Visit the kelpforest....

Petting a California rosy boa at Community Science Night. Orange Coast College puts on this event every year - kids also get to climb on some old planes in the Aviation Technology dept., turn cranks and watch tops being turned in a programmable lathe in the machine shop, drive remote control robots, look at a smoker's lung, look behind the scenes in the aquariums, and smell scented plants in the horticulture department. They have a blast and get interested in science at the same time.

Science Night
Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa CA
Canon EOS 1000D
16 October 2009

Star Trek in actual science?

Star Trek's Deflector Shield Envisioned for Mars Mission
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/081119-tw-magnetic-shield.html

Apparently, the idea's been around since Trek was running, but some people think now it could actually work...for radioactive particles at least. I like how the demonstration graphic actually uses the Enterprise as the theoretical spaceship.

Getting to be that season - if you live in southern to central CA and are interested in particpating in a bit of Citizen Science, why not volunteer to be a Grunion Greeter? Workshops are coming up (oops, some are this coming week!), so go to:

www.grunion.org

and sign up for a workshop near you. They give out a small reward for a minimum number of nights (last year it was a cool beach towel), but you have to have attended a workshop to receive it.

(I can't believe I didn't already have a grunion tag)

My alma mater JC, Orange Coast College, had a Community Science Night - in the Physics building the kids got to see metal tops made in the machine shop, watch little robots shove each other, and make parachutes. They also got to see preserved human organs, see a longnosed lancetfish, look at plant parts through a microscope, pet a kingsnake, make stinky chemical reactions and burn a piece of magnesium. They had a lot of fun, and I hope it puts a few ideas in their minds for the future.

( dropping parachutes... )

After a soak of about three hours, the set is hauled. A small mako coming up on the line - the line across the top is the mainline; the shark is hooked on the gangion. As the line comes in at the side, the gangions are taken off, and hooked sharks are walked to the stern where the scientists tag tag them.

( ...And I got to help tag today! Whee! )

At the high school I walk past to my bus stop on the way to work, there are a couple of special education buses that stop right about the time I walk by. One Asian girl waves at me and giggles every time I walk by; sometimes she looks as if she would run right up and give me a hug, if her teacher weren't there. She usually has a pink Hello Kitty backpack, but this week it changed to Strawberry Shortcake. She also had a new lime green purse she patted to show me today. Her teacher asked me the other day where I was always walking to; when I told her where I work, she wasn't aware we had an office in the area. Well, it is two miles down the road.

Grrr! There were creationists handing out flyers and bookmarks at both ends of the high school. One had his little kids with him handing them out; I took one look at the title and handed it back to him, saying "I don't need this," and kept walking. I didn't read any further than "Questions to ask Evolutionists" - however, now I'm thinking maybe I should have kept it so I can answer them intelligently. I tend to avoid debates like this, because I get flustered and wind up looking like an idiot. Never mind - these pages probably about covers them...

A co-worker in the San Diego area let us know about this project, and it sounds like fun; so I signed John and I up for a workshop to be "Grunion Greeters."

http://www.grunion.org

Basically, it's just going down to the beach during a spring tide (highest high tide - occurs at the full and dark of the moon) at night, watching grunion washing up on the beach to lay their eggs in the sand, and collecting some basic data about them, which hopefully will eventually be used in a biomass assessment. My boss and co-worker have been involved with it for several years - why didn't they tell us sooner?

Today is the last day to RSVP for the Cabrillo Aquarium workshop on Friday at 8 pm (San Pedro), if anyone here in my area is interested; all the workshops are here. Some of them have already happened though.

What the heck is a grunion, you ask? Some people think they're the Southern California version of a snipe hunt, but they do actually exist. So do snipe, for that matter...

http://arachnid.pepperdine.edu/grunion/media/slideshow.htm

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mrd/grnindx3.html

Science Channel is rerunning Cosmos. *Sigh* I loved this series when it first aired on PBS. Ah, I had such a crush on Carl Sagan at the time. I loved his voice. I'm still a sucker for voices. I joined the Planetary Society because of him.

I have the soundtrack on LP - I can't believe this series is 25 years old! Coincidentally, I've just been rereading Contact too.

If you're a member of Pharyngula, you can just scroll on past this entry.

For those who aren't, this is an absolutely lovely bit of science writing, on par with Rachel Carson or the Carls (Sagan or Safina), in my humble opinion.

Oh, and an ode to sea hares. I love sea hares. Look, they're in my interest list No, they're not - nudibranchs, but not opisthobranchs....how'd I miss that?

Since herring are related to the fish I work with (Pacific sardines), I was fascinated to hear about this. Apparently, the unidentified sound marine biologists were hearing is herring passing gas. That's right, I said fish farting. Much like my husband, they seem to do it more at night, and it's speculated they use it for communication.

I was wondering if it was really legit, or some kind of April Fool's prank, but New Scientist is a fairly reputable magazine.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994343

And indeed, here is the horse's mouth...
http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~bwilson/herring.html

...And they even received an Ig-Nobel prize for their work...
http://www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2004
(scroll down to Biology)

Dave Barry weighs in on the subject, too, as we know he's an authority on "breaking wind" (and according to him the word fart is much to coarse for Miami Herald readers delicate sensibilities, because he's not allowed to say it...)
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/dave_barry/7364452.htm/
(I think this lets you read the article once, and then you have to register if you want to go back)

I love science.