Image: China Ocean Shipping Company
Hello again science fans.
Bonjour à tous les fans de science.
(Over 45,000 Bay Area residents speak French at home.)
CLIMATE
Above is the world’s second all-electric cargo ship. It’s 120m long, 24m wide, and has the battery capacity of a thousand Model Y Teslas (50,000,000 Wh). Like the other and smaller electric cargo ship – the Yara Birkeland – it is plying inland rivers instead of the open oceans. Ocean shipping accounts for about 3% of the world’s CO2 emissions, but don’t expect batteries to power cargo ships that cross thousands of kilometers of open oceans anytime soon. Instead, open ocean shipping is turning to wind energy. The Anemos is a 1,000 tonne cargo sailing ship that resembles the great clipper ships of yore. Several cargo ships and a passenger ship have added Flettner rotors.
BIOLOGY
Hollywood taught me about the Giant Squid, but somehow the Colossal Squid evaded my attention until this week. I’m anointing the Colossal Squid as my nightmare monster of the week.
Visit Mono Lake if you haven’t already. Fascinating formations, wildlife, and history. It now has its own choanoflagellate. Colonies of Barroeca monosierra live in the lake and carry around their own microbiome of bacteria. Choanoflagellates are thought to have introduced oxygen into our atmosphere starting about 2.4 billion years ago. Breathe deep.
Many single-celled organisms form small colonies, but this does not qualify them to be multicellular since each cell is identical to every other. ¿How and when did cell differentiations originate to create true multicellular organisms? Quite likely, this ‘event’ occurred multiple times with different types of organisms. An hypothesis being tossed around invokes the low temperatures of Snowball Earth as a catalyst for multicellularity.
Posted on a fictitious Internet dating platform:
Single dad with sons in important positions seeks eligible female desiring offspring.
E Woodii, Ngoye Forest, South Africa
The only known surviving cycad plants of Encephalartos woodii are all derived from a single male plant. Botanists are hoping that someone will find a female of the species.
RAFFLE
We are offering a long sleeve Polaris Dawn t-shirt with one of the crew floating outside the craft. Pick your color and size. 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, John of Placerville guessed closest to the randomly generated 206 to win a 450ml laboratory beaker coffee mug.
COVID
Some sufferers of long COVID complain of continuing ‘brain fog.’ There is frightening evidence that damage to the blood-brain barrier may be to blame. Very ungood. Do not skip the latest vaccine.
¿Are dogs able to detect COVID infections in people? Well, sorta. Well-trained dogs were impressive in a California study, but there were missed infections and false positives. Test kits are far better.
This two-year-old article by Ed Jong from The Atlantic is well worth reading. His conclusion:
“More pandemics will happen, and the U.S. has spectacularly failed to contain the current one. … Normal led to this. It is not too late to fashion a better normal.”
EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
“The Gulf of Greater Farallones & Its Inhabitants”
Whales, dolphins, and porpoises (collectively ‘cetaceans’) enchant us with their grace, intelligence, and beauty. They have an exceptional ability to inspire people and serve as ambassadors for ocean conservation. Yet, these magnificent creatures face more threats than ever before – entanglement in marine debris and fishing gear, ship strikes, noise pollution, climate change, contaminants, loss of habitat, whaling, and more. The American Cetacean Society, SF/Bay Chapter believes that solving these threats begins with education and scientific research.
Purpose: The classes will introduce you to the ecology and local marine mammals, seabirds, and sharks in the Marine Sanctuary; increase your understanding of cetacean, pinnipeds, and seabird behaviors; explore the many threats to these animals and learn about conservation efforts to protect them and their habitats.
Attendees: This course will be useful to educators, graduate students, naturalists, and the general public of all ages.
Schedule: 6 classes, Wednesdays from 6 – 9:30 PM (Sep. 11 – Oct. 16)
All sessions are conducted via Zoom.
Presenters: Experts in the fields of marine science and conservation including a professor of Marine Geology, a Marine Science biologist; a Master Birder in ocean species; a Great White Shark researcher focusing on the population within the Gulf; and leading experts on marine mammal entanglement and ship strikes.
Cost: $300 for 6 classes
Registration: American Cetacean Society – San Francisco Bay Chapter
Information: acs.sfbsy.ssherman@gmail.com
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“Einstein without Tears”
A Course about Einstein: His Life & Science
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State
This non-technical, non-mathematical introduction to some of the most awe-inspiring ideas from the work of Albert Einstein is designed for people with little or no science background. If you’ve been intrigued by Einstein (who was Time magazine’s “Person of the Century” in 1999,) but have been scared away by thoughts of pages filled with equations, this is the class for you! We’ll explain everything with analogies, clear photos and diagrams, and touches of humor.
You will come away from this course with a new appreciation of the physical world and its behavior under extreme conditions. You’ll also see why Einstein’s theories continue to fascinate both scientists and science fiction fans today. Our goal is to give a concise overview of Einstein’s ideas, and show how modern science (especially astronomy) has now confirmed the bizarre predictions of his theories.
Along the way you will come to understand such weird notions as: why there is no such thing as a universal “now;” how space itself can bend and warp; that there are at least two ways to do realistic time travel; how giant black holes can form in space (we’ll explain just what those are); and – in the latest triumph for Einstein – the existence of gravity waves (whose discovery got the Nobel prize a few years ago.)
Schedule: 6 classes, Tuesdays from 12:30 to 2:30 PM (Oct. 8 – Nov. 12)
All sessions are conducted via Zoom.
Cost: $125 plus a modest membership fee.
Information & Registration: Einstein without Tears
Questions about registering?: Email olli@sfsu.edu
Andrew Fraknoi retired as Chair of the Astronomy Department at Foothill College in 2017. He was chosen the California Professor of the Year in 2007 by the Carnegie Endowment and has won several national prizes for his teaching. He is the lead author of OpenStax Astronomy, a free, electronic textbook, which is now the leading introductory text in the field. He has also written books for teachers, children, and the public. He appears regularly on local & national radio, explaining astronomical ideas in terms everyone can understand. The International Astronomical Union has named Asteroid 4859 Asteroid Fraknoi to recognize his contributions to the public appreciation of science. See: Exploring the Universe with Andrew Fraknoi for more information about his work, and examples of the science-fiction stories he has recently been publishing.
The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State is a friendly community of inquiring adults, age 50+, offering non-credit courses, lectures, and interest groups. Many are held remotely, so you don’t need to reside in San Francisco to participate. You must become a member of the Institute to take the class — it’s easy to register and the fee, which lets you take other classes and join groups, is reasonable.
MY PICKS of the WEEK (Hint: save dates & times to your mobile phone)
How Plants Do The Twist Wed Noon, Berkeley
Elections & the Supreme Court: Collapse of Science & Secularism? Livestream Thu 4pm
After Dark: Out There Thu 6 – 10pm, ExplOratorium, San Francisco, $
First Friday Nights at Curiodyssey Fri 5 – 8pm, San Mateo, $
The Future of Mars Helicopters Fri 8pm, College of San Mateo
Documentary Film: Journeys of Black Mathematicians Sat 1pm, San Francisco, $
Jazz under the Stars Sat 8pm, San Mateo
Tropical House Public Opening Sun 10am, Berkeley, $
ENVIRONMENT / ECOLOGY
A dearth of vultures has led to an estimated 2.5 million excess human deaths in India. Really. The chain of events is something like this:
- Cheap drug, diclofenac, used widely on cattle
- Cattle turned loose after no longer needed for milk or breeding
- Cattle die and are eaten by vultures
- Diclofenac kills the vultures
- Dearth of vultures
- Rotting cattle contaminate streams
- Rotting cattle support feral dog population
- Rabies and contaminated water kill people
In the study of ecosystems, “it is never one thing.”
My title for this next story: “Cane Toad butts save Australian crocodiles.” Australia has been plagued by well-meaning introductions of non-native species. Rabbits were brought in for sport shooting in the 1850s and now number in the hundreds of millions. Also numbering in the hundreds of millions are the Cane Toads that were brought in to eat beetles that were munching on sugar cane crops in the 1930s. An Australian Saltwater Crocodile will happily gulp down a Cane Toad, but the toads have toxins that quickly kill the crocodile. Solution: Cut Cane Toads in half, toss away the front half where the toxins lie, inject a harmless, tasteless, nauseating drug into the toad’s back half, and toss the toad butts into the salt marsh where the crocodiles quickly learn to avoid anything that smells or tastes like a Cane Toad.
FUN (?) NERDY VIDEOS
Namib Desert Live Cam This video allows you to ‘go back in time’ 12 hours to watch a variety of animals: Oryx, Ostrich, Jackal, Zebra, Gnu, et al. Click various places on the red timeline.
Yerkes Observatory I – 2 mins
Yerkes Observatory II – 3 mins
Senolytics and Aging – Cup o’ Joe – Joe Schwaarcz – 4 mins
Greenland’s Hiawatha Crater – SciShow – Hank Green – 6 mins
Definition of Life – Big Think – Lee Cronin – 7 mins
Eyelash Vipers – Bizarre Beasts – Sarah Suta – 11 mins
Advance in Seawater Desalination – Just Have a Think – Dave Borlace – 11 mins
Concerning the Stranded Astronauts – Neil deGrasse Tyson – 11 mins
¿Is Science dying? – Sabine Hossenfelder – 15 mins
¿¿ Life on Exoplanet K2-18b ?? – Dr. Becky – Becky Smethurst – 15 mins
¿What Is Elementary Particle Spin? – ScienceClic – Octave Masson – 20 mins
Democracy Is Mathematically Impossible – Veritasium – Derek Muller – 22 mins
Enjoy the holiday and support Labor,
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend.”
Doug Larson (1926 – 2017) American newspaper editor and jounalist
“It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of middle-class security all bear the union label.”
Barack Obama (1961 – ) 44th President of the United States
Upcoming Events:
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