Biodiversity; Cosmic Maps – Mar 27
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 paleobiologist Dr. Maria Viteri on Exhuming the Dead to Save the Living — Earth is experiencing a crisis in biodiversity. Surprisingly, the fossil record offers key insights for understanding this crisis, and one scientist's lifelong fascination with dinosaurs — leading to a career in conservation biology — is helping to combat the biodiversity challenge of the present ... and of the future.
• 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.
WHAT: Ask a Science Envoy: Biodiversity & Cosmic Maps
WHO: Maria Viteri & Tyler Cox, Wonderfest Science Envoys
WHERE: ONLINE, Via Zoom [https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89140744922]
WHEN: 2023-03-27 — 8pm, Monday, March 27 (1 hour)
HOW:
Collaborators:
Berkeley Public Library [https://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org]
This free, online, science presentation is produced by Wonderfest in partnership with the Berkeley Public Library.
What value do these science insights have for you? Accordingly, please consider making a donation to nonprofit Wonderfest via the Eventbrite box, below. (Note: No "sales" or "tickets" are involved; it's just a thoughtful contribution to help Wonderfest promote science understanding and the scientific outlook.)
Collaborators:
Berkeley Public Library [https://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org]
Halloween is the perfect day for a deep and magical dialogue on the supernatural! Michael Shermer is the founder of The Skeptics Society, and monthly contributor to Scientific American magazine. He has written over a dozen books, including The Moral Arc and Why People Believe Weird Things, and he has appeared on The Colbert Report, Dateline, and Charlie Rose. Jamy Ian Swiss is a world-renowned magician and skeptic. He has been featured in print in The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, and on television on 48 Hours, PBS’s NOVA, The Today Show, AND he was a comedy writer and chief magic consultant for Penn & Teller. Please join Shermer and Swiss as they discuss the supernatural — on Halloween — with science and skepticism in mind.
Whether you’re a NightLife regular or rookie, Wonderfest’s Cosmic NightLife is not to be missed. It features three of the most exciting and insightful space experts in the Bay Area — and perhaps on planet Earth. Here’s the schedule and line-up:
Join us for a fascinating journey through the early universe using the latest computer animations of early star formation, supernova explosions, and the build-up of the first galaxies. Dr. Abel’s work has shown that the first luminous objects in the universe were very massive stars shining one million times as brightly as our Sun. They died quickly and seeded the cosmos with the chemical elements necessary for life. One star at a time, galaxies started to assemble just one hundred million years after the Big Bang, and they are still growing now. Computer simulations of these events use the physics of dark matter, of ordinary atoms & molecules, and of expanding space to deliver remarkable insights into the early history of the cosmos.