SL Video (Science Circle): "Giuseppe Longo Measuring The Universe With Digital Surveys"

 

 (click here if the video does not play)

 

 From the Science Circle on February 2017, "Presentation by Giuseppe Longo for the ScienceCircle - 'Measuring the Universe with digital surveys'."

 

 

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'"

 

 

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).

*  *  *  *  *

"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 

Announcement: "Are We Alone in the Cosmos?" by University of Hawaii

Univ of Hawaii, Astronomy Presents: "Are We Alone in the Cosmos?"

By Bernie Taylor
Friday, June 21th at 9:30 PM PDT
Institute for Astronomy - U. Hawaii Astronomy Amphitheater: 
And on the web: http://tinyurl.com/ifamaui

Naturalist and author Bernie Taylor returns to explore how animals time themselves via solar-lunar cues and the knowledge of this behavior by coastal/inland hunter-gatherers. Taylor will delve into these practices, their relationship to the unique biologically timed characteristics of humans and pose if the Drake Equation can determine the probability of other earth-like and intelligent life in the cosmos.


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

Announcement: This Week At The Science Circle: “The First Stars”

“The First Stars” by Rob Knop
Saturday, April 7th 10AM - 11AM PDT

The Universe began in a hot and dense state. After ten minutes or so, the elements had formed, and for the next few hundred thousand years the Universe was filled with hot plasma, expanding and cooling. The Universe was opaque; any light emitted would be scattered or absorbed before it could travel far. Then came a transition, when the Universe went from plasma to neutral gas, and at the same time became transparent. After that were the aptly-named “dark ages”, for nothing was emitting light. Some few hundred million years after that, the very first stars in the Universe formed. None of these stars, we believe, is still around today, and observing their effects (either directly or indirectly) is very challenging. However, a number of observations have told us things about the epoch when stars first formed in our Universe, and it remains a major goal of cosmology to learn more about the nature of these stars.

In this talk, I’ll outline the relevant history of the Universe, and tell you what we know and believe about the very first stars.

For more information: Click Here.  

The Science Circle (61/127/32)

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)

*  *  *  *  *

"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.

Announcement: The Science Circle - “Measuring the Universe With Machine Learning Methods”

By Giuseppe Longo – Giulon Ragu

10 AM SL Time

 

Modern digital sky surveys produce terabytes of high quality data which can be used to achieve a panchromatic view of the Universe of unprecedented depth and complexity.

Hundreds of millions of galaxies are observed and the parameters describing their morphological and spectral properties are stored in large databases which are often accessible to the astronomical community at large.

One of the key issues to pursue the scientific goals of these surveys is to estimate with accuracy the distance (or the redshift) of these galaxies: a fact which cannot be done using traditional spectroscopic techniques but requires advanced methods capable to estimate the redshifts using photometric data alone.

A difficult task which can be achieved only exploiting the possibilities offered by the modern computer infrastructures and methods derived from the machine learning methodology.

The talk will outline the main problem of evaluating galaxy distances and will focus on the most modern methods used to derive the so called “photometric redshifts”.

The Science Circle (139/206/95)

Science Discussion Tonight at the Exploratorium

5 PM slt tonight Jan 22 - Jennifer Ouellette talks with Dave Goldberg about "Ask a Physicist" & "The Universe in the Rear View Mirror."

Join the studio audience at: Exploratorium (147/52/26).

Listen live or later at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/virtually-speaking-science/2014/01/23/jennifer-ouellette-dave-goldberg .