Science reporting relevant to current events with an emphasis on the San Francisco Bay Area
Happy Halloween, y’all. Take a look at the above illustration. To me it resembles a monstrous lupine head, jaws wide, confronting a screaming person or demon with arms held straight. In reality, it was lava flowing down the side of Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands last week. Here’s a truly scary thought: Dinosaur sex. ¿How … Read more
3 October 2021 If you are awed by volcanoes near as much as i, check out this live feed or this live feed of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on La Palma in the Canary Islands. (More interesting in daylight but more awesome at night.) Or view it from the perspective of a (suicidal) drone. Chunks of lava are being blasted … Read more
6 September 2021 Hello again friends, Last week the Caldor Fire came within two blocks of my friends’ home in South Lake Tahoe. The weather phenomenon Ida caused misery, deaths, and many billions worth of damage. It is the consensus of experts that climate change brought upon by heightened CO2 levels is largely to blame for … Read more
29 August 2021 Over in San Francisco is the SHARKS exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences. Please note that because of the pandemic, proof of vaccination is required for entry and capacity is limited. Also in San Francisco, the GOOD Meat company is ramping up its production of ‘cultivated meat.’ They are one of several companies intending to … Read more
2 August 2021 Hello again, friends of science, Let’s take a brief look at ourselves, our forebears, and our cousins this week. First, is a story of our chimpanzee and gorilla cousins. They have been observed for decades hanging out with each other, eating food side by side, and letting their youngsters play with each … Read more
5 July 2021 Hello again dear readers, ¿Wasn’t science supposed to let us travel using flying cars and jet packs and hover-boards? Well, all are available but it’s a lot cheaper to buy an airline ticket (or book a plane from your flying club) and rent a car at your destination. In my June 6 SciSchmooze, I expressed … Read more
27 June 2021 A 150,000-year-old skull found in China is described in a journal this week. The skull is not Homo sapiens. The authors chose to name the species Homo longi but many scientists suspect the person was Homo denisova. Just eleven years ago, it was announced that novel DNA was sequenced from a girl’s finger bone found in a Siberian Altai Mountain … Read more
7 June 2021 Clouds are rare over Mars. Curiosity photographed clouds so far above the surface that they may be dry ice crystals. This SciSchmooze is going to press before the results of Ingenuity’s 7th flight are known. But if you would like a little model (about 1/7 scale) of Ingenuity – for free – … Read more
30 May 2021 Dr. Elizabeth Bik searches for faked images, plagiarized passages, and incorrectly interpreted data in scientific papers. She is amazing in her ability to recognize improperly re-used images even when they are reversed and rotated. She presented a paper on “Misconduct in Scientific Papers: Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification” at the Bay Area Skeptics … Read more
2 May 2021 Fewer and fewer Americans are lining up to get COVID-19 shots while only 31% of our population has been fully vaccinated. Public Service Announcements are pushing for more people to get vaccinated, e.g. Barack Hussein Obama, Stewie from Family Guy, and Google. Aware that a large proportion of Republicans are hesitant, there … Read more