More Musings with the Schmooze – Bay Area Skeptics

by Bob Seiderer

Hello again Science fans!

How is it that summer is almost over? It seems like it just started. Schools are going back into session, the number of events we list is picking up, and the amount of daylight is getting noticeably shorter. Of course, the upcoming weeks are often the warmest of the year in the Bay Area, as the summer high breaks down, allowing winds from inland to heat us up. Last year, the Friday before Labor Day was the warmest ever on record in San Francisco, with a high of 106.

This week marked the one year anniversary of the Great American Eclipse. How time flies! I was in Las Vegas. Where were you? While the eclipse gave scientists a great opportunity to do research on the sun, work continues to learn more. This year, NASA launched the Parker probe to touch the sun.

As if we don’t have enough to worry about, a heart disease-causing parasite is headed our way.

Recent major earthquakes around the “ring of fire” remind us that we live in a seismically active place. But one location not too far away is also subject to significant quakes, and that is Yellowstone National Park. The supervolcano beneath Yellowstone is not the main hazard to concern scientists, it is the earthquake likely to happen in the not-to-distant future.

There is a multi-billion dollar industry that preys on all of us. With unproven claims of healthful products, we’re bombarded with ads and celebrities speaking out about their latest “find”. This article sheds light on this industry.

My picks this week include:

Nerd Nite: Mapping Radioactivity, Ticks of CA, Making The Bay – Monday 07:00 PM in Oakland
Lab and Lunch: Facial Recognition for Plankton – Wednesday Noon at the ExplOratorium, and it does not require paid admission
taste of science: Construction in the brain, and parents in our genes – Wednesday 07:00 PM in Redwood City

Bonus picks this week:

What on Earth is going on at Kilauea Volcano? – Thursday 07:00 PM at the USGS in Menlo Park
Grounds for Science – Galaxy Clusters and Black Holes – Friday 06:30 PM in Emeryville

Hawk talks return! Every September and October the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory holds Hawk Talks and releases on Hawk Hill . The first one is next Saturday: Golden Gate Raptor Observatory Hawk Talk – Saturday Noon. Talks are held every Saturday and Sunday except for Fleet Weekend, and they are free.

We recently found out about Odd Salon. Each meeting covers one topic, with various members of the public giving short, TED-like talks about something related to that topic. The next one is here: Odd Salon: Explore – September 4 06:30 PM. This series looks promising.

Also coming up is the 8th Annual Green Film Festival, starting Sept 6.

Have a great week in Science!

Bob Siederer

Upcoming Events:
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25 December – Virtual Skeptics in the Pub
9 January – SkepTalk

Virtual Skeptics in the Pub

WHAT: Virtual Skeptics in the Pub

FOCUS: Becoming better consumers of information

This is a casual night of socializing with fellow skeptics who live in various locations around the oblate spherical planet Earth.

Please join us! This is a free event brought to you by Bay Area Skeptics. All are welcome.

WHEN: Wednesday December 25, 7-9pm Pacific (GMT-8)

HOW: Online. Join HERE. Passcode: 1023

SkepTalk

Ann Gibbons

WHAT: Lone Survivors: Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Us

In the past decade, new studies of ancient DNA from fossils have shown that, until as recently as 40,000 years ago, our ancestors shared the planet with two close relatives, the Neanderthals and a mysterious group called the Denisovans. Both of those groups became extinct, but traces of their DNA remain in the genomes of modern humans. Meanwhile, researchers are discovering diverse types of human ancestors who were living at the same time in the same fossil sites millions of years ago, suggesting that we were never alone—that there were always other types of hominins alive in Africa and elsewhere on the planet until recently. Join us for a discussion with Ann Gibbons about new research that has changed perceptions of the Neanderthals, shed new light on the mysterious Denisovans, and our place in the human family tree.

WHO: Ann Gibbons is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine and the author of The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors, which was a finalist for the LA Times best science and technology book. She also has taught science writing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and written about human evolution for National Geographic, SLATE, Smithsonian magazine and other publications. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, she was also a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a science writing fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory.

She was awarded the 2019 American Geophysical Union’s Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism, the 2018 and 2013 National Academy of Sciences Communication Awards for best magazine/newspaper article; the 2014 Society of American Archaeology Gene S. Stuart Award; and the 2012 Anthropology in Media Award from the American Anthropological Association (AAA) for a decade’s worth of stories on human origins and evolution.

WHEN: Thursday January 9 at 6:30PM PT (GMT -8)

HOW: (details coming soon)