from the desk of Herb Masters

Hello Moon Lovers and not,

I hope that the 50^th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing triggered some thoughts and reflection for you.  It certainly did for me.  I have had a lot of conversations about it and watched many programs on the history and technology of how and why “we” did it.  In no particular order…  It was one of those events that almost everyone who was around remembers where they were when it happened.  Most events in history that people remember where they were generally were horrible things.  I don’t need to list them here.  But if you remember where you were and what you were doing, ask yourself a question.  What time of day was it where you were when it happened?  Now see if you remem…

from the desk of Herb Masters

50 Years?  Really?  

Looking up at the sky has been something that I think everyone does many times in their lives, probably several times a week at a minimum.  50 years ago people were doing it a lot more than today.  Of course there was a bit of extra interest then.  In case you haven’t heard, this coming Saturday, July 20 is the 50^th anniversary of humans landing on the moon.  I have been a fan of space exploration since I started growing up in the 50’s.  There is so much going on for this celebration I can’t begin to tell you about all of it.  Fortunately Bob has loaded the calendar with everything space we could find in the extended SF Bay Area.  In fact there are only 3 days in the next …

from the desk of Meenakshi Prabhune

Hello all,

Hope you had (and still having) a great 4^th of July weekend. Summer is always a great time in any place, where people are full of energy and ready to participate in numerous activities. June was especially fun with all the pride celebrations to support the LGBTQ community. We also had a small gathering at my workplace with great food, colorful drinks, and custom Pride-Tshirts. A few people spoke about the history of Stonewall riots and the long way we have come since then as a society. It was very emotional and at the same time a great feeling, considering the progress we have made (especially being in California, we may take these things for granted).

Why bring this up in a science newsletter? Because these social issues are not separate from…

from the desk of David Almandsmith

Hello again, science supporter,
 
The SciSchmooze sorta kinda avoids politics, but it is hard to ignore what’s going on in this country and what it means for our future and our descendants’ future. Don’t allow yourself to become numb; supporting science must be more than occasionally visiting one of our numerous and wonderful Bay Area science venues. ‘Nuff said.
 
A temporary science venue is scheduled for Saturday, July 27. It’s the Billion Year Walk around Oakland’s Lake Merritt. For the first time it will be integrated with the cellphone app, Geology Park, from the National Center for Science Education. Also, for the first time, there will be dinosaur fossils. A great event for all ages.
 
There is a science event on Tuesday that is not …

from the desk of Bob Siederer

Hello again Science fans!

With the 50th anniversary of the first walk on the Moon coming up July 20th, museums around the Bay are going all out to celebrate this monumental achievement.  When President Kennedy said we would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, most of the technology to accomplish that feat had not yet been invented.  Yet on that July night, Neal Armstrong set foot on the moon.

This was one of those events where everyone who witnessed it can tell you where they were at the time.  I was home from college for the summer.  My parents woke me up to watch the event on TV, but I dozed off for the actual first step.  Of course, I got to watch the replay, but it wasn’t the same thrill as it would have been to s…

by Herb Masters

Hello Science Fans,

One can’t ignore that we all think we try to make our decisions based on knowledge.  Often though, we make them on a hunch, or a hope.  Often we are at a loss for enough or accurate information to even know who or what to believe.  The more you dive in to the philosophy of knowledge, the more you realize that it’s more complicated than you hoped!  It’s a bit of a long read but I think Knowledge is crude is really worth a read.  When you start learning about something new to you, I hope you will consider the source.  It might be a very reliable source with a great reputation but they all make mistakes!  Science Schmooze included! 

If you read my missives very often you will undoubtedly know that I …

by Bob Seiderer

Hello again Science fans, and welcome to another edition of the SciSchmooze.

Cleveland, Ohio.  What sort of image does that conjure in your mind?  A sports haven?  Rock and roll?  Birthplace of Bob Hope?  How about an incredibly polluted body of water?  The Cuyahoga River begins its journey some miles east of Cleveland, near Lake Erie.  It doesn’t flow directly to the lake there, rather flowing south, then west through Akron, then north through a National Park that bears its name until finally emptying into Lake Erie near downtown Cleveland.  It was there in 1969, that the river famously caught fire.  Randy Newman wrote a song about it.

How can a river burn?  Dump enough pollutants into a river and you will find out.&n…

by Meenakshi Prabhune

Hello Schmoozers,

Hope you all had a great long weekend. I ended up visiting Maui, Hawaii, which is a gorgeous island with abundant natural beauty. What I find particularly interesting about islands is how isolation shapes local culture and biodiversity. We all know about Charles Darwin’s famous study of finches on Galapagos islands, but even today, island life can teach us a lot about evolution of physical and behavioral traits in plant and animal species.

A fun example around this very topic that had surfaced just a few years back. There is a specific population of Hawaiian crows, ‘Alalā, local to Hawaii, which are endangered. With only a 100 of the species left alive, researchers studied these crows in captivity to understand them better. That is how the researcher…

by Herb Masters

Did someone say “Science”?

Did you notice what happened the other day?  It would have been very easy to miss it.  Based on a decision made in Versailles, France last year, the kilogram went through a bit of an identity update and your weight was “adjusted”!  It was decided that “Prototype” wasn’t good enough.  So last week they rolled out the new one.  It’s a bit tricky to figure out how they now measure the kilogram.  They use a Kibble balance!  (This isn’t for weighing pet food.)  Like so many things in science it is about accuracy.  Here’s a nice dry story about it…  The Romance of Precision Measurement (I think it is interesting if nothing else but to see who th…

by Herb Masters

Hello Science Supporters,
I hope that you have been enjoying the May Rains.  I wish we could have them every couple of weeks throughout the summer. 

I have been wondering about the “flat-earth” folks.  In this day and age it is hard to believe that there can be people who actually believe the earth is “flat”.  There do seem to be some variations on what flat means, since some think there is a massive ice wall all the way around the “edge”.   I personally think most are trolls or people trying to make money off of the easily misguided.  They are a group of conspiracy folks that have been getting a lot of attention recently.  Maybe you have seen this… A Look Inside the Flat Earth International Confere…