Science Circle

Mass Immigration, part 2
2024-02-24 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | The Lighthouse Café
We continue our conversation about mass immigration. Why is it unsustainable? What are possible solutions?

Mathematics Club
2024-02-22 16:00 - 17:00 | Auditorium

Moon Base Meeting
2024-02-19 10:00 - 11:00 | Moon base

Classical Concert
2024-02-18 07:00 - 08:00, 2024-02-11 07:00 - 08:00, 2024-02-04 07:00 - 08:00, 2024-01-28 07:00 - 08:00, 2024-01-21 07:00 - 08:00, 2024-01-14 07:00 - 08:00, 2024-01-07 07:00 - 20:00 | The Lighthouse Café

Solar Eclipses - Myths and Predictions
2024-02-17 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Long ago, before we knew the true nature of our Sun and Moon, there were many myths about what they were, who controlled them, and what they meant in our lives. The most auspicious, or dreaded, event was when the Moon seemed to blot out the Sun on rare occasions.
While it was clear to even the most casual observer that the Sun and Moon and other ‘planets’ (meaning wanderers) moved across the sky, those who observed their motions more carefully discovered short- and long-term periodicities or ‘harmonies’ that could be used to predict when they passed in front of each other. This information was often kept as a tightly guarded secret because being able to predict heavenly events was a source of power.
Join me at the Science Circle Amphitheater to learn how people in different cultures viewed solar eclipses and how you too can have the ‘power’ to predict the next solar eclipses by learning what the ancients discovered.
Presentation by Phil Youngblood, Ph.D

Mathematics Club
2024-02-15 16:00 - 17:00, 2024-02-01 16:00 - 17:00, 2024-01-25 16:00 - 17:00, 2024-01-18 16:00 - 17:00, 2024-01-11 16:00 - 17:00 | Maths Club

Darwin Day: Frances Arnold
2024-02-12 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Heroes of Evolution Darwin Day Talk: Frances Arnold — When Engineering Meets Evolution

Long gone are the days of dustry textbooks filled with examples of evolution seeking to capture the hows and whys of species came to be on the planet. Modern biology is progressing forward MAKING evolution happen. Genes and whole organisms are made to be evolved in a flask or test tube and modern computational methods can both guide and explain the complexity that is happening.
The primary revolutionary in this change was the scientist Frances Arnold. In her seminal work she adapted an enzyme that worked well in an aqueous environment to work well in an organic solvent by creating mutations, picking the best working ones, and mutating those, and repeating the process. This is a technique called directed evolution and has found its way into engineering in many sectors from agriculture, pharmaceuticals, environmental remediation, and chemical synthesis just to name a few.
For this seminal contribution she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018.
Come to this Darwin Day talk in which we celebrate the professional achievements of Frances Arnold and have an introduction to the world of directed evolution and synthetic biology.
By Dr. Stephen L. Gasior

“Place” and Its Pedagogical Expression in Social Virtual Worlds
2024-02-10 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
“Place” and Its Pedagogical Expression in Social Virtual Worlds
By Meryl McBride (aka Merrill Johnson, Ph.D., Professor of Geography, Colorado State University)
Every avatar in SL functions in space and each occupies places in that space. The purpose of this presentation is to examine the meaning of “place” in social virtual worlds from a geographer’s perspective. We will apply common definitions of place to the virtual-world context, asking the fundamental question: Is place still a place in social virtual worlds? Finally, we will look at the promise of social virtual worlds for building “pedagogical places” that offer new and different approaches to teaching. Find that favorite “place” by the fire and join us!

Mathematics Club
2024-02-08 16:00 - 17:00 | Maths Club
PITCH FOR MATHS CLUB for 8.February 2024
Do you sometimes get strange images running around in your head?
Images composed of circles, ovals, rectangles and triangles?
Has anyone ever told you that your pivot point is a bit off center?
If the answer to any of the above is yes, then you too might be ECCENTRIC.

I was talking to an old friend from St. Louis, Missouri, Chuck Berry,
and I asked him
“Chuck, do you ever consider coming to MATHS CLUB of SCIENCE CIRCLE?”
and Chuck said these words to me:
“Sometimes I do, and then again I think I don’t.
Sometimes I do, then again I think I don’t.
Sometime I will and then again I think I won’t.”
So I looked at my watch and it was 4 PST
Come to Thursday Maths Club ’cause you can believe what you see!”
Then Chuck asked me,
“Tagline, I hear a POINT has NO PARTS and NO MAGNITUDE?
But you say two points determine a line,
and that line is full of points with no height and no width,
but it can be as long as you want to make it?
So how does that line with its length full of points come from things
that have no parts and no magnitude?
Sounds like you got something from nothing coming to something
– I always heard that something from nothing’s still nothing!”
I told him,
“Chuck, you come on down to Maths Club up there in the Maths dojo
and we’ll be REELIN’ AND ROCKIN’ in Virtual space,
discussing this for an hour just thinking about it!
We got it that two points determine a long-enough line,
and three points determine a plane all spread out to the horizon
with you standing there at some point of your own choosing.
This plane is is long and wide but has NO THICKNESS
and still you do not fall through to the other side!
So we ask, WHAT DOES A POINT and a LINE DETERMINE?
Some answers depend on the ECCENTRICITY!
Now just look at yourself! You know about ECCENTRICITY just by how you are living your life!
So early this morning when I came out of this dream, I was left with a simple idea I personally had never
before seen,
and that was this:
Let the initial M represent a SPACE CURVE from a CONIC SECTION which we will name Molly.
The LIMIT of Molly as ECCENTRICITY e APPROACHES ZERO is a CIRCLE!
Lim M = CIRCLE
e → 0

So come on up to the Maths Dojo at 4 PDT on Thursday and step into our circle and we’ll take it to the
limit, and find out what for!

Ethics and AI - What Do You Think?
2024-02-03 10:00 - 11:00 | The Lighthouse Café
Unfortunately, professor Giuseppe Longo had to postpone his presentation “Ethics and Artificial Intelligence” for today to a later date.
Since many people have already prepared for the topic, Phil will lead a discussion at the lighthouse about it.
Phil Youngblood is an Emeritus Professor of Computer Information Systems and Cyber Security and has been working with computers and AI for over 50 years.

Immigration and its Effects on Existing Culture: Case Study – The Netherlands
2024-01-27 10:00 - 11:00 | The Lighthouse Café
Immigration and its Effects on Existing Culture: Case Study – The Netherlands

Historic Issue: What Happens When Cultures Meet?
—Immigration (people moving into an area with an existing culture, here defined as including either permanent or temporary residence, either invited or forced) has been a near universal phenomenon throughout history. Here are some ways that it has worked, or not, in the past:
(1) One group displaced the other.
— In days not long past, one group might kill everyone, force them into virtual slavery, take the women as wives, or a combination of these actions. People from the dominant culture might also assimilated the other so their cultural identity was lost. Examples?
(2) People from one culture drove out others.
—Can you think of examples from the distant and recent past?
(3) People from different cultures live separately.
—People from different cultures form enclaves and not mix with others. Examples?
(4) People adopt parts of the other culture.
—People from each culture adopt what they like from the other. Many cultures have adopted food and some customs and words from others. Examples?

Case Study: Immigration in the Netherlands
Ref: The Dutch Migration U-Turn
—The Netherlands was seen as the model of multi-culturalism in Europe for decades. In the 1960s, permanent immigrants arrived from former Dutch colonies (primarily Indonesia and Suriname). In the 1980s, temporary workers were invited from Mediterranean countries with lower levels of employment (such as Greece, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and Morocco). While some European countries tried to reduce immigration, the Netherlands welcomed them to work and set up their own religious and educational institutions, providing them with subsidized housing, education, and health care.
—By the 1990s, the Dutch started to feel cultural and economic pressures from their open immigration policy, which was heightened by temporary workers staying and bringing in their families. In the 2000s, government policy started to reverse so that immigrants had to pass an Integration Exam, testing their knowledge of Dutch society and proficiency in the Dutch language.
—There is no general consensus today on immigrant policy among the Dutch people, but the number of immigrants in their country has doubled in the last decade and right-wing politicians who support tougher measures are becoming more popular.

Discussion led by Chantal Jager

Guess Who’s Talking? Non-Human Language
2024-01-20 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Guess Who’s Talking? Non-Human Language
By Phil Youngblood, PhD
With Darwin Day coming up in February, it seems appropriate to examine what humans have thought set them apart from other living things. One of these has been complex language. Recent discoveries however have revealed that a variety of living things are able to communicate complex ideas to each other. Now the challenge for humans is to understand what they are saying!
Join me as we look at first at what, if anything, makes humans unique from other living things, and then at what we have discovered that has slowly eroded our uniqueness, forcing us to reconsider our relationship with nature.
A presentation by Phil Youngblood, PhD

University Response to VWs
2024-01-13 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
University Response to VWs
This presentation provides a first-hand take on academia’s response to virtual world learning over the last 15 years. Steve Van Hook / Kip Roffo brings more than 20 years’ experience as an educator, author, innovator, and course designer. He will cover university response to over a decade of Virtual World educational possibilities, citing administrator, instructor and student concerns including:

– Appeals and protests of Virtual World learning
– Cost-effective program development
– Best VW teaching tactics and practices
– Benefits and necessities of immersive experiential learning
– Field-trip invitation to a Virtual World campus

BIO: Dr. Steven R. Van Hook has designed and taught communication and culture classes for universities in the USA and abroad for 25 years, including one of the first hybrid virtual courses for UCSB in 2000. He is President of Educare Research, a nonprofit program advancing international education and technologies. He’s been a newspaper columnist, radio reporter, TV news anchor, and podcast host. He was a television producer and bureau chief in Moscow, USSR from 1989-91; and for three years directed public education media programs in Ukraine through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He served as a trainer and officer for organizations including VISTA, Head Start, and the US Coast Guard. He has a PhD specializing in transcultural learning, and is published in scholarly journals including UNESCO’s Prospects, and by SAGE. He has presented on virtual world education to administrators and groups at UCLA, UCSB, VWBPE, VWEC, The Science Circle, and elsewhere. Research website: http://wwmr.us

2023 Genome Editing Year in Review
2024-01-06 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
2023 Genome Editing Year in Review

Every year there are new advances in genome engineering enabled by CRISPR/Cas and other editing systems. In this talk, the most important and interesting news in gene editing from 2023 will be presented. Come learn about Technology Advances, New Tools, Intellectual Property, and Target Genes and Modified Organisms from a practitioner in the field. This year’s emphasis will be on some of the developments most adjacent to consumers.
A presentation by Dr. Stephen L. Gasior

Mathematics Club
2024-01-04 16:00 - 17:00 | Maths Club
CELEBRATING ISAAC NEWTON’S BIRTHDAY in the Maths Dojo. So come and learn how much Isaac slept at night and other interesting details!

Well-Deserved Holiday
2023-12-30 21:00 - 22:00

Field trip: The ‘Human Jungle’
2023-12-30 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Second Life can be a place of wonder in the hands of imaginative and skilled builders. When those hands belong to people from different parts of the world or different cultures, the sense of wonder can turn into awe and can be an education and even transformative experience.
The best way to explore Second Life is through immersion. That is why we set aside December and June for field trips. This month the theme is “International Second Life.” Each week will have a subtheme having to do with our relationship to nature, from celebrating nature with minimal intrusion to the ‘human jungle’ of urban living where nature is hard to find.
We invite you to join us on the following Saturdays at 10am SLT. Each week we will start in the Science Circle Amphitheater, teleport to three or four locations during the hour, spend about 10-15 minutes apiece exploring what is there, and then come back to share what we found!
If you find yourself unable to stay the whole hour, if you get lost, or if you hopefully find a place intriguing enough to go back, here is a list of sites we will visit today (subject to change):
30 December – Urban Second Life – the ‘human jungle’
Kowloon (China) = one of the most highly populated places on Earth
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/kowloon/147/11/24
Dublin (Ireland) = Blarney Stone (oldest pub in SL) – global music
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dublin/75/74/25
New Orleans (U.S.) = Bourbon Street and surroundings… http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/New%20Orleans%20City/175/108/22
Teranga City (Africa) = amalgam of cities in the north/west Africa
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Tuvali/115/174/23
Venezia (Italy) = a feel for Venice http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Yumix%20Prada/110/89/30
Time Portals http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Time%20Portal/135/127/1930 —Ancient Rome | 1950s USA | 1920s-1940s NYC | Victorian London | 1940s London | Tudor London

MADPEA
2023-12-29 07:00 - 08:00 | Auditorium
Like every year, we visit a number of beautiful locations for 5 days during Christmas week, ending with a joint game of Madpea.
Today we visit MADPEA!

Mathematics Club
2023-12-28 16:00 - 17:00 | Maths Club
As the NEW YEAR and transition to year 2024 CE approach, we will focus on TIME, including:
– limitations in measurement of time (Planck Time)
– TIME DILATION in Special Relativity and the difference between a mathematical proof and a physics derivation based on a model;
– Exploration with Tagline’s thought experiment as to the question as to what happens to a recording made in proper time according to the clock of a space mensch (i.e., hominid astronaut in space), when that recording is played after her return to Earth.

Albert Einstein and his sister, Maja

Amiais Village
2023-12-28 07:00 - 08:00 | Auditorium
Like every year, we visit a number of beautiful locations during Christmas week for 5 days, ending with a joint game of Madpea.
Today we visit a Portuguese village, developed for a Geocaching Game.

This estate is owned by the University of Aveiro (Portugal) for the purpose of developing the LOCUS Amiais project in Second Life.
You can read more about the overall project here: https://locusproject.pt/
This estate depicts the village of Amiais (based on pictures and videos) and is meant to be explored by the public, via a geocaching game with its own narrative (based on fictitious characters very loosely based on typical inhabitants of the region), which is currently under active development.
This project is sponsored by European research funds (granted via the FCT — the National Foundation for Science and Technology — to the DigiMedia research lab of the University of Aveiro) and implemented by Beta Technologies (https://betatechnologies.info). It will exist in Second Life only for a limited time, after which, unfortunately, the estate will need to be permanently disconnected.
Some rules apply to all visitors of this estate:
– The main communication language will be Portuguese (as well as the geocaching game). A bilingual version would be possible, but time and budget restrictions will not allow its development. Sorry!
– Visitors are encouraged to explore all areas of the estate traveling by foot. Flying is disallowed (except for state managers) and teleporting around will just send you back to the starting point.
– Currently, the geocaching game is not functional and only available to estate managers, who, from time to time, will be seen in-world tweaking with the interactive objects.
– Objects (scripted or otherwise) are not allowed to be rezzed (and any that manage to override the SL permissions system will be promptly returned and/or deleted). There might be a few exceptions allowed for items related to the game.
– In general, this is a no-combat zone; however, there *are* a few places where avatars *can* be ‘harmed’ (do not worry, if you ‘die’, you will just be teleported back home!), as required by the geocaching game. So beware! 🙂
– Since all regions and parcels are set to ‘General’ and we encourage younger visitors, please faithfully respect the usual guidelines for such regions — e.g. no full nudity, no profanity, no aggressive behaviour, and so forth.
– This is *not* a role-playing region, so you’re fine to use any avatar with whatever clothing/attachments you prefer (so long as they conform to ‘General’ areas).
– Any abuses can, and should, be reported to a LOCUS Estate Manager (look them up from the LOCUS Project group). Note that the ‘estate owner’ is a special avatar reserved for administrative purposes only (e.g. paying for the estate fees!) and will very likely *not* login, much less read any messages, IMs, notecards, etc. You’re welcome to message us either in Portuguese or English. You naturally are allowed to report abuses directly to Linden Lab, of course, who may, at their discretion, pass the report to the LOCUS Estate Managers — or not.
– For any further questions related to the project in general, feel free to get in touch with us via info@betatechnologies.info
