Blog archive
June 2023
Communications Project with Cal State LA
06/02/2023
Creative Aging
06/01/2023
May 2023
One Villager's Story
05/31/2023
Pasadena Area Literary Arts Center
05/31/2023
Pasadena Village Responds to Rainbow Flag Burning at Pasadena Buddhist Temple
05/31/2023
Plan Ahead - And Be Prepared
05/31/2023
Tuesday, May 23 Pasadena Celebrated Older Americans
05/31/2023
Rumor of Humor #15
05/28/2023
Reparations, Social Justice Activity
05/24/2023
Rumor of Humor #14
05/19/2023
Rumor of Humor #13
05/12/2023
Issue #12
05/09/2023
Science Monday - Review of Meeting on April 10, 2023
05/09/2023
Conversations Re African American Artists Before 1920
05/08/2023
Beyond the Village – Suzi and Phil Hoge
05/01/2023
Congratulations Wayne April! Honored at UNH
05/01/2023
Table Topics
05/01/2023
Volunteer Appreciation at the Village
05/01/2023
“ACCIDENTAL HOST—The Story of Rat Lungworm Disease”
05/01/2023
April 2023
Jumbo Joy
04/24/2023
Pasadenans Recent Experience With Racism
04/23/2023
Recent Events Reflecting Racism
04/23/2023
Fig and Goat Cheese Bruschetta
04/18/2023
Photography for Social Justice
04/11/2023
Issue #8
04/07/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - Catherine Deely
04/06/2023
Creative Writing in Older Adults
04/06/2023
Gifts of Love
04/06/2023
March 2023
Issue #7
03/31/2023
Issue #6
03/26/2023
Great Decisions update
03/14/2023
Dominion Lawsuit, South Africa and 710 Stub
03/08/2023
February 2023
2023 DEI Progress
02/27/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - Doug Colliflower
02/26/2023
CONVERSATIONS WITH ART
02/26/2023
GREAT DECISIONS
02/26/2023
OLDER ADULTS RESOURCE FAIR
02/26/2023
The Important, Influential Books in our Lives - Revisited
02/26/2023
History, Resolution of the 710 Freeway
02/19/2023
Eminent Domain, 710 Highway
02/13/2023
Bernard Garrett, 710 Freeway
02/06/2023
Men's Times Gatherings
02/03/2023
January 2023
Pasadena's Senior Commission
01/30/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - JIM HENDRICK
01/27/2023
GRATITUDE - IT'S GOOD FOR YOU!
01/27/2023
JEFF GUTSTADT - FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST
01/27/2023
Bernard Garrett, Incredible Black Entrepreneur
01/17/2023
What is the "Spirit Talk" Group About?
01/16/2023
Same Ol’ New Year, Brand New Me
01/12/2023
Review of 2022, Consideration of 2023
01/06/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - PATTI LA MARR
01/03/2023
FROM THE CHAIR
01/03/2023
WALK WITH EASE
01/03/2023
Upcoming meeting October 11th!
By Bob SnodgrassPosted: 10/06/2021
Hello and we’re swinging into a good fall season. Our next meeting is Monday the 11th at our usual 4 PM time. Waiting on deck is a great talk that Howard has arranged for November 8th at our usual time. I hope that you all remember the fabulous talk from Jay Marx about LIGO and the implications of frequent gravitational waves. That was April 2020. During the question phase he proved himself a master of all things astrophysical. And again, it was Howard who arranged his talk.
The world of Science is jumping as usual. I promised a short report on the September 14th talk by Dr. Karen Meech from University of Hawai’i on interstellar objects. The basic outline is clear- we’ve had two ISOs pass through the solar system recently: first Oumuamua in 2017, which got lots of attention and then more recently, 2L/Borisov, which got much less. How do we know that an object comes from interstellar space? How many others have visited us?
There’s the very recent discovery of human footprints in White Sands, NM believed to be about 23,000 years old. That is earlier than the Beringia land bridge was open. There is strong genetic evidence linking Siberians and Amerindians. The famous Clovis culture, the oldest verified culture of the Americas, was about 12,000 years old.
We now have Chinese astronauts back on earth, three of them, after working on the Chinese Tiangong space station for 92 days in orbit. Three more visits will be needed to complete the station; the work will extend into 2022.
Then there is Lake Kivu in Rwanda, one of three known exploding lakes in Africa, and by far the biggest and most dangerous. These lakes are prone to limnic eruptions or overturns, when carbon dioxide at the bottom of the lake is released into the nearby environment and kills humans and animals by asphyxiation. The two smaller exploding lakes in Cameroon both erupted in the 1980s. Lake Monoun ‘s 1984 eruption killed 37 people living nearby. A second, deadlier eruption from neighboring Lake Nyos in 1986 released over 80 million m3 of CO2, killing about 1,700 people and 3,000 livestock, again by asphyxiation.
A third lake, the much larger Lake Kivu, rests on the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and contains massive amounts of dissolved CO2. This Lake is 1700 times larger than Lake Nyos, 31 miles wide at its widest part and contains 300 billion m3 of carbon dioxide and 60 billion m3 of methane. Sediment from the lake showed events caused living creatures in the lake to go extinct about every 1000 years and nearby vegetation to be swept back into the lake. Rwanda is trying to stave off explosions by using some methane to generate power. The lake is near to several active volcanoes, whose eruption could trigger limnic eruptions.
Spectrum 10K, the largest study of genetics and autism in the United Kingdom, has been suspended following criticism that it failed to properly consult the autism community about the goals of the research. Study leaders say that the research “does not aim to eradicate autism” and that it could contribute to a better understanding of co-occurring conditions, such as epilepsy and gut-health problems.
Now consider an amazing “deep fake”.
The Emmy for interactive documentary was awarded this year to “In Event of Moon Disaster”, a project that uses ‘deepfake’ technology to have former US president Richard Nixon deliver the speech written by William Safire in case Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had died in their attempted moon landing. The film was made by the MIT media lab in collaboration with Scientific American.
I tried to get the video without success, but there is a recent story about it in Scientific American,
You can see the film at https://moondisaster.org/film.
Finally, in the same vein, Yale University, after decades of investigation has declared the Vinland map, which came into their possession in the 1960s, a fake to enhance the status of the Viking civilization. Yale will not destroy or discard the map. They will continue to exhibit it as one form of disinformation.
With best wishes and my hope to see many of you next Monday. I will report on the Interstellar object lecture then, but none of the other things I’ve mentioned.