But how, exactly, are stars born? How did this process forge our present-day Universe, and how will it shape our destiny? Within the last few decades, astronomers have unraveled many of the key elements in this cosmic mystery. We now understand how star formation underlies not only the creation of galaxies, but also how it leads, as a byproduct, to orbiting planets like the Earth. Despite such basic advances, deep questions remain in this active field of research.

Dr. Steven Stahler is an astrophysicist at U. C. Berkeley. Raised in Maryland, he attended graduate school at Berkeley in physics. He was a professor at MIT before returning to the Bay Area in 1992. His research centers on the grand problem of star formation, and he coauthored the first textbook in this field. Steve is an accomplished artist, and especially delights in the deep esthetic appeal of his subject. This is an aspect he tries to convey in his numerous public appearances.

But rather than just talk about this field, we’re transforming our humble science cafe into an interactive gameshow about personalized medicine. What we eat, whether we exercise, whether we walk or drive to the corner store, whether we follow our doctor’s orders – all of these choices add up into our health, for good or for ill. There are emerging tools to track and combine personal health data with a bounty of generic health information – all to help with those BIG decisions about our health. Thomas Goetz, Executive Editor of Wired (aka Bob Barker), will guide us through the futuristic game of personalized medicine. Are you ready to play “The Decision Tree?” Come on down!

In the early stages of telomere research, telomerase, heralded as a potential cure for cancer and diseases related to aging, attracted the voracious interest of biotech companies. The surrounding hype succeeded in confusing the role of telemorase in extending the life of a cell with a mechanism that might extend the lifespan of an entire organism. In Brady’s hands, Blackburn’s story reveals much about the tension between pure and applied science, the politicking that makes research science such a competitive field, and the resourceful opportunism that characterizes the best scientific thinking.

Brady describes the science accessibly and compellingly. She explores Blackburn’s struggle to break down barriers in an elite, male-dominated profession, her role as a mentor to other women scientists (many of whom have made their mark in telomere research), and the collaborative nature of scientific work. This book gives us a vivid portrait of an exceptional woman and a new understanding of the combination of curiosity, imaginative speculation, and aesthetic delight that powers scientific discovery.

9PM – MetaMind Evolution by Andreas Stadler, software engineer and inventor, presents his work on neuro-feedback EEG mind-machines. He explores their applications to meditation, lucid dreaming, and brain training, as well as creative uses in music and art. After the talk, you’re invited to don the MetaMind headset and software, displaying beautiful visualizations from multiple channels of your very own brainwave data. (http://meta-mind.de/)

10PM – In Your Mind’s Eye by Dr. Tristan Ursell, Stanford University. You are a highly evolved creature, bred to perceive that which keeps you alive best, not what represents reality best. Learn about why you see the colors you do, and how your brain distorts the world around us.

11PM – John Bela is a founder of the design collective REBAR, creators of the global PARK(ing) Day event, Civic Center Victory Garden, Panhandle Bandshell, and other transformations of public space. He is a producer of creative ideas and a maker of things. John will present the works of Rebar, and how its many pursuits remix the ordinary, repurpose the ubiquitous and restructure the fabric of the urban environment. (http://www.rebargroup.org)

12AM – cutsupposepossesssuck by M. Ryan Noble, redefines social roles for artists through collaborative and therapeutic art processes, covering a wide range of media and experimental performances that fuse archetypal traditions with contemporary experience. A discussion of cultural engagement, sensory integration, and sub/un/hyperconsciousness as a means to create a metaphysical art experience leads into an experimental performance. Noble becomes a living sculpture in the space, guiding and collaborating with participants to develop the piece. (http://www.imagici.org)

1AM – Matt Bell is an inventor, artist, and entrepreneur who has done a wide variety of projects including gesture-based interactive displays, intricate laser-cut sculpture, and, most recently, floating art for the Ephemerisle festival. He’ll walk you through his multiprojector no-computer-necessary video feedback system that generates fractals live, allowing you and your friends to manipulate the parameters and output.

For every five hours of cable news, less than a minute is devoted to science; 46 percent of Americans reject evolution and think the Earth is less than 10,000 years old; the number of newspapers with weekly science sections has shrunken by two-thirds over the past several decades. The public is polarized over climate change—an issue where political party affiliation determines one’s view of reality—and in dangerous retreat from childhood vaccinations. Meanwhile, only 18 percent of Americans have even met a scientist to begin with; more than half can’t name a living scientist role model.

For this dismaying situation, Mooney and Kirshenbaum don’t let anyone off the hook. They highlight the anti-intellectual tendencies of the American public (and particularly the politicians and journalists who are supposed to serve it), but also challenge the scientists themselves, who despite the best of intentions have often failed to communicate about their work effectively to a broad public—and so have ceded their critical place in the public sphere to religious and commercial propagandists.

A plea for enhanced scientific literacy, Unscientific America urges those who care about the place of science in our society to take unprecedented action. We must begin to train a small army of ambassadors who can translate science’s message and make it relevant to the media, to politicians, and to the public in the broadest sense. An impassioned call to arms worthy of Snow’s original manifesto, this book lays the groundwork for reintegrating science into the public discourse–before it’s too late.

And yet, using gardening quite similar to that seen throughout our city, a single man with little biology training, a strong religious faith, and severe test anxiety discovered the rules which govern genetic inheritance, knowledge that had eluded Darwin, Lamarck, and other prominent biologists for centuries. Many now think of Gregor Mendel as the monk-creator of tedious high school biology lectures on pea plant color…. pea plant size… pea plant shape… pea plant whatever. But the reasons Mendel worked by himself for eight long, lonely years in a tiny monastery garden to discover the rules of heredity, rules which were ultimately used to support Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, are complex and surprising.

But did Mendel’s experiments provide insight into human genetics? And why does genetics “work”? In our talk, we’ll discuss Mendel’s motivations and writings, illustrate why meiosis (sex!) and Mendel are the same thing, and show you how to follow your own inherited Mendelian traits. (Can you roll your tongue? Do you have hairy knuckles? Did mom have an affair with the mailman?)