A few shark species are, indeed, dangerous wildlife. However, the public portrayal of these animals as villains and killers is overblown. What is the real life of a large shark like? How do they eat? How long do they live, and where do they migrate? Knowing about sharks in this way — especially how they think — helps us see them as part of our ocean world to be respected … and to be amazed by.
Our Wonderfest speaker is Dr.Stephen Palumbi, Professor of Marine Sciences at Stanford University. Steve is also Professor of Biology, Senior Fellow at Woods Institute for the Environment, and leader of The Palumbi Lab at Hopkins Marine Station, all at Stanford. This event is co-presented by Wonderfest and the San Francisco Public Library.
HOW: This event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have FOR YOU (and, indirectly, for society)? Accordingly, please use the DONATE button (below) to support Wonderfest in its nonprofit mission to share the scientific outlook.
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with enhanced 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 geophysicist Caroline Hasler on Measuring Geologic Time with Rock Clocks — In microscopically small crystals within rocks, radioactive elements decay at predictable rates and function as tiny clocks. These “rock clocks” help us to figure out the timing of major events in Earth history — from the moment of Earth’s formation to the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs.
• UC Berkeley astronomer Eli Wiston on Seeing Core-collapse Supernovae with Radio Telescopes — At the end of its life, a massive star will contract and explode in spectacular fashion, outshining the light of an entire galaxy. While most astronomers focus on the optical light given off by these stellar explosions, there is a wealth of new information to be gained by observing invisible wavelengths. With radio telescopes, we can study new aspects of supernovae: their stars’ activity in the years before death, their environments, and what they leave behind after the explosion fades.
This interactive science presentation, free and unticketed, is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with Marin Science Seminar.
WHAT: Ask a Science Envoy: RockClocks & Supernovae
HOW: This event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have FOR YOU (and, indirectly, for society)? Accordingly, please use the DONATE button (below) to support Wonderfest in its nonprofit mission to share the scientific outlook.
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with enhanced 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 Marina Luccioni on Fish that Make Dreams — Hawaiian traditional knowledge from the 1400s references “nightmare fish.” Indeed, eating the heads of certain fish species does induce dizziness, severe hallucinations, and nightmares. How do these fish come to contain and accumulate neurotoxins, and how do those molecules cause hallucinations? Of equal importance, how do we do such science that is respectful of indigenous knowledge and fair to local communities and ecosystems?
• Stanford ecologist Ryan Rogers on What’s Up with Wetlands? — Tidal wetlands are environments of constant change: tides rise and fall, salinity shifts, and waters stay perpetually in motion. In these challenging conditions, seagrasses flourish, creating underwater meadows that support rich and diverse communities. Studying these ecosystems reveals how biodiversity sustains them, and why protecting wetlands and estuaries is critical for resilient coastlines.
This interactive science presentation, free and unticketed, is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with Marin Science Seminar.
HOW: This event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have FOR YOU (and, indirectly, for society)? Accordingly, please use the DONATE button (below) to support Wonderfest in its nonprofit mission to share the scientific outlook.
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with enhanced 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 astronomer Natalie LeBaron on Origins of the Elements — From the oxygen we breathe to the gold in our jewelry and the calcium in our bones, most periodic table elements are forged by stars. How does the universe transforms simple hydrogen into the rich diversity of atoms that build planets, life, and everything we see around us? Beginning their lives in vast clouds of gas and ending in massive explosions, every star in the night sky creates and scatters ingredients for new worlds.
• UC Berkeley psychologist Colin Jacobs on Children’s Sense of Fairness — Our motivation to enact fairness shapes human behavior across societal and individual levels: from outrage at economic inequalities, to personal protest against not being considered in a discussion. As parents and teachers know, our motivation to insist upon fairness starts early, often through shouts of “that’s not fair,” or very strict regulation of turn-taking. What motivates children to object to unfairness, and how does this moral impulse develop throughout early childhood?
This interactive science presentation, free and unticketed, is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with Marin Science Seminar.
HOW: This event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have FOR YOU (and, indirectly, for society)? Accordingly, please use the DONATE button (below) to support Wonderfest in its nonprofit mission to share the scientific outlook.
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with enhanced communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these two Science Envoys will answer questions with insight and enthusiasm:
• Stanford physicist Mahlet Shiferaw on Learning Cosmology from Galaxies — The Universe is shaped by an invisible “cosmic web” of dark matter that guides where galaxies form. By comparing observations of galaxies to predictions from models, we can probe the nature of dark matter and dark energy. Cosmologists are now developing new modeling and inference techniques to unlock even more information from upcoming galaxy surveys.
• Stanford biologist Sebastian Somolinos on Give Evolution a Chance — When was the last time you watched evolution happen? Evolution is nature’s most powerful problem solver, yet creatures like horseshoe crabs remind us that it can also be slow and stubbornly conservative. To unlock evolution’s full creative potential, and to appreciate evolution more fully, we must learn how to accelerate it. We need to give evolution a chance.
This interactive science presentation, free and unticketed, is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with Marin Science Seminar.
HOW: This event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have FOR YOU (and, indirectly, for society)? Accordingly, please use the DONATE button (below) to support Wonderfest in its nonprofit mission to share the scientific outlook.
Most every page of Andy Weir’s latest sci-fi novel, Project Hail Mary, glows with the promise of science and technology. In Weir’s first novel, 2011’s The Martian, the protagonist endures interplanetary travel, and struggles to survive on a harsh new world. However, in Project Hail Mary, the hero faces a far greater challenge: interstellar travel to collaborate with an ET in hope of saving an imperiled planet Earth! Are the wonderful science and technology of Project Hail Mary realistic? We shall see!
Wonderfest and the SETI Institute join the Commonwealth Club World Affairs to present two wonderful space scientists in conversation about The Science of Project Hail Mary: astrobiologist Dr. Maggie Turnbull and planetary scientist Dr. Pascal Lee.
Two types of tickets are available: in-person and online-only. Pre-register with the Commonwealth Club / World Affairs via the “Tickets” link, below. Use promo code WONDERNAUTS for a $10 ticket discount (which renders the online ticket entirely FREE).
WHERE: The Commonwealth Club, Taube Auditorium, 110 The Embarcadero, San Francisco CA 94105
WHEN: Thursday, March 26 — 6pm (1 hour)
COLLABORATORS: Commonwealth Club World Affairs of California and the SETI Institute
HOW: Get tickets by clicking the "Tickets" box, below. During purchase from the Commonwealth Club, use promo code WONDERNAUTS to secure a discount of $10 for either type of ticket, in-person or online.
The search for life in the universe invites deep exploration of our own world’s 4-billion-year habitability. We begin to see the cosmos as a vast and seamlesss network of relationships — a web that envelops our own Earth and the human heart. In this age of ecological disruption and social fragmentation, the personal journey of one astrobiologist, integrating scientific inquiry with contemplative awareness, can help deepen the capacity for compassion rather than despair. It may even help the next generation to build a healthy, humane, and resilient civilization.
Our Wonderfest speaker is astronomer and astrobiologist Dr.Margaret Turnbull. Maggie does research on planetary habitability at the SETI Institute.
Dr. Maggie Turnbull
WHAT: An Astronomer's View of Life and the Human Heart
WHO: Dr. Maggie Turnbull, Astrobiologist, SETI Institute
HOW: This event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have FOR YOU (and, indirectly, for society)? Accordingly, please use the DONATE button (below) to support Wonderfest in its nonprofit mission to share the scientific outlook.
Wonderfest Science Envoys are early-career researchers with enhanced communication skills and aspirations. Following short talks on provocative modern science topics, these two Science Envoys will answer questions with insight and enthusiasm:
• Stanford physicist Maya Beleznay on Weighing Black Widow Pulsars — What would Robert Oppenheimer and a modern physicist have in common? Neither could tell you how many particles can fit in a city-size ball before collapsing into a black hole! Some neutron stars in our galaxy teeter on the edge of this maximum theoretical density. Observations of such “black widow pulsars” allow us to explore a regime of physics that cannot be probed in a lab on Earth.
• UC Berkeley vision scientist Lawrence Man on Retinal Remodeling in Degenerative Blindness — As our eyes’ light-sensitive cells begin to die, downstream retinal neurons undergo physiological changes. Unfortunately, this neural remodeling negatively affects the electrical properties of neurons, interfering with vision. Dedicated researchers are developing strategies and restorative technologies to overcome this retinal remodeling.
This interactive science presentation, free and unticketed, is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with Marin Science Seminar.
WHAT: Ask a Science Envoy: Pulsars & Blindness
WHO: Maya Beleznay (Stanford) & Lawrence Man (UC Berkeley), Wonderfest Science Envoys
HOW: This event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have FOR YOU (and, indirectly, for society)? Accordingly, please use the DONATE button (below) to support Wonderfest in its nonprofit mission to share the scientific outlook.
The most energetic phenomena in the universe tend to reveal themselves through intense, short-lived signals. These violent transient events include novae, supernovae, and mergers of both neutron stars and black holes. Their signals — their natural messages — can span the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and may include gravitational waves as well as bursts of subatomic particles. The burgeoning field of multi-messenger astronomy inspires new technical observing abilities as it challenges our understanding of astrophysics. In so many new ways, however, the glorious cosmos and its contents come into clearer focus.
Our Wonderfest speaker is Raffaella Margutti, Associate Professor of both Physics and Astronomy at UC Berkeley. Dr. Margutti received the 2022 New Horizons in Physics Prize, and she advises three recent Wonderfest Science Envoys.
HOW: This event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have FOR YOU (and, indirectly, for society)? Accordingly, please use the DONATE button (below) to support Wonderfest in its nonprofit mission to share the scientific outlook.
Earth’s oceans are warming. Such large-scale aspects of climate change are disrupting important ecological balances, including the delicate service sea urchins perform in California’s kelp forest ecosystem. The implications are broad and alarming (and addressable): a warming planet may cause collapse in wild populations of vital marine life.
Our Wonderfest speaker is Dr.Daniel Okamoto, Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology, leader of the Okamoto Lab at UC Berkeley.
Dr. Daniel Okamoto
WHAT: Zombies of the Nearshore: Sea Urchins in a Changing Ocean
WHO: Dr. Daniel Okamoto, Asst. Professor of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley [https://dkokamoto.com]
HOW: This event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have FOR YOU (and, indirectly, for society)? Accordingly, please use the DONATE button (below) to support Wonderfest in its nonprofit mission to share the scientific outlook.
One of the great mysteries of science is how the brain creates conscious experience. Even though neuroanatomy and neuron-control are well understood, and modern tools have revealed many neural circuits, the neuroanatomic center of consciousness remains elusive. We aren’t even really sure how to measure consciousness! If we could build a mathematical model of consciousness, would this help us understand how the brain works its magic? How does an anesthesiologist, who routinely eliminates and then restores consciousness, define and measure the wonder of conscious experience?
Our Wonderfest speaker is Art Wallace, MD, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Anesthesia at UC San Francisco. Dr. Wallace is also Chief of Anesthesia at San Francisco’s Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
HOW: This event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have FOR YOU (and, indirectly, for society)? Accordingly, please use the DONATE button (below) to support Wonderfest in its nonprofit mission to share the scientific outlook.
Philosophers, cognitive scientists, and animal welfare advocates tend to agree that consciousness evolved to support action. Yet, puzzlingly, most accounts take relatively passive sensory experiences and bodily sensations (e.g. pains, visual perceptions, and hunger pangs) to be the basic contents of subjective experience. What if consciousness were not a “point of view,” but rather a “point of do,” where the conscious subject is not an observer but a participant who interacts with an environment that pushes back? Thinking carefully about action experience might help us better understand the biological evolution of consciousness on Earth.
Our Wonderfest speaker is Dr. Mariel Goddu, PhD in developmental psychology (UC Berkeley) and PhD candidate in philosophy (Stanford). Mariel was — and remains — a wonderful Wonderfest Science Envoy.
Dr. Mariel Goddu
WHAT: Evolution of Consciousness: The Participatory Perspective
HOW: This event is free and unticketed ... and valuable. But what value does it have FOR YOU (and, indirectly, for society)? Accordingly, please use the DONATE button (below) to support Wonderfest in its nonprofit mission to share the scientific outlook.
