“Wonderfest” is an annual Bay Area science festival featuring talks and discussions about science. Held in the fall on adjacent days at Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley, the 2008 Wonderfest was particularly well attended. For those of you who were unable to attend, you now can see three of the discussions online.

Go to www.wonderfest.org to see

Does Anything Happen at Random?
A discussion between Persi Diaconis, Prof. of Statistics & Mathematics, Stanford and Daniel Fisher, Prof. of Applied Physics, Stanford

Will Genetics Allow Us to Revive Extinct Species?
A discussion between Ronald Davis, Prof. of Biochemistry & Genetics, Stanford and David Haussler, Prof. of Biomolecular Engineering, UC Santa Cruz

Are Dreams Psychologically Significant?
…

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Wednesday November 19, at 4 pm:

“Your Fiction Science Defense Kit: Dealing with Astrology, UFO’s, and Other Astronomical Pseudo-sciences”

A non-technical talk by Andrew Fraknoi, Foothill College

Harney Science Center, Room 127
University of San Francisco

Physics and Astronomy Department Colloquium;
free and open to educators and students.

For a campus map, see:
http://www.usfca.edu/online/gen_info/map_c.html

(Please allow yourself time to park and find the room. Street parking around campus is not always easy to find.)

An enormous amount of media attention has been given to some pretty amazing claims on the fringes of astronomy. These include the idea that your life path and romantic destiny are determined by the position of objects in the sky at the moment of you…