Cryogenic X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy for pristine interface chemistry analysis in batteries - LivestreamUnderstanding the chemical environment of pristine interfaces is a long-sought goal in electrochemistry, materials science and surface science. A substantial understanding of one such interface, the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) in lithium anodes, originates from X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). However, room temperature (RT) combined with ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) can induce ...
Measurements of the atmospheres of small planets are now feasible with the James Webb Space Telescope. These planets are generally hotter and bigger than the Solar System rocky planets, but smaller than our outer ice giants Neptune and Uranus, and many have primitive atmospheres like those that the rocky Solar ...
Retinal degenerative diseases lead to blindness due to loss of photoreceptors, while neurons in the inner retinal layers are still preserved. We developed a system substituting the lost photoreceptors with photovoltaic arrays. Visual information captured by a camera is projected onto the subretinal implant from augmented-reality glasses using pulsed near-infrared ...
The deep sea is Earth’s largest biome and home to countless unknown lifeforms. Ongoing efforts to map the ocean and census marine life highlight how much remains to be discovered, especially in remote ice-covered polar seas. These waters host fascinating species that continue to surprise us with amazing solutions to ...
Where: Pacific GroveCost: Free
Reade Me: The Books that Inspired the Computing RevolutionWhether you're an expert, student, or simply curious, how can you truly grasp what is happening in computing? One powerful answer has endured: “Read a book!”In Readme, historian W. Patrick McCray explores how influential books shaped the trajectory of computing innovations and ideas that echo in the current AI revolution.Here’s ...
Aotearoa - the land more commonly as New Zealand is young in many ways: In recent geologic history, it nearly drowned after splitting off from the Australian continent, and it was the last bit of Earth’s land to be inhabited by human beings. This island nation is a wild and wondrous place ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: Free
Wednesday, 01/21/26
Homeschool Days at The Tech InteractiveHomeschool Days are back at The Tech Interactive!What are Homeschool Days? Our special Wednesday programs are crafted for homeschooling families who love to tinker, test, and explore at their own pace. Learners will enjoy a flexible schedule of hands-on activities, guided labs, and drop-in STEAM demonstrations.Each Homeschool Day includes:- Full access ...
Ubiquitous and cryptic, parasites are often ignored, yet can have surprising and devastating effects on their hosts population. My primary research goals are to find ecological organizing principles of how parasites and disease will respond to the changing environment. Using sunflower sea stars (Pycnopodia helianthoides) and sea star wasting disease ...
Join Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Policy Fellow Riana Pfefferkorn for a conversation about the potential future(s) of AI and humanity with Adam Becker, author of More Everything Forever, and Jon Evans, author of Exadelic and the Gradient Ascendant newsletter. Who are the individuals and communities predicting AI doom, AI boom, or ...
Debates about artificial intelligence (AI) tend to revolve around whether large models are intelligent, autonomous agents. Some AI researchers and commentators speculate that we are on the cusp of creating agents with artificial general intelligence (AGI), a prospect anticipated with both elation and anxiety. There have also been extensive conversations ...
China’s immense northwest holds the key to the country’s internal geopolitical and socioeconomic restructuring and global soft power today. In addition to hosting mega investments in energy, mining, infrastructure, and urban development, this resource-rich and ethnically diverse, yet under-studied, territory of 3.7 million square kilometres is leading China’s rising developmental ...
In README, historian Patrick McCray argues that in order for computers to become ubiquitous, people first had to become interested in them, learn about them, and take the machines seriously. A powerful catalyst for this transformation was, ironically, one of the oldest information technologies we have: books. The author uses a ...
Amy Franceschini (Futurefarmers) on "Excursions through Domains of Familiarity and Surprise" Michael Frank (Stanford/) on "Bridging the Data Gap between Babies and Large Language Models" Luciano Chessa (Composer) on "Cena Oltranzista nel Castelletto al Lago - A Career Retrospective" Editor's Note: Start time has changed to 5:30 PM from 7:00 ...
On tap this month we have a talk from U of A graduate students Devin Hoover, who will tell us what we know about Titan, and Brock Parker, here to give us a brief history of detecting light!Click here to watch
Where: Cost: Free
Naturalist Training - Winter Wonders: Mushrooms, Lichens, and Slime Molds! - LivestreamAre you curious about fungi, lichens, and slime molds? This webinar is for you, whether you are a beginner or experienced enthusiast!Join BioBlitz Club and Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful for this highly informative webinar covering these unique, hard-to-classify, important pieces of nature.During the webinar, Alison Pollack, JJ Johnson, and Damon ...
Join SCVBA for an evening with Philip Higgins, co-founder of Talon Ecological and one of the foremost experts on Burrowing Owls in Santa Clara County. We'll learn about the ongoing work happening to protect these birds in our county, like habitat restoration, artificial burrows, and a captive breeding program, and ...
Where: CupertinoCost: Free
Everyday Rewards and the Science of Addiction - SOLD OUTWhat if addiction isn’t just about substances - but about the rewards that compete with them?Join Dr. Keanan Joyner, UC Berkeley Assistant Professor of Psychology and director of the C.R.E.A.M. Lab, for a fresh look at how addiction develops and persists.While most addiction research focuses on what drugs do to ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $25
Taming Tech Debt for Platform ReliabilitySite Reliability Engineering (SRE) at Google is a job function, mindset, and set of engineering practices focused on ensuring the reliability, scalability, and efficiency of production systems. The term is created in the early 2000s. This talk aims to reframe the conversation around technical debt. Rather than viewing it ...
Moons in the outer Solar System release heat as they orbit their host planets, creating intense volcanism and subsurface water oceans. However, few experimental constraints exist on the geodynamics of materials under moonlike conditions, limiting understanding of moon evolution and subsurface deformation. This talk discusses the importance of understanding moons ...
After Dark: Dark SkiesCatch Glow before it closes and immerse yourself in a breathtaking musical performance about the night sky with Fourth Wall Ensemble.
Where: San FranciscoCost: $22.95 General, Free for members
Tiny NightlifePwease join us for a NightLife takeover we know you’ll LUB, featuring internet sensation Tiny Chef. Expect food, tattoos, and all things Tiny.
Where: San FranciscoCost: Varies
Advancing Living Shorelines in SF Bay - LivestreamMarilyn Latta (California State Coastal Conservancy) will share information about living shoreline efforts in San Francisco Bay led by the State Coastal Conservancy and a diverse mix of partners. Living shorelines utilize natural materials and nature-based and hybrid green-gray approaches to protect shorelines from sea level rise and enhance habitat ...
Where: Cost: Free
Humans Navigating Complexity with AI HelpersModern particle accelerator control rooms are like busy air traffic control centers, where skilled operators juggle hundreds of interconnected and time-sensitive tasks to generate and shape high-energy particle beams. Control room tasks are increasingly performed with the support of AI. This talk explores our study of how operators select and ...
Seals and sea lions have a way of making us pay attention. They haul out on beaches, look us in the eye, and - whether we deserve it or not - remind us we're connected. When one of them is in trouble, the whole coastline feels it.For half a century, ...
Where: AlamedaCost: Free
Treat Yourself Like a Friend: The Power of Self-CompassionWhat if the way you speak to yourself matters just as much as the challenges you face?Join us for a lecture with Dr. Serena Chen, UC Berkeley Professor of Psychology and leading researcher on the self, identity, and self-compassion.Self-compassion is more than being “nice” to yourself - it's a scientifically ...
Where: OaklandCost: $25
Friday, 01/23/26
Glaciers: Meanings and Mythologies - LivestreamAn environmental historian, a geographer, and a glaciologist will discuss how glaciers loom large in both science and cultural expression. Not just sites of study, glaciers impact local and international power relations, and their fate is often intertwined with Indigenous communities. Home to plant, animal, and human life for millennia, ...
Where: Cost: Free
Krillin' in the California CurrentJoin Point Blue Conservation Science’s (PBCS) marine laboratory team to see how they study krill. Krill, also known as euphausiids, are marine crustaceans and an important part of the zooplankton community - the animal drifters of the ocean. Krill are prey for so many marine wildlife, including fish, birds, and ...
Earthquakes that share similar waveforms are a frequent feature of the seismicity at volcanoes. Studies suggest that temporal variations in the size, rate, and character of repeating seismicity are often correlated with other changes in a volcano’s behavior, therefore, rapid identification of trends or changes in the behavior of repeating ...
Evolving Discoveries: Exploring Science, Research, and Data TogetherVisit Cypress Grove Preserve for an informative and discussion-based talk with our conservation science team at All Hands Ecology.Join an engaging conversation with Quantitative Ecologist Scott Jennings about the awe that sparks science and the past, present and future of research and data collection at All Hands Ecology. We’ll examine how ...
Join us for a series of fun and engaging days of creativity and sustainability. Let’s come together to transform plastic waste into beautiful works of art that examine the connection between plastic and ocean life cycles, and inspire change. Your created pieces will be part of a community art installation ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: Free
How this place is made: Geology, Decisions, Photography, and the OysterHow This Place Is Made: Geology, Decisions, Photography, and the Oyster is a panel discussion at the Berkeley Art Center exploring how the Bay Area’s natural and cultural landscapes have been shaped by geology, ecology, and human decision-making. Held in conjunction with the exhibition [Obstructed view of the house through ...
Where: BerkeleyCost: Free
Jazz Under the StarsJazz Under the Stars is a FREE monthly public stargazing event! Usually occurring on the Saturday nearest the 1st quarter moon (check our Events Page), join us in Building 36 on the 4th floor observatory for a night of smooth jazz, bright stars, and a lot of fun! We play our ...
Where: San MateoCost: Free
Sunday, 01/25/26
Microbes vs. Climate Change: Bay Area EditionPOV: You are amongst the smallest and mightiest population in the Bay Area. Join us to see how microorganisms cope with climate trends!Imagine life as some of the smallest, but mightiest living things in the Bay Area: microbes! Join us for an interactive presentation and activity to learn about some ...
Where: FremontCost: Free
Water as Universal Currency: Power, Memory, and Our Shared Future - SOLD OUTWhat if water isn’t just a resource - but a force that connects all living systems across time?Join Greg Niemeyer, data artist and Professor of Media Innovation at University of California, Berkeley, for a lecture that rethinks how water moves through the world - and through us.Taking tiat’s Water Futures ...
Where: San FranciscoCost: $25
Green@Home Sustainable Living Showcase: Tour the Bell Brown HomeJoin us at the Bell-Brown Home in Palo Alto for a monthly Green@Home stop filled with eco-friendly tips to make your home greener!Acterra invites you to an intimate, monthly edition of our Green@Home Tour series-hosted at the Bell-Brown residence in Palo Alto! This free, community-powered gathering offers a unique opportunity to explore real-life ...
Where: Palo AltoCost: Free
Marine Science Sunday: Animals of the ArcticJoin us to find out about the creatures that have learned to love the cold. Explore what makes polar bears, walruses and whales able to survive in record cold temperatures!Talks at 10:30 AM, 12:00 PM, or 2:00 PM.Space is limited
Much of the discourse on AI ethics and safety focuses on alignment mechanisms, bias mitigation, and containment of agentic systems. These are crucial concerns. This talk will frame a somewhat different problem: the rhetorical and psychological dimensions of AI's authority. I argue that LLMs have acquired what might be called ...
From the discovery of elementary particles to the detection of gravitational waves, the development of measurement tools has been essential in uncovering the fundamental laws of our universe. In condensed matter physics, we can create tiny “universes” inside quantum materials, each with its own dimensionality, symmetry, and emergent properties. In ...
In Martinique, the “Coffee of Legends” project was launched with the ambitious goal of reviving the island’s historic coffee industry for a global debut at the 2020 Olympics. Yet, more than a decade since its inception, the initiative has produced almost no beans. Moving beyond simple narratives of “failure,” this ...
Cells show a range of complex behaviors which might normally associated with cognition, including basic forms of learning such as habituation. The giant single-celled ciliate Stentor coeruleus is a pond-dwelling organism that attaches to substrates like pond plants and filter feeds by means of a ring of cilia at one ...
Power Systems in the emerging markets have markedly expanded access to electricity over the past two decades. However, Africa remains the world's last major electrification challenge, with approximately 600 million people lacking electricity access - "more than half the global total. This discussion examines the economic conditions and technical barriers ...
Where: StanfordCost: Free
FeDNA Technique: Environmental Monitoring for the Klamath River Dam RemovalIn 2023-2024, four dams were removed from the Klamath River restoring access to 400 miles of free-flowing river. Before the dams were demolished, a team of Molecular Ecologists sampled the system to establish a baseline of DNA so we could monitor population changes in response to restoration actions. Using the ...
