This Saturday at The Science Circle

 

Saturday March 28

 

    ~*~

 

At 10 AM PST  

 

Life Cycle of Stars: From Birth To Death

 

By George Djorgovski (SL: Curious George)  

 

More info here: https://www.vwbpe.org/event/ie-moon-base-selene-lunar-space-elevator-hub 

 

https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/71/128/30

 

    ~*~

 

    NOTE: Non-members required to register once

    IM Jes Cobalt or Nymf Hathaway

╚══════════════════════════════ The Science Circle (72,129,30) ═╝  

 

SL Video (Science Circle) : "Rob Knop - Discrepancies in the Measured Expansion Rate of the Universe "

 

 (click here if the video does not play)

 

 From the Science Circle on Feb 2018, "Rob Knop presents 'Discrepancies in the Measured Expansion Rate of the Universe'"

 

 

SL Video (Science Circle): "Pluto On Ice"

 

 (click here if the video does not play)

 

From The Science Circle on March 27, 2016 by Patio Plasma (Paul Doherty) 

This Saturday at The Science Circle: World Space Week

 

 

Saturday October 4

 

    ~*~

 

    At 10 AM PST   

World Space Week

https://www.sciencecircle.org/event/world-space-week/

 

More on World Space Week: https://www.worldspaceweek.org/about/ 

International Observe The Moon Night (also Oct 4): https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night/about/overview/ 

 

Auditorium 

 

    ~*~

 

    NOTE: Non-members required to register once

    IM Jes Cobalt or Nymf Hathaway

╚══════════════════════════════ The Science Circle (72,129,30) ═╝  

 

Science Circle Announcement: Observe the Moon Week

 

Saturday October 21 to Saturday October 28

Do you remember how The Science Circle ( https://www.sciencecircle.org/ ) celebrated International Observe the Moon Night ( https://moon.nasa.gov/observe-the-moon-night/ ) last year? We had presentations about the Moon and our relationship with it throughout history, live images from Kass’s telescope in Switzerland, a planetarium show, and a scheduled tour of the International Space Museum.

This year we decided to celebrate in two ways. One is a presentation for Science Circle EAST participants about this event (see https://www.sciencecircle.org/event/observe-the-moon-night/ for details). The other is a display in Second Life on Science Circle Island (see https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/72/129/30 ) explaining the phenomena of solar and lunar eclipses, during which the Earth’s Moon plays a pivotal part.

>> This is a week-long event, open to visitors from Saturday, 21 October, through Saturday, 28 October 2023.

The eclipse display is on a platform on the water between the Amphitheater where SC WEST presentations are held at 10am SLT Saturday and the underwater site where SC EAST holds its events at 9pm SLT Saturdays. You can walk to it on bridges from either the Moon Base Group site or the peninsula where other exhibits on SC Island are located.

Educational posters in the display provide information about International Observe the Moon Night, The Science Circle non-profit organization, the Moon Base Group (our year-long celebration of our 15^th Anniversary), and an explanation about eclipses.

 

For more information, check out https://www.sciencecircle.org/event/observe-the-moon-week/

    The Science Circle (72,129,30)

 

Some SL20B Exhibits

 

The official events of the Second Life Birthday are over (unofficially, there will be more music events). But the exhibits will be up for several more days. There's too many to report on each one, but yours truly can go over a few.

Read and see more in Design.

This Saturday at The Science Circle

 

Saturday, March 4

 

    ~*~

    

    At 10 AM PST   

    BB: JWST and Astronomy

    By Matt Burr (Beragon Betts)

    https://www.sciencecircle.org/event/beragons-bistro-3/

    Light House Cafe

 

   The Science Circle (225,230,28)

      

    ~*~

 

    At 9 PM PST   

    Celebrating Women

    By  Jes Stannard

    https://www.sciencecircle.org/event/celebrating-women/

 

   The Science Circle (72,129,30)

 

    ~*~

    

    NOTE: Non-members required to register once

    IM Jes Cobalt or Nymf Hathaway

╚══════════════════════════════ The Science Circle (72,129,30) ═╝

 

 

Announcement: This Saturday at The Science Circle - "Webb Telescope," "Organic Chem Basics"

The James Webb Space Telescope: A Summary

Saturday January 22,

9:30 AM to 10 AM SL time

I briefly review the science mission of the JWST and discuss its potential discoveries. I do this in the context of the discoveries of Webb’s predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.

– Dr. William. F. Wall / Syzygy Asymptote

Auditorium

For more information, Click Here.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/72/129/30

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Beragon’s Bistro: Webb Telescope

Saturday January 22,

10 AM to 11 AM SL time,

A discussion hosted by Matt Burr at the Light house Cafe

The Light House Café

For more information, Click Here.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/225/230/28

*  *  *  *  *

Organic Chem Basics: Diels-Alder and Similar Reactions

Saturday January 22,

9 PM to 10 PM

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Dr. Benjamin List (Max PLack Institute)  and Dr. David MacMillam (Princeton University) for “the development of asymmetric organocatalysis.” One of the first reactions that they found could be catalyzed by purely organic compounds was the Diels-Alder reaction. The Diels-Alder reaction is a well-known example of a fundamental class of reactions in organic chemistry, and it can proceed unaided, be catalyzed by metal-containing compounds, or most recently catalyzed by purely organic species. We’ll talk about what makes the Diels-Alder reaction special, and how it has been catalyzed in the past, and why the recent Nobel prize is seen as a jump forward.

A presentation by Dr Michael J. Shaw

Auditorium

For more information, Click Here.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Science%20Circle/125/132/22

Announcement: This Saturday at The Science Circle - "Understanding Science: Earth and the Solar System"

 

"Understanding Science: Earth and the Solar System" 

Saturday April 17

10AM to 11 AM

From the bizarre world of the very small, the subatomic particles that make up everything we know, we turn our attention to the macro world, namely our sun and the objects which orbit it. In this case, one of the small particles within this ‘atom,’ just one among a billion other star systems that comprise our galaxy, itself only one of billions of other galaxies in our known universe, is the only home we have, the ‘third rock from the sun’ we call Earth.

I do not think humans really appreciated how special the Earth is until we were able to travel beyond it. I remember during the Apollo 8 mission, the first that time humans left Earth’s gravity, how the contrast of the ‘blue marble’ in space rising over the drab, lifeless moon brought a stark realization to everyone who witnessed it that we live on a fragile, ‘goldilocks’ planet with just the right conditions to make the surface habitable for life as we know it. It was this realization that inspired Earth Day in 1970 and the movements since to preserve what we have here for future generations.

During the 1960’s, space exploration seemed part of the Space Race and Arms Race, a product of the Cold War. After a few missions to the moon, humans have not ventured outside Earth’s orbit. However, robotic spacecraft have not only helped us to better understand our home planet but have also probed deep into space and the worlds beyond ours to try to understand our place in the universe, to answer the questions of how unique our planet is, whether there may be life elsewhere, and to understand how it all began.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in space exploration. In just this last year there have been three missions to Mars, and several more to our Moon, the Sun, and the smaller bodies of the solar system, by a handful of nations, not just the Cold War rivals. There are also several commercial entities planning serious efforts to exploit the resources on the moon and beyond, and cooperative efforts to put a space station around the Moon, with a base on the surface to follow.

Join me as we explore how we ventured out beyond our home and the amazing discoveries we have made about our solar system and its inhabitants and the world beyond, some exciting recent and current plans for further exploration, and what all this might mean for our future.

Presentation by Dr. Phil Youngblood

For more information, Click Here. 

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

The International Spaceflight Museum

It was a week ago that the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing was celebrated. It was a day with much discussion about spaceflight. But it's not just events like those in which people can learn about space. At Spaceport Alpha and Spaceport Bravo is the International Spaceflight Museum, often called just the ISM. Having been in Second Life for well over the decade, it's one of the best-known science areas on the grid

Read the story in Places.

Sagan Planetarium

People have always been interested in space and learning about it. One way of educating, as well as entertaining, the masses about the planets and stars for many decades has been planetariums. Second Life has it's own: the Sagan Planetarium. So what is the place like?

Read more in Places.

Announcement: Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse Party

What:    Celebrate a Total Lunar Eclipse with National Space Society in Second Life!

When:    Sunday, January 20 2019 at 19:33 - 22:50 SLT (Eclipse Sequence).

Where:    National Space Society "Tranquillity Base" ON THE MOON! (Landmark attached)

Why:    The only total lunar eclipse in 2019, visible in Western Hemisphere and western Spain, Portugal, Brittany, British Isles and Scandinavia. A rare conjunction of events:

Super Moon: Full Moon is closest to Earth in its orbit, so larger, and Earth's shadow is bigger, so the eclipse lasts longer (over one hour) (and may be extra dark);

Blood Moon: Sunlight refracts through Earth's atmosphere, making a ring of red light like sunrise-sunset around the planet.

The Moon appears bathed in a dim red light. See what this looks like on the surface of the Moon at NSS' Tranquillity Base;Wolf Moon: American Indians called the January Full Moon the "Wolf Moon" after wolves singing to its brightness over the long winter night (and on the hunt).

Period of Totality: 20:41 - 21:43 SLT.

Dance to our "Space Filk and More" music and socialize with space colonists. Everyone Welcome!

Come early -- stay late!

More Info:
https://www.space.com/42830-supermoon-blood-moon-total-lunar-eclipse-2019.html

-- Hosted by the NSS in Second Life Team and Friends of NSS.

Tranquillity Base:
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/National%20Space%20Society/50/100/3675 .

Prng Flagstaff, NSSinSL Planetologist

Announcement: UoH "The Telescope in Astronomy: Historical Perspectives"

Univ of Hawaii, Astronomy Presents: "The Telescope in Astronomy: Historical Perspectives"

By Jim Mayo
Thursday, Sept 13th at 9:30 PM PDT
Institute for Astronomy - U. Hawaii Astronomy Amphitheater: 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/CUH%20Alliance/49/206/4002

And on the web: http://tinyurl.com/ifamaui

In “The Telescope in Astronomy: Historical Perspectives,"  Jim Mayo discusses the emergence of astronomy as one of the most ancient of all sciences going back to the world’s earliest civilizations. Starting with “Astronomy of the Ancients” to include Egypt, Babylonia, China and Phoenicia, the focus moves to Greece and Rome, and then to Arabic and early European astronomy.  The critical telescope precursors of the 16th Century are covered leading to the explosion of the telescope onto the scene in 1608. Mayo covers the development and early astronomical use of refractors and reflectors, the emergence of the achromatic object glass in the 1750s, the large refractors of the late 19th Century, and the great reflectors of the 20th Century.

Announcement: Univ of Hawaii, Astronomy Presents: "The Interest in our Stars II"

By Lucas Lavin, Jordan Vaughn, Zain Jabbar
Friday, Mar 16th at 9:30 PM PDT
Institute for Astronomy - U. Hawaii Astronomy Amphitheater: 

And on the web: http://tinyurl.com/ifamaui

Maui is one of the best places in the world to study the stars. Several local students, who identify as "minions," have started journeys to understand the Universe. Four of these students will share their interest in our stars. Lucas Lavin will look at when star's don't quite collide. Jordan Vaughn will talk about the search for a new home; is there another Earth out there? Zain Jabbar talks about holes in the atmosphere of our sun. Finally, Celeste Jongeneelen will talk about using the Gaia satellite to look for the fastest stars in the galaxy.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/CUH%20Alliance/63/168/4002

Announcement: This Week At The Science Circle: "Discrepancies" and "CRISPR"

“Discrepancies in the Measured Expansion Rate of the Universe”
Saturday February 24 at 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM SLT
by Rob Knop

The most basic parameter in our description of the expanding Universe is the current expansion rate, given by the Hubble Constant.

A mere two decades ago, the value of that constant was uncertain to a factor of two. Since then, the face of cosmology has changed, and we are now in an era of precision cosmology. We are able to measure the value of the Hubble Constant to within a few percent. The problem is, we now have two measurements– one from nearby objects such as variable stars and low-redshift supernovae, and the other from statistics of fluctuations in the early Universe. The two measurements are different at about the six-percent level, which is greater than the uncertainties on the individual measurements. While astronomers of two decades ago would dream to be in this situation, we find ourselves questioning whether there is something going on in the expanding universe that we haven’t figured out, or whether it is a matter of systematic uncertainties that we haven’t yet identified.

In this talk, I will discuss the history of both the Universe and of our dominant model of the Universe. I will describe how the Hubble Constant went from being extremely uncertain to relatively well known… well enough that we can see a discrepancy in two different measurements. I will describe the two ways we measure the Hubble Constant, and talk about possibilities for resolving the discrepancy in their results.

Read more information here.

The Science Circle (61/126/32)

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"CRISPR"


“New Advances in Genetic Engineering: The Nuts, The Bolts, Frankenstein Monsters?, and Ethics”
Sunday Feb 25 at 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM SL Time
by Stephen L. Gasior 

In the last 150 years we’ve had an amazing advancement in our understanding of the genetic code that programs life. While some technologies for manipulating genes have developed in the last few decades, new programmable systems have been discovered in the past few years. Developed from bacteria, the CRISPR/Cas systems allow a new level of ease for genetic changes in cells. This presentation will describe the origins of the CRISPR/Cas9 system, how it works, applications for its use, and implications for the future.

Read more information here.

The Science Circle (61/126/32)

Announcement: Univ of Hawaii, Astronomy Presents: "Astronomy's Limitless Journey"

By Dr. Gunther Hasinger
Friday, Jan 26th at 8:30 PM PST
Institute for Astronomy - U. Hawaii Astronomy Amphitheater: 

Alliance, Chaminade University (49, 205, 4002)

And on the web: http://tinyurl.com/ifamaui

Astrophysicist Günther Hasinger takes the reader on a journey to the far reaches of the universe—an exciting time travel that begins with the incredibly hot fireball of the Big Bang roughly 13.8 billion years ago and ends in distant eons with its cold, dark demise.

This is a special event as this is the 100th public talk we have given and it's Dr. Hasinger's last one as head of the Institute for Astronomy.

This Week At The Science Circle: “Black hole Demographics” By Dr. Rob Knop

Saturday January 6th

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PST/SLT

"The term 'black hole' conjures up many fanciful images, some of which are false, and, surprisingly, many of which are true. To astronomers, 'black hole' actually means two different things: first, the theoretical construct predicted by General Relativity (GR), and second, the objects in space that we have observationally confirmed; there is a subtle, at least semantic, difference. For a long time, we’ve known of black holes that are several to about ten times the mass of the Sun, observed as X-Ray sources in our Galaxy. We’ve also known about black holes that are millions to billions times the mass of the Sun, lurking at the cores of galaxies. In the last few years, thanks to gravitational wave observations, we’ve confirmed black holes that are thirty times the mass of the Sun. Are there any in between? Do black holes hundreds or thousands the mass of our Sun exist? If so, where are they hiding? In this talk, I’ll outline our current knowledge of where black holes exist in the Universe, and mention some of the remaining questions we have about these exotic objects."


More information at: https://www.sciencecircle.org/event/rob-knop/

The Science Circle (61/126/32) 

This Week At The Science Circle: "Prospero’s Planetarium"

“Prospero’s Planetarium“, by Rob Knop

 

Saturday, December 23th at 10 AM PST

A functional planetarium is something I wanted to create when I first started with Second Life and saw its building and scripting capabilities. I quickly saw the limits, however. At the time, prims couldn’t be any bigger than 10m, and texture mapping on a sphere broke down at the poles.
After a couple of years, I built the 80-prim monstrosity that I have today — and I still think it probably ought to be bigger. The planetarium shows the bright stars in the sky and all eight planets (with Earth not actually being in the sky).

I will be showing the sorts of things you can do with it, as well as how to use the control panels to set various things about the planetarium. I will also discuss its limits– one of which may be the textures don’t all rez, and lag kills us, with a bunch of avatars in there at once!– and experiments I hope to do in improving it.

More information at https://sciencecircle.org/nextpresentation/

The Science Circle (61/126/32) 

This Week At The Science Circle: "The Future of Fukushima"

Saturday, December 16th at 8 AM PST

"The Future of Fukushima: The Reconstruction and the Radiation Protection" by Fumon Crystal
                    
A magnitude 9.0 earthquake on 11th March 2011 resulted in a tsunami and nuclear accident.

There are ***still*** over 80 thousand evacuees in 2017.

They come to grips with the reconstruction and decontamination after the disaster and enjoy their everyday life. There are the dignified smiling people and the diverse cultures in Fukushima. For the renewal of the agriculture and the fishery, scientists, engineers, and local media’s are collaborated in the science communication and the public understanding of science on the radiation and the health care from the external and internal exposure based on the evidence.

This Science Circle session provides the actual cases how to live in the low dose waiting zones according to the major concepts by ICRP publications and the reconstruction of the social infrastructures.

Presenter visualized such efforts as evidences of history at “la Médiathèque de la Radioactivité” under consultation of Hajime Nishimura.

The presenter will guide you through the Fukushima exhibition at 4000m Sky of Edu Portal, The Science Circle.

Note: Presenter uses text chat in English.

More information about Crystal's excursion at https://sciencecircle.org/nextpresentation/ .

Announcement: This Week at the Science Circle

Saturday, June 10th at 10 AM PDT

“Planets and perception”
By Professor Giuseppe Longo, Italy

The talk focuses on some aspects of the history of astronomy which deal with the complex interaction between simple optical systems, human vision and atmospheric effects.

The talk will cover many interesting anecdotes: from the man on the Moon and the color of our satellite,to the color of Sirius, to the phases of Venus and the channels on Mars.

Behind each of these phenomena there are both interesting physics and an even more interesting social background.

More information about Giuseppe's presentation at https://sciencecircle.org/upcoming-saturday/

The Science Circle (61/126/32)

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Sunday, June 11th at 10 AM PDT

“New Genes from Old”
By Dr. Mary Anne Clarke, USA (SL Max Chatnoir)

Where do new genes come from?  The origins of genes probably  lie with events in RNA world, but since DNA became the primary genomic material, new genes seem to be derived from old genes — both transferring them from species to species and modifying gene copies within and between species.  We’ll look some examples of gene origins:  the production of simple alleles, the modification of gene copies, and the acquisition of genes from other species, and the construction of new genes from old DNA sequences.

More information about Mary Anne's presentation at https://sciencecircle.org/upcoming-sunday/ 

The Science Circle (61/126/32)