Full schedule of interesting talks coming to Incline Village

The UC Davis Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences in Incline Village holds monthly lectures and other special events throughout the year. Here is a list of upcoming lectures open to the public:

August 11: How Three Transportation Revolutions Are Starting To Disrupt Transportation As We Know It - The passenger transportation system has seen little innovation since the advent of the Interstate Highway System. That is now changing. The ubiquity of smart phones is enabling the commercialization of a range of new mobility services, led by Uber and Lyft; rapid advances in battery and fuel cell technology are enabling electrification of vehicles; and rapid advances in digital technologies are enabling automation of vehicles. The challenge for policymakers is to direct these revolutions toward the public interest—including in the Tahoe Basin. The Transforming Transportation talk will be with Dr. Dan Sperling who is the founding Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis.

August 24: Science of Wine: Wine is a major industry in this part of the country but with the ongoing drought how can production become more sustainable? UC Davis has created a new center to develop these technologies in order to address this issue. Learn how this industry can change while tasting and learning about what they are producing. Jill Brigham is the Executive Director of the UC Davis’ new Sustainable Wine & Food Processing Center. Jill develops and manages a research portfolio addressing a broad variety of wine, food and beverage industry needs in the areas of water and energy minimization, rainwater recovery and treatment, alternative energy generation, and byproduct recovery. She leads the development of technologies and processes necessary to enable the UC Davis Teaching & Research Winery to be fully self-sustainable and carbon neutral.

Sept 1: Gratitude with Bob Emmons. Research on the science of gratitude continues to accelerate rapidly. However, questions still remain: What are the functions of gratitude in the economy of human social behavior? What mechanisms are involved in the expression and detection of gratitude? Experiments and recent neuroimaging studies offer important clues as to why gratitude matters, how it works, and how we can collectively capitalize on its promise and potential.

Sept 15: Innovation in the United States: Myths and Realities- The structure supporting innovation in the United States is radically different from what was in place just thirty or forty years ago. Dr. Fred Block, UC Davis Dept. of Sociology, will provide an overview of this transformation and will examine the institutional complexity of the current innovation system. There will be a particular emphasis on the interface among government institutions, universities, and private firms—both large and small—with an argument about what lessons can be drawn from the past. What institutions are missing and what kind of new organizations could help overcome current bottlenecks?

Sept 22: A Gut-Feeling: How intestinal microbes modulate mood and behavior, with Melanie Gareau a physiologist at the University of California, Davis, is part of the Mental Health in the Mountains series of educational talks.Scientists are investigating the idea that intestinal microbiota might influence brain development and behavior. Could your gut microbes influence behavior and alter brain physiology and neurochemistry? Researchers have begun drawing links between gastrointestinal pathology and psychiatric neurological conditions such as anxiety, depression, autism, schizophrenia and neurodegenerative disorders. The Human Microbiome Project, a large-scale study of the microbes that colonize humans, might help to unravel mental-health disorders.

All of these discussions are held at the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences at 291 Country Club Dr. in Incline Village, Nevada from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. There is a no-host cocktail and refreshment time before each session at 5:30 p.m. with the lecture starting at 6:00 p.m. There $5 suggested donation. It is suggested attendees pre-register for the events on their website, http://tahoe.ucdavis.edu/events/. Those who sign up before he day of the event get early seating as well.