The SciSchmooze
27 April 2026
Greetings again, friends of science
Mwapoleni nakabili, ifibusa fya sayansi
[About 6 million people in Zambia, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo speak Bemba.]
ENVIRONMENT
Last Wednesday – Earth Day – a bill was scheduled for approval in the U.S. House of Representatives: The Endangered Species Amendments Act. The bill called for fast-tracking the removal of protections from endangered species whose numbers were recovering. It was an act of hubris to put this to Congress on Earth Day, but fortunately it was withdrawn at the last minute since it lacked sufficient support across both sides of the aisle. The Trump administration continues, however, to gut the Environmental Protection Agency created during the Nixon Administration.
In 1968 while living in Lesotho, i had the distressing experience of viewing a leopard (Panthera pardus pardus) that had just been clubbed to death by villagers. Worse, that was the last leopard ever seen in the country. It was large. Majestic even in death. Elsewhere in some regions of Southern Africa, some leopards continue to exist but their numbers have been rapidly declining. Part of their decline was attributed to the custom that leopard skins must be worn during certain ceremonies held in Zambia. An American organization, Panthera, arranged to supply fake leopard skins, and wearing real leopard skins was made illegal by local authorities. YAY!
A mere 5 years ago, genetic and morphological studies determined this whale was its own separate species. All approximately 50 individuals live entirely in a sliver of the Gulf of Mexico and were given endangered species protection to keep them from going extinct. Oil drilling operations were required to monitor the whales’ locations and ships were required to slow down while passing though their habitat. No longer. The Trump Administration removed all protections for endangered species in the “Gulf of America” as impediments to rapid oil drilling and production. Besides the Rice’s Whale, this ‘edict’ affects protections of 4 species of endangered sea turtles, 2 species of fish, 3 species of coral, the Florida Manatee, and the Whooping Crane.
The number of birds in the United States dropped overall by 29% from 1970 to 2019, predominantly in agricultural areas, likely because agricultural practices and pesticides reduce general biodiversity. Studies show that rising temperatures are also involved in the decline.
RAFFLE
Our previous winner picked out this hilarious shirt i had never seen before with Pac-Man eating the 8 planets. So let’s do it again. The winner gets to pick out a science shirt of their choosing. Just send an email before noon Friday to david.almandsmith <at> gmail <dot> com with your guess of an integer from 1 to 1,000. Last time, the random number generator landed on “542”. Nina Lee won with her guess of 549. Thirty people played.
PHYSICS
Trick Question: ¿How many people are experiencing weightlessness right now? My first guess would be a total of 10 people: the three Taikonauts on the Tiangong Space Station and the seven crew members on the ISS. The real answer includes everybody who just dove off of a diving board, jumped into the air, is between strides while running, etc. So the correct answer is “hundreds of millions”. On the other hand, during the 6 minutes that Artemis II engines fired to change trajectory, that crew were not weightless.
The European Space Agency’s PLATO satellite is complete – ahead of schedule and under budget. ESA put it in a chilly vacuum chamber – complete with artificial sunlight – where it now sits as engineers test it. Launch is scheduled for early next year when PLATO’s 26 cameras will find and study exoplanets.
Given our current understanding of physics, the teleportation of a mass would require converting that mass to energy, transmitting that energy to a new location, and then reassembling it back into mass. Tricky, especially since converting a single gram of mass would release as much energy as an atomic bomb. However, Gregg Phillips – the person who is responsible for FEMA’s Division of Response and Recovery – believes he was teleported 50 miles to a Waffle Shop restaurant. ¿Will he respond to the next disaster recovery effort so swiftly?
ARCHAEOLOGY / HISTORY
The woman Pharaoh Hatshepsut ruled Egypt for 22 peaceful and prosperous years beginning in 1479 B.C.E. After she died, paintings and statues of her were taken down and buried, possibly because her successors did not want the people to know a woman could be Pharaoh; and a good one at that!
HEALTH / MEDICINE
Wednesday is Fentanyl Awareness Day. Use this link to make use of tools, graphics, and videos aimed at reducing this scourge. This link will play one of the excellent videos.
A new gene therapy is now giving hearing to the deaf. One of every 2,000 babies is born with a mutation to the OTOF gene that renders them unable to hear sounds. Of our 20,000 genes, the OTOF gene programs the otoferlin protein that facilitates the electrical transmissions from our cochlear hair cells to the auditory nerve. [In the above diagram, cochlear hair cells are in lavender and nerve fibers are in brown.] Injecting a virus carrying the OTOF gene into the cochlea restores hearing in most recipients. Cost? Free from the developer, Regeneron.
Fun Nerdy VIDEOS
Largest Known Piece of Mars on Earth – Cleo Abram – 1 min
… just sold for $5,300,000
Why Bats Rarely Get Cancers – Dr. Ben Miles – 1.5 mins
Hints for humans?
Ocean Wave Power – Sabine Hossenfelder – 5.5 mins
24-hour power!
¿Making Tylenol from Plastics? – SciShow – Jaida Elcock – 6 mins
With a little help from microorganisms
Quantum Computers – PBS “What the Physics?!” – Athena Brensberger – 6.5 mins
Why & maybe how
¿Why Doesn’t Dark Matter Collapse into Black Holes? – Dr. Becky – Becky Smethurst – 10 mins
¿Why Did We Evolve Brains? – PBS Eons – Michelle Barboza-Ramirez – 12 mins
Huh?
¿What’s the Point of the Narwal’s Tusk? – Bizarre Beasts – Sarah Suta – 13.5 mins
Unicorns of the Sea
Population Growth & Food Production – Just Have a Think – David Borlace – 14.5 mins
Would Thomas Malthus give up steak?
Top 5 Problems of the Standard Model – SciShow – Madelyn Leembruggen – 18 mins
Unbelievable degrees of wrongness!
12 Steps to Building Artificial Gravity – Abigail James – 33 mins
Other than the Star Trek Enterprise’s graviton field
The Cascadia Megaquake is Inevitable – PBS Terra – Maiya May – 36 mins
… and overdue!
Neon – Tales from the Periodic Table – Ron Hipschman – 38 mins
Mammal Origins – PBS NOVA – 52 mins
Have a wonderful week,
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“Once you’ve been in space, you appreciate how small and fragile the Earth is.”
— Valentina Tereshkova (1937 – ) Russian cosmonaut, engineer, politician. The first woman in space, she orbited the Earth solo 48 times in 1963.