Fourth Annual Bay Area Science Festival: October 23-November 1, 2014

 

Fourth Annual Bay Area Science Festival: October 23-November 1, 2014

Over 50 Events Bring Together Region’s Science & Educational Leaders

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Media Contact: David Perry & Associates, Inc. / (415) 693-0583 / news@davidperry.com

22 September 2014 — SAN FRANCISCO: At four years of age, children really begin to explore the world around them: their intellectual universe becomes larger. So is the case with the Fourth Annual Bay Area Science Festival (www.bayareascience.org), presented by Chevron, taking place in venues throughout the Bay Area October 23 – November 1, having increased and expanded its focus with every year. Led by the UC San Francisco, the festival is comprised of over 50 events – most of them free – designed to showcase the region’s catalytic role in scientific progress and provide innovative opportunities to build community around science, technology and engineering.

“To plan the festival, we have brought together the Bay Area’s leading academic, scientific, corporate and nonprofit institutions with the collective aim of providing accessible science programming to every Bay Area resident,” said Kishore Hari, who joined UC San Francisco’s Science & Health Education Partnership program in November 2009 to lead the science festival. “By celebrating science in the same way we do for music and art, we hope to showcase how vital science is to Bay Area culture and help inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.”

Featuring more than 50 fun, interactive science and technology events at local venues from Santa Rosa to San Jose, the Bay Area Science Festival will include provocative lectures, hands-on activities, exhibitions, tours of cutting-edge facilities, and unique adult oriented science entertainment. Activities will include:

Explorer Days (various dates 10/24-10/30). Family Events. “Explorer Days” Tours beginning on Friday, October 24th are one of the highlights of the Fourth Annual Bay Area Science Festival. More than 20 scientist-guided behind-the-scenes tours of unique facilities allow participants to walk in the footsteps of today’s scientific innovators. From exploring the virtual world at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab to touring UC San Francisco’s parasite research lab to marveling at the engineering at UPS’ package sorting facility in San Francisco, these intimate tours are a must for budding scientists.

Nerd Nite Block Party (Friday, October 24, 6pm – 10pm): Adult event. We’re kicking off the Bay Area Science Festival by celebrating our nerdy side with the first ever Nerd Nite Block Party in SoMa. There will be a science rock music show headlined by local punk rock band “The Phenomenauts”, Nerd Speed Dating, “How It’s Made” Field trips showcasing local retail shops and craftsman, a free-to-play video gaming night with over 100 different games, and, of course, lots of science all in a 3-block radius!

Tested.com: The Show (Saturday, October 25, 1pm – 4pm) Family Event. Tested.com’s Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman, Will Smith, and Norman Chan bring to stage visions of the past, present, and future as seen through the eyes of makers. Enjoy an afternoon of fantastic homebrew projects, demonstrations of exciting new technologies, and conversations with makers about new frontiers of innovation. The show will also include a live recording of Adam Savage’s interview series The Talking Room, with a surprise guest. We promise to keep the explosions to a minimum.

Snap Judgment (October 25, 8:00pm, October 26, 3pm). Adult Event. NPR’s hit show Snap Judgment is back to electrify the Nourse Theater in San Francisco. The Oakland-based storytelling show is back with an ALL-NEW special performance created to explore “Breakthroughs” – those amazing moments of discovery. Led by Snap’s Glynn Washington, the world’s top storytellers are coming to rock the Snap stage…It’s “Storytelling, with a beat….” LIVE!

BAHFest: The Festival of Bad Hypotheses (Saturday, October 25, 7pm – 9pm): Family Event. The Festival of Bad Hypotheses — or “BAHFest” — at San Francisco’s iconic Castro Theatre is perhaps the wackiest and most fun event of the Fourth Annual Bay Area Science Festival. Six brave speakers will present well-argued, thoroughly researched but completely incorrect evolutionary theories in front of a live audience and a panel of esteemed scientist judges, who together will determine which speaker takes home the coveted sculpture of Darwin shrugging skeptically.

Triple CCRMAlite 40, 50, 80 Concert at Stanford (Sunday, October 26, 1:30pm – 4pm). Family Event. Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA, pronounced “karma”) has been on the scene of electronic and computer-generated sound, since, well, before there was a scene. We are proud in 2014 to be celebrating three important moments in the history of CCRMA and of computer music: founder John Chowning’s 80th birthday; the 50th anniversary of the first computer music program on campus (in the form of a stack of punch cards); and the 40th anniversary of CCRMA. Please join us for a Science Fair showcasing current student research, and a concert featuring works by John Chowning (including a première of a new piece), fellow computer music pioneer Jean-Claude Risset, and CCRMA alumni Kotoka Suzuki and Leah Reid.

Story Collider/Inquiring Minds (Tuesday, October 28, 7pm –10pm). Adult Event. The first original science storytelling podcast, the Story Collider, teams up with the popular science news and interview podcast, Inquiring Minds, for a special night. Inquiring Minds host/neuroscientist/opera singer Indre Viskontas sits down with special guest Mythbusters’ Adam Savage for a special live conversation. The Story Collider will present an evening of four true, personal stories about science. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes so bizarre you won’t believe what’s happening; they always find stories of the ways science intersects with people’s lives.

Creatures of the NightLife (Thursday, October 30, 6pm – 10pm) Adult Event (21+). The creatures come out at night as NightLife at the California Academy of Sciences partners with the Bay Area Science Festival for an evening of spine-tingling delight on Halloween. Discover the science and spectacle behind vampires, zombies and other creatures that go bump in the night. There will be special animal brain dissections, shocking tales from the Academy’s underwater expeditions to the “Twilight Zone”, and guided explorations of human brains with UC San Francisco neuroscientists.

Discovery Days at San Francisco’s AT&T Park and in the North Bay at Sonoma County Fairgrounds (November 1, 11am – 4pm). It’s a science wonderland for the concluding event of the Bay Area Science Festival – a FREE science extravaganza that’s too big for just one side of the Golden Gate Bridge! Last year, more than 40,000 people enjoyed a non-stop program chock-full of interactive exhibits, experiments, games, and shows, all meant to entertain and inspire. AT&T Park will feature over 150 exhibits, including the return of the “Robot Zoo” in Willie Mays Plaza, the Chevron STEM Zone featuring 20 hands-on engineering activities and takeaways, Oracle’s Education Zone with special marine science activities hosted by National Geographic, and Fireside chats with scientists in AT&T Park’s new edible garden in centerfield.

Celebrating 150 years of history, UC San Francisco now encompasses more than 20 locations in San Francisco alone with affiliates and partners across the Bay and around the world. Since the Gold Rush, UC San Francisco has been integral to San Francisco, a leader in caring for its people and a driving force in its thriving economy and bioscience innovation. For more information on the 150th anniversary, visit http://ucsf150.ucsf.edu/

In addition to UC San Francisco and the National Science Foundation, partners for the Bay Area Science Festival include the Buck Institute for Age Research, the University of California Berkeley, Stanford University, San Francisco State University, California State University East Bay, San Jose State University, the California Academy of Sciences, the Lawrence Hall of Science, Chabot Space & Science Center, the San Jose Children’s Discovery Museum, The Tech Museum, the Exploratorium, the Children’s Museum of Sonoma County, the Oakland Zoo, the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the United States Geological Survey, KQED Quest, BayBio, Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and Wonderfest.

For ongoing information about the events, visit the Bay Area Science Festival website www.bayareascience.org / twitter@bayareascience / #basf14 / www.facebook.com/bayareascience