After Dark: Sending Signals

PRESENTATIONS

Mixed Signals: Translanguaging Among Multilingual Students
With Ramon Antonio Martinez
7:30 p.m. | Kanbar Forum
In schools nationwide, multilingual children and youth often draw on their full linguistic repertoires to communicate, sometimes even mixing languages—or “translanguaging"—in the process. Why do students mix languages in conversation in the first place?  What communicative functions does this serve?  How does it overlap with the kinds of language and literacy that we value in schools?  What do students and teachers think about this way of communicating?  Join Ramon Antonio Martínez to explore these and other questions and consider how this "translingual" form of communication might help us better understand both education and language itself. 

Why Do Whales Make Sounds?
With Roger Bland
8:00 p.m. | Phyllis C. Wattis Webcast Studio
Consider the hums, grunts, and growls of the plainfish midshipman (toadfish) as well as the shifting frequency of blue whale calls with physicist Roger Bland. He’ll dive into his research on underwater acoustics and share some interesting finds in animal communication.

The Secret Language of Plants
With Rick Karban
8:30 p.m. | Kanbar Forum
How do plants perceive their environments, communicate those perceptions, and learn? Bring your questions to ecologist Rick Karban. He’ll describe examples of plant sensing and communication, and discuss his conviction that plants are capable of much more sophisticated behaviors than previously realized.

Tools of the Pornithologist: Using Robots to Spy on the Sex Lives of Birds
With Gail Patricelli
9:00 p.m. | Phyllis C. Wattis Webcast Studio
Animals use a dizzying array of sounds, smells, colors, dances, electrical fields, and seismic vibrations to convince each other to mate. These elaborate courtship signals were a mystery until Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, which proposes that the courting sex (often, but not always the males) must be elaborate because the courted sex (often, but not always the females) demands it. One way that scientists study the conversations nonhuman animals have about mating is through participation, controlling one side of the conversation with a robot. Learn how Gail Patricelli uses robotic females to study courtship behaviors in two spectacular species of birds, the satin bowerbird and the greater sage grouse. 

Insect Signals
With Ralph Washington, Jr.
6:30–9:30 p.m. | East Gallery Corridor
While human beings perceive the world using all the same senses as insects, our communication is much more restricted. Warning calls, alluring dances, and tasty telegrams are just a few of the many intriguing ways that insects share information using all five primary senses. Discover insect versions of the telegraph, air siren, signal lamp, and more in this entertaining presentation.

Pheromones and Invasion
With Tsutsui Lab
6:30–9:30 p.m. | East Gallery Corridor
Delve into the mysterious world of ant communication with myrmecologists (ant scientists) from UC Berkeley. Study their live ant colony while hearing the fascinating story of how pheromones allowed the Argentine ant to become the most invasive species in California

Classic Spy Radios
With Richard Dillman
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery
Spy radios were an important communications tool during the Cold War era. Meet with Richard Dillman, co-founder of the Maritime Radio Historical Society, to examine working artifacts from his personal collection.

The Search for Cosmic Company
With Berkeley SETI Research Center
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery
Get to know the SETI@Home project, where you can donate computer time to help analyze signals from radio telescopes for signs of intelligent life. Uncover the radio spectrum of your cell phone, follow animations of data flow, and watch rotating images of radio telescopes and messages to space. 

ACTIVITIES

Pulsefield
By Brent Townshend
6:00–10:00 p.m. | Osher West Gallery, Black Box
Pulsefield is an interactive installation that combines high-resolution motion tracking of up to 20–50 people with an extensible video and music display. Using Lidar (“light” and “radar”), or pulsed lasers to measure distances, Pulsefield maps the movement of people within the installation to patterns of light, generative video, and interactive music. 

Active Listening and Conflict Resolution
With Community Boards
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Bechtel Central Gallery
What role does communication play in conflict? Community Boards helps resolve everyday conflicts through mediation, a process involving active listening. This simple process is powerful: over 85% of feuding parties sign a lasting and sustainable resolution after their mediation session. Find out how to bring active listening into your life and learn some conflict resolution skills of your own.

Paper Telephone
With Explorables
7:00–10:00 p.m. | Bechtel Central Gallery
Remember the classic game of telephone? In this version, the first player writes a phrase at the top of a large sheet of paper and passes it to the player on their right, who translates the phrase into a picture and folds the paper so that only the drawing is visible. The third player must then translate the drawing into a phrase. Players continue passing the paper around the table, covering everything but the last image or phrase, until it arrives back at the first player, who reveals how the original message has changed.

Translation Party
By Translated.net
6:00–10:00 p.m. | Bechtel Central Gallery
Translation Party will translate anything from English to Japanese and back again until it finds an equilibrium. Start with an English phrase, or crash someone else’s party. Try to stump the AI!
translationparty.com

Shortwave Radios
With Rob Rothfarb and Paul Doherty
6:30–9:30 p.m. | Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery
What is signal jamming? Or number stations? How do you partake in “DXing”? Get your rabbit ears on at our radio communications listening station. Did you know that with inexpensive radios you can easily listen to high-frequency transmissions such as shortwave signals and amateur radio as well as data signals from ship and airplane traffic?

From the end of Pier 15, you can listen to shortwave signals from as far away as China, India, Australia, New Zealand, Cuba, Brazil, and Romania. These signals, propagated by Earth’s ionosphere, can travel great distances across the curving surface of our planet. See what signals you can tune in to with radio receivers including software defined radios (SDRs)—the latest way to tap into the frequency spectrum with computers and mobile devices.

Morse Code
With Doug Thistlewolf
7:00–9:00 p.m. | Fisher Bay Observatory Gallery
Morse code came into widespread use because it leveraged the innate human ability to keep a beat and match patterns. You can copy an example of Morse code you hear much easier than trying to tap out dots and dashes, and each person will have their own recognizable style. Tap out your own messages to friends with this exhibit prototype.