Blog archive
April 2024
Stimulated by "Caste"
04/22/2024
Tulsa reparations, Religion and Politics
04/09/2024
March 2024
Trumps War with Black Women
03/31/2024
Addressing The Needs of Older Adults Through Pasadena Village
03/25/2024
Coming Soon: More Resources for Older Americans, Online and in Person
03/25/2024
Community Building Locally and Nationally
03/25/2024
Preparing for the Future with Ready or Not
03/25/2024
Volunteering is at The Heart of the Village
03/25/2024
Women's Liberation: Then and Now
03/25/2024
Writing Memoirs Together
03/25/2024
Current Views on Current Events
03/20/2024
Unchained
03/18/2024
Rumr of Humor issue # 2409
03/10/2024
Blacks Portrayed by European Artists
03/03/2024
Rumor of Humor #2408
03/03/2024
February 2024
Caring for Ourselves and Each Other
02/27/2024
Doug Colliflower Honored
02/27/2024
Great Decisions Connects Us to the Worldwide Community
02/27/2024
Letter from the President
02/27/2024
Pasadena Village's Impact
02/27/2024
The Power of Touch
02/27/2024
Villages as a New Approach to Aging
02/27/2024
Addressing Gang Violence in Pasadena-Altadena
02/21/2024
Rumor of Humor Issue 2407
02/19/2024
Thank You For Caring.
02/12/2024
Rumor of Humor 2405
02/11/2024
Curve Balls
02/10/2024
Sylvan Lane
02/10/2024
Rumor of Humor 2404
02/09/2024
Larry Duplechan, Blacks in Film
02/03/2024
January 2024
Pasadena Village Joins Community Partners in Vaccination Campaign
01/29/2024
Rumor of Humor #2403
01/28/2024
Pasadena Village Joins Two Healthy Aging Resource Projects
01/25/2024
Decluttering: Do It Now
01/24/2024
Village Volunteers Contribute to the Huntington Magic
01/24/2024
Villagers Creating Community
01/24/2024
Villagers Reflect on Black History Month
01/24/2024
Walk With Ease, 2024
01/24/2024
Wide Ranging Discussion on Current Issues
01/22/2024
Wide Ranging Discussion on Current Issues
01/22/2024
Rumor of Humor # 2402
01/21/2024
Rumor of Humor # 2401
01/15/2024
Re- Entry Programs, a Personal Experience
01/08/2024
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.