Podcasts about Miller Institute

This week, acclaimed poets Diana Khoi Nguyen and Cindy Juyoung Ok read selections of their work, followed by a discussion of their processes, themes, techniques, and more. Presented by the Poetry Foundation. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOMEAbout the writers:A poet and multimedia artist, DIANA KHOI NGUYEN is the author of Ghost Of (2018) which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Root Fractures (2024). Her video work has recently been exhibited at the Miller Institute for Contemporary Art. Nguyen is a Kundiman fellow and member of the Vietnamese artist collective, She Who Has No Master(s). A recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and winner of the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest and 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, she currently teaches in the Randolph College Low-Residency MFA and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.CINDY JUYOUNG OK is the author of Ward Toward from the Yale Series of Younger Poets and the translator of the forthcoming English translation of The Hell of That Star by Kim Hyesoon.

Episode 23 of Borderlines features our guest host, Chancellor's Clinical Professor of Law Laurel E. Fletcher (Berkeley), in conversation with Professor of Practice Gabor Rona (Cardozo) on the Israel/Hamas conflict from an international law perspective. Fresh off of speaking at Berkeley Law on 22 February 2024 as part of a Bay Area campus lecture series on the crisis, Professor Rona sat down with Professor Fletcher to discuss the relevant frameworks of international law and its institutions, including the UN Charter and the Geneva Convention on Genocide, as well as current cases before the International Court of Justice regarding Israel/Palestine. Listeners will learn how the laws of armed conflict and international humanitarian law are invoked, how historically pressure is brought to bear on governments from international organizations and actors, and why the Red Cross/Red Crescent has been prevented from aiding both Israeli hostages and Palestinian civilians in Gaza despite human suffering. Students in particular will take away powerful lessons about the need to combat misinformation and to seek “justice for an eye” in their pursuit of peaceful solutions to war and violence. Professor Rona has worked in armed conflict settings for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and as International Legal Director at Human Rights First. He now teaches various international law subjects at both Cardozo and Columbia Law Schools. Professor Fletcher is the International Human Rights Law Clinic Co-Director and the Faculty Co-Director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law at Berkeley Law. For a transcript of this episode, please visit the episode page on Berkeley Law website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We travel to Pittsburgh's Miller Institute of Contemporary Art (Carnegie Mellon University) for the special exhibition, IMPOSSIBLE MUSIC, a fascinating collection of sounds, scores, sculptures, video, live performances, and more. First up we have a big picture chat with the ICA's Director, Elizabeth Chodos before a deeper dive with acclaimed curator Candice Hopkins and Pulitzer Prize-winning artist/composer, Raven Chacon. IMPOSSIBLE MUSIC runs through December 10.

Fourth in a four-part series of special Borderlines episodes with UC Berkeley Law guest hosts Professor Roxanna Altholz and Professor Laurel E. Fletcher shining a spotlight on human rights champions—all guest speakers in their Human Rights Practice Workshop course, where leading practitioners working in a variety of institutional settings share their struggles against corruption and impunity, the relationship between legal and social justice, and the future of human rights movements.Episode 20 of Borderlines showcases guest host Professor Laurel E. Fletcher, Co-Director of Berkeley Law's International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law in conversation with Professor Justin Hansford (Howard) about his role as a member of the new UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, in 2021 the United Nations established the Permanent Forum on Peoples of African Descent (PFPAD). This new, consultative body has a mandate to undertake a range of activities with the goal of “improving the safety and quality of life and livelihoods of people of African descent.” Professor Hansford shares his views about this new consultative mechanism, which addresses anti-Black racism as a UN platform, including its development, opportunities and challenges, and what was at stake in getting it approved and realized. He also examines reparations from a global and a US perspective, and discusses ideas for putting human rights strategy and practice into action in local marginalized communities.For a transcript of this episode, please visit the episode page on Berkeley Law website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Third in a four-part series of special Borderlines episodes with UC Berkeley Law guest hosts Professor Roxanna Altholz and Professor Laurel E. Fletcher shining a spotlight on human rights champions—all guest speakers in their Human Rights Practice Workshop course, where leading practitioners working in a variety of institutional settings speak about their struggles against corruption and impunity, the relationship between legal and social justice, and the future of human rights movements.Episode 19 of Borderlines features guest host Professor Laurel E. Fletcher, Co-Director of Berkeley Law's International Human Rights Law Clinic and the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law interviewing Professor Claudia Martin (American Univ. Washington College of Law) about her work founding and co-leading the GQUAL Campaign for gender parity in international law tribunals, courts, agencies and monitoring bodies.Topics covered include GQUAL's origin and recent achievements, including a forthcoming Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women/CEDAW General Comment, and strategies for building an inclusive transnational mobilization to change international institutions. Listeners will be inspired by Professor Martin's journey in academia and activism, and her work changing the picture of women's representation at the table applying, interpreting, and creating international law.For a transcript of this episode, please visit the episode page on Berkeley Law website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

First in a four-part series of special Borderlines episodes with UC Berkeley Law guest hosts Professor Roxanna Altholz and Professor Laurel E. Fletcher shining a spotlight on human rights champions—all guest speakers in their Human Rights Practice Workshop course, where leading practitioners working in a variety of institutional settings share their struggles against corruption and impunity, the relationship between legal and social justice, and the future of the human rights movement. Don't miss an episode – subscribe to Borderlines today!Episode 17 of Borderlines spotlights guest host Professor Roxanna Altholz, Co-Director of both Berkeley Law's Clinical Program and its International Human Rights Law Clinic, in discussion with Paul Goodwin ('13) about his work with the United Nations Development Programme. The UNDP serves as the UN's global development network dedicated to advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience, and resources. Mr. Goodwin works as a legal and policy analyst with the Social and Environmental Compliance Unit (SECU), the UNDP's independent accountability mechanism tasked with ensuring the proper implementation and adherence to the UNDP's Social and Environmental Standards. Listeners will come away educated about the role of UN-created international accountability mechanisms – their promise as well as limitations in halting corporate human rights abuses.Borderlines from Berkeley Law is a podcast about global problems in a world fragmented by national borders. Our host is Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of International Law and co-director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. In each episode of Borderlines, Professor Linos invites experts to discuss cutting edge issues in international law.For a transcript, please visit the episode page on the Berkeley Law podcast hub. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode #9 of Borderlines features legendary U.S. Foreign Service Officer and Latin American expert Irving G. Tragen on the occasion of his 100th birthday, in conversation about his life and legacy with Berkeley Law's newly-named Tragen Professor of Law, Dr. Katerina Linos. Drawing on more than 55 years of distinguished public service in Inter-American Affairs, Irving Tragen recounts his fascinating journey as a law student during WWII overcoming hearing impairment, through his frontline State Department diplomatic assignments as a witness to and influencer of labor laws, labor relations, and economic development across the Western Hemisphere. Mr. Tragen was an integral part of President John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress initiative, as well as the Organization of American States' Economic Development Program efforts to tackle debt and foreign trade crises, secure border area infrastructure projects, and combat international drug trafficking. Listeners will benefit from Mr. Tragen's brilliant mini-briefings on nations from Chile to Costa Rica, and enjoy insider stories from history's hotspots.Timely lessons and timeless advice about investing in workforce education, and bringing respect to the table so as to successfully help people help themselves, are further highlights of this remarkable interview. Learn why Berkeley Law bestowed the Citation Award, its highest honor, on Mr. Tragen in 2010 for his exceptional leadership skills, character, and lifetime of achievements.Borderlines from Berkeley Law is a podcast about global problems in a world fragmented by national borders. Our host is Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of International Law and co-director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. In each episode of Borderlines, Professor Linos invites experts to discuss cutting edge issues in international law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This special episode of Borderlines features influential educator, commentator, and litigator Philippe Sands discussing ground-breaking efforts to introduce ecocide – the crime of environmental destruction – into international legal arenas. Philippe Sands QC is Professor of Law at University College London, Pisar Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard, and a barrister at Matrix Chambers. He practises as Counsel before international courts and tribunals. His teaching areas include public international law, the settlement of international disputes including arbitration, and environmental and natural resources law. Philippe is the author of many books, including East West Street: On the Origins of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide (2016) and The Last Colony, forthcoming in September 2022. Philippe recently co-chaired an independent expert panel which proposed in June 2021 that a new, fifth crime of ecocide be adopted into the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. In Episode Seven of Borderlines, listeners will learn about the relationship between ecocide and existing crimes, historic legal and political definitions of genocide being played out today, and the role of courts in enforcing awards and judgments against even Goliath polluters and aggressors. Borderlines from Berkeley Law is a podcast about global problems in a world fragmented by national borders. Our host is Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of International Law and co-director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. In each episode of Borderlines, Professor Linos invites experts to discuss cutting edge issues in international law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This special episode of Borderlines features Islamic legal studies and comparative and foreign law innovator Professor Intisar Rabb, talking about her leading research on shared methods of interpretation for textualists across different systems. The podcast builds upon ideas raised at the 2022 Irvine Tragen Lecture on Comparative Law at UC Berkeley School of Law.Intisar A. Rabb is a Professor of Law & History and the faculty director of the Program in Islamic Law at Harvard Law School. She has published widely on Islamic law in historical and modern contexts, including the book Doubt in Islamic Law (Cambridge University Press 2015) and numerous articles on Islamic constitutionalism, legal canons, and the history of the Qur'an text. She has conducted research in Egypt, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere. In 2015, Professor Rabb and co-partners launched SHARIAsource – an online portal designed to provide universal access to Islamic law and history resources and galvanize research using AI tools.In Episode Eight of Borderlines, listeners will learn about the history and resurgent use of legal canons – principles of interpretation that judges derive from common law and use when resolving issues unclear from the text alone – including their ancient role in Islamic law and modern application at the U.S. Supreme Court. Shared similar legal canons threading across systems with like linguistic features, known as metacanons, are broken down. Dialogue covers how statutory interpretation connects to civil and criminal legal systems, the dubious term “civilized nations” in international law, and battling stereotypes of Islamic law with new scholarly resources and coded data.Borderlines from Berkeley Law is a podcast about global problems in a world fragmented by national borders. Our host is Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of International Law and co-director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. In each episode of Borderlines, Professor Linos invites experts to discuss cutting edge issues in international law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With authoritarian regimes on the rise around the world, the need to protect basic human rights is more urgent than ever. How can law schools, law students, and law faculties help do this critical work — at home and internationally?Three Berkeley Law experts join Dean Erwin Chemerinsky for this episode: Chancellor's Clinical Professor Laurel E. Fletcher, co-director of the school's International Human Rights Law Clinic and its Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law; Eric Stover, faculty director of the Berkeley Human Rights Center; and Professor Saira Mohamed, whose research focuses on criminal law and human rights. About: More Just from Berkeley Law is a podcast about how law schools can and must play a role in solving society's most difficult problems. The rule of law — and the role of the law — has never been more important. In these difficult times, law schools can, and must, play an active role in finding solutions. But how? Each episode of More Just starts with a problem, then explores potential solutions, featuring Dean Erwin Chemerinsky as well as other deans, professors, students, and advocates, about how they're making law schools matter. Have a question about teaching or studying law, or a topic you'd like Dean Chemerinsky to explore? Email us at morejust@berkeley.edu and tell us what's on your mind. Related:As the World Watches Ukraine, Berkeley Law Experts Discuss Recent Events and What to ExpectNew Project Tracking Campaign to Curtail Reproductive Rights Showcases Cross-Campus AllianceNew Podcast and Human Rights Blog Series Further Expand Miller Institute's International ReachClinic Reveals ‘Increasingly Hostile Environment' for Online Freedom of Expression in Gulf Nations Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the rising dominance of China as a superpower, a fresh examination of international law's role in the global division between dictatorship and democracy has rarely been more relevant. This special episode of Borderlines features award-winning scholar Tom Ginsburg discussing ideas and theories from his recent book, Democracies and International Law. Tom Ginsburg is the Leo Spitz Professor of International Law at the University of Chicago, where he also holds an appointment in the Political Science Department. He is a Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and currently co-directs the Comparative Constitutions Project. Listen as Tom recounts his formative years in Berkeley, takes us behind the scenes at the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, and shares first-hand stories about crafting constitutions from Mongolia to Honduras. His unique world view will expand listeners' perspectives beyond western approaches. As the balance of power between democracies and authoritarian regimes continues to shift in the twenty-first century, issues of human rights, the scope of cooperation across governments, and the comparative concepts covered in Episode Six of Borderlines will impact citizens of virtually every nation. Borderlines from Berkeley Law is a podcast about global problems in a world fragmented by national borders. Our host is Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of International Law and co-director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Digital Markets Act will regulate tech giants through a unique “gatekeeper” scheme. The Act imposes antitrust obligations only on the market's largest actors – predominantly American companies. Is this fair? Will it work?In this special episode of Borderlines, listen to Margrethe Vestager, Europe's top competition regulator and the policymaker Silicon Valley fears most, discuss the bill at the 2022 Riesenfeld Symposium at Berkeley Law School. Professor Anu Bradford of Columbia Law School, one of the nation's leading antitrust experts, offers additional insight and perspective. Margrethe Vestager is the European Commissioner for Competition and the architect of the Digital Markets Act. She has led high-profile enforcement action against major tech companies for violating EU competition law. Professor Anu Bradford is an expert on EU law and global antitrust law. She is the author of The Brussels Effect. In her new book, The Battle for the Soul of the Digital Economy, she offers a comparative approach to internet regulation.For more insights from the Riesenfeld Symposium, including the Chinese angle on tech giants and competition law, from Professor Angela Zhang of Hong Kong University, visit the Berkeley Law YouTube Channel.Borderlines from Berkeley Law is a podcast about global problems in a world fragmented by national borders. Our host is Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of International Law and co-director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. In each episode of Borderlines, Professor Linos invites three experts to discuss cutting edge issues in international law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The span of government programs sound great in theory, but the execution is such that it's difficult for regular people to get their benefits. Economic, technological and access are all factors in the difficulty of program benefits to people. While the internet has changed the way people interact with government, perhaps less technological solutions can be part of the ways the public interacts with bureaucracy. Dr. Katerina Linos is Professor of Law at UC Berkeley and Co-Director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. Her research focuses on international law, comparative law, European Union law, employment law and migration law. She's a co-author of a piece headlined “To Get People the Help They Need from the Government, Postcards May Be the Answer .” She joined the show to discuss administrative burdens and customer service in government.

Dick Buxbaum's life and work are legendary far beyond his home base at UC Berkeley Law School, where he's been a member of the faculty, a brilliant scholar of comparative corporate law, and a mentor since 1961. Listeners will relish accounts about key twentieth-century figures – from Nabokov to Savio to Suharto – and stories told from Dick's unique perspective defending free-speech protesters, anti-Vietnam war activists, Third-World student strikers and advocates of affirmative action. Reflections on escaping Hitler's Germany as a child refugee, growing up in the village serving the Akwesasne Reservation of the Mohawk Nation, practicing cross-border diplomacy during the Cold War, and on the importance of sense of place in an atomized world round out the timely lessons of this special episode of Borderlines. Episode Four of Borderlines showcases a candid conversation with Dick Buxbaum, sharing his wisdom, internationalism, and Renaissance outlook with legions of fans old and new alike.Borderlines from Berkeley Law is a podcast about global problems in a world fragmented by national borders. Our host is Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of International Law and co-director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. In each episode of Borderlines, Professor Linos invites three experts to discuss cutting edge issues in international law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thousands of non-binding agreements are shrouded in secrecy. A handful of publicly debated agreements - the Paris Climate Accords, the Iran Nuclear Deal or the Global Tax treaty – were made non-binding precisely to avoid a vote in Congress. Chicago Professor Curt Bradley, Harvard Professor Jack Goldsmith and Yale Professor Oona Hathaway sued the departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security to find out what else the executive branch, and its many agencies, have negotiated. In comprehensive empirical work, they explain why greater transparency and accountability is needed not only for binding executive agreements, but also for non-bindings. For example, Congress does not know what exactly the Trump administration agreed with the governments of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador in agreements that likely dump responsibility for refugees on weak states.Non-binding agreements are on the rise globally, and greatly influence how states act. We should reorient international law scholarship and teaching to pay greater attention to this under-explored tool.Borderlines from Berkeley Law is a podcast about global problems in a world fragmented by national borders. Our host is Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of International Law and co-director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. In each episode of Borderlines, Professor Linos invites three experts to discuss cutting edge issues in international law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The US welcomes refugees from Afghanistan but turns away Haitians. Why? Debating how best to share responsibilities for refugees, UCLA professor Tendayi Achiume argues that empires owe special duties to former colonies; Temple Professor Jaya Ramji-Nogales explains the special rules following the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan; while Berkeley professor Seth Davis contrasts how different US states, notably Texas and California, respond. We discussed Title 42 – a controversial public health tool used to close the Southern border, and discussed how climate change calls for a new response to mass migration, as a new White House report emphasizes. We also compared regional solutions, including solutions that can be fairly called responsibility sharing, and others that resemble responsibility dumping. For more details, stay tuned for a special spring 2022 symposium issue of the California Law Review featuring many perspectives on refugee responsibility sharing.Borderlines from Berkeley Law is a show about global problems in a world fragmented by national borders. Our host is Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of International Law and co-director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. In each episode of Borderlines, Professor Linos invites three experts to discuss cutting edge issues in international law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How did Apple manage to pay an effective tax of 0% on its European profits? Will the new global minimum tax agreement change this? Duke Professor Rachel Brewster explains how corporate families are structured to take advantage of different countries' laws; Chicago professor Adam Chilton empirically explores the regulation of supply chains; while Berkeley Professor Stavros Gadinis explains why progressives and conservatives alike call for sustainability in corporate governance.In this episode of Borderlines, we discuss successful global coordination efforts, such as the spread of anti-corruption efforts from the US to the world, as well as harmonization in accounting standards. But we also debate the major costs of a global economy structured around the free flow of capital, and regulation that ends at the national border. Borderlines from Berkeley Law is a podcast about global problems in a world fragmented by national borders. Our host is Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of International Law and co-director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. In each episode of Borderlines, Professor Linos invites three experts to discuss cutting edge issues in international law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Introducing Borderlines from Berkeley Law, a show about global problems in a world fragmented by national borders. Our host is Katerina Linos, Tragen Professor of International Law and co-director of the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law. Katerina has spent 15 years researching how nations make war with one another, spreading devastation. But she has also seen how countries work together to build global institutions and learn from one another. She has met brilliant scholars, visionary leaders, brave advocates, and Machiavellian strategists. In each episode of Borderlines, Professor Linos invites three experts to discuss cutting edge issues in international law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Host, Stephen Wood and Dr Anne Pringle, a mycologist and botanist, tell the story of the Amanita Phalloides mushroom. This is not a mushroom native to the United States, but it has found its way there in an unsuspecting way, cork trees. These cork trees were imported for use by California wineries but they had a stowaway, the Amanita Phalloides or death cap mushroom. Death caps are toxic mushrooms that kill both humans as well as domestic pets when consumed. These toxic mushrooms resemble several edible species (most notably Caesar's mushroom and the straw mushroom) commonly consumed by humans, increasing the risk of accidental poisoning. Amatoxins, the class of toxins found in these mushrooms, are thermostable: and thus they resist changes due to heat, which means their toxic effects are not reduced by cooking. Signs and symptoms start with an initially self-limiting gastrointestinal illness, that later can result in liver and renal failure and death. The conversation led to a discussion on how to safely collect mushrooms as well as resources to help medical providers and gatherers alike to identify mushrooms. Just as important was a discussion on how we as healthcare providers and environmentalists can prevent invasive species infestations through local action. Mushroom Observer:  https://mushroomobserver.org/ iNat:  https://www.inaturalist.org/ Mushroom Expert:  https://www.mushroomexpert.com/ Guest Bio: Anne Pringle was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and spent her childhood travelling through Southeast Asia and West Africa. After being dragged along on one too many birding expeditions, she abandoned the birds for fungi. She was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, and then completed a PhD in Botany and Genetics at Duke University. After completing a Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, she joined the faculty at Harvard University. She next moved to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she is now Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Departments of Botany and Bacteriology. Anne has given over 100 invited talks to academic and popular audiences in countries including China, Colombia, France, Singapore, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. She has been awarded the Alexopoulos Prize for a Distinguished Early Career Mycologist (2010), the Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award from the Harvard University Graduate Student Council (2011), the Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching from Harvard University (2013), and a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship (2011-2012). Her research has been featured by the New York Times, National Public Radio, Slate, and the Wisconsin State Journal, among others. In 2019, Anne was elected President of the Mycological Society of America.

Check out our Sponsors Butcher Box: Get ready for BBQ season with FREE grass-fed beef and free-range organic chicken. Sign up today at butcherbox.com/impact and get 2 NY strip steaks, 6 burgers, and 5 lbs of drumsticks for FREE in your first box. Taft: Visit taftclothing.com and use code IT10 for 10% off your order of any full priced boot, shoe, or sneaker purchase. ShipStation: Get 2 months FREE at ShipStation.com Click on the microphone at the top of the page and type in IMPACT Checkout.com: Learn more at Checkout.com/impact We live in a universe filled with awe and wonderment so much so that scientists of all disciplines have been exploring the world around us for hundreds of years. Although we have made great advances there is still an immeasurable gap in what there is left to discover. Alex Filippenko joins we today to share his vast knowledge as an astrophysicist that has been exploring fundamental physics, black holes, galaxies and more for over 40 years. He breaks down quantum entanglement and the expanding universe and a way that is digestible for nearly everyone.   SHOW NOTES: Star-stuff | Alex shares what people should understand about coming from “star-stuff” [3:07] Contribution & Purpose  | Alex on meaning and contributing to understanding the universe [5:54] Theory | What a good model of theory is and why an ultimate theory may never exist [12:46] Spinoza’s God | Alex speculates what Einstein meant by God in relation to theory [15:31] Expanding Universe | Alex demonstrates what it is to simplify the 4th dimension visually [18:57] Gravity | Why gravity is the weakest of all forces & how it may explain multiple universes [27:46] Black Holes | Speculation of being ripped apart on squeezed singularity and possibilities [31:53] Negative Mass | Making sense of mathematical solutions that appear to be unphysical [42:29] Open Minded | Alex shares why staying open minded is essential and avoiding the trap [50:35] Spooky Action | Alex breaks down quantum entanglement that Einstein called spook action at a distance [55:35] Richard Fineman | Alex shares Fineman’s intuitive view of nature & theory [1:01:04] Always Learning | Alex on educational opportunity and learning as much as possible [1:05:16] Quantum Entanglement | Information traveling faster than the speed of light [1:08:28] Novel Insights | Tom & Alex discuss areas of overlap that creates novel insights [1:16:56] Quality of Life | Alex on quality of time and what you do with your time not stagnate [1:23:18] Into The Future | Alex on the future of humanity, space exploration, life on Mars [1:26:12] Life On Mars | Considering life on Mars and human nature for exploration [1:30:22] Inhabiting Other Planets | Alex on how we could use robots to get humans farther out [1:38:33] Immortality | The possibility of immortality recreating consciousness with computers [1:45:29] Solar Eclipse | Alex warns of the next total solar eclipse coming April 8, 2024 [1:50:39] Aliens |  [1:54:47]   QUOTES: “In a sense, we are the way in which the universe has found to know itself.” [5:30]   “Work hard at maintaining an open mind so you don't get fossilized, so you don't get set in your ways.” [51:59] “If you ever feel comfortable with quantum physics, it probably means you haven't thought about it sufficiently” [1:00:21] “But one of the great things about homosapiens is that we embrace technical challenges. We go for it, we climb the mountain because it's there, first because it's interesting, but secondly, because it ends up having unanticipated spin offs.” [1:14:26]   “to have novel insights, I've just got to take in data that I can't yet predict how it's going to be useful.” Tom Bilyeu [1:17:33] “as physicists, as scientists, initially, we come across these new ideas, quantum entanglement, and you have to just struggle with them and work hard on them and approach them from different perspectives. It's not going to be easy, but good things are hard to do and hard things are good to do.” [1:19:26] “it's the quality of the time that you live. That's actually more important than the duration” [1:23:29]   “You can't just say there are a lot of stars out there, and surely they're teaming with life. There are a lot of factors that lead to life, and then intelligence and mechanical ability at our level. And I think they're fairly rare. I don't think we're unique, but I think they're pretty rare.” [1:56:11]   Follow Alex Filippenko: Website: https://astro.berkeley.edu/people/alex-filippenko/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-filippenko-a35520a1/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alex.filippenko Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/filippenkoalex/   Guest Bio: Alex Filippenko is a Richard & Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Physical Sciences, and a Miller Senior Fellow in the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science (UC Berkeley). His accomplishments, documented in about 960 research papers, have been recognized by several major prizes, including a share of both the Gruber Cosmology Prize (2007) [...] In 2017, he was selected for the Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award. He has won the most prestigious teaching awards at UC Berkeley and has also been voted the “Best Professor” on campus a record 9 times… SOURCE: https://astro.berkeley.edu/people/alex-filippenko/      

Shooting Spores: Understand the Physics of the Most Amazing Apparatuses on Earth Presented by Anne Pringle, PhD Fungi use spores to move between habitats and spore dispersal is critical to their success. Fungi use an astonishing array of apparatuses and strategies to move their progeny: sacs filled with fluid that explode like water balloons, collapsing drops of liquid, and winds created by the cooperative release of hundreds of thousands of their spores. Fungi may even sense impending thunderstorms and use their updrafts to disperse longer distances. I’ll talk about all of this amazing biology and try and convince you that fungi actively manipulate the fates of their spores, a contrast to the perception of spore release as entirely passive. Anne Pringle was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and spent her childhood traveling through Southeast Asia and West Africa. After being dragged along on one-too-many birding expeditions, she abandoned the birds for fungi. She was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, and then completed a Ph.D. in Botany and Genetics at Duke University. After completing a Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, she joined the faculty at Harvard University. She next moved to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she is now Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Departments of Botany and Bacteriology. She has been awarded the Alexopoulos Prize for a Distinguished Early Career Mycologist (2010), the Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award from the Harvard University Graduate Student Council (2011), the Fannie Cox Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching from Harvard University (2013), and a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship (2011-2012). IllinoisMyco.org Recorded via Zoom on April 5, 2021

SPEAKERS Alex Filippenko Richard & Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Physical Sciences, Miller Senior Fellow in the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, and Professor of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley; Co-Author, The Cosmos: Astronomy in the New Millennium George Hammond Author, Conversations With Socrates In response to the Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak, this program took place and was recorded live via video conference, for an online audience only, and was live-streamed from The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on May 13th, 2020.

We have had the first death of an American who was infected by the Coronavirus in China. On Valentine’s Day in 1911 the US Patent office awarded the patent to Browning for their 1911 pistol. Will there be executive orders for the Coronavirus and the quarantine situations taking place for the Coronavirus. Things you didn’t know about Audie Murphy. Turkish authorities believe a Saudi journalist was murdered after going missing a few days ago. A scientist revealed confidential information in an application to the Miller Institute at UC Berkeley in the 1960s. The case of the missing Sandringham’s.

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Ambika Kamath, a behavioral ecologist and a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, about her undergraduate research and how to make value-based career decisions.  Ambika is originally from India and gained her B.A. in Biology at Amherst College in 2011. She received the Schupf Scholarship at Amherst which provided unlimited funding for her independent research on the evolution of flower morphology. She completed her Ph.D. at Harvard University studying the behavioral ecology of lizards. As a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, she received a Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship. Earlier this year she was awarded the 2019 American Society of Naturalists’ Young Investigator Award.  In this episode, we discuss her publication, “Floral size and shape evolution following the transition to gender dimorphism” which was the outcome of her undergraduate research. She shares how her interest in mathematics led her to ecology, how much she enjoyed the fieldwork, and statistics behind the paper.  Picking her graduate school was not a ‘no brainer decision’ so she talked to her supervisors, and made a list of things that she wanted before even having opportunities. This proactive decision system - instead of a reactive one - helped her choosing her graduate school and deciding to continue in academia as a postdoc.  Ambika also talks about how helpful therapy was in her last year of graduate school and she shares some of the values she used when deciding to pursue a postdoc. We discuss how ‘sitting with your feelings’ is probably the best advice to everyone deciding on their career choices - it is hard to formulate general advice for everyone but list making is a great first step! Finally, Ambika shares some advice for established researchers who want to encourage trainees to stay in science. We leave you with the best advice she has ever received: "You are really good at being you, and you've gotten to where you are by being you. Just keep being you, there's no reason to stop now." A transcript of this episode generously provided by Joe Stormer can be found here: bit.ly/S4E1_TaprootTranscript SHOW NOTES: Paper: Kamath, A., Levin, R.A. and Miller, J.S., 2017. Floral size and shape evolution following the transition to gender dimorphism. American Journal of Botany, 104(3), pp.451-460. https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3732/ajb.1600442 Ambika’s blog: https://ambikamath.wordpress.com/blog/ @ambikamath @ehaswell @baxtertwi @taprootpodcast #TaprootTuesday

Host James Strock discusses black holes and the future of space exploration with noted astronomer and educator Alex Filippenko. Dr. Filippenko is the Richard & Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Physical Sciences, and a Miller Senior Fellow in the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science (UC Berkeley). His accomplishments, documented in about 930 […]

Entry Points Episode 3 - Ingrid Schaffner And The Carnegie International by Miller Institute for Contemporary Art at Carnegie Mellon University

Alison Tanker explains the path that led her to the Assistant Director position at the Miller Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at Hawken School. She explains how she discovered that entrepreneurship can be empowering while working with social enterprises in the United States, the U.K., Latin America and the Caribbean.

Tim Desmond explains the path that led him to the Assistant Director position at the Miller Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at Hawken School. He explains how being a risk-taker and divergent thinker led to his epiphany of “learning by doing.” Tim discusses the role of writing in the class and how he strives to improve students’ communication skills in a changed world.

Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law Conference PROTECTION ELSEWHERE, BUT WHERE? National, Regional and Global Perspectives on Refugee Law 20 November 2015 Session 2: International comparisons Chaired by Andrew Kaldor AM, Kaldor Centre Founder Comparative regional frameworks - Professor Kate Jastram, Executive Director, Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law, Berkeley Law, University of California Detention of asylum seekers and the Israeli High Court of Justice: The absent–present 1951 Refugee Convention - Dr Ruvi Ziegler, School of Law, University of Reading Order out of chaos? Seeking refuge and solidarity in Europe - Emeritus Professor Guy S Goodwin-Gill, University of Oxford

Ed Feng discuss his algorithm, The Power Rank, for forecasting the outcome of sporting events. As a Miller Fellow, he studied statistical physics. We explore his path from academia to Silicon Valley start up and sports analytics.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists. Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Rick Karnofsky. Brad swift and I are the hosts of today's show. Today we're talking to Dr Ed thing. I met Ed when he worked at Sandia national labs prior to this. Ed earned his phd from Stanford and then became a Miller fellow at UC Berkeley. His research [00:01:00] has focused on statistical mechanics and single molecule experiments, but I've asked him on today because the big game is tomorrow. I'd left his job at San Diego to become a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. He runs the power rank.com which algorithmically ranks sports teams and predicts the outcome of future games. He'll discuss sports analytics with us. Can you give us an overview of that ad? Speaker 4: My background is in a field called statistical physics, so statistical physics is the study of large scale properties of bulk matter based on [00:01:30] it's small scale units. So for instance, in, in a physical system that, that I would study, you can, the large scale property would be like the pressure of a gas or the temperature of a gas and that gas would be made up of atoms or molecules. So those would be the units. I was here at Berkeley and we actually studied a single molecule experiments. And so these are these pretty amazing experiments where you take a laser and grab onto the end of a molecule. So for instance, [00:02:00] like a DNA molecule can grab onto both ends and you can stretch it, pull it, do whatever you want to it. And so these are some really amazing experiments going on in the physics department. Speaker 4: And my work here was doing some theory and some math and some computer simulations to understand those experiments. At some point I got a little disgruntled with the academic life and started looking for some other jobs and I had an interview lined up with Google. And so I thought I should do some homework. I researched their, their pagerank algorithm. So, so this is the [00:02:30] algorithm that that made Google. Okay. So it essentially ranks all web pages. And the intuitive idea behind it is that a website should be ranked highly if other highly ranked websites point to it or link to it. Okay. So you're essentially using the link structure of the web to make a ranking of all websites. And it's really elegant because it considers the whole link structure of the web, not just kind of the local link structure around your particular website. Speaker 4: And again, it's a perfect example of statistical physics. So here [00:03:00] are the large scale properties are the overall rankings of all the websites. And then the small scale units are the individual websites. There are these amazing parallels between statistical physics or what I've been studying. And then patriot. So anyways, I got super excited about this, went to my interview and said, Hey, you know, I'm really excited about working for Google because this is what I've been doing for the last eight years of my life, you know? And, and my interviewer was like, uh, okay. [00:03:30] So needless to say, I did not get the job, but it sparked some ideas about how I could use page rank to do other things, maybe more important things like rank sports teams and figuring out college football and, and things like that. So, so some ideas brewed in my head and it's okay to do it about a couple of years ago, so this was about 2008 so that's how this all got started. Speaker 4: What kind of modifications have you had to make to the page rank algorithm to actually make it work for sports? So it turns out that [00:04:00] pagerank actually doesn't work for sports [inaudible] you can show that it does not have some properties that you would like. Uh, I was carpooling to the national lab over in Livermore with, with a guy named David Gleich and I was telling him about this hobby that I had on the side and Oh, I applied page rank to sports and most people are like, oh cool. But they was like, it seemed completely disinterested. And the reason was because he had actually written his phd thesis [00:04:30] on page rank, so he was entirely on impressed that, you know, it's like, oh, of course you can apply it to sports. And then he was telling me about this paper that they were showing that you you can't, you can't actually apply to sports. Speaker 4: It doesn't have some properties that you need. And I can't really describe all the math on the air. Probably not feasible, but you need to, you need to modify the links in an inappropriate way such that I worked for two teams that are playing a game that end up with a final score. And are those modifications the same regardless [00:05:00] of the sport or the League that the sport is in? Maybe I should go back a sec. So the power rank not only gives you a rank of all the teams, but it also gives you a number. So we call this like a rating 14 that rating is in the unit of points. Okay. So when the, the algorithm gives you a prediction in the sense that if you take the ratings of two teams and subtract them, you get a predictive point spread for a future game. Speaker 4: So one of the modifications that you have to make is you have to make a link, you know like a one [00:05:30] zero kind of link. Makes sense in terms of points. Okay. And in order to do that you need to put some non linear behavior in there. The paper is actually super interesting because it says, oh well page rank doesn't work for ranking sports teams. And then it goes on to make the conclusion that some of the algorithms that go into determining a national champion and football are good, which is about the only place that you'll ever hear any type of praise for these algorithms. Cause most people can't stand because they're, they're these mythical computer algorithms that [00:06:00] no one knows much about and they help determine the national championship. And I know one that roots for the third place team and at the end of the season is really happy with that, that type of situation. Speaker 4: But these people are saying, Hey, well these algorithms are actually good. They work better than page rank. And so David was complaining was like, well, you know, don't just say page rank is wrong. Like fix it, you know, fix it and make it work for sports. And I was like, well that's actually what I did with the power rank. So there are these modifications [00:06:30] that that, you know, take a one zero link structure and make it work for points. And that works across all sports because there's a, there's a point structure for all sports, right? A goal is a goal. Beyond that, uh, there are some other things that you can do to make it much more sports-specific. One of the problems with kind of promoting any ranking system in college football, um, which is kind of my primary focus is that, oh, well, it's just like these silly rankings that determine the national championship. Speaker 4: So right now it's a listing of teams and [00:07:00] it looks like every other of 50 to a hundred people that have tried to rank college football teams with their ideas in math and physics or whatever they're doing stats. You know, I'm a fan and I actually care about these rankings and I want to go a little bit beyond. So I'm looking at how to separate the offense and the defense. So right now you'll hear a lot about, oh well Oregon has the nation's top scoring office. Okay, well does it matter that they played a bunch of crummy defenses last year? And a lot of people, you know [00:07:30] the people, people talk about strength this schedule cause it matters. So they talk about it when like, oh well you know Oregon, uh, so, so Auburn went undefeated last year and that's good because they played a very hard schedule, right? And so they talk about it then they quote these stats that are completely independent of strength, this schedule. So, for instance, Oregon I think scored 43 point whatever points their offense last year, but it doesn't account for who they played and whether pack 10 defenses were bad. And so I'm trying to use the algorithm to [00:08:00] separate out the offenses and defenses and really kind of give insight to each of the units. Speaker 2: [inaudible] you're listening to spectrum on calyx Berkeley, we're talking with sports analytics expert Ed thing about the powering [inaudible] dot com [inaudible] Speaker 4: [00:08:30] kind of the end goal for a lot of things I'm doing with college football is to not just break down on offense and defense, but break down a passing, rushing and then special teams. And then that's where I think it gets really interesting to your offensive coordinator. Where do you your data? Oh, I get my data from Yahoo. So I just saw publicly the level, everything I [00:09:00] have is publicly available. Um, at some point that might end, but oh, I'm still at a point where I have all the data I need and I need to analyze it. Speaker 4: How successful is your app Algorithm? Well, pretty good. So it's a work in progress. You know, I don't want to go on the air with these very smart people that listen to the show and tell them about the 34 ball games last year that we beat the line of 55% [00:09:30] because you guys will know that that's a really small sample size for the 60% that we'd beat the line last year, uh, or two years ago with the college football ball games. So I've looked at the NFL for the last five years with the kind of rudimentary version of the algorithm that I have right now without any of the offense and defensive modifications. It's beating the line at about 52% so that's a not enough to make money, but the house has a take and so you have to win it about 52.4% in order to make money. Speaker 4: [00:10:00] But you also have to consider that this algorithm does not account for injuries, does not account for coaches that sit their players the last week of the season. Um, any one of the number of things, the rate gets higher in the playoffs. I think it was about 55%. Again, small sample size. So I'm not going to tell you guys that that's anything significant. On other result, we have a, we looked at the last four years of the NBA. It wasn't as good in predicting the outcome of results against the line. Uh, so it was about 51%. [00:10:30] Why do you think that was? So I think it's because of the, how you file at the end of games. Um, I need to look into this more. Um, because we actually saw some stellar results in the NCAA tournament. Um, so actually all neutral site post-season basketball, college basketball games last year we beat it at 59%, which is good. Speaker 4: And then you can get super excited about that. But then you look at over 2000 NBA Games and it's not quite doing as well. So [00:11:00] at the end of a basketball game, you foul because you're behind, you need to get the ball back in order to score. And that behavior is, is a, is detrimental to your final expected score. Okay. So usually a team's score is about a point every time they get the ball. When you fall, you're giving them two shots and usually a team hits about 75% of their foul shots. And so you're essentially giving a point and a half every time you fall. So if you fall three times at the end of the game, you're making a 2.12 point swing. That can certainly affect the outcome of the line. [00:11:30] But in the NBA, uh, we did predict winners at a rate of 70% and that in and of itself doesn't tell you much because that's, you know, the rate at which you can predict winners is very related to how competitive the League is.Speaker 4: Okay. So if the league is not very competitive, you're going to be able to come pick, predict a higher rate of winners because you know, cows going to be Presbyterian. But the NBA, that's not so much. So we actually looked at the line for those same set of games and they were predicting it. Um, [00:12:00] 70.8%. So just using the final scores in the NBA over the last four years where within a percentage point of what the line predicts for the actual game winners in the game. So about 70%, and that's within the air of what you would expect. So, so the two results are within the same air. The MBA, you have a big advantage because you have a lot of games, you do not have that luxury in college football. And so a lot of my work in the future will be figuring out other things to, [00:12:30] to make it work better with college football. Speaker 4: Have you bet. Have you placed bets based on your algorithm? I have. Um, so I was in Vegas for a wedding last April and uh, put some bets down on the NBA playoffs, uh, did pretty well. I know I didn't do, I came out ahead, which is I think is a lot more than most people can, uh, can say, uh, when they go to Vegas. And have you ever thought about trying to make a simulation? Yeah, absolutely. [00:13:00] So the idea of doing a simulation is of baseball is very old. I think the first paper was in the 70s and it's not, you know, these are the types of things that I was trained to do, right? So you write a stochastic simulation or you don't finish your phd. Right. Um, so, so it's kind of in the statistical physics world, it's just kind of what you do. You know, it's kind of like selling wood if you're a carpenter and it absolutely has applications in baseball. [00:13:30] So I kind of would have thought that it would be everywhere in the baseball world. It's not. And the reason, you know, I was reading a bunch of baseball stuff and you always see comments like, oh, well the Atlanta Braves might lose Brian McCann for a couple of weeks and it's going to decrease their run production. And the relationship might not be linear. Speaker 4: And I think, well yeah, sure, you're probably right, [00:14:00] but you should just run a stochastic simulation. You should be able to figure that out. At least at a core screening level. It's certainly not out there in the media world that the idea is out there, but none of kind of the baseball analytics sites do it. Or at least they don't discuss it very widely. At least not that I know of. And interestingly, only four out of 30 major league baseball teams can do it, which is what I find really interesting because [00:14:30] you know, these guys are pretty advanced. They have these huge databases. Actually the Pittsburgh pirates have an enormous database when the most sophisticated databases and all the major league baseball. But there's a lot of old tools and you know, these guys are busy and they've never developed these kinds of tools and there are opportunities, I think, you know, I mean I've actually talked to people in organizations, in organizations that would like to have that. Speaker 4: It's certainly something that you could I see on the powering maybe next season. And then just let me, uh, actually conclude. So this whole idea of [00:15:00] a random process is actually at the core of both page rank and the power. Right. Okay. The backbone of that is mathematical idea of a mark out process. So it's essentially random. That's the idea that Pedro is based off of. It's a, it's a distribution that comes out of this type of, of random simulation. And so they always motivate it by the, you know, the intuitive result of [inaudible] page rank is as the random surfer. So you have a surfer, you go to website, you randomly could come one of the other sites and he keeps doing this [00:15:30] and the amount of time he spends on any site is that related directly related to the directly proportional to the rank of that website. Speaker 4: And so the same idea applies to my algorithm. It's a, essentially you have a fan, I like to call them fickle Freddy [inaudible]. He starts out being a Phillies fan and then he's like, Eh, I don't like these guys anymore because they keep losing. And so then he picks one of the teams that they lost to makes it random choice between all the seams and jumps and [00:16:00] then keeps doing this randomly. And so intuitively you can think of the algorithm in terms of this fickle fan that keeps making these jumps between teams and he's more likely to jump to your team if you've beaten that team, if you'd beaten that other team that he's already on. And this goes on forever. And the more that fickle Freddy is a fan of your team, the higher your rank. And so that's kind of the intuitive idea behind what's going on here. Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 3: [00:16:30] you're listening to spectrum on K A L X we're talking to with the sports analytics expert Ed thing about his site, the power rank.com and what he predicts tomorrow for the big game Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 4: [00:17:00] So one of my colleagues, his name is Steve Abel, he's, he's working on his postdoc and he, we did our phd in the same group and he always says that [inaudible] or statistical physics applies to everything. And it's essentially that, you know, we're studying the large scale bulk properties of things that are made up of individual units. You know, one day he told me, he's like, Hey, this whole power rank thing, you're actually proving that likes that neck applies to everything. I wonder are they [00:17:30] uh, interesting facts about this show is that it's prerecorded and edited so well will air immediately before the big game. It's still quite a ways out. But do you want to make any comments? I absolutely want to make some comments. I think it's, I think it's super interesting. So let's start last night. So cal went up to Oregon. No, a lot of my methods said that Oregon was the better team, but that they would lose by about 19. Speaker 4: And the line said that Oregon would win by 24. So [00:18:00] it's quite a discrepancy. There's a lot of factors there. Went up there and you know, we knew, we kinda knew that their defense, it dropped off a little bit, but Oregon really took advantage of that. Had a couple of really long runs that they didn't dream of last year when they came down here to Strawberry Canyon. [inaudible] was in the game. They were up one at half time. And then the wheels kind of fell off in the second half and they ended up losing by 28 so we're going ended up covering, that's part of this business. You're wrong a lot. But I thought it was interesting because these are the types of things I think about because Kelly's defense really played badly. I mean there was, there was about maybe [00:18:30] three runs, a 50 yards or more that went for touchdowns. Speaker 4: The quarterback sack Maynard did not have his greatest game. You know, he threw a touchdown pass in the first half but wasn't very effective in the second half at all. And I actually got pulled towards the end of the game. So now getting to big game, my rankings have Oregon and Stanford about the same right now. A little bit different. Stanford slightly ahead. But again, you know there are huge fluctuations. Okay. So I think the rankings probably would have held for the last season too. So it's by maybe about a 20 point cap, but Stanford won the game pretty soundly last year [00:19:00] and that happens with turnovers and you just never know what's going to happen. You know, the cow's defense is much better than they showed last night at Oregon. Maynard's probably a much better quarterback than he showed last night. And you know, they have some weapon. Kyle definitely have some weapons at receivers that are, that are very dangerous. It's interesting that sports fans tend to forget very quickly. So a lot of Stanford fans are very excited about their team as they, as they rightfully should be. And they kind of forget that. Two years ago cal came down to Stanford quarterback sensation. Andrew [00:19:30] luck had his worst game of his career and cal won again. So there's a lot of variants in sports. Anything can happen, Stanford will most likely win, but you never know. Speaker 4: You know, the best background to understand sports turned out to be studying statistical physics. I mean it was great. It was perfect. So Ed, thanks for joining us. Thank you guys for having me. It was a pleasure. Speaker 2: [inaudible] [00:20:00] that was Ed Fang. You can visit his website@wwwdotthepowerrank.com Speaker 3: a regular feature of spectrum is to present a calendar of the science and technology related events happening in the bay area over the next few weeks. Brad Swift joins me for this. I'm happy to announce that the cabinet space and science center at 10,000 Skyline Boulevard in Oakland is joining the list [00:20:30] of museums that are offering adult nights. Cabot will host such an outing the third Friday of every month this month. That is today, November 18th from seven to 11:00 PM the event is 18 and over and costs $15 this is a bit cheaper than general admission. This includes access to exhibits, special activities, workshops, open labs, discussion forums, a planetarium show, film screens, and a telescope viewing when weather permits. The theme for this month is curiosity, a cure for [00:21:00] boredom or NASA's next generation rover searching for water and signs of life on Mars, capita, astronomer Ben. Burris will host a discussion on the rover and UC Berkeley's. Dan Wertheimer will discuss the search for ITI. There'll be a fix it clinic for your broken something or others at a telescope makers workshop and a lab on surviving in space. Visit www dot Cabot's space.org/night school dot HTM for more information. Speaker 5: The next science at cal lecture [00:21:30] will be given at 11:00 AM tomorrow, November 19th in the genetics and plant biology building room 100 the talk will be given by Dr Genevieve graves and is entitled from gas into galaxies. Just add gravity. Come learn about the origins and the ultimate fate of this island universe we call the Milky Way. Dr Genevieve graves studies the formation histories of galaxies, how they form stars collide and merge together to make [00:22:00] bigger galaxies and eventually shut off star formation. Dr. Graves is a bay area local, having graduated from Albany High School in 1997 after undergraduate work at Harvard and Cambridge, she returned to California to do a phd in astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz. She is now a fellow at UC Berkeley's Miller Institute for Basic Research in science, Speaker 3: Internet Archive, founder Booster Kale is giving a talk to the long now foundation on universal access to [00:22:30] all knowledge. He will discuss the next steps for the archive such as whether we can make a distributed web of books that supports lending and vending and how our machines might learn by reading these materials. Modern research into machine language translation and optical character recognition will be discussed as well. How we plan to preserve petabytes of changing data. This talk is on Wednesday, November 30th from seven 30 to 9:00 PM at the cal theater in San Francisco's Fort Mason. Center admission [00:23:00] is $8 and 71 cents for tickets. Please visit [inaudible] dot org slash seminars the exploratorium is after dark falls on the first Thursday of every month from six to 10:00 PM for people 18 and over. It is $15 or $12 for students, seniors and persons with disabilities and is free for exploratory members. The theme for December is after dark is glow. In addition to the hands on science exhibits available at the exploratorium. There'll be information on bioluminescent marine life, how to make glow sticks, [00:23:30] black lit, fluorescent cocktails for purchase, and more. There will be illuminated sculptures including local favorite playa flies by Michael Brown and Cuba tron by Mark Lotter. Visit www.exploratorium.edu/after dark for more Info Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 5: you are listening to spectrum on k a l x Speaker 2: Berkeley [inaudible] Speaker 3: [00:24:00] with some current science news headlines. Here's bad swift, Speaker 5: a Russian Soyuz capsule, so use TMA 22 carrying an American and two Russians blasted off successfully Monday, November 14th from Kazakhstan on a mission to the international space station. It is the first flight of a NASA astronaut in the post space shuttle era [00:24:30] and as a welcome success for the Russian space program, a series of Russian launch system failures over the past four months has delayed the international space station staff rotation, raising the possibility of no crew on the space station. Last week, a Russian Mars probe failed to leave Earth's orbit. It is expected to burn up in the atmosphere by November 26 unless it can be reactivated in August. Then unmanned progress cargo ship [00:25:00] bound for the International Space Station crashed. The rocket that failed was the same kind used by the Soyuz, the NASA program to contract future International Space Station cargo and crew transport from two US companies space x and orbital has ironically been delayed by the reliability issues surrounding the Soyuz system. Space X is awaiting permission from the International Space Station partners to validate their system [00:25:30] by launching its falcon nine rocket and docking the dragon capsule when the International Space Station, the success of the recent Soyuz mission might accelerate the decision on the space x launch date. Speaker 3: Science news summarized an article by Edward Pos shouts of the Massachusetts General Hospital and fell asleep. Researchers that appeared in the November 8th issue of current biology. The team claimed they have for the first time used functional magnetic resonance imaging to capture the brain activity of [00:26:00] lucid dreamers. Lucid dreamers are able to control their dreams while in deep sleep. They ask dreamers to squeeze first their left hand and then the right hand, one of their six volunteers were able to do this and the FMR I revealed increased activity in their sensory motor cortex when they were directed to squeeze their hands. Similar brain regions showed activity whether the hand squeezing was performed while awake, imagined while awake or directed in a dream. Speaker 5: Coral reefs worldwide are increasingly disturbed by environmental [00:26:30] events that are causing their decline. Yet some coral reefs recover science daily reports that you see. Researchers have discovered that the health of coral reefs in the South Pacific of Moria in French Polynesia maybe due to protection by parrotfish and surgeonfish that eat algae along with the protection of reefs that shelter juvenile fish. The findings are published in the August issue of the journal plus one coral [00:27:00] reefs that suffer large losses of live coral often become overgrown with algae and never returned to a state where the reefs are again largely covered by live coral. In contrast, the reefs surrounding Maria experienced large losses of live coral in the past, most recently in the early 1980s and have returned each time to assist them dominated by healthy live corals. The new research found that fringing reefs, the reefs that grow against the island act as a nursery ground for baby fishes.Speaker 5: [00:27:30] Most notably herbivores, [inaudible] fishes with more food available in the form of allergy. The survivorship of the baby parrot fishes and surgeon fishes increased providing individuals to help control the algae on all the nearby reefs. In effect, the large numbers of parrot fishes and surgeon fishes are acting like thousands of fishy lawn mowers. Keeping the algae crop down to levels low enough that there is still space for new baby corals to settle into the reef [00:28:00] and begin to grow. A major reason the reefs in the Caribbean do not recover after serious disturbances is because these reefs lack healthy populations of pair of fishes and surgeon fishes due to the effects of over fishing without these species to help crop the algae down, these reefs quickly become overgrown. With allergy, a situation that makes it very hard for corals to reestablish themselves. The new research suggests that marine protected areas need to include the [00:28:30] fringing reefs that serve as nursery grounds. Without these nursery grounds, populations are pair of fishes in surgeon fishes can't respond to increasing amounts of algae on the reefs by outputting more baby herbivores. Speaker 1: [inaudible]Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 1: the music played during the show is written and performed by David lost time from his album titled Folk [00:29:00] and Acoustic Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: You're listening to spectrum. We are happy to hear from listeners. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Our email address is [inaudible] spectrum dot g a l s@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same time. Speaker 6: [00:29:30] [inaudible] [inaudible]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.