Dear reader,
Welcome aboard for a flight on this week’s SciSchmooze. {Snacks optional.}

CLIMATE

¿Why is the climate conference taking place called “COP28”? Because it’s easier than calling it the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference Of the Parties #28. ¿And why is it being held in Dubai, a country where fossil fuels account for over 4% of its revenue?  [The United States is the world’s largest producer of fossil fuels - Ed.]; a country that denies entry to travelers who ‘might’ protest government policies?; a country that does not confer upon its own citizens the right to protest? However, things change - at least temporarily. 

Hello again Science fans! I hope you all had enough turkey (or whatever you chose to eat)! When I was in school, we were told that the first Thanksgiving was celebrated by Native Americans and European settlers to give thanks for the harvest. While that celebration did happen, that isn’t really the origin of the Thanksgiving holiday. It was about Union progress in the Civil War! Historian Heather Cox Richardson explains.

It is about time to ta

Hello Science Lovers and Shoppers, and Happy Birthday Ed.

I have not paid much attention to what is coming up on the calendar for awhile. Needless to say I had no idea t

Greetings SciFans,

Remember the good old days when science had all the answers? Richard Whately declared “Phrenology is true as…the sun is now in the sky.”

I remember (sort of) when the first 

Dear science fans,

Storm Ciarán bashed England and left many thousands without power across Western Europe last week. 

The Panama Canal is restricting shipping since a drought left the region without enough fresh water to operate the locks for normal ship traffic. Some container ships had to off-load enough containers to meet weight restrictions. The container

Dear science fan,

The above Quantum Squeeze Apparatus made me laugh. It looks like a far more complex version of one of my goofy grammar school inventions that i assembled from bottles, cans, defunct car parts, light bulbs, wires, and batteries. My inventions didn’t ever do anything - but i always hoped they would lead to some major discovery. The above apparatus actually does something - so they say - that allows greater sensitivity in detecting gravity waves at higher frequencies and at lower frequencies - but not both at the same time. If you believe you can get me to understan

Hello again, Fans of Science!

There are lots of things around us that we take for granted, yet are scientific marvels. Take, for instance, glass. We look through it. It shelters us from the elements in windows. We drink from vessels made from it. But what is it, really? Is it a solid? Liquid? The answer to both may be yes, as glass is a bit of a scientific mystery! This article will get you thinking!

Dear SciSchmoozers,

A 6.1 earthquake topped off my birthday this month in Oaxaca, Mexico (and abruptly terminated a huge outdoor rock concert). Since the quake was located 108 kilometers below the terrain, there was almost no damage - except to nerves.

The Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1989 was a 6.9 magnitude event. The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 was a 7.9 magnitude event. Because the magnitude scale is logarithmic, the San Francisco quake was 10 times “bigger” than the Loma Prieta event. In terms of energy, however, the San Francisco quake released over 30 times the energy of the 1989 quake.

¿Is our Bay Area threatened by another 7.9 quake? Well, yes, but not for a while. The g

10.9.23

Hello SciSchmoozers,

Well it has been a crazy week and I am going to have to just tease you with some various links that have provided some distraction from the news and life. It has been a challenging year and most people seem to want to get on to 2024. I love it when someone says they can’t wait until something completely out of there control happens! It’s not as if a new year will make any difference!!

These are pretty crazy times with people be