Event

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

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

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.

Dr. Alex Filippenko

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.

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

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

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.

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Dr. Pete Worden

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.

Dr. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field

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

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

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

Research indicates that all animals sleep. For humans, sleep is essential for physical and mental health — as necessary as food, water, and oxygen. Yet many of us get insufficient and/or low-quality sleep. UCSF’s Dr. Aric Prather has just written The Sleep Prescription: Seven Days to Unlocking Your Best Rest. During this online presentation, Dr. Prather will share many of his book’s insights with the Commonwealth Club and Wonderfest.

Dr. Aric Prather is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. He directs UCSF’s Behavioral Sleep Medicine Research Program.

This online event is produced by the Commonwealth Club in collaboration with Wonderfest. (The originally-planned, simultaneous, in-person event has been cancelled.) Access to the online presentation is described in the HOW space, below. Use discount code WonderfestPromo for a completely cost-free experience.

Dr. Arik Prather

Sometimes, bigger is better. The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) will collect 9 times more light than the largest currently existing telescope and, with adaptive optics, make images 9 times sharper. Overall, that’s 81 times better! The TMT International Observatory (with members from the US, Japan, China, India, & Canada), together with its partner in the southern hemisphere, the Giant Magellan Telescope, will give humanity a powerful new system to probe the full sweep of the cosmos — from the nearest stars and their planets, to black holes in our Galaxy, and on out to the edge of the visible universe where we see the very first stars and galaxies beginning to form.

Our speaker is astrophysicist Dr. Robert Kirshner, Executive Director of the TMT International Observatory and Clowes Professor of Science, emeritus, at Harvard University. Formerly, Dr. Kirshner was head of the science program at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Dr. Robert Kirshner

Beyond hunger — and beyond the body’s straightforward energy demand — food cues can strongly influence the urge to eat. These sights, sounds, and smells of food can trigger cravings that promote over-eating. What are the neurobiological mechanisms of cue-triggered food craving? How are we susceptible to diet-induced obesity via consumption of sugary and/or fatty “junk foods”?

Our speaker, Dr. Carrie Ferrario, is Associate Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Pharmacology at the University of Michigan Medical School.

Dr. Carrie Ferrario

President Biden recently stated that the Pandemic is over. The resumption of travel and in-person activities seems to corroborate this view. Meanwhile, the current COVID death rate in the US puts us on track for nearly 150,000 excess deaths (per year) and a marked lowering of overall life expectancy. This presentation, with a healthy amount of audience Q&A, will explore the relationship between science and narrative in confronting SARS-Cov2.

Our speaker, Dr. Robert Siegel, is Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University. He is also a member of Wonderfest’s formal Board of Advisors.

Dr. Robert Siegel

Could frightening claims of world-wide climate change be mistaken? Do we really know that climate change is happening, and that humanity is the cause? In optimistic and pessimistic scenarios, how bad could it get? … even in the Bay Area?! Finally, have we passed a global climate-change “tipping point,” or do possible adjustments to economics and policy — stemming from a popular climate clarity — give us hope?

Our speaker is Dr. Carl Mears, Senior Scientist at Remote Sensing Systems. He was a lead author for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, and he has contributed to the IPCC, the Nobel Prize-winning International Panel on Climate Change.

Dr. Carl Mears

Physicists do their best to discover the deepest rules of reality. Renowned physicist and author Sean Carroll — formerly at Caltech, now at Johns Hopkins — has just published the first of three books on The Biggest Ideas in the Universe for the physicist in each of us. In this presentation, jointly produced by the Commonwealth Club and Wonderfest, Prof. Carroll will focus on how the most basic concepts in nature (space, time, and motion) allow us to build a coherent sense of physical reality — and how they can lead us to newfound wonder.

Dr. Sean Carroll is the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. His popular books include Something Deeply Hidden and From Eternity to Here, and his podcast is entitled Mindscape. Here, Dr. Carroll’s 45-minute presentation will be followed by 15 minutes of audience Q&A via YouTube chat.

Dr. Sean Carroll

Potatoes are often invisible on one’s plate, but this is a food you can rely on to soothe your soul and your stomach. Due to the humble spud’s capacity to keep people alive in so many diverse environments, several cultures lay claim to originating it. The potato actually first emerged 10,000 years ago in highland South America. While introducing the science of the potato and its complexities of diversification, we will learn how it is farmed in its home and how pople are helping it adapt to the changing climate.

Our speaker, Dr. Christine Hastorf, is Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. She also directs Cal’s Archaeological Research Facility and McCown Archaeobotany Laboratory.

Dr. Christine A. Hastorf