Science Circle

Beragon's Bistro: Webb Telescope
2022-01-22 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | The Lighthouse Café
By NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope

From arrival at the ESA launch Facility in Kourou French Guiana, through launch and deployment, the pages linked here are your starting point for exploring Webb’s launch and commissioning.
James Webb SPACE TELESCOPE

The Insane Engineering of James Webb Telescope

A discussion hosted by Matt Burr at the Light house Cafe

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Organic Chem Basics: Diels-Alder and similar reactions
2022-01-22 21:00 - 22:00 | Auditorium
Organic Chem Basics: Diels-Alder and similar reactions
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

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Classical Concert
2022-01-23 07:00 - 08:00, 2022-01-30 07:00 - 08:00, 2022-02-06 07:00 - 08:00, 2022-02-13 07:00 - 08:00, 2022-02-20 07:00 - 08:00, 2022-02-27 07:00 - 08:00, 2022-03-06 07:00 - 08:00, 2022-03-13 07:00 - 08:00 and 1 more date | The Lighthouse Café

CRISPR Year in Review 2021
2022-01-29 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Every year there are new advances in genome engineering enabled by CRISPR/Cas editing systems. In this talk, the most important and interesting news in CRISPR-based gene editing from 2021 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 the wide range of uses and modifications in medicine and agriculture.
Presentation by Dr. Stephen Gasior (Xootfly)

Dr. Stephen L. Gasior

Reference work in the library

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Science Communication in, or in preparation for a pandemic
2022-01-29 21:00 - 22:00 | Fireside
Science Communication in, or in preparation for a pandemic

Mitigating the damage of the COVID-19 pandemic has been hugely dependent on society’s adoption of personal protective measures to curb the spread of the virus. Misinformation has also been cited as a threat to the employment of countermeasures like vaccines. To what extent is the public understanding of the mechanisms by which diseases spread or medical solutions function important in improving survival outcomes during a pandemic? Is it sufficient or perhaps better to be reliant on expert opinions and policies alone?

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Beragon's Bistro: Comparative Education
2022-02-05 10:00 - 11:00 | The Lighthouse Café
With the recent conclusion of VWBPE 2022 in SL, let’s share our thoughts and experiences of education in different countries. Share your experience of education in your native country or in countries where you attended school. What are academics saying about methods and approaches? What do studies show? How do different countries cope with shortages of resources? How does culture affect education? Join us for support and community.

A discussion hosted by Matt Burr at the Light house Cafe

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Does our technology connect us more, or isolate us more?
2022-02-05 21:00 - 22:00 | Fireside
Does our technology connect us more, or isolate us more?
“Loneliness is different than isolation and solitude. Loneliness is a subjective feeling where the connections we need are greater than the connections we have. In the gap, we experience loneliness. It’s distinct from the objective state of isolation, which is determined by the number of people around you.” ~Vivek Murthy
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Darwin Day, Heroes of Evolution: E. O. Wilson
2022-02-12 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Darwin Day
Heroes of Evolution: E. O. Wilson

You may have already been exposed to one of E.O. Wilson’s works, E.O. Wilson’s Life on Earth, a multi-media textbook released for free. It was in many ways indicative of his career: brilliant, expansive, engaging, and a joy to read. Wilson was one of the giants of evolutionary theory in the 21st century. He primarily focused his science on communal insect species authoring several groundbreaking and/or authoritative works on them. He also helped found the field of sociobiology in which lessons from social insects drove hypotheses to explain human group behavior. Many of his proposals were not without controversy.
This talk will cover the works and life of one of the greats in evolutionary theory even termed a “natural heir of Darwin.”

Presentation by Dr. Stephen Gasior (Xootfly)

Dr. Stephen L. Gasior

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Darwin Day at the H.M.S. Beagle
2022-02-12 21:00 - 22:00 | H.M.S. Beagle
Darwin Day at The HMS Beagle
Come and celebrate Darwin day with us by watching a lecture from the British Humanist Association, on the beach right next to our very own recreation of the HMS Beagle!

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14th Anniversary SC
2022-02-19 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
The Science Circle has been a welcoming and enduring phenomenon in Second Life for 14 years now! Amazing!
Whether you are new to The Science Circle or have been with us since the beginning, we invite you to come celebrate and to share your memories as we recall how the Science Circle got started, our mission and vision, the places we have called ‘home,’ and some of the key events that have helped to define our organization over the years.
We especially want to recognize and celebrate our presenters, past and present, and our partners over the years, who represent such a wide range of interests that everyone who loves science can surely find something they like at The Science Circle.
What does the future hold for us? Learn about some of the ideas we have in mind, but also help guide the direction of The Science Circle by sharing what you like personally, what you think are our best features, and where we could expand or improve.
Finally, we will wrap up our celebration by taking a short ‘field trip’ around Science Circle island to view the current exhibits.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
———————————-
Phil

Presentation by Dr. Phil Youngblood

Dr. Phil Youngblood

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Science Circle Trivia
2022-02-19 21:00 - 22:00 | Fireside
Science Circle Trivia
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Too hot! Too dry! Too wet! The roller coaster of extreme weather in a climate-changing world
2022-02-26 10:00 - 11:00 | Fire & Flood
What in the world is happening? What can we expect, and what can we do?
In the past, even the recent past, wildfires had a season – early summer through early autumn. Today, though, the calendar turns are no more than marks for another day, another week, another month of wildfires popping up. And these fires are devastating. Should we have seen that coming? Could we have?
Those questions lead us into looking at droughts. Where in the world are they? What weather patterns support and maintain them? When patterns repeat and repeat, one reinforcing another, do they signify change in climate? And what about the relationships between droughts and floods?
While it may feel that we are helpless, helpless is not our only option. Grounded in the reality of what is happening, we’ll conclude by exploring together how we might help with recovery and restoration, prevention, and scaling solutions.
A joint presentation by Linda M. Kelley and Dr. Keith E. Grant

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Gender and Race in Science
2022-02-26 21:00 - 22:00 | Fireside
Gender and Race in science
Underrepresentation and disparities in treatment within the STEM fields are topics that are more liberally discussed in the modern age. I derived my interest for this topic from the movie: Hidden Figures (2016), which portrayed the brilliance of African American female mathematicians working at NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) in the midst of the space race. Circumstances may have improved but gender and racial underrepresentation and varying levels of success between different groups remains an issue. Are these products of stereotyping or ineffective policymaking or does society just need time?

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Geology and Palaeontology of Greece
2022-03-05 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Geology and Palaeontology of Greece
This is a sequel presentation to my talk on the role of Greece in Math and Science. Greece has a complex geologic history of plate tectonics, volcanism, earthquakes, gems, and rocks. This history has played a role in Greek civilizations like the Minoans as well as their architecture and sculptures. Over 10,000 fossils have been found in Greece of organisms that have existed over the last 430 million years. I will start with the enigmatic conodonts, then proceed to discuss diversity changes over the Phanerozoic including the rise of mollusks, fish, and eventually mammals in the Cenozoic. Some of these are poisonous to humans.
By: Dr. William Schmachtenberg – Dae Miami

Dr. William Schmachtenberg

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Our Local Wildlife
2022-03-05 21:00 - 22:00 | Fireside
Our Local Wildlife
In observation of World Wildlife Day; we invite you to share stories/memories of animals from your local wildlife, be they good or bad, irritating or not!

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A Political Geographer's Perspective on Ukrainians and Their Territory
2022-03-12 09:00 - 10:00 | Auditorium
The purpose of this presentation is to provide a brief overview of the Ukrainian people as a “nation,” their historic aspirations to “statehood,” and their relationship with Russian empires. It should come as no surprise that the Ukrainian geographical and historical narrative is more complex than that offered by Vladimir Putin. The talk is based on Dr. McBride/Johnson’s four decades of teaching political geography to university juniors/seniors/graduate students.
A presentation by Merrill Johnson/Meryl McBride, Ph.D.

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What's In Our Water: The Science of Water Quality and Testing
2022-03-12 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
Liquid water is so essential to life as we know it that when we look for life beyond our planet we always look for water. What is it about water that all life on Earth needs it?
What is ‘pure’ water? Is water without anything in it safe to drink? What is the difference between distilled, filtered, and purified water?
What substances may be found naturally in water? What is the difference between contaminants and pollutants and what are their sources?

The Hydrologic Cycle

From where do we get the water we use? What kinds of tests are conducted to measure the quality of that water? How often should these tests be conducted? What is the science behind different kinds of water quality tests?
How is the quality of water determined? What are the health limits for different organisms of having different natural and introduced substances in the water in which they live or drink? Who determines these limits?
What are the human health effects of having certain substances in the water we use for recreation or consumption?
Come join us to have these questions answered and hopefully answer others you may have about the life-sustaining substance we call water.
Presentation by Dr. Phil Youngblood

Dr. Phil Youngblood

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How has freedom of speech or press, helped or hampered science?
2022-03-12 21:00 - 22:00 | Fireside
How has freedom of speech or press, helped or hampered science?
“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” -S.G. Tallentyre, The Friends of Voltaire

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On Expectation and Prediction of Events
2022-03-19 10:00 - 11:00 | Auditorium
ON EXPECTATION and PREDICTION OF EVENTS
with PROOF THAT LARGE NUMBERS RULE eventually…
Every event, and configuration of events in the Universe is something of an accident arising from RANDOM arrangements, and secondarily, self-organizing complexity can occur.
Biological evolution has selected for increasingly intricate and efficient neuro-processing by which living things can fulfil basic needs required for survival
– self-preservation by avoiding or coping effectively with harmful environment situations
– self-sustenance by finding energy sources (nutrition), water, safe shelter
– propagation of the species by finding mates for bisexual reproduction.

Organisms that are less competent in any of the above are LESS LIKELY to live long. It is evident that animals without abstract, spoken language still respond to their environments intelligently, assessing situations in making choices. Further, animals clearly hold EXPECTATION for certain outcomes based on experiential pattern recognition – in other words, even animals display the ability TO PLAY THE ODDS.
So what would happen if random events repeated indefinitely never came to anything more than a random outcome? What would exist in a treacherously UNPREDICTABLE WORLD?
In other words, what if we lived in a Universe in which EXPECTATION did not exist?
Meaningful, interpretable outcomes from any process would not emerge. There would be no evolution, no PREDICTABLE quantum orbitals in the atom, no certainty nor recognizable uncertainty, and NO SCIENCE WITH SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION OF DATA would be possible.
“As fortune would have it”, all of us DO live in a Universe in which we can look for EXPECTATION that most processes generally do have predictable outcomes. We live in a Universe in which the CASINO ALWAYS WINS – in a sense,
WE LIVE IN THE CASINO UNIVERSE.
Probability Theory is an important discipline of mathematics, as well as Decision Theory and Game Theory. Without applied Probability Theory which is inextricably related to Statistics and evaluation of DATA, Science would have rigour limited to verbose, qualitative explanations of “ALTERNATIVE FACTS” and much hand waving.
Consider the simplest model for an experiment: the toss of a fair coin (50% Heads and 50% tails outcome per toss) – the EXPECTATION of outcomes seems obvious. But WHY will the end result PROBABLY approach the intuitive EXPECTED OUTCOME more and more closely as you toss the coin again and again?

In this presentation, we will draw on the work of mathematicians: Jacob Bernoulli, Pafnuty Chebyshev, Andrey Markov, Andrey Kolmogorov, and others to show under what terms we can PROVE that an EVENT REPEATED WILL PROBABLY APPROACH AN EXPECTED VALUE EVENTUALLY without which, Science would make no sense at all.
Robert Hendrix, a.k.a. Tagline

Presentation by Robert A. Hendrix, M.D.
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Our ideal Virtual World
2022-03-19 21:00 - 22:00 | Fireside
Our ideal Virtual World
“Virtual reality promises a kind of transcendence of the limits of physical reality.” -Frank Biocca, Taeyong Kim & Mark R. Levy.
“VR will become something everyone wants before it becomes something everyone can afford.” -Lucky Palmer

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Men & Women & Etc.
2022-03-26 10:00 - 11:00 | The Lighthouse Café
Biology, socialization, culture, economics, and the internet all influence our perceptions and experience of our gender. Let’s talk about it!
A discussion hosted by Matt Burr at the Light house Cafe

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Forests
2022-03-26 21:00 - 22:00 | Fireside
Forests
“Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.” -Hal Borland

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