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Briefs: City holds meetings on plastic foam container ban

Restaurants and food vendors may have to abandon the use of styrofoam containers — Menlo Park is considering a ban on polystyrene food containers, part of a county-wide effort. To explore the idea, the city is holding two outreach meetings on Wednesday, May 23.

The meetings run from 4 to 5 p.m. and 6 to 7 p.m. at the Arrillaga Family Recreation Center at 600 Alma St.

Email recycle@menlopark.org or call 330-6740 to attend.

Democratic party hosts local forum

"From the Quill to the Cloud: Protecting Civil Liberties in the Age of Innovation" will be the topic of discussion at an Atherton home on Saturday, May 19, with U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Menlo Park, as the keynote speaker.

Hosts Chris Kelly and Jennifer Carrico will hold the event at their house from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Address provided upon RSVP.

Go to secure.actblue.com/page/qtoc or call 244-1714 for more information. Tickets start at $75. Proceeds will fund the San Mateo County Democratic Party's Victory 2012 Campaign headquarters.

Thursday: Caltrain collects change to spare lives

As part of its ongoing suicide-prevention campaign, Caltrain is asking passengers to donate spare change on Thursday, May 17.

Nine employees of SamTrans, the agency that operates Caltrain, plan to raise $9,000 for the Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk June 9 and 10 in San Francisco. The 18-mile, dusk-to-dawn walk raises funds for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Meeting canceled

Time to make alternate plans for Tuesday night — the Menlo Park City Council will not be meeting on May 15. The council is scheduled to reconvene Tuesday, May 22, to review the city's budget, below-market-rate housing program, and cost projections for Recology's garbage and recycling service.

Watching memory bits dance

Interested in cutting-edge science? The SLAC National Laboratory wants to slake your curiosity with its free public lecture series, held every other month.

This month the lecture explores magnetic data storage. According to presenter Bill Schlotter, recording the activity of the bits that store information "requires the fastest movies ever made." At SLAC, they 'make the movie' by using a unique type of X-ray laser. The same process helps scientists track other ultrafast processes such as solar energy conversion and chemical reactions.

The lecture starts at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 22, in the Panofsky Auditorium at SLAC (2575 Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park).