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Thursday, July 31, 2008, 6:30PM

49 West Coffeehouse, located at 49 West Street, Annapolis, Maryland.  Information and directions for the 49 West Coffeehouse can be found at:  info@49westcoffeehouse.com or call: 410-626-9796.

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Karl Neidhardt. Karl received his BSc from Gettysburg College and MSc in Entomology from Auburn University.  After a short tour with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture as an extension entomologist, he has been working for the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and
Preventive Medicine as a Medical Entomologist since 1974.  In 1994 he was awarded the rating of Master Consultant by his agency. He is one of 22 awarded the rating of Master Consultant from a field of approximately 1000 professional employees to date. 

Since the early 1980's, his work has been focused on the vector ecology of ticks.  It was his early recognition of the potential impact on soldiers of emerging tick-borne disease that gained him National and DoD recognition as an expert in the field.  Karl has been active in developing surveillance techniques, pathogen testing protocols, analyzing tick-borne disease threat using GIS technologies, and control methodologies for tick control and tick-borne disease threat reduction.  He is a Board Certified Entomologist and a member of the Armed Forces Pest Management Board where he sits on the Medical Entomology Committee.  He is a member of the Entomology Society of America, the Society of Vector Ecology, and Sigma XI. He has had numerous publications and presentations in affiliation with these societies and serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Medical Entomology. 

Extramurally, he is a local sailor, craftsman, and acoustic bass player in local bands.  He resides in Severna Park with his wife Dr. Pat Neidhardt recently retired from teaching, and he will be retiring after 35 years of DoD service this Thursday.  This is the last freebie he will be providing as a government employee to tax payers, so please enjoy.

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Friday March 28 2008

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Investigating the Responses of the Immune System to Nanomaterials.  Tales of Language Barriers and Glow-In-The-Dark Particles.

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Friday October 26 2007

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Beyond ‘An Inconvenient Truth': How can we control rising atmospheric CO₂ and climate change?

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Bert Drake, Senior Research Plant Physiologist, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

Bert will focus on the approaches to replacing carbon based energy with alternative energy sources. The presentation will illustrate how much CO₂ we are currently injecting into the atmosphere and attempt to show how a variety of methods, including conservation, nuclear energy, and various methods of harvesting solar power, can be used to wean us from fossil fuels.

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Friday September 28 2007

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Spiders: Sex, Biodiversity, Webs, God

Speaker:

Jonathan Coddington, Senior Scientist, Smithsonian Institution Natural History Museum

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Thursday June 12 2007

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Out of the Blue:  A history of lightning, science, superstition, and amazing stories of survival

John S. Friedman

The odds of being hit by lightning in a year are only about 1 in 750,000 in the U.S. And yet this rare phenomenon has inspired fear and fascination for thousands of years. In this groundbreaking, brilliantly researched book, journalist John S. Friedman probes lightning's scientific, spiritual, and cultural roots. Blending vibrant history with riveting first-hand accounts of those who have clashed with lightning and lived to tell about it, Out of the Blue charts an extraordinary journey across the ages that explores our awe and dread in the face of one of nature's most fearsome spectacles.

Herman Melville called it "God's burning finger." The ancient Romans feared it as the wrath of God. Today we have a more scientific understanding, so why our eternal fascination with lightning? Out of the Blue attempts to understand this towering force of nature, exploring the changing perceptions of lightning from the earliest civilizations through Ben Franklin's revolutionary experiments to the hair-raising adventures of storm chasers like David Hoadley, who's been chronicling extreme weather for half a century. Friedman describes one of the most treacherous rescues ever attempted in American mountain climbing, profiles a Virginia ranger—dubbed the human lightning rod—who was struck by lightning seven times, and tells of scores of others who tell astonishing tales of rescue and survival. He charts lightning's profound, life-altering effects on the emotional and spiritual lives of its victims.

Combining captivating fact with thrilling personal stories, Out of the Blue tells a remarkable true tale of fate and coincidence, discovery and divine retribution, science and superstition. As entertaining as it is informative, it is a book for outdoor adventurers, sports enthusiasts, science and weather buffs, nature lovers, and anyone who has ever been awed or frightened by the sight of lightning.

John Friedman is the editor of The Secret Histories:  Hidden Truths That Challenged the Past and Changed the World and First Harvest (The Institute for Policy Studies, 1963-1983).  He produced the Academy Award-winning film, Hotel Terminus:  The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie and co-directed and co-produced Stealing the Fire, a history of the weapons-of-mass-destruction underground form the Holocaust to the end of the twentieth century, which was selected by the International Documentary Association as one of the ten best films of the year.