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	<title>Down to a Science</title>
	<link>http://www.sciencecafesf.com</link>
	<description>A San Francisco Science Cafe and Science Blog</description>
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		<title>On a break!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[DtaS is on a break while I prep for the 1st ever Bay Area Science Festival launching 10/29-11/06. Stay tuned to BayAreaScience.org for complete updates. DtaS will be back near the end of the year!
In the meantime, please contact me in case you are interested in keeping up the cafe while I&#8217;m on break.
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sciencecafesf.com/2011/05/21/on-a-break/</link>
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		<title>Moved to 5/9! Book Club &#8211; 5/9 &#8211; The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddartha Mukherjee</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In 2010, about six hundred thousand Americans, and more than 7 million humans around the world, will die of cancer." With this sobering statistic, physician and researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee begins his comprehensive and eloquent "biography" of one of the most virulent diseases of our time. An exhaustive account of cancer's origins, The Emperor of All Maladies illustrates how modern treatments--multi-pronged chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, as well as preventative care--came into existence thanks to a century's worth of research, trials, and small, essential breakthroughs around the globe. While The Emperor of All Maladies is rich with the science and history behind the fight against cancer, it is also a meditation on illness, medical ethics, and the complex, intertwining lives of doctors and patients.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sciencecafesf.com/2011/04/04/book-club-418-the-emperor-of-all-maladies-by-siddartha-mukherjee/</link>
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		<title>Monday, May 16th &#8211; Attached: The Science of Romantic Relationships</title>
		<description><![CDATA[According to psychiatrist and neuroscientist Levine and social psychologist Heller, authors of "Attached", one’s adult romantic partnerships have patterns similar to those one has as a child with one’s parents. Our need for attachment, they conclude, is hardwired into our brains but each of us expresses it differently. Focusing on three main attachment styles (secure, anxious, and avoidant), Heller will present research that explains the biological facts behind our relationship needs, teach us how to identify our own attachment styles, and warn of the emotional price of connecting with someone with drastically different intimacy needs. Chock-full of tips and case studies, this interactive discussion features solidly researched and intriguing approaches to the perennial trials of looking for love in all the right places and improving existing relationships.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sciencecafesf.com/2011/04/04/monday-may-16th-attached-the-science-of-romantic-relationships/</link>
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		<title>Monday, April 25th &#8211; High Anxiety: The Science behind Meditation and Anxiety</title>
		<description><![CDATA[When: Monday, April 25th 7-9 PM
What: High Anxiety: The Science behind Meditation and Anxiety
Who:  Philippe Goldin, Research Associate, CAAN Center, Stanford University
Where: Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th St @ Alabama St. in the Mission District
The Deets:
Once reserved for Tibetan monks, meditation has become popular especially here in the Bay Area. This practice of bringing one’s attention to the present has been said to provide tremendous well-being and emotional balance. Scientists have also begun to bring their attention to meditation for its affects in “re-wiring” the brain. This area of research ...]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sciencecafesf.com/2011/04/03/monday-april-25th-high-anxiety-the-science-behind-meditation-and-anxiety/</link>
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		<title>Book Club &#8211; 3/14 &#8211; The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Neurologist Sacks, author of Awakenings and A Leg To Stand On , presents a series of clinical tales drawn from fascinating and unusual cases encountered during his years of medical practice. Dividing his text into four parts"losses" of neurological function; "excesses"; "transports" involving reminiscence, altered perception, and imagination; and "the simple," or the world of the retardedSacks introduces the reader to real people who suffer from a variety of neurological syndromes which include symptoms such as amnesia, uncontrolled movements, and musical hallucinations. Sacks recounts their stories in a riveting, compassionate, and thoughtful manner. ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sciencecafesf.com/2011/03/02/book-club-314-the-man-who-mistook-his-wife-for-a-hat-by-oliver-sacks/</link>
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		<title>Tuesday 3/8 &#8211; The Panic Virus &#8211; The Story Behind Autism &amp; Vaccines</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Over the last three decades, the incidence of autism spectrum disorder, better known simply as autism, has risen dramatically in the U.S., from approximately 1 in 1,000 children to 1 in 110, arousing widespread concern among parents and psychiatrists alike. A few of the many potential possible culprits scientists have targeted are faulty genes and thimerosal, a mercury-laced preservative in vaccines. Former Newsweek senior journalist Mnookin focuses his masterful investigative skills primarily on the latter, highly controversial possibility, illustrating how the current, misguided anti-vaccine movement can be blamed almost equally on panic-driven parents, sensation-hungry media, and PR-challenged health authorities. In making his case, Mnookin covers a wide swathe of medical history, from polio outbreaks to the scare tactics of fringe British researcher Andrew Wakefield, who first forged the dubious vaccine-autism link. While Mnookin dismantles this link convincingly, his argument that multivaccine cocktails have been proven safe is ultimately less persuasive. Still, he’s an able, engaging wordsmith, and this cautionary tale about misinformed medical alarmism is thoroughly compelling.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sciencecafesf.com/2011/03/02/the-panic-virus-the-story-behind-autism-vaccines-38/</link>
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		<title>Book Club 2/7 &#8211; The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Periodic Table is one of man's crowning scientific achievements. But it's also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in "The Disappearing Spoon" follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sciencecafesf.com/2011/01/02/book-club-27-the-disappearing-spoon-by-sam-kean/</link>
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		<title>Monday, 12/13 Book Club – Contact by Carl Sagan</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Who could be better qualified than the author of the highly successful Cosmos to turn the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence, and humankind's first contact with it, into imaginative reality? This is precisely what Sagan does in this eagerly awaited and, as it turns out, engrossing first novel. The basic plot is very simple. A worldwide system of radio telescopes, in the charge of brilliant astrophysicist Ellie Arroway, picks up a "Message" from outer space. Ellie is instrumental in decoding the message and building the "Machine" for which it gives instructions (despite stiff opposition from religious fundamentalists and those scientists and politicians who fear it may be a Trojan Horse). Then she and fellow members of a small multinational team board the machine, take a startling trip into outer spaceand on their return must convince the scientific community that they are not the perpetrators of a hoax. Sagan's characters, mostly scientists, are credible without being memorable, and he supplies a love interest that is less than compelling. However, his informed and dramatically enacted speculations into the mysteries of the universe, taken to the point where science and religion touch, make his story an exciting intellectual adventure and science fiction of a high order. ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sciencecafesf.com/2010/11/27/monday-1213-book-club-contact-by-carl-sagan/</link>
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		<title>Book Club 1/10 – Packing for Mars by Mary Roach</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can't walk for a year? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 4,000 miles per hour? To answer these questions, space agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space simulations -- making it possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA's new space capsule (cadaver filling in for astronaut), Packing for Mars takes us on a surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth. ]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sciencecafesf.com/2010/11/27/book-club-110-packing-for-mars-by-mary-roach/</link>
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		<title>Monday, 11/8 Book Club – Proust Was a Neuroscientist</title>
		<description><![CDATA[t may have been more neurasthenic than neuroscientist, but Jonah Lehrer argues in Proust Was a Neuroscientist  that he (and many of his fellow artists) made discoveries about the brain that it took science decades to catch up with (in Proust's case, that memory is a process, not a repository). Lehrer weaves back and forth between art and science in eight graceful portraits of artists (mostly writers, along with a chef, a painter, and a composer) who understood, better at times than atomizing scientists, that truth can begin with "what reality feels like." Sometimes it's the art that's most evocative in his tales, sometimes the science: Lehrer writes about them with equal ease and clarity, and with a youthful confidence that art and science, long divided, may yet be reconciled.]]></description>
		<link>http://www.sciencecafesf.com/2010/10/18/monday-118-book-club-%e2%80%93-proust-was-a-neuroscientist/</link>
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