Hello again science fans,
안녕하세요 과학 팬 여러분, (Over 60,000 Bay Area residents speak Korean at home.)
BIOLOGY
Above is an artist’s representation of a flagellar motor that spins a bacterium’s flagella. The spinning flagella propel the bacterium through water. The colorful squiggly things represent proteins. The big wheel isn’t big. It would take 10 million of them side by side to span a single centimeter (0.4 inch). A typical rate of spin is 30,000 rpm, or 500 times a second. When you get the chance, come back here to watch this über-fascinating 23-minute video about this amazing bit of biomechanics.
A new study estimates that LUCA lived less than half a billion years after the formations of planet Earth. LUCA stands for Last Universal Common Ancestor. LUCA was a single solitary one-celled organism, and every living thing on our planet descended from it. ¿Every living thing? Yes. We are certain, because all living things share the same basic biochemistry: from the coding of specific peptides by triplets of nucleic acids in DNA to the use of adenosine triphosphate as a currency of energy. LUCA itself descended from other living organisms that must have differed in some aspects and biochemistries. But LUCA and its descendents were so successful that they likely drove all other versions of life to extinction.
Speaking of extinction, we are guilty as charged. We humans have always been suspected of driving over 30 genera of large mammals in the Americas to extinction after migrating here over 20,000 years ago. But doubts remained since the extinctions coincided with huge environmental changes as the Earth rebounded from the last glacial period. A new study incorporating AI data analyses concludes that humans were indeed chiefly responsible. Gone are the American mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, glyptodonts, ground sloths, sabertooth cats, cheetahs, giant beavers, cave bears, ad nauseam. ¿What is a glyptodont? Apparently they were well worth eating.
Most of the mammals that lived during the reign of dinosaurs were small creatures, but not all. The recently described Patagomaia chainko was the size of a large fox and weighed about 14 kg.
RAFFLE
We are offering a coffee mug with a little homographic humor. Just send an email before noon Friday to david.almandsmith [at] gmail.com with your guess of an integer between 0 and 1,000. Last time, Mike’s guess of 333 won him a solar system inside a color-change crystal ball.
CLIMATE
The Biden administration has approved over 9,000 drilling permits for oil and gas in its first three years; about the same as the previous Trump administration. The 2024 Republican Party Platform exclaims, “We will DRILL, BABY, DRILL and we … will harness that potential to power our future.” ¿Are there any bright spots for addressing climate change? Yes. Our school teachers are devoting more classroom time to recent global warming than before. The White House is working to modernize America’s energy grid to allow it to carry more clean energy and reduce planet-warming pollution. A Norse company is using the world’s first all-electric cargo ship to shuttle minerals to their processing plant. (It’s only about 25 km each way, but it’s a start.) The Lunaz company in Great Britain is converting garbage trucks from diesel-powered to all-electric.
MEDICINE / HEALTH
Prior to development of a vaccine in the 1980s, just about everyone contracted chickenpox, an affliction caused by the varicella zoster virus. Everyone - except the seriously immune compromised - recovered with un-fond memories of the dis-ease. But the viruses were not totally vanquished. They take up long-term residence inside of nerve cells. Decades later they painfully manifest themselves as ‘shingles’. Thankfully, i had a ‘Shingrix’ shot prior to the reëmergence of my population of varicella zoster virus, so my shingles symptoms were very mild. Odd discovery: the Shingrix vaccine delays the onset of dementia. It is possible that one cause of Alzheimer's is our immune response to brain infections. Stay tuned!
A health tip: the use of hair relaxers is associated with the onset of breast and uterine cancers.
MY PICKS of the WEEK (Hint: save dates & times to your mobile phone)
Sci vs Psi: Testing Super Powers Livestream Thurs 4 PM
Climate Change and Climate Solutions Livestream Thurs 7:30 PM
Vintage Computer Festival Sat 10 AM - 5 PM Mountain View, $
Bay Day Sat 11 AM - 3 PM ExplOratorium, San Francisco, $
The Bioethics of Gene Therapy Livestream Sat 6 PM
SPACE
The Perseid Meteor Shower is ongoing this week and will peak next Sunday night/Monday morning (11-12 August). My favorite location is Inspiration Point in the Berkeley hills. (Note: it gets crowded with delightful folk).
The Boeing Starliner crew, Sunita Williams and Butch Gilmore, have been busy helping the regular ISS crew with experiments and house cleaning. (“No. It’s YOUR turn to clean the zero-g toilets!") NASA’s “return readiness review” has been postponed and the latest update is that “NASA is evaluating all options for the return of agency astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.” Consider it an extended vacation with an unsurpassed view.
¿How many galaxies are in the observable universe? Estimates range from 100,000,000,000 to 2,000,000,000,000. Those are the galaxies we can see that have a million stars or more. Our observable universe is - at most - only 3% of the total universe. The total universe could, however, be infinite in expanse and hold an infinite number of galaxies. (My head hurts.)
FUN (?) NERDY VIDEOS
The Limelight - Show & Tell - Joe Schwarcz - 3 mins
Madagascar’s Tenrecs - Bizarre Beasts - Sarah Suta - 6 mins
Why Weeks are 7 Days - Star Talk - Neil deGrasse Tyson & Chuck Nice - 9 mins
Floods, Geography, & LIDAR - PBS Terra - Joe Hanson - 10 mins
U.S. Grid Battery Revolution - Just Have a Think - Dave Borlace - 11.5 mins
The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope - Dr. Becky - Becky Smethurst - 12 mins
Chaos & the Three Body Problem - Up & Atom - Jade Tan-Holmes - 14 mins
Dark Oxygen - Dr. Ben Miles - 15 mins
Euclid’s 5th Postulate & Non-Euclidean Geometry - Veritaseum - Derek Muller - 30 mins
Sea Change: The Gulf of Maine - PBS NOVA - 53 mins
Have a great week celebrating existence and practicing empathy,
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking.”
– Stephen Hawking (1942 - 2018) English theoretical physicist
Upcoming Events:
Click to see the next two weeks of events in your browser.
Tuesday, 08/06/2024
Let's Try and Be More Tolerant: On Tolerant Property Testing and Distance Approximation - 08/06/2024 04:30 PM
Calvin Laboratory Berkeley
A property testing algorithm is required to accept objects that have a prespecified property P and reject those that are relatively far from having P. To this end, it is given query (or sampling) access to the object, and is allowed a small failure probability. Its query/sample complexity is required to be sublinear in the size of the object.
A tolerant testing algorithm is required to also accept objects that are relatively close to having the property (while still rejecting those that are far), and a distance-approximation algorithm is required to approximate the distance to having a property. Such algorithms were first explicitly defined in the work of Parnas, Rubinfeld, and Ron (JCSS 2006).
In this talk, Dana Ron will present several tolerant testing/distance-approximation algorithms for a variety of object-types and properties, and discuss some hardness results. Examples include the properties of bipartiteness of graphs, monotonicity of functions, uniformity of distributions, and subsequence-freeness.
Speaker: Dana Ron, Tel Aviv University
Register at weblink to attend in person. Lecture will be available on YouTube later (see weblink)
Wednesday, 08/07/2024
Environmental influences on deep-sea coral reef reproduction across the northern hemisphere - Livestream - 08/07/2024 11:00 AM
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Deep-sea coral reefs rely on relatively low organic matter input that is often characterized by large fluctuations in quantity and quality. Understanding how reef-forming deep-sea corals allocate this limited energy to reproduction is crucial, especially as climate change impacts both food input and metabolic demands on reefs. By comparing deep reefs across the North Atlantic under varying food regimes, this research aims to understand how organic matter input affects reproductive timing and output. In addition, we assessed how the reproduction of reef-forming deep-sea corals is impacted by the stressful conditions of the oligotrophic North Pacific where the calcium carbonate needed to build and maintain their skeletons is undersaturated. Understanding how environmental variables affect deep-sea coral reproduction is important for learning how reefs and populations will respond in the face of a changing climate.
Speaker: Laura Anthony, Florida State University
Register at weblink to receive connection information
2024 International Observe the Moon Night - Livestream - 08/07/2024 06:00 PM
Night Sky Network
Join NASA’s Night Sky Network and the International Observe the Moon Night team to learn about this global observing event, how you can get involved, and about the program resources available to event hosts this year.
There are many ways to observe, and many ways to get involved! Find out about this year’s new Moon maps, advertising materials, and social media shareables. Discover hands-on activities, as well as tips and resources for hosting in-person or virtual events, and for evaluating them. Ask questions of the project leadership team and other event hosts, share your own ideas for event planning, and find out how to stay connected throughout the year.
Andrea Jones and Caela Barry from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Theresa Summer from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific will guide the discussion. A recording of this webinar will be available on YouTube and moon.nasa.gov/observe.
Observe The Moon night is September 14, 2024
See weblink to join the broadcast
Thursday, 08/08/2024
Sci vs. Psi: Testing Superpowers | Jim Underdown on Skeptical Inquirer Presents - Livestream - 08/08/2024 04:00 PM
Center for Inquery
$500,000. It should be easy money for the right person. The Center for Inquiry Investigations Group (CFIIG) Paranormal Challenge offers a $500,000 prize to anyone who can demonstrate any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power under scientific testing conditions. It is, by far, the world's largest prize for scientifically proving superpowers - and it's never been claimed successfully.
Join Skeptical Inquirer Presents for a free livestream conversation with Jim Underdown, founder and chairman of the Center for Inquiry Investigations Group (CFIIG). He'll share a behind-the-scenes look at the Paranormal Challenge. Who applies for this prize? How often do they cheat? And what are the rules that must be followed? Underdown will answer all these questions and share stories from his almost quarter century of putting wacky claims to the test.
Register at weblink to attend
After Dark: Rising Sea - 08/08/2024 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
Explore sea level rise through the lens of both art and science! Learn about the facts, figures and feelings that will impact our environment for decades to come, and hear from artists and scientists on what they're doing to adapt to our shifting reality.
Climate Change and Climate Solutions - Livestream - 08/08/2024 07:30 PM
Bay Area Skeptics
What Does Climate Science tell us about the current extraordinary year of extremes? Where are we in deploying Climate solutions?
Speaker: Peter Sinclair is a Videographer, specializing in environmental and renewable energy issues, based in Midland, Michigan. His YouTube video series, "Climate Denial Crock of the Week", the blog of the same name, and "This is Not Cool", a collaboration with Yale Climate Connections - have received millions of views, are used in higher education and university settings around the planet, and have become trusted resources for scientists, educators, students, policy makers, and citizens. He has been called "The sharpest climate denial debunker on YouTube" and "The most important videographer on the planet."
See weblink for connection information
Friday, 08/09/2024
Astro 101: Intro to Astronomy - 08/09/2024 07:30 PM
San Jose Astronomical Association San Jose
This event provides an introduction to astronomy. During this hour, you'll gain an appreciation for the size and scale of the cosmos and our place within it. You'll see many examples of the beautiful objects visible in the night sky, and learn something about how we see them through our telescopes.
This talk is free of charge. Just come and enjoy the show. After the talk, you can check out telescopes that will be set up as part of our In-Town Star Party.
The talk will be presented by Carl Svensson. Carl is not a professional astronomer, but an avid star-gazer and astrophotographer. He joined SJAA in 2017 after receiving his first telescope (a Celestron NexStar 8SE) as a birthday gift from his wife. Since, then he's been involved with various volunteer astronomy events with SJAA, including Starry Nights and solar observing. You can see some of his astrophotos here: https://www.astrobin.com/users/csvensson/
Imaging Exoplanets with the World's Largest Telescopes - SOLD OUT - 08/09/2024 08:00 PM
Lick Observatory Mt. Hamilton
Speaker: Steph Sallum, UC Irvine
In Town Star Party - 08/09/2024 08:45 PM
San Jose Astronomical Association San Jose
Come join San Jose Astronomical Association (SJAA) for an evening of stargazing.
Event details:
Events are held at the parking lot of our headquarters, Houge Park San Jose. The event duration is 2 hours. SJAA volunteers will share night sky views from their telescopes.Please refrain from bringing your own telescopes (Binoculars are welcome). If you like to be a volunteer with or without a telescope please email at "itsp@sjaa.net".SJAA as an all volunteer-nonprofit org depends on the City of San Jose to use facilities at Houge Park. To maintain this relationship, we must provide facility-use data to the city. Therefore, we ask you to sign in (no traceable personal data collected) when you arrive at the event.
Saturday, 08/10/2024
The intriguing lives of galaxies without dark matter - 08/10/2024 08:00 PM
Lick Observatory Mt. Hamilton
Each year Lick Observatory brings world-renown musicians and astronomers to the summit of Mount Hamilton for a musical night to remember.
Dr. Jorge Moreno is an Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Pomona College, and the fourth Mexican scholar to receive tenure in astronomy/astrophysics in the United States. He is also the 2023-2025 IDEA Scholar(Flatiron Institute), and the recipient of the 2023 Vera Rubin Distinguished Professorship (UC Santa Cruz). His field of expertise is computational astrophysics, and he works on various aspects of galaxy evolution and structure formation. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles, received ~1 million dollars in funding, and has recently solved the puzzle behind the existence of dark matter deficient galaxies, which gathered significant media coverage.
He also enjoys exploring the intersections of astronomy, pedagogy, mentoring and art. At the national level, he has served as the chair of the AAS Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy. On the eve of the Trump presidency he led a Town Hall on Racism in Astronomy at the 229th AAS Meeting, attended by over 2000 astronomers. He was also the director of the Harvard Aztl'n Institute, a summer research program aimed to uplift minoritized undergraduate students in astronomy.
In recent years, he has focused his advocacy efforts to the way we teach and mentor the next generation. This includes work at his own institution and the delivery of (paid) workshops nationwide. In 2023 he coined the term astromimicry as a way to allow the universe to inspire us to create more inclusive communities.
The event activities include:
Concert
Astronomy talk by world-renowned scientists
Viewing through the historic 36-inch Great Lick Refractor telescope
Viewing through the 40-inch Nickel Reflector telescope
Astronomy discussions with amateur astronomers and viewing through small telescope
Speaker: Jorge Moreno, Pomona College
Artist: Golden Bough
City Public Star Party - 08/10/2024 08:00 PM
City Star Parties - Tunnel Tops Park San Francisco
Come join the San Francisco Amateur Astronomers for free public stargazing of the Moon, planets, globular clusters and more!
The event will take place in Tunnel Tops National Park, parking is located adjacent to Picnic Place (210 Lincoln Blvd for GPS) with the telescopes setup in the East Meadow.
Dress warmly as conditions can be windy or cold in the Presidio. Rain, heavy fog or overcast skies cancel the event. Check the SFAA website for a cancellation notice before leaving for the star party.
SFAA members with telescopes are encouraged to attend and share their views of the stars with the general public.
Sunday, 08/11/2024
Family Story Walk: A Home for Salty - 08/11/2024 10:00 AM
Don Edwards Refuge Environmental Education Center Alviso
Story Walks are a great way to connect children & families to nature. Join us for a free Story Walk through the habitats of Don Edwards SF Bay National Wildlife Refuge! As you walk down the trail, stop and read the story about Salty, the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse, who is looking for her perfect home (habitat). This story and its activities are fun for all ages!
The event will take place from 10:00 am-12:00 pm. Feel free to arrive whenever is convenient for you during this timeframe (please allow at least a full hour to complete the Story Walk and activities). We hope you will stop by! We will have a table set up to greet you, provide you with pre-printed activity booklets, and answer any questions you might have!
Prior Reservation is encouraged, but not required.
Register at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/family-story-walk-a-home-for-salty-tickets-923363804997
2024 Summer Science Games - 08/11/2024 11:00 AM
Lawrence Hall of Science Berkeley
On the same day as the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games, join us for a friendly competition. Like the Olympians, you can be "Faster, Higher, Stronger - Together." Use your physics and engineering knowledge to compete in a variety of science challenges and games. Build and race tule boats, face off in a stomp rocket distance and accuracy challenge, and more.
Event is included with admission to the science center (Adults & children ages 3+: $20). Admission is free for UC Berkeley students & staff, Members, children 2 and under, Museums for All, and active-duty military.
Perseids Meteor Shower - 08/11/2024 11:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Join Chabot astronomers for a watch party of the Perseids - one of most abundant meteor showers of the year. Every August, the Earth passes through the debris of the giant comet Swift-Tuttle, the origin of this famed shower. Named for the region of the sky where the shower appears to originate, the constellation Perseus, these meteors can be seen flashing across all parts of the sky. The Perseids are best viewed without telescopes or even binoculars. So come prepared to sit back, look up and enjoy the show!
Monday, 08/12/2024
Transforming Hearing Aids into Multifunctional Communication and Health Devices - 08/12/2024 06:00 PM
AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) San Jose
Transforming Hearing Aids into Multifunctional Communication and Health Devices with Artificial Intelligence With over 1.5 billion people suffering from hearing impairments according to the World Health Organization, hearing aids are crucially important medical wearable devices. Untreated hearing loss has been linked to increased risks of social isolation, depression, dementia, fall injuries, and other health issues. However, partly due to the historical stigma associated with assistive devices and functional limitations, only a small fraction of people who need help with hearing have actually adopted the devices.
In this talk, the speaker will present a new class of multifunctional hearing and health devices with embedded sensors and artificial intelligence. With an extremely energy-efficient embedded deep neural network accelerator, these devices continuously classify sound with advanced machine learning algorithms, enhance speech and reduce noise, serve as a continuous monitor for physical and cognitive activities, an automatic fall detection and alert system, as well as a personal assistant with connectivity to the cloud. Furthermore, these devices stream audio from phones and other devices with two-day battery life, translate languages, transcribe speech, and remind the wearer of medication and other tasks.
Rapid advances in sensors and artificial intelligence are bringing an array of new devices, applications, and user benefits to the world. We will discuss how these technologies are transforming the traditional hearing aids into smart multipurpose devices, helping people not only hear better but live better lives.
Speaker: Achintya Bhowmik, Stanford University School of Medicine
Tuesday, 08/13/2024
Nucleophilic addition with computations: From the Felkin-Anh rule to the Grignard reaction - 08/13/2024 11:00 AM
Lewis Hall Berkeley
Wonderfest: The Most Famous Equation - 08/13/2024 07:00 PM
Hopmonk Tavern Novato
Wednesday, 08/14/2024
28th Annual Intern Symposium - Livestream - 08/14/2024 09:00 AM
Monterey Bay Research Institute
Physical-biological processes and the fate of phytoplankton in (sub)mesoscale systems - Livestream - 08/14/2024 03:00 PM
Bodega Marine Laboratory
The Evolution of the Digital You - 08/14/2024 06:00 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
Thursday, 08/15/2024
Lunch Break Science - Livestream - 08/15/2024 11:00 AM
The Leakey Foundation
A New Approach to Climate Modeling - Livestream - 08/15/2024 01:00 PM
UC Berkeley Retirement Center
Mainstream Monotony - AI in Journalism & Storytelling - 08/15/2024 05:30 PM
San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco
ACROBiosystems South San Francisco Cell and Gene Therapy Workshop - 08/15/2024 05:30 PM
South San Francisco Conference Center South San Francisco
Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's??'There's Hope - 08/15/2024 05:30 PM
Commonwealth Club San Francisco
After Dark: Insectacular - 08/15/2024 06:00 PM
ExplOratorium San Francisco
An Evening with Michael Pollan - Livestream - 08/15/2024 06:30 PM
Manny's San Francisco
How Birds Sense the World - Livestream - 08/15/2024 07:00 PM
Golden Gate Bird Alliance
Friday, 08/16/2024
Family Astronomy: Radio Astronomy - 08/16/2024 06:00 PM
Chabot Space and Science Center Oakland
Saturday, 08/17/2024
Foothills Family Nature Walk - 08/17/2024 11:00 AM
Foothills Nature Preserve Los Altos
Sunday, 08/18/2024
Trail Maintenance Volunteer Work Day at the EEC - 08/18/2024 09:30 AM
Don Edwards Refuge Environmental Education Center Alviso
Monday, 08/19/2024
August Butterfly Walk - 08/19/2024 01:30 PM
UC Botanical Garden Berkeley
Mapping our Galactic Backyard - 08/19/2024 07:30 PM
California Academy of Sciences San Francisco