Science Circle

Classical Sunday Concerts
2021-07-18 07:00 - 08:00, 2021-07-11 07:00 - 08:00, 2021-07-04 07:00 - 08:00, 2021-06-27 07:00 - 08:00, 2021-06-20 07:00 - 08:00, 2021-06-13 07:00 - 08:00, 2021-05-30 07:00 - 08:00, 2021-05-23 07:00 - 08:00 (America/Los_Angeles) and 3 more dates | The Lighthouse Café

Follow the Food
2021-07-17 07:00 - 08:00, 2021-07-10 07:00 - 08:00 | Auditorium

Abyssinia
2021-06-27 12:00 - 13:00 | Abyssinia
Abyssinia
Abyssinia, which is intended as a living museum & educational resource on the Science Circle’s OpenSim grid, is my reconstruction of ancient archaeological sites in Tigray (northern Ethiopia) & Eritrea that date from at least 1000 BCE through roughly 800 CE. I excavated at several of these sites decades ago (1969-1972), & now am restoring parts of them virtually to their prominence during their heyday. Currently I have constructed two major buildings & other parts of Yeha, capital of the kingdom then known as Di’amat, located in Tigray. More information…

Skip dedicates this project to the people of Tigray, as well as those of Ethiopia & Eritrea, with urgent hopes for return to peace & stability.

An OPENSIM excursion with Archaeologist Skip Dahlgren.

Science Fair 2021
2021-06-26 07:00 - 10:00
The annual Science Fair is approaching again and this year the organization is in the hands of Special events coordinator Shiloh Emmons.
For this year we have chosen the underwater location at the lighthouse, the temperate coastal and marine ecosystems (New England) of Linda Kelley. No market stalls or pergolas, but give full attention to your single creation / subject.
Create or bring ONE object that embodies the creative idea you wish to share, as well as ONE poster to support your concept. Bring an object + poster that you can pull out of your inventory, on the spot, and about which you can inform us for 10 minutes.
Create the object yourself; purchase it, or even designed by a colleague; in any case, an educational object that you would like to share with us. One Slide/Poster design MUST be created by the scientist presenter (be creative, be artistic!).
The Da Vinci Award of L$10,000 will be awarded to best overall Object choice + Poster design which convey the idea. The Winner will have their science project on display at Science Circle for one year.
Registration for the Science Fair 2021 time slots at Shiloh Emmons in SL / Karina Solski by email.

WHEN : Saturday, June 26th
TIMES : Starts at 7 am to 10 am PDT

MUSIC : 8am to 9am, Piano stream provided by Scientist & Maestro, Earl Kiech

WHERE : Science Circle region, On the seabed under the lighthouse.

Time
Participant

7:00 AM
Karthik Prathaban

7:20 AM
Linda Kelley

7:40 AM
Stephen Gasior

8 AM – 9 AM
Earl Kiech
Classical concert at the Light house

9:00 AM
Greg Bollella

9:20 AM
Phil Youngblood

9:40 AM
William Schmachtenberg

Understanding Science: The Day the Dinosaurs Died
2021-06-19 10:00 - 11:00
Understanding Science: The Day the Dinosaurs Died – A Lesson in Planetary Ecology
This series of presentations started with the worlds of the very small (particle physics) and very large (our solar system and beyond). Last time we looked at one of the artificial worlds we have created from our knowledge of science, that is, the technologies of computing devices. This month we examine ecology, the study of living things and their surrounding world, by looking at one of the living worlds that existed long before us and understanding what happened when that world was suddenly shattered by an asteroid.

Our scientific study of the world in which we are a part has enabled us to create technologies to change the world around us to better suit our survival. Yet we are powerless to change some things. One of these is that we live on the surface of a relatively small, rocky planet with a thin atmosphere and crust. Another is that there is a lot of debris out there in space that we did not create that sometimes encounters the Earth. Our atmosphere, and the magnetic field that surrounds the Earth, provide some protection from certain types of wave and particle radiation, and even from small objects that disintegrate and burn up before reaching the surface, but not from larger objects.

The Geminids – Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy

Did you Know… – NASA
In this presentation we will first explore this world of objects floating around space and what happens when the Earth and they meet. Then we will examine what has happened to the Earth and to life on it when large objects collided with the Earth in the past. This is not only fascinating and terrifying, but it is instructive because it will surely happen again. We just do not know when exactly, but we have good evidence of how often objects of various size collide with the Earth.

In particular, we will examine what happened on the day the dinosaurs died, and what happened in the ensuing days and years, and how that changed the history of our world. We can also speculate what would happen if the same event occurred tomorrow or in the near future and how our world would change.
Presentation by Dr. Phil Youngblood

Dr. Phil Youngblood

Reference work in the library

Previous lectures on film

Podcast

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Fireside Chat Abyssinia
2021-06-16 16:00 - 17:00 | Fireside

Abyssinia
2021-06-12 10:00 - 11:00 | Science Circle Opensim Grid
Abyssinia
Abyssinia, which is intended as a living museum & educational resource on the Science Circle’s OpenSim grid, is my reconstruction of ancient archaeological sites in Tigray (northern Ethiopia) & Eritrea that date from at least 1000 BCE through roughly 800 CE. I excavated at several of these sites decades ago (1969-1972), & now am restoring parts of them virtually to their prominence during their heyday. Currently I have constructed two major buildings & other parts of Yeha, capital of the kingdom then known as Di’amat, located in Tigray.

I created a similar project on Second Life more than a decade ago, but technical & financial issues prevented its continuation, so I am grateful to be able to created it again.

Framed within the striking dragon-tooth mountains characteristic of the region, Yeha was the administrative & religious capital of a kingdom that controlled trade along the Red Sea together with its counterpart & related South Arabian kingdom Saba’ in what is now Yemen, The language, culture, religion, & architecture of the two kingdoms bear strong similarities, indicating their close contact.

There are two major buildings in Yeha from that period, the Great Temple, which still remains largely standing, & the administrative palace, whose ruins are known as Grat Be’al Gibri (the field of the tax collector). I participated in the first two seasons of excavation at the latter, during which the front of the building, including a colonnaded portico, were opened.

Subsequent more recent excavations on both buildings by a joint German-Ethiopian team have revealed many additional details about them, which are incorporated in my full-scale recreations of the buildings, which can be fully explored. I also included several other structures which represent other aspects of the city as it must have appeared at that time, including houses, a market, a pavilion for a royal festival, farm fields, & a representative war elephant, which were one of the exports from the kingdom to the Mediterranean & the Middle East. As time & space permit, it is my intention to add other important sites from both Tigray & Eritrea.

This project has gained greater significance for me since the tragic war which has been fought throughout Tigray since November 2020, causing great human suffering & destruction. Many of the sites & artifacts that have been or will be represented are located in Tigray, which now is undergoing the upheaval of disastrous civil war.

Skip dedicates this project to the people of Tigray, as well as those of Ethiopia & Eritrea, with urgent hopes for return to peace & stability.

An Opensim excursion with Archaeologist Skip Dahlgren.

Fireside Chat on Wednesday, June 16 at 4 PM PDT in Second Life

Fireside Chat Titanoboa
2021-06-07 14:00 - 15:00 | Fireside

Concert In honor of the memory of Ebbe Altberg
2021-06-06 07:00 - 08:00 | The Lighthouse Café

Travel to the Time of Titanoboa
2021-06-05 10:00 - 11:30 | Titanoboa exhibition
Travel to the Time of Titanoboa

The Science Behind Titanoboa
Dr. Alex Hastings will lead part of the tour discussing the world of Titanoboa, 60 million years ago. How and why was the snake so big? What else lived in those murky waters? Plus he’ll share what it was like finding Titanoboa fossils in the Cerrejon coal mine.

Linda Kelley’s Ecosystem
Linda will talk a little about what it takes to bring fossils to life and particularly building an ecosystem from what is shown and not shown in the fossil records. For her this entailed doing a lot of literature review and sussing out how all these things could plausibly fit together. In addition to the fauna that shared space with the Titanoboa, and the kinds of flora, this included reading about geologic changes during that period and estimates of Paleocene weather.

Creating an Animated Animesh Titanoboa for Second Life
Dr. Greg Bollella will discuss the process for creating, texturing, rigging, and animating an animesh object for Second Life. Most of the presentation will be an overview of the processes with more detail for a few very interesting techniques and observations. The workflow and tool-chain are important and will be presented. The tools used were, ZBrush, Maya, Photoshop, Substance Painter, and Substance Designer. Of particular interest is that no images were used in creating the textures for Titanoboa, only math!

Note: Wear boots. We are going to venture into murky waters.

Fireside Chat Monday, June 7 at 2 PM PDT

Non-members only need to register once.
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Fireside Chat Medicinal Psychedelics
2021-06-02 17:00 - 18:00 | Fireside

Panel: Medicinal Psychedelics
2021-05-29 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Panel: Medicinal Psychedelics
In recent years there have been reports of the therapeutic clinical use of psychedelic substances to treat mental health ailments such as PTSD, Bi-Polar Disorder, depression, and end of life palliative care. Please join us in the Science Circle to discuss the potential of psychedelics as medicine with therapeutic applications.

Guests

Robert A. Hendrix, MD

Stephen L. Gasior, Ph.D.

Matthew Burr

Previous panels on film

Fireside Chat Wednesday, June 2 at 5 PM PDT

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Understanding Science: How Computers Work
2021-05-22 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Understanding Science: How Computers Work
The last two presentations in this series explored particle physics, the world of the very small, and our solar system, the much larger space that surrounds our more familiar world. In this episode we will explore one area of how science is applied to create technology by examining how the very small, and relatively simple, world of computer electronics is employed to create the more familiar and complex worlds we represent on devices we can carry around with us.
First, we will briefly look at how transistors, the components that create the ‘1s and 0s’ used to store and transmit everything, are made so small that billions can fit into the chips that form the ‘brains’ and ‘memory’ of every computer.
Then we will step through how transistors and other circuitry work together to create the logic of an electronic calculator.
Finally, we will step through how the processor, the ‘brain’ behind operations, works with memory and peripheral units to process a computer program (commonly called an application or app) that instructs your computer to do all the wondrous things we do with them these days.
Presentation by Dr. Phil Youngblood

Dr. Phil Youngblood

Reference work in the library

Previous lectures on film

Podcast

Non-members only need to register once.
Is this the first time you will attend a presentation with us?
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SC Briefing
2021-05-15 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
We are sorry this is a private briefing for SC members only.
We hope to see our guests again next week at Phil Youngblood’s “Understanding Science: How Computers Work”

Computer vision
2021-05-08 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Computer vision

Computer vision is impressively prevalent in today’s world, enabling a wide array of advancements like self-driving cars, snapchat filters and automated medical image analysis. This lecture hopes to demystify the techniques used by machines to comprehend the visual world. The basic tasks of feature extraction to perform procedures like object detection or image classification, and the use of powerful AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools like Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) will be introduced. The potential and existing applications of these tools in a vast array of fields, and the increasing availability of computational resources and online material to learn about and utilize them will be discussed.

A presentation by Karthik P., Graduate Student

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Excursion OpenSim: Account support
2021-05-02 09:00 - 10:00, 2021-05-02 06:00 - 07:00 | Auditorium
Preparation Excursion June 12th

On Saturday, June 12th, Skip Dahlgren (AbaBrukh) takes us to his Archaeological sites of Ethiopia & Eritrea on our Opensim grid.
For this, visitors need a different viewer, and an avatar must be created. On Sunday, May 2, we offer you the opportunity to receive assistance from grid manager Agustin Martin at two times.
You can also get started yourself, on this page the tutorial.

Some members already have an avatar on our Opensim grid, we request them to test their avatar and viewer in time.
Note: June 12 is too late to start with this!

Big Data, Machine Intelligence, and the Human Cognition
2021-05-01 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Big Data, Machine Intelligence, and the Human Cognition

There is an interesting convergence of three major technological trends: big data, AI, and virtual humans. Big data are transforming science, scholarship, and virtually every other aspect of the modern society. AI may be the most transformative technology ever, and it can help us discover complex phenomena hidden in the big data, that humans alone cannot grasp. Finally, virtual humans operated by AIs may be the most intuitive and natural ways for the human-AI interactions.
Presentation by Professor George Djorgovski

Professor S. George Djorgovski

Previous lectures on film

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Panel: Robots & Drones
2021-04-24 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
From toys to surveillance to autonomous flight on another planet, robots and drones are becoming a part of life in the 21st century. We are on the threshold of advances in AI and universal surveillance that will bring benefits and risks to society. It is time to discuss the implications of these new elements in our world.

A 16-minute YouTube to get you started: Why do Boston Dynamics Robots dance? And Could Elon Musk be right that superhuman AI is only around five years away?

Guests: Our Audience

Matthew Burr

Previous panels on film

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