Modern science is evolving faster than laboratory fruit flies.
How are busy, curious people supposed to keep up with all the latest information? Even if you read Scientific American and watch Nova faithfully, you still probably wind up with more questions than answers.

Ask a Scientist is an informative, entertaining, monthly lecture series, held at a San Francisco cafe. Each event features a speaker on a scientific topic, a short presentation, and the opportunity to ask all those burning questions that have been keeping you up at night. No tests, grades, or pressure…just food, drinks, socializing, and conversation about the universe’s most fascinating mysteries!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Tuesday, May 6th, 7:00 pm
Topic: Individual Differences in Perception
It's probably occurred to you that the way you perceive the physical world might not necessarily be the way other people perceive it — that what you see, hear, feel, taste and smell may be experienced differently by someone else. But what does science have to say about the matter? Research on the subject of individual differences in perception bears some interesting observations. For example, gender plays a role in the performance of visual tasks involving spatial discrimination and color, sensitivity to sounds and odor, and responsiveness to pain. Personal experience contributes as well — wine connoisseurs, musicians, and video gamers develop, respectively, heightened ability in detecting odors, sounds, and visual targets. And of course genetic quirks (like color-blindness, synesthesia, or supertasting abilities) also shape each person's unique experience of the material world. Come learn more about this fascinating and most fundamental of topics, and participate in a casual on-site research study!
Speaker: Ariella Popple; Vision Scientist, UC Berkeley
Location: Axis Cafe, 1201 8th Street (btw. 16th & Irwin) San Francisco

Wednesday, June 11th, 7:00 pm
Topic: Birds, Bees, and Boids
Everyone's seen birds flying, ants foraging, bees working, and fish swimming — all with the apparent purpose and coordination of a single conscious organism. But with no leader, no centralized management, how does each individual participant know what to do and where to go? The collective behavior of such animals — each oblivious to the master plan, but contributing to the group's goals and success — is what's known as swarm intelligence. Researchers have found that such self-organizing systems function through constant interactions between individuals, each of which is following simple rules. In 1986, computer graphics researcher Craig Reynolds created a steering program called boids, in which life-like graphical objects follow three basic rules of motion. The result looks awfully familiar. He is now a leader in the field of computer animated crowd simulation, doing research on visual effects for films and video games. Tonight Craig will talk with us about his work and how it relates to biology, society, business, robots, and more!
Speaker: Craig Reynolds; Senior Researcher at Sony Computer Entertainment US R&D
Location: Axis Cafe, 1201 8th Street (btw. 16th & Irwin) San Francisco

July, date TBD
Topic: Ancient American Astronomy

Wednesday, August 6th, 7:00 pm
Topic: Robots
From Talos and Golem to Rosie the Maid and KITT the Car, artifical humans have long been a source of fascination to real humans. While fiction and fantasy abound with an animated cast of automatons ranging from evil to endearing, today's real robots are building our cars, defusing roadside bombs, and vacuuming up the dog hairs while we're at work. Find out what David Calkins, one of America's most respected robotics authorities, has to say about the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence. Among his numerous titles, David is president of the Robotics Society of America, founder of the ROBOGames, and co-founder and president of ComBots — the country's largest organizer of robot combat. So if you've got questions about robots, this is clearly the guy to ask. Oh, and I forgot to mention, David will also be bringing some very special guests with him: ROBOTS!
Speaker: David Calkins; Lecturer of Computer & Electrical Engineering at SF State University
Location: Axis Cafe, 1201 8th Street (btw. 16th & Irwin) San Francisco

Wednesday, September 10th, 7:00 pm
Topic: How Computers Look at Art
Thanks to cutting edge advancements in computer science, questions and controversies in the study of art are now being answered in ways that were not previously possible. For example, computer analysis is currently being used to authenticate paintings attributed to artists such as Jackson Pollock and Vincent Van Gogh. And analysis of perspective, shading, color and form has thrown a wrench into David Hockney's bold claim that as early as 1420, Renaissance artists employed optical devices such as concave mirrors to project images onto their canvases. How do these computer methods work? What can computers reveal about images that even the best-trained connoisseurs, art historians and artist cannot? How much more powerful and revealing will these methods become? In short, how is computer image analysis changing our understanding of art? Come find out.
Speaker: David Stork: Chief Scientist of Ricoh Innovations; Consulting Professor of Statistics and Visiting Lecturer in Computer Science at Stanford University.
Location: Axis Cafe, 1201 8th Street (btw. 16th & Irwin) San Francisco