by Bob Siederer
Hello again fans of Science!
What an incredibly busy two weeks we have coming up. There are over 180 events listed on our calendar right now, with more sure to be added as the week goes by.
For starters, the Bay Area Science Festival kicks off Friday, October 26 and runs through November 3. Many of the tours and events require advance registration, which began on the 19th. Many are sold out or taking wait list reservations already. You can look at the festival calendar directly here. The three Discovery Days events do not require registration, so just show up for those.
UC San Francisco Medical School will be holding a Mini-Med School starting this week. There are two lectures each week, one each on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, through December 6. Check out the topics on our calendar.
The first Digital Heritage conference to be held in the US begins Friday, 10/26 in San Francisco. It runs through Monday and, while pricey, has a rich event list for attendees, should your interests run in this area.
My top three non-festival events are:
- History and Geology of Livermore Oil – Mon 12:30PM at Stanford. Who knew about the connection between this event and The Beverly Hillbillies?
- Artful Design: How We Shape Technology, and How Technology Shapes Us – Fri 7PM in Mountain View, part of Friday Nights @ CHM
- TEDxPaloAltoSalon: Imagine Anew – Sun 6:30PM in Palo Alto
I came across a number of Astronomy articles that are worth sharing. Remember the first known interstellar visitor Oumuamua? Since it hurtled around our sun, astronomers have been trying to figure out where it came from. They have narrowed down the candidates.
Several thousand exoplanets have been discovered using several different techniques. It stands to reason that some of them may have moons. We may have discovered the first exomoon, and it is Neptune-sized!
When we gaze into the sky, the light we see from distant stars and galaxies is also a look back in time. The light reaching us has traveled many light years to get here, so what we see now is actually very old (as in billions of years). Astronomers have found a galaxy supercluster in the early universe.
Scientists are unable to account for all the matter created in the big bang. We can see and measure some of it, but a lot of it is “dark” or invisible. That doesn’t stop scientists from trying to find it. This is a great article about the physics involved and why we haven’t found it directly…yet.
Then there are the strange cosmic rays discovered in the Antarctic that aren’t coming from where we think cosmic rays should originate.
Finally, a word about selfies. Well, more than a word. Did you know selfies kill 20 times more people than Sharks?
Have a great week in Science!
Bob Siederer
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