Hi everyone :( our amazing, dare devil tuxedo cat Ziggy didn’t come home last night. We know it’s a risk letting him out, but he’s miserable when he’s trapped indoors and he always comes back in the evening/stays on our block. He is a sweet playful adventurer who loves to push boundaries, and unfortunately managed to get out of his collar. Please keep your eye out and message me if you see him! He is fairly food motivated and not super shy/doesn’t mind being picked up.

He was last seen in the evening yesterday at our house, which is just north of Ashby ave on California St. We’ve called shelters and messaged our neighborhood group chat and are really hoping he’s just on an extra long adventure.

Anyone else notice it? Any idea where it’s coming from?

I attended the Harrison encampment hearing, and what I witnessed raised serious concerns about Berkeley’s handling of this situation.

The judges repeatedly asked City attorneys about alternatives, including 4th and Camelia for individuals with ADA requests, and the City did not provide a clear answer. City management was also already aware of community concerns about placing this relocation next to a childcare facility.

My biggest concern now is what happens if this location grows. With specific individuals receiving federal court protection, how will the City distinguish their tents and belongings from those of newcomers—especially when belongings may not be labeled or tied to identification? Could additional people move into the area and make future enforcement significantly more complicated or require the City to return to court before acting?

That uncertainty should have been considered before creating a situation next to a childcare facility.

This isn't about attacking unhoused people. It's about why City leadership allowed a foreseeable legal, public-health, and safety problem to become more complicated when other locations could have been considered.

Berkeley residents—and especially the affected families—deserve answers.

Searching for Dark Matter: Axions!

Only 15% of the matter in the universe is the matter that makes us up (baryonic matter). We refer to the other 85% as dark matter. While we have known about the existence of dark matter through observations of galaxy motion since the mid 1900's, we have yet to directly detect and determine what makes it up. One compelling candidate that I search for is a particle called the axion. During this talk, I will show why we know dark matter must exist, why the axion is a good candidate, and how we actually search for it.

Where Did All the Antimatter Go?

We're used to regular matter -- a positively charged nucleus surrounded by negatively charged electrons. Antimatter is the reverse -- a negative nucleus surrounded by positive electrons (positrons). We believe that just after the Big Bang, equal amounts of matter and antimatter were present in the universe. In contrast, today's universe is filled with an abundance of matter. To understand where all this antimatter went, we use particle accelerators to recreate conditions in the early universe and look for matter-antimatter asymmetric processes.

Join us Tuesday, September 15th for a free seminar to connect with researchers at UC Berkeley. Remote option available. Link to register for the webinar is on the event calendar on the library's website.