of University Lecturer in Theoretical Cosmology at Cambridge University in England.

Dr. Blake Sherwin

Galileo Galilei developed a new method for reliably comprehending the world — and the entire cosmos — around us. Accordingly, Galileo has been called the father of modern science. Astronomer Alan Agrawal will show us how Galileo's celestial observations dramatically changed our understanding of the universe and of our place in it.

Dr. Alan Agrawal is a physician who specializes in the treatment of autoimmune diseases in the field of rheumatology. He is also an avid amateur astronomer and independent historian on the development of the telescope.

Dr. Alan Agrawal

As humanity begins its third decade of exoplanet observation, the science is maturing beyond individual discoveries to detailed characterization of the entire planetary population. No exploration has helped us learn more about exoplanets than NASA’s Kepler mission. While Kepler has shown that planets like Earth are common throughout the Milky Way Galaxy, we have also learned that nature produces a rich diversity of planetary compositions and orbital architectures—many of which do not resemble the Solar System in the slightest.

Our speaker, Caltech's Erik Petigura, will survey humanity's current understanding of exoplanet demographics. He will highlight how these discoveries help illuminate the processes that led to the formation of the Earth and to the origin of life. Finally, Dr. Petigura will offer some thoughts on the types of discoveries that may await us in the coming years.

Dr. Erik Petigura

The University of Montreal's Lauren Weiss and Ohio State University's Marc Pinsonneault are NASA Kepler Mission Experts. Together, and separately, they have helped to discover many MANY worlds orbiting other stars.

In this Wonderfest dialogue, Dr. Weiss, a post-doctoral fellow, will talk about the sizes and compositions of the Kepler exoplanets. She will reveal the essentials of planetary discovery by helping audience members to build a model exoplanet system and observatory. Dr. Pinsonneault, Professor of Astronomy, will discuss what we are learning — from the very same sort of observatory — about sound(!) waves generated within stars, and what those sound waves can teach us about the host stars of exoplanets.

Lauren Weiss & Marc Pinsonneault

Our speaker, NASA's Steve Bryson, is a mathematical physicist at Ames Research Center in Mountain View. His work as part of the Kepler Mission Team contributed to the discovery of MANY new worlds orbiting other stars. Dr. Bryson lives in Marin, and he occasionally teaches adult-education classes at the California Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Steve Bryson

The scientific exploration of our origins began in earnest with Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin. Now, our rich cosmic understanding is detailed and well-tested; it even has far-reaching implications for other aspects of people’s lives, including philosophy, religion, and politics.

Speaker Eliot Quataert is Professor of Physics & Astronomy and Director of the Center for Theoretical Astrophysics at UC Berkeley. Dr. Quataert will summarize our modern understanding of cosmic origins — from the Big Bang to exoplanets (and even to humans). He will describe how the universe evolved from its smooth beginnings to its current state, emphasizing how gravity reigns supreme and builds up the galaxies, stars, and planets required for the marvel of biological evolution.

Dr. Eliot Quataert

Much of what we think we know about space comes from film and television, but Hollywood's job is more often to entertain than to educate. In this fun, informative, and FREE presentation, Prof. Thomas Targett of Sonoma State University will sort fact from fiction, taking a tour through the worlds of Star Trek, Star Wars, and much more.
Dr. Thomas Targett