Ingenuity – First Aircraft on Mars! We were not even sure it would work, but Ingenuity, the first helicopter on Mars, indeed the first manoeuvrable aircraft to operate outside the Earth’s atmosphere, has been a stunning success! First we will examine the conditions and mechanics of flight and what makes Ingenuity’s performance a “Wright Brothers” […]

Flight Welcome aboard Science Circle flight 409, covering the scientific principles and technologies that enable and enhance air transport. We ask that you please fasten your seatbelts before we discuss the fundamentals, from aerodynamics to aircraft stability. Take a few minutes to locate and understand the mechanisms of aircraft engines, whose designs have evolved for […]

To give you some background on the subject, Matt has selected some interesting URLs and Youtubes. Navy UFO Preliminary Report The videos that prompted the Navy investigation 60 Minutes story about it Here's a pretty good explanation debunking the Navy videos by parallax and other visual illusions How to fake a UFO video   In […]

This is an abbreviated replay of June 5 presentation with a Fireside Chat attached.   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 […]

The Past and Future of Virtual World Psychological Research and Development Second Life is underutilised as a platform for wide-ranging psychological research and community development projects. That statement was also true in 2003 when Linden Lab created the virtual world. Although other virtual world platforms may offer advantages for academic research and community impact projects, […]

Bias Whether it’s in areas like data forecasting or classifying images, computer algorithms are vulnerable to bias. In areas like the medical field or cybersecurity, where the employment of artificial intelligence is being explored, bias can be severely detrimental. How can bias be measured, how can it be prevented? What are the consequences and threats […]

Second Life and The Science Circle has been going strong for over 13 years. That is a longer time than almost any of today’s social media platforms. What does Second Life and The Science Circle mean to you? How do they differ from social media? How is communicating or interacting with other people different in […]

Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Failure in Human Disease Some two billion years ago, a seminal, endosymbiotic event occurred: a larger, anaerobic bacterial cell ingested a smaller, aerobic prokaryotic 'germ'. This beneficial union of two life forms led to the evolution of more highly organized eukaryotic cells with mitochondria as subcellular organelles. These mitochondria still retain their […]