Science

Solar Eclipse – April 8, 2024

Posted on by admin

It was August 21, 2017 when I saw my last partial solar eclipse, which, thanks to the cloud cover that day, turned out to be the most boring four minutes of my life, not counting a short blind date I went out on in college.

I saw a total eclipse in the movie A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. That one at least had Bing Crosby.

I also should mention that I saw a total lunar eclipse some time after midnight on December 30, 1982. I was by myself on a beach in California and mostly it was just dark, so if I needed an alibi for some reason, I was out of luck.

This time, instead of trucking down to the Adler Planetarium as I did last time for an experience that reminded me of the people in Independence Day gathered on a Los Angeles skyscraper rooftop to welcome the extraterrestrials right before, oops, the carnage began, I decided to head for the park across the street for today’s cloudless 94% experience.

It was a good-sized crowd, many of whom appeared to be enjoying any excuse not to be at work. I was prepared to avoid looking at the sun, but someone shared their Eclipse Shades, so I partook.

As anticipated, there was a diminution of bird chatter for a few minutes at the height of the event, along with a chill breeze that felt like the draft in a haunted castle when Count Dracula enters, which made sense given the somewhat darkened skies.

Lego Earth Day – February 22, 2023

Posted on by admin

In placing the final tile, I beat the April 22nd anniversary of Earth Day by two months, though, interestingly enough, if you go to the extensive website at earthday.org you can’t find that date mentioned anywhere, which I guess is their way of saying that every day is Earth Day.

And, by the way, I constructed the whole thing, including the globe and stand, despite numerous 21st century distractions, in less than the proverbial six days, when there was no streaming internet, just saying.

Noting that great power comes with great responsibility, I am taking special care in regard to my creation, lest it meet the same fateful path as its biblical inspiration. So, in an effort to reduce the possibility of Lego global warming, my first act is to light it only with LED bulbs.

Second, because a new study, published recently in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, shows that global atmospheric dust has a slight overall cooling effect on the planet, I’ve stopped dusting and vacuuming.

Third, I am cutting back on carbon dioxide emissions in my home, which means not only restricting use of gas appliances, but also only exhaling once a day. Due to all the dust accumulating since invoking the rule above, this isn’t a problem, as I now only chance inhaling once a day also.

If all else fails, I’ve placed my earth in close proximity to possible escape vehicles.

A Scientist (Dr. Mika Tosca) Walks into a Bar – The Hideout – September 14, 2021

Posted on by admin

Professor and climate scientist, Dr. Mika Tosca, walked into the bar (well, really the outdoor patio of the bar) and kept talking as long as it took her to redeem the three drink tickets evidently provided to her by the establishment for her appearance. And they say teachers are underpaid.

A self-described rambler, Tosca, touched upon jet streams, jet travel, polar vortexes, hurricanes, wildfires, the ozone layer, particulates in the troposphere, and the Impossible Whopper, while noting that she prefers the term global warming to climate change because it sounds scarier.

Though Tosca, who works at the School of the Art Institute, optimistically explained how artists can generate a new vision of the future that can inspire change in the face of our present-day challenges, she also threw in the word apocalypse about a dozen times.

And, unfortunately, she didn’t offer any grand solutions, consistent with her suggestion that scientists aren’t very creative. But she did let us know where, online, we could see thermal camera videos of people farting.

A Scientist Walks into a Bar – The Hideout – July 13, 2021

Posted on by admin

March 10, 2020 was the last time I walked into the bar at The Hideout to hear a scientist. That time the room was jammed and I was attending events at one venue or another a few times a week. This time I sat outside, with a smattering of others, had to show proof of vaccination, and none of those other venues have reopened yet.

So I was excited to hear someone talk about meteorites. You take when you can get.

Maria Valdes has a PhD in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, which I didn’t even know existed, and is the Robert A. Pritzker Curator for Meteoritics and Polar Studies at the Filed Museum. We have so much in common. Her earliest ambition was to be a dentist. I have a dentist. As a child, she went to DNA camp. I never went to camp, but I have DNA. Her specialty is calcium isotopes. I drink milk.

She’s going on a trip to Antarctica to search for micrometeorites, because, although they’re all around us, about 5,200 metric tons of them falling to the Earth every year (she says some would probably fall out of your hair if you shook your head), they’re easier to find where they stand out against the ice and snow.

She has held in her hands, to show to bored museum donors, a part of the Black Beauty meteorite, original weight 319.8 grams, found in 2011 in the Sahara Desert, and, as of 2018, having a sales price of $10,000 per gram. I think I’ll go shake my head and see what falls out.

Intermission

Posted on by admin

I’m taking a break this afternoon from constructing the grand piano in order to watch a live broadcast by NASA of the Perseverance Mars Rover landing. I’m a little skeptical about this event. After all, the there hasn’t been a mail delivery to my building in almost a week.

If they can’t get through a little snow and find my building, why should I believe that this supposed vehicle (probably just a LEGO in someone’s back yard) can travel 204 days at 12,500 miles per hour through space, avoiding whatever dangers may await them there (including, but not limited to an alien probe searching for humpback whales on earth), jettison unnecessary parts as it approaches Mars, deploy a 70-foot, 100-pound, supersonic parachute, compare onboard maps to photos of the surface in order to look for a safe landing spot (where are those self-driving cars they’ve been promising us?), ignite retrorockets, land on a dime, and then use that dime to call home to let everyone knows it’s okay, before starting to look for a 7-Eleven.