Think Tidal with the SciSchmooze 12.10.18

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by Herb Masters

Greetings Fans of Understanding,

Often it seems as if things slow down around the time of the Winter Solstice.  Various religious holidays lead us to reflecting on the lives of our friends, family, and ourselves.  In years past writing the SciSchmooze, the science news has seemed to be a reduced.  I'm not feeling that this year.  It seems that there is a lot going on in science news both out of this world and well within it. 
Let's start with a bit of seasonal applied science and citizen science to go with it. 

Embedded in all of the discussion about sea level rise, I find the tides to be very intriguing.  King Tides are coming: December 22 and 23, and again on January 20 and 21, 2019.    I think we take them for granted and fail to notice how much variation there is in what they look like.  Consider the tides Sun 12.9 in San Francisco and
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SciSchmooze Covers World’s First Gene-Edited Babies 12.3.18

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by Meenakshi Prabhune

Hello fellow Schmoozers,

Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and are already preparing for Christmas. If you are looking for a scientific gift, let me inform you that Foldscope (the paper microscope) is available on holiday sale. Do consider donating the gift of curiosity to your loved ones or schools.

In the scientific realm, there has been an important news that everyone might have heard in the past two weeks. A researcher in China claims to have edited genes of two babies. I have heard several versions from people last week, so let me clarify the real news for everyone.

“Two beautiful little Chinese girls, Lulu and Nana, came crying into the world as healthy as any other babies a few weeks ago,” He Jiankui, a Chinese scientist, announced in a You tube video last week. He said that he took sperm from an HIV positive father and egg from HIV negative mother, fertilized them in the lab (similar to IVF procedure that couples who cannot have kids naturally undergo). The main difference here was that he edited a gene in the embryos that would make the babies immune to HIV using the CRISPR gene editing technology. He implanted these embryos in

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SciSchmoozing from Cyber Monday and Beyond!

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by David Almandsmith

Hello again, thoughtful friend of thinking (¿or is it thinking friend of thought?),
 
Once upon a time (¡spoiler alert: fairy tale follows!) taxonomy neatly divided life into two kingdoms:
  • PLANTS and ANIMALS.
Oops. Well dang, these microscopic things don’t have a nucleus so let’s make it three kingdoms:
  • BACTERIA, PLANTS, and ANIMALS.
You probably see where this is going. Today, largely because of genetic studies, there are three recognized domains (Bacteria, Archaea, & Eukaryota), six super-kingdoms of Eukaryota, and oodles of kingdoms. Heck, we animals (Kingdom Animalia) are placed under super-kingdom Opistokonta lumped in with fungi (huh?) ¿Did i say six
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Measuring, smoke, elections and more with the SciSchmooze

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by Bob Siederer

Hello again Science fans!

We have a lot to cover today, beginning with the California wildfires.  The Camp fire has been responsible for our unhealthy air quality these past days.  Just how bad it is where you are depends on the wind direction and strength, as well as proximity to the fire.  Many events around the area have been postponed or canceled, including some on our calendar.  This serves to remind you that you should always click through from our calendar to the website of the sponsoring organization for last minute updates before you take off to attend an event.  We often don't receive notification of changes, so always check with the organizers.

Lawrence Berkeley Labs published a useful article on how you can protect yourself and your family from the damaging smoke.  Finding masks at this point is difficult as most stores have been out of them for a while.  When they get them back in stock, buy some so you have them for next time, because there WILL be a next time!

If you think fires are worse

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SciSchmoozing Bay Area Science

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by Meenakshi Prabhune

Hello Science fans,

Hope you all are safe from the raging Camp Fire, one of the most devastating wildfires that California has ever seen. It is sad to watch the trail of destruction helplessly on news; one can only hope that we will get through this tragedy soon and try to help those affected in whatever way we can. Also, while wildfires are not necessarily caused by climate change, their severity is certainly linked to it. If you are looking for more information around this association, here’s a good article.

Speaking of wildfires, you must have noticed the terrible

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SciSchmoozing on Election Week

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by David Almandsmith

¿Did we mention voting? If you have a vote-by-mail ballot, be certain to mail it early enough to have a postmark on or before Tuesday or take it to any polling station in your county on election day. Heck, someone else can take it there for you; just write their name on the envelope where there is a space for that.
 
Speaking of space (huh?), the planet-finding Kepler spacecraft is finally beyond resuscitation. Kepler was designed to last 3.5 years but clever work-arounds for failing components kept it working for 9 years. It detected 2,800 planets and another 2,600 ‘possible planet’ candidates.
 
Eleven years ago, the Dawn spacecraft left Earth for the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Four years later it arrived at its primary destination, Vesta, an asteroid over 500 kilometers in diameter. It remained orbiting and studying Vesta 14 months before rocketing off to Ceres, the largest of the asteroids at over 900 km diameter. It reached Ceres in 2015 and has been sending back data ever since – that is until last Thursday when
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If you SciSchmooze YOU HAVE TO VOTE 10.29.18

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by Herb Masters

At least if you can vote legally!!!

Have you voted yet?  If you read the SciSchmooze, I like to think you are an informed and thoughtful voter.  Granted for many of us it won’t take a lot of thought to decide on some issues but there are some that really do need some careful analysis, especially if you are trying to make a decision based on what’s best for all rather than just for you and me.  (Thanks if you were really thinking about me!)
 
This has been a rough week for the country.  I’m not even going to comment on the hate that some folks have for others.  I will only say that those that think their rights supersede those of others, really missed something in school and growing up.   As Jim Jeffries closes every show with “I think we can all do better”, I just wish we could all be better sooner. 
 
As always climate change is stimulating discussions and interest everywhere.  Here’s an interesting story… How the Farm Bureau’s Climate Agenda Is Failing Its Farmers   

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An abundance of Schmoozing

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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:
  1. History and Geology of Livermore Oil - Mon 12:30PM at Stanford. Who kn

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VOTE for Science! with the SciSchmooze 10.15.18

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by Herb Masters

Greetings Voters for Science (and Future Voters too!)

What can every adult in the country do to promote and protect science? VOTE!!!   VOTE FOR SCIENCE!!! What can every kid do to help? Tell everyone you know that is old enough to vote that they need to make sure their voter registration is up to date, and they need to vote for science, reason, and critical thinking. Why is this so important? I'm only going to address one subject for this need now. I think there is a good case to be made that we need to get rid of people in places of power or leadership that say things like this or this. By voting we can help make it a better world for all of us.

Do you take "dietary supplements"? Do you think they are a waste of money? Have you ever considered that most of them have some sort of disclaimer saying they haven't been tested for efficacy or safety? Here's an article that might make

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Learning to Create Biology from Nature in this Week’s Sci-Schmooze

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by Minu (Meenakshi Prabhune)

Hello fellow Schmoozers,

I have been thinking of the ideas I mean to cover in the Schmooze this week and the Synbiobeta meeting, held from 1 Oct to 3 Oct in SF, tops my list. I hope some of you had the chance to participate in the associated synthetic biology week that took place from Sept 30 to Oct 6. There were different synthetic biology related talks and activities for kids and adults during the week. Here's my favorite pic from the "Be a Scientist and Explore DNA" day at Innovative Institute of Genomics: https://twitter.com/igisci?lang=en

Anyway, circling back to Synbiobeta meeting: it is a congregation of synthetic biology experts from academia and industry. For many people outside t

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