SciSchmoozing Scienceploitation

1 September 2025

Greetings Science Fans,
問候科學迷們
Wènhòu kēxué mímen (Mandarin)
Man6hau6 fo1hok6 mai4 (Cantonese)
[Over half a million Bay Area residents speak Chinese at home.]

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“Scienceploitation” is the misuse of science to influence the governed. Examples:

• Fossil-fuel-industry-picked climate-crisis deniers wrote the government’s 2025 Climate Synthesis report. [Note: Direct U.S. government subsidies for the fossil-fuel industry is about $140 per person per year.]
• David Geier, a conspiracist who claimed vaccines cause autism, heads an HHS study on the links between vaccinations and autism spectrum disorder.
• The Administration halted mRNA vaccine research because of imagined “limitations” of the technology.
• The Administration halted research and support of renewable energy because it claims wind and solar energy are wasteful, expensive, and harmful to agriculture and the environment.
• The Administration has withdrawn billions of dollars for scientific research from Universities and billions from federal agency science research.

I strongly urge you to watch this short video of Fareed Zacharia’s take on U.S. science.

Question: What is the political ideology that is based on notions of the nation’s superiority and exceptionalism, with a government led by a strong, central authority that emphasizes military power, suppresses opposition, squelches independent centers of thought, and scapegoats minorities?
Answer: Fascism

There are hundreds of #WorkersOverBillionaires Labor Day demonstrations planned. Find one near you. Let your neighbors – and the world – know that things are not OK.

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PHYSICS

This neatly shows how the fabric of space is distorted with waves propagating from a mass that is accelerating radially (i.e. going in a circle). Those are the gravitational waves that LIGO detects from the spiralling mergers of massive objects like black holes and neutron stars.

Sign up for a physics course on Zoom taught by Professor Andrew Fraknoi
Atomic Science for Poets: The Mysterious World Inside the Atom
Tuesdays Oct. 7 – Nov. 11 from 12:30 to 2:30pm via Zoom

It is brought to you by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University. “No background in science or math will be assumed or necessary, but some of the ideas might just make your brain sizzle.” Space is limited: Register early.

1. Sign in or create a free account HERE
2. Join the Institute HERE (a modest $55 fee)
3. Register for the class HERE

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PALEONTOLOGY

Before there were dinosaurs, our planet harboured many species of reptiles – as it still does. This beastie was about 25 cm from nose to tail tip and sported an intriguing huge colorful crest likely made of cartilage. ¿For wooing lady Mirasauras?

Yikes. That spiky weaponized tail puts this two-ton dinosaur in the family of ankylosaurs. But those meter-long neck spikes are beyond anything we have seen before. I wonder how they mated. Spicomellus afer lived about 160 mya. It was herbivorous, so the Nightmare of the Week goes to our next creature.

Kostensuchus was a walking terrestrial crocodilian. It had hips that nearly replicated those of dinosaurs which would have improved its speed for catching prey. Its 3.5 meter length made it smallish compared to aquatic crocodilians of its day (70 mya), but large enough and fast enough to gorge itself on human time travelers. Kostensuchus easily qualifies as our Nightmare of the Week!

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FUN NERDY VIDEOS

Livestream video from the ISS: Watch Earth Live (but maybe mute the soundtrack)

12m Radar Reflector Deployed in Space – NASA – 1 min

Solar Farm “Panel Sheep” – RE Alliance – Tony Inder – 1.5 mins

The Mediterranean Sea: Ancient Cataclysm – Hannah Fry – 2 mins

General Relativity: 7 Levels of Complexity – Minute Physics – Henry Reich – 5 mins

New Dark Matter Clues – Sabine Hossenfelder – 5 mins

Skepticism Is Your Mind’s Most Underrated Defense – Big Think – Alex Edmans – 6 mins

82,000 year-old Footprints in Portugal – History with Kayleigh – Kayleigh During – 8 mins

¿Is it Aliens? – Star Talk – Neil deGrasse Tyson – 11 mins

Gimbal UFO Analysis – Mick West – 21 mins

¿Is Xylitol Actually Good for Us? – SciShow – Savannah Geary – 12 mins

Meatless Meats of the Future – Sci Show – Stefan Chin – 15 mins

Debunk the Climate Nonsense – Just Have a Think – Dave Borlace – 17 mins

Reasons American Refuse the Metric System – Type Ashton – Ashton Schottler – 19.5 mins

Lutetium – Tales from the Periodic Table – Ron Hipschman – 23 mins

Lithium-Ion Battery: History & Danger – Veritaseum – Derek Muller – 34 mins

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You may have noticed that i often sign off encouraging you to practice empathy with people of other ideological and social realities – and even with other living things – in order to realize their existence and their reality is much like yours, and in that realization it becomes easier to feel compassion toward them. However, there is also tactical – or strategic – empathy. Tactical empathy is understanding how others perceive things in order to negotiate with them or to manipulate them. Child-rearing, for example, requires empathy for compassion, for negotiation, and for manipulation. Political campaign advisors use tactical empathy to manipulate voters. Wranglers use tactical empathy to induce horses to cooperate with riders. You are not a horse, but you are a voter and a target for manipulation.

Have a fun week and expand your bubble of empathy – with compassion in mind
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics

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“Good liars are skilled at reading others well, putting them at ease, managing their own emotions, and intuitively sensing how others perceive them.”
—Pamela Meyer, American author, fraud examiner, and entrepreneur