Announcement: This Week in The Science Circle - "Our Place in the Universe!" and "Whales, Dolphins, Porpoises and Us"

“Our Place in the Universe!”

A public presentation and continued educational journey.

Saturday October 5

10AM to 11AM

Facilitated by Phil Youngblood / SL: Vic Michalak

Last time we started our journey investigating the nature and practice of science over the years. This time we will celebrate World Space Week (4-10 October 2019) by examining our place in the universe.

In 1957, Kees Boeke wrote an essay entitled “Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 jumps”. In 1977, Charles and Ray Eames produced an award-winning short documentary entitled “Powers of Ten” that investigated the world of the very small (quarks) to the very large (the observable universe). “Cosmic Voyage” in 1996, presented at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum and in IMAX theaters worldwide, completed a similar journey.

In Part II of our continuing sequence to “Explore Science in Second Life!” we will jump ahead another 20 years or so and create our own unique version of this concept using examples in Second Life and other sources. It is appropriate that we will be meeting in the Planetarium building on Science Circle island.

Nikolai’s Planetarium 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/122/137/3002

Read the announcement in full here (link).

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"Whales, Dolphins, Porpoises and Us"

Sunday October 6
7AM to 8AM

A number of years ago, I was boating in Cape Cod Bay (Massachusetts, USA) near Stellwagen Banks and watching for whales. I had been there watching for whales and dolphins other times too. This time was different though. As we waited, a small pod of fin whales passed us by at breakwater speed. Then nothing. Until a young humpback whale surfaced and waved to us. This whale performed a dance of dive and surface for 15 minutes, circling, breaching, submerging. When the whale was done, he or she lay there looking at me as I was looking back, eye to eye, intelligence to intelligence, only meters apart. Who was I? Who was he or she?

For me, the plight of cetaceans is not just ecological and worrisome, it’s poignant and personal as well.

Please join us at The Science Circle on Sunday, October 6 at 7 am SLT to talk about amazing and endangered cetaceans of the world.

Linda Morris Kelley (Delia Lake in SL)

Read the announcement in full here (link).

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/67/129/32