From AI trust gaps to cosmic data floods to California's most elusive predator
Kishore Hari
May 18
Greetings science fans!
Some weeks, the news and the calendar seem to be in quiet conversation with each other. This is one of those weeks.
The question of what AI actually does to human life is getting harder to avoid. After a year of headlines claiming AI would replace millions of jobs, companies are quietly discovering something more nuanced:
The SciSchmooze Greetings, fellow science enthusiasts, As this Mother’s Day comes to a close, it is only fitting that we trace the literal and metaphorical "threads" that bind us to the maternal—from the cellular engines inherited from our mothers to the self-regulating breath of Mother Nature herself. While our nuclear DNA is a shuffled deck from both parents, our Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is an unbroken heirloom, passed exclusively from mother to child. This Mother’s Day, we salute the late Lynn Margulis, the radical visionary who proved t
The SciSchmooze Greetings again, friends of science, Every year with the coming of the month of May, the catchy tune of the Lusty Month of May becomes an earworm. The song is from Lerner & Loewe’s Broadway musical “Camelot” starring Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, and Robert Goulet. (The above link, however, is for a slightly bowdlerized version of the song from the 1967 Warner Brothers movie of Camelot.) On Saturdays, i join a group of folk at the Grocery Outlet in San Pablo at 11AM to protest actions of our current federal administration. The number of protesters keeps growing. The percentage of the drivers of passing cars that honk or wave keeps
The SciSchmooze Greetings again, friends of science ENVIRONMENT Last Wednesday - Earth Day - a bill was scheduled for approval in the U.S. House of Representatives: The Endangered Species Amendments Act. The bill called for fast-tracking the removal of protections from endangered species whose numbers were recovering. It was an act of hubris to put this to Congress on Earth Day, but fortunately it was withdrawn at the last minute
Every week is climate week, but especially this week. Kishore Hari Greetings science fans! This Wednesday is 56th anniversary of Earth Day. The theme this year is “Our Power, Our Planet,” a call to unite around clean air, clean water, and renewable energy, and a reminder that when communities act together, they can become an unstoppable force. It is a fitting theme for a week that also happens to be SF Climate Week, when more than 650 events and 1,000 speakers are descending on the Bay Area to do exactly that. Earth Day has deep Bay Area ro
Lili Galilean Greetings, fellow Group 14 travelers! This week, we follow one thread through the cosmic tapestry: Silicon (Si). From the 'ghost sand' clogging our local turbines to the 'primal grit' forged in the first galaxies, Silicon is a paradox of materials science. The way we manage it determines whether it remains a hurdle to clear or becomes the backbone of the telescopes that let us see forever. In Silicon Valley, we usually treat silicon as the hero—the “brain” in our semiconductors. But in our landfills and wastewater plants, it plays a villainous role in the form of Siloxanes
Hello again Science Fans! I’ve been thinking about the Artemis missions for a while. I’ve been wondering why we’re going back to the moon, somewhere we already visited several times, instead of going somewhere more challenging and uncharted, like Mars. If you think about it, the challenges of the Apollo program were greater than those today, given the technology limits of the time. The flight computers were rather basic back then, requiring programming at a machine language level. They we
Greetings again, friends of science, Tidbit: The population of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area is about the same as California’s. “They lie.” That was the Australian’s response when i mentioned that nearly all meteorologists concur that global warming is happening. Rather than dispute this, i merely pointed out that scientists are focussed mostly on understanding how things ‘work’, not on picking sides. Then i quickly changed the subject and we enjoyed a good long conversation. This exchange occurred during our ongoing tour of Japan and South Korea. Besides drinking in art, history
Hello again Science Fans! The vernal equinox occurred Friday morning, ushering in the astronomical start to spring in the northern hemisphere. However, if felt more like we skipped spring and went straight to summer in the western US, what with highs in the 90s this past week. The heat wave is an example of extreme weather pushed by climate change, according to climate scientists. The temperature reached 110 F in the Arizona desert on Thursday, marking the highest March temperature ever recorded in the US!Thanks for the Mitochondria, Gaia!
Lili Galilean
10 May 2026
The Matrilineal Engine: Lynn Margulis and the Adopted Guest
Tra-La It’s May
Sempa xitlajpaloca, nohuampoyohua tlen ciencia,
Nearly 2 million people speak Nahuatl (Eastern Huasteca) in Mexico
Every Day Is Earth Day
Mwapoleni nakabili, ifibusa fya sayansi
[About 6 million people in Zambia, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo speak Bemba.]
20 April 2026
13 April 2026
The Earthly Nuisance: Siloxanes and the “Glass” in the Gears
To the Moon Artemis! To the Moon!
SciSchmooze
Bob Siederer
6 April 2026
SciSchmoozing Around Japan
科学を愛する皆さん、改めてご挨拶申し上げます。
The First SciSchmooze of Spring
