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The U.S. Constitution as of 1791 held that:
Slavery was legal;
For census purposes, slaves counted as ⅗ of a person;
Slaves and women were not entitled to vote;
People had the right to bear muzzle-loaded firearms.
The only “Arms” covered by the Constitution’s 2nd Amendment were single shot weapons that had to be manually reloaded from the end of the barrel after each shot. A significant portion of militia training sought to increase the rate that the recruit could reload and shoot again. Four shots per minute was exemplary.
The CDC released results from their research on gun deaths. Of note: firearm homicides of Black males aged 10 to 24 years is 21 times higher than for White males of the same age range.
Lessons in evolution:
I just learned that male cockroaches ‘seduce’ females with sugar, but since cockroach poisons are sweet, females are losing their “sweet tooth.”
As you know, salamanders live on the forest floor and in streams & ponds - except when they don’t. Aneides vagrans, the Wandering Salamander, lives its entire life high up in redwood trees! Although redwoods are a westcoast species, a biologist from Florida wondered if Aneides vagrans was adapted for flight, sorta like flying squirrels and colugos. The answer: not yet but they seem to be getting there.
As Bob mentioned last week, folk under 50 likely have no immunity to monkeypox. However, unlike COVID-19, people normally cannot spread monkeypox prior to obvious symptoms and the virus is spread only by contact. Therefore, a monkeypox pandemic is not anticipated.
Space Aliens:
After the UAP/UFO Congressional Hearing this May, Republican Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee opined, “We just got hosed. On some level I think it is a cover-up. I have a T-shirt I sell on my website. It says, ‘More people believe in U.F.O.s than believe in Congress.’”
The radio signal most resembling one we might expect from an advanced alien civilization was detected 45 years ago and is known as the “Wow! Signal.” An astronomer published a paper in May showing that there is indeed a star resembling ours ‘only’ 1,800 light-years away in the direction the radio antenna was pointing. Leonard Tramiel noted there would be numerous ‘candidate’ stars since the radio antenna collected emissions from a relatively large swath of the sky. Rebecca Charbonneau at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics noted that an advanced civilization might not require a sun similar to our own.
A problem facing civilizations forced to leave their home star system is the immense distances typically separating star systems and the universal speed limit: the speed of light. Irina Romanovskaya suggested another possibility: hitchhike on a rogue planet. There just might be a rogue planet passing by that they/we could reach and use to set up housekeeping. Since rogue planets by definition do not belong with a nice warm sun, the folk would need to possess the means to create great gobs of energy - perhaps using fusion power. And who knows, the rogue planet might just pass near a suitable star system after a few million years where they could disembark and set up home again.
Dr. Becky (Smethurst) of Oxford would like the James Webb Space Telescope to study the atmospheres of four planets orbiting Trappist 1 for the possible detection of biological systems existing there.
Orkid won the 8-inch JWST model with her guess of 321. This time the prize is a 3-centimeter mirror pin from Cepheid Studio (France) of JWST’s 18 mirror segments. Just send an email to david.almandsmith@gmail.com (only one) before noon Friday with an integer between zero and 1,000. We will then use a random number generator to select the target number and mail the pin to the person who chose the closest number.
NASA’s Martian helicopter, Ingenuity, phoned home and apologized for being late. It had been out of contact due to dust and cold which led to a computer re-boot that made it miss curfew. NASA and Ingenuity are now back on speaking terms, but the Martian winter will likely lead to more troubles.
I discovered something that may interest you. It is a YouTube collection of science videos hosted by Rick Loverd called, “The Science & Entertainment Exchange.” Another good collection is “SkepTalk” which emphasizes science skepticism.
PICKS OF THE WEEK
Wonderfest: The Science of Psychedelics - 5:30 Monday, Hopmonk Tavern, Novato
Educating the Planet with Social Entrepreneur Sal Khan - 4:30 Wednesday, Mountain View
Night Life: Buggin’ Out - 6-10PM Thursday, Cal Academy of Sciences, S.F., $
PubScience: Climate Change and Cows - 7PM Thursday, Ocean View Brew Works, Albany
Gravitational Waves: Discovery that Won the Nobel Prize - 7:30PM Saturday - Livestream
Ticket prices for SkeptiCal 2022, July 16 & 17, go up June 1st.
A Denisovan tooth was found in Laos, 1,700 kilometers from the next closest Denisovan discovery in Tibet. Laos makes sense because southeast asian groups are known to share some DNA from Denisovans, just as Europeans share some DNA from Neanderthals.
I believe it is safe to say that computer chips are no longer programmed by tweezers
Hey! Here is a good video on carbon nanotubes, especially if you are comfortable with electron orbitals. (And if you aren’t comfortable with electron orbitals, maybe you're masochistic.)
Overwintering? Various plants, insects, and mammals overwinter via seeds, eggs, hibernation, etc., but fire?? Apparently that was the case in New Mexico.
Scientists are wrong far more often than they are right. That’s the nature of scientific progress. As the journalist Ed Yong opined, science is, “an erratic stumble toward gradually diminished uncertainty.” Here are 10 examples of (some) scientists getting it wrong.
Here is a story of observation, research, reaching out to experts, feet on the ground, and - finally - success. Enjoy.
I didn’t mention the heat waves occurring around the world. I did that last time. This time i’ll leave you with “What extreme heat does to the human body.”
Try feeling a little compassion for the Russian soldiers risking - and giving - their lives for a lie.
David Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“It's very dramatic when two people come together to work something out. It's easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other.”
― Fred Rogers, (1928 - 2003) The World According to Mister Rogers
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Monday, 05/30/2022
Wonderfest: The Science of Psychedelics - 05/30/2022 05:30 PM
Hopmonk Tavern Novato
Recent evidence reveals that psychedelics seem to be helpful for the treatment of several mental health conditions. Specifically, clinical findings show that psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, ayahuasca, ibogaine, and ketamine may be effective in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder, depression, alcohol and substance use disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. MDMA ("ecstasy") will most likely be the first psychedelic to undergo evaluation for full FDA approval (for treatment of PTSD) and DEA rescheduling.
Speaker: Jennifer Mitchell, UC San Francisco
Tuesday, 05/31/2022
Cryptic cryospheric habitats: extremophile refuge and astrobiological analogs - 05/31/2022 03:30 PM
Natural Science Annex Santa Cruz
Speaker: Jill Mikucki, University of Tennessee
Wednesday, 06/01/2022
Educating the Planet with Social Entrepreneur Sal Khan - 06/01/2022 04:30 PM
Computer History Museum Mountain View
"Free worldclass education for anyone anywhere." That's the ambitious mission of the popular online learning platform Khan Academy. Join us for a rare and candid discussion with visionary founder Sal Khan, winner of the CHM Patrick J. McGovern Tech for Humanity Luminary award.
Sal will share insights and ideas about how he used technology to reshape the learning landscape and what that means for the future of education. He'll speak with three interviewers who have different perspectives on the world of learning: a high school student, an entrepreneur, and a technology forecaster.
What You'll Experience:
The story behind Sal's journey as an entrepreneur, his ideas about technology for social impact, and his insights into education accessible to all. Video highlights from Sal's new oral history. Audience Q &A (no question is off-limits!)
Register at weblink to receive connection information or attend in person
Java in the Real World - Livestream - 06/01/2022 06:30 PM
UC Santa Cruz Silicon Valley Professional Ed.
Java developers are broadening the scope of this popular language, applying it to new kinds of projects in diverse industries. Join two of our most popular Java instructors for a quick overview of what's new in the field and the kinds of work projects you can enjoy once you know Java. Whether you're just starting out or wanting to brush up on your technique, you're invited to hear how students are using Java in their jobs and some great options for growing your skills via our tailored course sequences.
Speakers: Bineet Sharma, UC Santa Cruz and Radhika Grover, SPEL Technologies
Register at weblink to receive connection information and to confirm time of this event.
Deep Sea Mining, Coming Soon to an Ocean Near You? - 06/01/2022 08:00 PM
Museum of Art and History Santa Cruz
Global demand for technologies like cellphones and laptops is increasing every year, and the transition to green energy is creating a need for more and new batteries. These both result in huge projected increases in metal demand which are now driving mining companies into the deep ocean in search of new mineral resources. We have known that the deep sea contains vast reserves of metals and minerals since the 1800s, but until now the economic pressures and required technologies have been insufficient for deep sea mining to begin in earnest. This is arguably one of the biggest, most important issues facing mankind at this moment marking how we will approach the transition away from fossil fuels and what ocean stewardship will look like in the future. In this talk I will present fundamental information on this global issue and present the latest ongoing deep sea research in relation to deep sea mining. The possible environmental impacts are vast and still poorly understood. The deep sea with both its fantastic and alien communities of animals and its mineral resources are legally the common heritage of all mankind, and so you, me and everyone on this planet are stakeholders in this debate.
Speaker: Astrid Leitner, UC Santa Cruz
This event is was originally scheduled for May 25, 2022
Thursday, 06/02/2022
NoteLife: Buggin' Out - 06/02/2022 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Insects get a bad rap, but deserve awe and wonder! From pollinating plants to decomposing waste, insects are the foundation of the food web and crucial to thriving ecosystems. This NightLife, these hard-working, often overlooked critters take center stage as we highlight some of the world’s most fascinating bugs. Walk among butterflies in the Rainforest, peruse one-of-a-kind specimens, and delight in fantastical larger-than-life insect models in our latest exhibit: Bugs.
Sounds by STARFARI
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Live Talks
Science Today
7:30 PM - Flower Mantids: Friend or Faux?
Learn the freaky and fabulous feasting methods of a deceptive flower mimic in a live talk from Academy senior biologist, Spencer Rennerfeldt.
8:30 PM - Ant-i-Social
Join entomology curator and Academy “Antman” Brian Fisher and artist Catherine Chalmers for a unique intersection of art and nature focused on language, ritual, and of course, ants.
Planet Bee
Wander Woods
8 PM - Find out what it takes to successfully tend to a honeybee colony and get involved in the Planet Bee Citizen Science Project with a live talk from Dr. Jason Graham.
All Evening - Stop by to check out a live observation hive, chat with the experts from Planet Bee, and learn about the mating ritual of the queen (spoiler alert: she doesn’t use Bumble).
Buggin’ Out Showcase
Swamp
6 - 10 PM
Get an up close look at some of the Academy's wildest specimens from our extensive Entomology collection.
Chat with Entomology Curator Brian Fisher and artist Catherine Chalmers about the importance of leafcutter ants and send a personal message to the Academy’s living colony in the Osher Rainforest.
After Dark: Discover Wonder - 06/02/2022 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Spark your curiosity at After Dark! As the Sun sets, we'll hit the rainbow lights, turn the music up, and open our doors, inviting you to take your imagination out to play. Fuel up with a cocktail and prepare to roam free through six spacious outdoor and indoor spaces. Be ready to bring fresh eyes to old favorites and uncover phenomenal new experiences.
Cell Phone Miniscope 6:00 - 10:00 p.m. Crossroads
We invite you to open your eyes to the amazing world of the ultra-tiny! Be sure to grab a miniscope kit and directions - then convert your cell phone into a portable, picture-taking miniscope using a simple plastic lens from a laser pointer. Use it to see the Exploratorium at its smallest scale, then take it home to continue exploring new environments!
The Awe of Birdwatching - Livestream - 06/02/2022 07:00 PM
Golden Gate Audubon Society
African-American ornithologist John C. Robinson utilizes his own personal and transformational experiences to explain the multiple ways that inner city and minority youth and young adults can become motivated to discover and appreciate nature through bird-watching. This presentation will focus on the barriers (and opportunities) to reaching a wider, more diverse audience to let them know that "birding is for everyone."
See weblink for Zoom information
NightSchool: Life on Reefs - 06/02/2022 07:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences
Join three Academy postdoctoral researchers for a night covering the latest in coral reef research, from the lab to the reefs, and from corals themselves to the vast range of marine life they support. Featuring: Jennifer Hoey, Elora Lopez-Nandam, and Chancey MacDonald.
Seeing the Universe through Quantum Eyes - Livestream - 06/02/2022 07:00 PM
SLAC Public Lecture Series Menlo Park
Since the earliest times, we humans have attempted to understand and explain the world around us by observing our surroundings. By building tools such as telescopes and microscopes, we have been able to see phenomena ranging from the cosmological scale to the nanoscale, and, on the way, we have learned a huge amount about how our world works. As we scientists seek to measure ever fainter signals to uncover the workings of our universe, we have learned to take advantage of the mysterious quantum world to unlock ever more sensitive "eyes." In quantum mechanics, nothing seems to work the way we might expect - a weirdness that we can leverage to build the world's most sensitive detectors. In this lecture, I will discuss how some of these amazing sensors work, and I will describe some of my work building new quantum tools to measure the universe as well as some of SLAC's other efforts as a leader in this nascent field of quantum sensing.
Speaker: Cyndia Yu
Register at weblink to attend in person, or use our weblink to access via Zoom.
PubScience: Climate Change and Cows - 06/02/2022 07:00 PM
Ocean View Brew Works Albany
Tackling Methane Emissions from Cattle with Microbial Biology
Speaker: Blake Downing, UC Berkley
Friday, 06/03/2022
Observations in support of the DART mission: Understanding the Didymos-Dimorphos binary system - 06/03/2022 12:00 PM
Earth and Marine Sciences Building Santa Cruz
The binary near-Earth asteroid (65803) Didymos is the target of NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, the first demonstration of asteroid deflection by a kinetic impactor. The DART spacecraft will impact Dimorphos (the secondary in the Didymos system) in late September 2022 and modify its orbit through momentum transfer. Since 2015, the Observations Working Group has been obtaining photometric lightcurves of the system in order to understand the baseline, unperturbed orbital period of the secondary. We were tasked with characterizing the Didymos-Dimorphos system properties with sufficient accuracy to determine the time of impact and to measure the post-impact change in the Dimorphos orbital period to within 7.3 seconds. This measurement goal is a small, but observable fraction of the current orbital period of the satellite (Porb=11.92 hours). Due to our extensive lightcurve observing effort, Didymos is now the best understood binary near-Earth asteroid. We are using our current knowledge of the system to design a series of observations in 2022 to determine the post-impact orbital period, observe the ejecta at the time of impact and in the weeks following, and obtain spectra to improve our understanding of the composition of the system. I will discuss our recent lightcurve observations (2020-2021), our current understanding of the state of the system, possible outcomes of the impact, and our preliminary plans for pre- and post-impact observations later this year.
Speaker: Cristina Thomas Denney, Northern Arizona University
First Friday: Rainbows - 06/03/2022 06:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
How are rainbows formed? What is the meaning behind their bright colors in the LGBTQ+ community? Activities, community partners and demonstrations highlight the rainbow as both a phenomenon in nature and an important symbol for LGBTQ+ Pride.
Astronomy Talk - Livestream - 06/03/2022 08:00 PM
San Mateo County Astronomical Society
San Mateo Astronomical Society Annual Meeting and Election
Speaker: Dr. Norm Nasise, Starchaserz.org
Evening with the Stars at Lick Observatory - Sold Out - 06/03/2022 08:30 PM
Lick Observatory Mt. Hamilton
Astronomy Speaker: Raja Guh Thakurta
Saturday, 06/04/2022
Road to a Livable Climate - Bike and Walk for the Planet! - 06/04/2022 08:00 AM
Oakland Museum of California Oakland
Oakland Goes Green Walk
4.5 mile walk with route featuring historic Downtown Oakland, adaptive reuse buildings, public transportation, energy retrofits, and more.
The science is clear - climate change is here, and it's not pretty. Droughts, wildfires, storms, floods, sea level rise€¦ you name it. The good news is that we already have the knowledge, and the know-how, to turn the tide toward a more sustainable future. What is needed is the political will to act. It will take all of us, working together, to turn this vision into a reality.
Join 350 Bay Area's Road to a Livable Climate Series to travel together toward a safe, livable and healthy future!
Register at weblink
Music of the Spheres: Technosignatures: Innovative New Searches for Extraterrestrial Intelligence - 06/04/2022 07:30 PM
Lick Observatory Mt. Hamilton
Artist: While Album Ensemble
Astronomy Speaker: Dr. Shelley Wright is a faculty member at UC San Diego at the Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences. Her research focuses on developing innovative astronomical instrumentation and observations using some of the world's largest optical telescopes. She is the Project Scientist for one of the first instruments for the future Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Shelley has been involved with SETI instrumentation and search strategies for over a decade at Lick Observatory.
Gravitational Waves: The Discovery that Won the Nobel Prize - Livestream - 06/04/2022 07:30 PM
Mt. Tam Astronomy
On September 14, 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) received the first confirmed gravitational wave signals. Now known as GW150914, the event represents the coalescence of two distant black holes that were previously in mutual orbit. LIGO's exciting discovery provides direct evidence of what is arguably the last major unconfirmed prediction of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and has launched the new field of gravitational-wave astronomy. This talk will present an introduction to LIGO, gravitational waves and black holes. It will also discuss the gravitational wave detection results reported to date from LIGO and Virgo.
Speaker: Lynn Cominsky, Sonoma State University
See weblink for Zoom information
Sunday, 06/05/2022
Road to a Livable Climate - Bike and Walk for the Planet! - 06/05/2022 08:00 AM
Veteran's Memorial Park Napa
This 3.5 walking loop route features the Napa Flood Control Project and Oxbow Commons, Fuller park, green building examples, tree canopy, infrastructure improvements, and local climate action highlights.
The science is clear - climate change is here, and it's not pretty. Droughts, wildfires, storms, floods, sea level rise€¦ you name it. The good news is that we already have the knowledge, and the know-how, to turn the tide toward a more sustainable future. What is needed is the political will to act. It will take all of us, working together, to turn this vision into a reality.
Join 350 Bay Area's Road to a Livable Climate Series to travel together toward a safe, livable and healthy future!
Register at weblink
Monday, 06/06/2022
Spins, Bits, and Flips: Essentials for High-Density Magnetic Random-Access Memory - Livestream - 06/06/2022 03:30 PM
SLAC Colloquium
The magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), a device comprised of two ferromagnetic electrodes with a thin (~1nm) insulating tunnel barrier in between, was first proposed in a Ph.D. thesis by Michel Jullière in 1975 and reached widespread commercialization nearly 30 years later as the read sensor in hard disk drives. MTJs became essential for data storage in consumer laptop and desktop computers, early-generation iPods, and now in data centers that store the information in "the Cloud." The application of MTJs has expanded even further to spin-transfer torque MRAM as a replacement for embedded flash memory. Innovation in MTJs continues in order to deliver faster, high-density MRAM that can support last-level cache and in-memory computing.
In this talk, I will describe the seminal discoveries that enabled MTJs for pervasive use in hard disk drives and MRAM. As the demand for faster and higher density memory persists, still more breakthroughs are needed for MTJs contained in device pillars (or bits) with <50nm diameter. I will describe the magnetic properties of MTJs that are essential for high-performance MRAM. In addition, I will describe an innovative nanofabrication process for achieving dense arrays of MRAM bits with 50nm full pitch.
Speaker: Tiffany Santos, Western Digital Corporation
See weblink for Zoom information
Cosmic Catastrophes: Transient Phenomena and the Renaissance of Astrophysics - 06/06/2022 07:30 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Prof. Raffaella Margutti will share how new capabilities to study the night sky have led to recent discoveries and new ways to think about the universe around us. Astronomical transients are events that appear and disappear in the sky and are signs of catastrophic events in space, including the most extreme stellar (star) deaths and interactions between stars and supermassive black holes.
Thanks to new and improved observational facilities, which use measurements of gravitational waves and light, we can now sample the night sky for astronomical transients with unprecedented resolution across the electromagnetic spectrum and beyond. This effort has led to the discovery of new types of stellar explosions, revolutionized our understanding of phenomena that we thought we already knew, and enabled the first insights into the physics of how black holes and stars interact.
Speaker: Raffaella Margutti, UC Berkeley
Tuesday, 06/07/2022
Catching a Supermassive Black Hole in the Act - Livestream - 06/07/2022 07:00 PM
KIPAC Public Lectures
Wednesday, 06/08/2022
Exploring the Future of Cybersecurity - 06/08/2022 06:00 PM
swissnex San Francisco San Francisco
Thursday, 06/09/2022
Discovering Us: Great Discoveries in Human Origins - 06/09/2022 05:00 PM
Leaky Foundation
NightLife: Under the Sea Prom - 06/09/2022 06:00 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco
Trace DNA on Talons and Beaks Reveal Interactions Between Migrating Raptors and Songbirds Along the California Coast - Livestream - 06/09/2022 06:00 PM
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory
After Dark: Pride - Unheard Stories - 06/09/2022 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
How to Talk to a Science Denier - Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason - Livestream - 06/09/2022 06:30 PM
Bay Area Skeptics
Wonderfest: High Hopes: The Thirty Meter Telescope - Livestream - 06/09/2022 08:00 PM
Wonderfest
Friday, 06/10/2022
Cephalopod Week: Movie Night - 06/10/2022 07:00 PM
KQED, The Commons San Francisco
Saturday, 06/11/2022
STEM Saturday Summer Science Series - 06/11/2022 10:00 AM
NexGeneGirls San Francisco
Science at Cal - Pathways to the Pharmacy: Discovery, Development, and Access to New Medicines - 06/11/2022 11:00 AM
Valley Life Sciences Building Berkeley
Sunday, 06/12/2022
Afternoon Hike at Mindego Hill - 06/12/2022 01:00 PM
Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve Los Altos