Annapolis, Maryland
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General Information
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Where : |
49 West Coffeehouse, 49 West
Street, Annapolis, Maryland 21410.
Information and directions for
the 49 West Coffeehouse can be found at: info@49westcoffeehouse.com , or
call: 410-626-9796 to make reservations.
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When : |
6:30 P.M. on the last Thursday of
every month, except November and December. |
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Contact:
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Danielle Lucid and Ted Graham |
Upcoming Events
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Date: |
Thursday 29 July 2010 |
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Title: |
The Beginning and End of the
Universe |
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Speaker: |
Frank Haig |
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Description: |
Curious human observers
have puzzled over the beginning and ending of the universe
since humans first started looking at the sky. Ideas on the
origin and future of the world have changed radically as
time has passed. They continue to change today. The talk
will consider this history and some of the conflicts
active today.
Father Haig received his Ph. D. in Theoretical Nuclear
Physics from the Catholic University of America in 1959. He
was a postdoctoral fellow at Rochester University, New York
in 1962-63 and spent a sabbatical semester at the Johns
Hopkins University in 1987 and again at the Max Planck
Institute of Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg, Germany, in
1993-94. He is now Professor Emeritus of Physics at Loyola
University Maryland. |
Past Events
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Date: |
Thursday 24 June 2010 |
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Title: |
Wind-power: Opportunities & Barriers - Experiences from the Mid-Atlantic |
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Speaker: |
John Sherwell |
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Description: |
John Sherwell is the
Administrator for Atmospheric Sciences in the power
Plant Research Program [PPRP] at the Maryland Department
of Natural Resources. He has a PhD from the University
of St. Andrews in Scotland and a BS and MS from “Vits”
University in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has spent
more than thirty years working on environmental issues
while in academia, the private sector and government.
From his position at PPRP, John has overseen
the State’s environmental impact assessment for all of the commercial scale
wind-power projects that have been permitted in Maryland. He has also managed
and participated in a number of research initiatives related to impact
assessment and mitigation related to wind-power projects. |
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Date: |
Thursday 27 May 2010 |
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Title: |
Evolution and Genetics in small dogs |
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Speaker: |
Elaine Ostrander |
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Description: |
In last few centuries subpopulations of dogs
have developed into closed populations as a result of differential selection for
traits associated with both behavior and appearance. This practice, coupled with
small numbers of founders for many breeds has generated a population that is
ideal for mapping genes underlying morphology, behavior, and disease
susceptibility. In today's lecture we will summarize advances regarding the
canine genome project and current approaches for finding genes controlling both
simple and complex traits. In particular, we will discuss genes controlling
body size, fur texture, and leg length, and the implications of these findings
for advancing our knowledge regarding disease gene mapping.
Biography: Dr. Elaine Ostrander is Chief of
the Cancer Genetics Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute of
NIH where she also heads the Section of Comparative Genetics. Dr. Ostrander
received her Ph.D. from the Oregon Health Sciences University in 1987, and did
her primary postdoc training at Harvard. She then went to UC Berkeley and the
Lawrence Berkeley National Labs where she began the canine genome project. She
moved to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington
in 1993, rising to the rank of Member and Professor. She moved to NIH in 2004.
Her laboratory works in both human and canine
genetics, focusing on traits such as cancer, autoimmune disease, and genetics of
morphology. She is the winner of several awards, has published over 250 papers
and articles, and leads a team of trainees on projects aimed at finding genes
contributing to human breast and prostate cancer, canine morphology, and
understanding the population dynamics of modern domestic dog breeds. |
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Date: |
Thursday April 29, 2010 |
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Title: |
The Historical And Paleological Record Of Land Use
And Estuarine Eutrophication: The Chesapeake Bay |
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Speaker: |
Grace Brush |
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Description: |
By examining historical and paleoecological
records, Dr. Brush will tell a story of land use and
estuarine eutrophication in the Chesapeake Bay.
Scroll down for more information about both the
presentation and about Dr. Grace Brush.
Today, chemically synthesized nitrogen is recognized
as a major cause of aquatic eutrophication and
anoxia, resulting in “dead zones” in many coastal
regions of the world. Biological and geochemical
profiles from sediment cores throughout the
Chesapeake Bay show that in pre-colonial time
nitrogen influxes were very low, suggesting that
biological nitrogen fixation was balanced by
denitrification. During this time the landscape
consisted of a diversity of forests, coastal
marshes, floodplains and inland wetlands many of
which were created by beavers. Hence, there were
many opportunities for denitrification. Estuarine
conditions did not change much in early post
colonial time when agriculture consisted of small
farms separated by patches of forest. By the middle
19th century and continuing into the 20th century,
more than three-fourths of eastern North America was
deforested primarily for agriculture. Deforestation
was accompanied by draining many of the wetlands for
arable land. Thus, landscape vegetation, hydrology
and geochemistry were changed and areas for
denitrification greatly decreased. At the same time,
other sources of nitrogen fertilizers became
available including guano, nitrate deposits and
after World War I synthetic nitrogen.
Returning the landscape to pre-colonial conditions
is not an option for coastal restoration. A
watershed approach is needed, which in addition to
reducing nitrogen inputs, would include planting
forest stands on appropriate soils throughout the
watershed. Also, denitrification can be increased
throughout the watershed by restoring wetlands
wherever it is hydrologically feasible, as well as
by using technologies such as retrofitting sewage
waste systems for denitrification.
Biography:
Dr. Grace Brush received her education at St.
Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia,
Canada, in Economics, at the University of Illinois,
Urbana, Illinois, Botany, M.S., and at Harvard
University, Cambridge, Mass., Biology, Ph.D., in
1956.
She is currently a Professor in the Department of
Geography and Environmental Engineering at Johns
Hopkins University (JHU) and she has worked there in
various research capacities since 1978. In 1978,
Dr. Brush was the administrator of the Maryland
Power Plant Research Program at the Department of
Natural Resources in Annapolis, Maryland. Dr. Brush
has also worked as a Paleobotanist and as a
Geological technician for the Geological Survey of
Canada in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Dr. Brush has a long lineage of awards and honors,
she received the Odum Life Achievement Award from
Estuarine Research Foundation in 2007; was a 2007
Visiting Professor at Ecole Polytechnique Federale
du Lausanne, in Switzerland; received the Mathias
Medal from the Chesapeake Bay Consortium in 2007
and; the George E. Owen Teaching Award in 2001. In
1998 Dr. Brush received the Individual Award for
Leadership in Environmental Stewardship, Center for
a Livable Future, Johns Hopkins University School of
Public Health; and in 1995-1996 Dr Brush was the
Bullard Fellow at Harvard University.
Currently Dr. Brush’s interests include the
biological and physical processes controlling
species distributions and, the response of
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to climatic and
human disturbance. Dr. Brush uses the fossil record
of organisms and substances preserved in sediments
to explain the geo-paleo history of ecosystems. |
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Extra: |
For
the April Café Scientifique, we have an extra
attraction. From 6:00 to 6:30, David Dower, the
Associate Artistic Director of Arena Stage in
Washington, will speak about their production of “R.
Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the
Universe.” This play about the life of Bucky Fuller
has received excellent reviews where it has played.
Mr Dower will speak about the production, Arena
Stage's involvement, and Bucky. This is an
opportunity to learn about one of America’s
renaissance men. From
1959 to 1970, Fuller taught at Southern Illinois
University. He gained full professorship at SIU in
1968, in the School of Art and Design, worked as a
designer, scientist, developer, and writer, he
lectured for many years around the world. This is a
chance for our Café patrons to learn a little about
Fuller and perhaps be enticed to see a play about
him. |
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Date: |
March 25, 2010 |
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Title: |
Waterbirds and Offshore
Wind Power Development - Interactions, Studies, and Mitigations. |
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Speaker: |
Doug Forsell |
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Description: |
Speaker's Biography: Doug Forsell has
studied migratory birds for over 35 years. He received his Masters Degree from
California State University - Humboldt in Wildlife Management, where he studied
the predatory efficiency and energetics of belted kingfishers. He has worked
for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for 33 years. He spent ten years in
Alaska primarily studying the at sea distribution and abundance of marine birds,
but he also worked on their food habits, colony surveys, high seas gillnet
mortality of birds, and recovery efforts of the endangered Aleutian Canada
goose. He spent four years as the refuge manager of five remote tropical
Pacific islands where he censused and studied breeding biology of 12 species of
tropical seabirds and monitored wintering green sea turtles. He also monitored
contaminants in reef biota and sought to mitigate the effects of 1,300 people
sharing one square mile of land with 250,000 seabirds. Since moving to the
Chesapeake Bay area in 1990, he has worked to implement the Waterfowl Management
Plan of the Chesapeake Bay Program.
His major activities have involved interpretation of waterfowl population
trends, surveys of waterbirds in offshore waters, assessing the mortality of
waterbirds in anchored gillnets, modeling diving duck distributions, and
identifying and mitigating threats to birds and their habitats. Most recently,
he has worked on aerial winter waterbird surveys and seawatches to better define
the numbers and movements of coastal birds to mitigate the effects of sand
mining, entanglement in fishing gear, and wind power development. |
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Date: |
Thursday February 25th 2010 |
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Title: |
Using the Best Bay Science to Set the Chesapeake Bay's Regulatory Pollution
Diet: Jenny Craig Would Be Pleased! |
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Speaker: |
Rich Batiuk |
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Description: |
A minimum amount of oxygen is needed for the
species in the Chesapeake Bay to thrive. As less and less oxygen is available,
more and more species fall off the list. This low oxygen is caused by the
contribution of nutrients and sediments from the landscape to the Bay. Which
state is the biggest contributor of nutrients? What are the main pollution
sources? What are the consequences to states if they do not meet the newly
established load criteria? Science can
provide extensive data on the condition of the Chesapeake Bay and models can
help us predict what will happen if pollutant loads continue or are reduced.
Rich Batiuk is the Associate Director for Science at the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay Program Office located in Annapolis,
Maryland. In his 25 years with EPA and the Chesapeake Bay Program, he has led
the integration of science into multi-partner decision-making. He is now
focused on helping lead efforts on the development of the bay wide TMDL and
using it to accelerate on-the-ground implementation of the nutrient and sediment
reduction actions. He received his B.S. in Environmental Science from the
University of New Hampshire in 1984 and his M.S. in Environmental Toxicology
from American University in Washington D.C. in 1985. |
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Date: |
28 January 2010 |
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Title: |
Groundwater, Maryland’s Underground Natural Resource: Do we have enough? What’s
in YOUR water? |
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Speaker: |
David W. Bolton |
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Description: |
Ground water is a mysterious
resource. Unlike lakes and reservoirs, we can’t see it in its natural setting;
yet almost one-third of all Marylanders rely on groundwater for their water
supply. Several droughts over the past decade have made us realize that
Maryland’s water supply is not infinite. With Maryland’s population projected to
increase by more than one million people by 2030, it’s absolutely critical that
we understand and properly manage this “hidden sea.”
This talk will describe the variety of groundwater “styles” in different parts
of the state, focusing on the Coastal Plain, and will address questions such as:
Why do wells go dry in some areas but not in others? How do we estimate
remaining available water? How do we use groundwater models to predict future
water supplies? How do we monitor water levels, and what do the data tell us
about the health of the ground water supply? Why do some aquifers have arsenic,
while others have radium, or nitrate, or iron, while other aquifers have
perfectly fine water? Examples will be shown of how proper scientific assessment
of ground water helps local and state planners, regulators, and health officials
make informed decisions about Maryland’s ground-water supplies.
David Bolton is Chief of
Hydrogeology and Hydrology at the Maryland Geological Survey (part of Maryland
Department of Natural Resources), where he has worked since 1989. His research
has focused on groundwater quality, including studies of radium, arsenic,
brackish-water intrusion, and regional characterization of groundwater quality
in the Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and Appalachian Plateau areas of Maryland. |
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Date: |
6:30 P.M. Thursday, September 24, 2009 |
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Title: |
The Human Microbiome
Project |
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Speaker: |
Andrew Heekin
The human gut contains one of the most
populated microbial communities in the world. The influence of these
microbial communities on the human development, immunity, and physiology is
largely unstudied. The Human Microbiome Project was launched by the National
Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland and is part of the NIH Health
Roadmap for Medical Research. This project is designed to spur research into
the multitude of microbes that live in the various environments of the human
body (the human microbiome). A major goal of the HMP is to look
for correlations between changes in the microbiome and human health. This talk will explore recent research that aims to reveal possible
mechanisms these microbes may use to influence human health.
Andrew Heekin
received his B.S. degree (1984) in computer science at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and M.S. (2007) in biomedical engineering from
the University of Texas at Austin. He currently attends George Mason
University, where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in bioinformatics. His research
interests include biostatistics and comparative genomics. He currently
works at the NIH as a computational biologist using in silico methods
of determining gene transcription factor binding sites in human DNA. His
thesis work involves identifying differences in the microbiome of healthy
individuals to individuals with various autoimmune diseases. |
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Date: |
Thursday August
27th, 2009 |
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Title: |
The honey bee and pesticides |
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Speaker: |
Galen Dively
Dr. Galen P. Dively received his B.S. degree (1966) in biology at Juniata
College and M.S. (1968) and Ph.D degrees (1974) in entomology from Rutgers
University. Prior to his retirement in 2006, Dr. Dively was a Professor and
Extension Specialist in Entomology at the University of Maryland for 34
years, where he had extension and research responsibilities, specializing in
integrated pest management, crop loss assessment, non-target risk
assessment, and pesticide resistance management. In his extension role, he
directed the development and implementation of grower-supported field
monitoring projects, an insect trap network to forecast pest outbreaks, and
field demonstrations to reduce pesticide use in vegetable, fruit and field
crop production systems. As a Professor Emeritus, Dr. Dively continues to
conduct research on the comparative risk assessment of transgenic
insecticidal crops and conventional insecticides on nontarget beneficial
arthropods, including honey bee studies related to the Colony Collapse
Disorder; efficacy evaluation of new transgenic corn events; testing of new
insecticide formulations and active ingredients, with emphasis on organic
products; and studies addressing information gaps in the biology and
management of emerging pest species. In collaboration with the pesticide
industry, his laboratory also provides insect rearing and bioassay services
for the monitoring and detection of resistance development in Colorado
potato beetle populations. |
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Date: |
Thursday July
30th, 2009 |
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Title: |
Hot Sour Soup: a Bad Mix for Coral Reefs |
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Speaker: |
Mark Eakin
As carbon dioxide rises in the atmosphere,
climate change and ocean acidification are impacting the physical and
chemical environment in the oceans causing important changes to coral
reef ecosystems. What is coral bleaching and why are we seeing it? How
are the oceans changing? How will this impact coral reefs? We will
explore our best understanding of what the future holds and our
prospects for making a difference.
A coral reef specialist, with a Ph.D. in
Biological Oceanography from the University of Miami, Dr. Eakin is
Coordinator of the NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) Program in the NESDIS Center
for Satellite Applications and Research, an effort focused on the monitoring
of coral reef ecosystems through satellite, in situ, and
paleoenvironmental observations. In particular, CRW uses NOAA satellite data
to monitor threats to coral reefs such as coral bleaching and ocean
acidification. NOAA-CRW provides the only source of global satellite-based
monitoring, alerts, and warnings of upcoming coral mass bleaching events.
Dr. Eakin has worked for NOAA since 1991. From 2000-2005, Dr. Eakin directed NOAA Paleoclimatology, and was Director
of the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology in Boulder, CO. Prior to
that, he was a program manager for the NOAA Office of Global Programs in
Silver Spring, MD, funding research to improve our understanding of past
climate variability, climate prediction, and impacts of climate variability
and change on the marine environment.
Dr. Eakin has published on various topics in
coral reef ecology, especially the impact of climate change and other
disturbance on coral reefs. This includes El Nińo impacts on eastern
Pacific coral reefs in coral reef ecology and carbonate budgets, thermal
stress and coral bleaching, ocean acidification, oil spills, coral
paleoclimatology, and the behavior of marine organisms. He co-chairs the US
Coral Reef Task Force’s Climate Change Working Group and the NOAA Coral Reef
Conservation Program Climate Change Advisory Panel. He is a Councilor for
the International Society for Reef Studies and member and past chair of the
Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of the GCRMN. He was helped
develop the International and U.S. Coral Reef Initiatives and the Global
Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN).
In 2004, Dr. Eakin co-chaired a seven-part
series of symposia on “Coral Reefs and Global Change” at the 10th
International Coral Reef Symposium in Okinawa, is coordinating analysis of
data from the 2005 Caribbean coral bleaching event. In 2007 he testified
before the US House of Representatives at a hearing entitled “Wildlife and
Oceans in a Changing Climate” and has participated in several Congressional
briefings. In 1999 and 2009 he was awarded the Department of Commerce Bronze
Medal for his work on climate variability and climate data. |
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Date: |
Thursday, June 25th, 2009 |
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Title: |
Rising Atmospheric CO2, Carbon Balance and Global
Warming |
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Speaker: |
Bert
Drake A
little less than half of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide remains in the
atmosphere. The oceans absorb about a quarter of this carbon dioxide, and
terrestrial ecosystems absorb about 30%. But increased temperature in the
Arctic, prolonged drought in arid ecosystems, and changes in ocean chemistry
may reduce the CO2 sink capacity of earth resulting in
acceleration of the growth in atmospheric CO2. Long-term
experiments in ecosystems have shown that plant growth will be stimulated by
rising CO2. But models of the global carbon budget suggest that
losses of carbon from ecosystems will be stimulated enough to overwhelm any
increase in photosynthesis and the result increasing losses of carbon from
the land. The goal of future studies is to reduce critical uncertainties in
the response of the global carbon budget to climate change in order to
determine how much atmospheric CO2 can increase before it is no
longer possible to control global warming.
Dr. Bert G. Drake is a plant physiologist at the Smithsonian Environmental
Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland and the leader of two major ecosystem
projects on the impacts of rising atmospheric
CO2
and climate change. The Chesapeake Bay wetland study is now in the 23rd year
making it the longest running experiment of its type ever undertaken. In
collaboration with NASA, the
CO2
study was expanded in 1996 to include similar studies of a nutrient and
water limited dwarf oak forest on Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge at the
Kennedy Space Center, Florida. These studies have resulted in more than 100
publications and involved collaborators, post-doctoral fellows and graduate
students from many foreign countries and the US. A popular lecturer, he has
been invited to speak on the impact of global warming on terrestrial
ecosystems to a wide range of educational and professional organizations.
In 2005, he was designated the Distinguished
Science Lecturer by the Smithsonian Institution for his long record of
research and public outreach. |
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Date: |
Thursday, May 28th, 2009 |
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Title: |
Impact of Solid Wastes on the Atmosphere and Coastal Areas of Developing
Countries: Issues and Emerging Solutions |
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Speaker: |
Martin Medina
Human societies
use a wide array of materials to satisfy their needs: water, energy,
wood, metals, plastics, glass, and so on. The processes of production
and consumption generate large amounts of solid wastes. Solid wastes
need to be collected, transported, and disposed of in order to prevent a
negative environmental impact. Developed countries have in place the
infrastructure and methods that minimize pollution and the risks to
human health and the environment associated with wastes. Developing
countries, however, often lack the resources to manage their wastes in
an environmentally sound manner. Many developing countries are unable to
collect all the wastes generated, and of these only a fraction receive
final proper disposal. Insufficient collection and improper final
disposal of wastes constitute a source of air, water, and land
pollution, and pose risks to human health and the environment. This
seminar examines the environmental impact of the improper management of
solid wastes on the atmosphere and on coastal areas of developing
countries. Recent evidence from Asia and Latin America will be briefly
discussed, as well as the emergence of win-win efforts that improve
waste management, create jobs, reduce poverty, diminish pollution and
reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
Martin Medina received a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies
from Yale University and a Master's in Ecology from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has received several international
awards for his work, including 4 consecutive awards from the Global
Development Network. Dr. Medina is the author of,
The World’s Scavengers: Salvaging for
Sustainable Consumption and Production,
a book on waste management and recycling in developing countries.
Dr. Medina is an international relations specialist at NOAA, NESDIS.
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Date: |
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Thursday April 30th, 2009 |
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Title: |
Decades of Water Reuse: from Northern Virginia to Singapore |
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Speaker: |
Thomas J. Grizzard
The provision of safe, secure, and dependable drinking water is a basic
element of societal stability and sustainability. Globally, in many urban
settings, the need for drinking water has outstripped the available supply -
including in some surprisingly water-rich regions. Such shortfalls in
available drinking water have set the stage for the challenge of reusing
wastewater in beneficial ways. The Occoquan Reservoir, which is a major
drinking water supply in northern Virginia, has been supplemented with
reclaimed wastewater for over 3 decades, and the project has served as a
model for other reuse programs around the world. Dr. Grizzard will discuss
the history of reuse, the current practice, and the challenges for the
future.
Thomas J. Grizzard holds
the rank of professor in the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. For nearly 35 years, he has
also served as the director of the Occoquan Watershed Monitoring
Laboratory, which is a remote research facility located in the Virginia
suburbs of the U.S. national capital region. Dr. Grizzard holds three
degrees from Virginia Tech, and is a registered professional engineer in
the Commonwealth of Virginia. He has nearly 40 years of experience in
environmental engineering and water resources management. Dr. Grizzard’s
research interest areas include nonpoint and urban runoff pollution
characterization and control; watershed-constituent export
relationships; water reuse, particularly indirect potable reuse;
sediment-water interactions in deep impoundments; and the management of
water quality in surface water impoundments subjected to multiple uses.
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Date: |
Thursday
March 26th 2009 |
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Title: |
Water Quality
Trading |
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Speaker: |
You have most
likely heard about carbon trading, but have you ever heard about
nutrient trading to control water pollution? Cy Jones works in the World
Resources Institute's People and Ecosystems Program where he leads the
Water Quality Trading Initiative for the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The
goal of this initiative is to advance market-based efforts to reduce
nutrient pollution impacting the Chesapeake Bay watershed and to promote
the development of a framework for interstate nutrient trading. Cy is
also leading a WRI effort to promote the use of market-based methods for
water pollution control in China. You might want to check out Cy's book: Water-Quality
Trading by
Cy Jones, Lisa Bacon, Mark S. Kieser, and David Sheridan.
Prior to joining WRI,
Cy had a 24 year career with the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission in
Laurel, Maryland, where he managed the regional and regulatory affairs of
the water and sewer agency. After retiring from WSSC, he joined the
engineering firm of CH2M HILL where he worked to develop nutrient trading
programs in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carolina. Cy
has a BA in Zoology and a MS in Environmental Engineering from the
University of Iowa. |
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Date: |
Thursday
February 26th 2009 |
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Title: |
The Impacts of Anthropogenic Sound on Marine Mammals |
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Location: |
49 West Coffeehouse, located
at 49 West Street, Annapolis, Maryland. The discussion will start at 6:30
on Thursday, February 26th |
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Speaker: |
The issue of
anthropogenic sound and its potential effects on marine life has become
a quite visible and rather contentious issue recently. While essentially
all of the public focus, legal challenges, and much of the research
effort on this matter has centered (with some justification) on the
range of possible impacts from military sonar systems, an objective
scientific assessment of this issue reveals a host of broader issues
that merit consideration and investigation. This lecture will consider
the current state of scientific information, how uncertainty in key
areas is fueling debate and disagreement, and future challenges in
policies and regulations regarding sound-producing activities in the
ocean with particular emphasis on scientific applications to inform
these societal choices. Specific attention will be given to a
multinational study to investigate marine mammal responses to active
sonar and other sounds being conducted at the U.S. Navy's Atlantic
Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) in the Tongue of the Ocean,
Bahamas (see: Behavioral Response Study <http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/acoustics/brs-07.htm>
). The speaker is the principal investigator for this study, which
includes researchers from the University of St. Andrews, Bahamas Marine
Mammal Research Organization, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution,
Cornell University, Duke University, Marine Acoustics, Inc., NATO
Undersea Research Center, Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and others.
Dr. Brandon Southall is a fisheries research biologist and director of
NOAA's Ocean Acoustics Program within the NOAA Fisheries Office of
Science and Technology. Brandon completed graduate studies (M.S. in
Marine Science in 1998 and a Ph.D. in Ocean Sciences in 2002) on hearing
in seals and sea lions as well as effects of noise on their hearing,
including: auditory masking, temporary threshold shifts, and age-related
hearing loss. He also conducted and continues fieldwork on northern
elephant seal acoustic communication, measuring vocalization source
levels, natural ambient noise conditions, assessing context-specificity
of vocal parameters, and signal directionality. Dr. Southall joined the
Ocean Acoustics Program in 2003 and has been involved in the development
of acoustic exposure criteria for marine mammals, organizing two
international symposiums on shipping noise and marine mammals, preparing
a U.S. delegation informational paper on the shipping noise issue to the
International Maritime Organization, providing technical advice on
regulatory policies and mitigation strategies for minimizing noise
impacts, and organizing an ongoing series of educational lectures at
nearly 20 locations across the nation on marine noise issues. He is also
the principal investigator of the behavioral response study being
conducted in the Bahamas with several dozen partners from academia,
conservation, and government scientists from eight countries.
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Date: |
Thursday January 29th, 2009 |
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Title: |
The World's Largest Microscope and the Beginning of the Universe: The Large
Hadron Collider |
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Speaker: |
Dr. David Kaplan
started his undergraduate work in film, switched to physics and
transferred to Berkeley for his undergraduate degree. His PhD is from
the University of Washington in Seattle and he held research positions
(post doctoral positions) at the University of Chicago and Stanford
Linear Accelerator Center. Presently, Dr. Kaplan is a professor in the
department of physics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University
conducting particle physics research. He has been named an Alfred P.
Sloan Fellow and won the Outstanding Junior Investigator prize from the
Department of Energy. Recently, Dr. Kaplan hosted a program about the
LHC, The
Next Big Bang,
which recently aired on the History Channel.
The following article came from the Fermilab's website (a September
9, 2008 posting). The article describes the
Large Hadron
Collider documentary of which Dr. David Kaplan was the Science Advisor.
"Astronomy–with
its lush images of brightly-colorized nebulae and violent solar
storms–makes good fodder for popular media. But theoretical physics? A
search in Amazon.com's Movies & TV section turns up zero hits. So on
Tuesday, Sept. 9, cable TV's History Channel will do the unprecedented:
air a mainstream TV show centered on theoretical and experimental
particle physics.
The "Next Big Bang" will air at 7 p.m. CST, on the eve of first light in
the Large Hadron Collider. The show adds to the LHC fever that promises
to do for high-energy physics what Carl Sagan and Steven Hawking did for
astrophysics and cosmology. (And let's face it; the doomsday lawsuits
haven't hurt, either.) Supersymmetry, extradimensional space, quantum
mechanics–this cable program will go there.
"The biggest mistake was trying to cover too much information," says
Johns Hopkins University particle theorist David Kaplan, who served as
science advisor and narrator for the one-hour documentary. "Dark matter,
supersymmetry, extra dimensions, the LHC machine, computing power,
quantum theory…it's a lot. That was my only complaint in the end."
But the show works hard to get its ambitious material right: "It's all
correct," Kaplan says. More than that, the filmmakers aimed to create
imagery that, at least partially, demystifies physics' most arcane
realms for the public. "There are some spectacular visual metaphors in
it," Kaplan says, "which I really like."
The Large Hadron Collider will look at how the universe formed by
analyzing particle collisions. Some have expressed fears that the
project could lead to the Earth's demise -- something scientists say
will not happen. Still, skeptics have filed suit to try to stop the
project.
It even has a rap dedicated to it on YouTube.
Scientists say the collider is finally ready for an attempt to circulate
a beam of protons the whole way around the 17-mile tunnel. The test,
which takes place Wednesday, is a major step toward seeing if the the
immense experiment will provide new information about the way the
universe works.
"It's really a generation that we've been looking forward to this
moment, and the moments that will come after it in particular," said Bob
Cousins, deputy to the scientific leader of the Compact Muon Solenoid
experiment, one of six experiments inside the collider complex.
"September 10 is a demarcation between finishing the construction and
starting to turn it on, but the excitement will only continue to grow."
The collider consists of a particle accelerator buried more than 300
feet near Geneva, Switzerland. About $10 billion have gone into the
accelerator's construction, the particle detectors and the computers,
said Katie Yurkewicz, spokewoman for CERN, the European Organization for
Nuclear Research, which is host to the collider.
In the coming months, the collider is expected to begin smashing
particles into each other by sending two beams of protons around the
tunnel in opposite directions. It will operate at higher energies and
intensities in the next year, and the experiments could generate enough
data to make a discovery by 2009, experts say."
|
|
Date: |
October 30th 2008 - 49 West Coffeehouse |
|
Title: |
Arctic Sea Ice: What's
Happening and Why it Matters |
|
Speaker: |
Bob Grumbine
Arctic sea ice extent
has been setting record minima often in the last decade, while Antarctic sea
ice extent has been setting record maxima. Both these facts, surprisingly,
seem to derive from the same source. We'll take a look at what those
sources are, what's been happening to the sea ice, and why this matters for
polar bears, penguins, eider ducks, and humans. We'll also think some about
how well we know any of this, and what other processes, from storm tracks to
the global ocean
thermohaline circulation, might be affected or related.
Bob is a Physical Scientist in the Marine Modeling and Analysis Branch of
the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, NOAA. His work has been
largely on polar processes in meteorology, oceanography, and glaciology. But he also earned a NOAA Bronze Medal for work towards implementing an
Atlantic basin numerical ocean model. Prior to this, he was a Postdoctoral
fellow in the UCAR ocean modeling program, at Penn. State, where he studied
paleocean circulation driven by polar ocean processes. He earned his PhD
from the University of Chicago, Department of the Geophysical Science,
studying polar water mass formation. As an undergraduate, he confused quite
a few people by getting his BS degree from Northwestern University in
Applied Math, but from the school of Engineering, doing his honors project
on continental ice sheets and ice ages, but making his area of application
Astrophysics. |
|
Date: |
Thursday, August 28, 2008, 6:30PM
|
|
Title: |
Sustainability Tails - The
Science and Management of the Nation's Living Marine Resources |
|
Speaker: |
Many
people are concerned about the information they receive
about the condition of the nation's living marine
resources, including fisheries and protected species
such as marine mammals and sea turtles. This talk will
provide up-to-date scientific information from the
National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA), on the status
and trends of these resources and the ecosystems in
which they reside. It will also provide some background
on the science behind these determinations, and how this
scientific information is used in the management
process. This talk will give a national overview, but
also will include some detailed information some of the
major species in the Chesapeake Bay, including crabs,
oysters, and rockfish.
Dr.
Stephen K. Brown received his PhD from the Ecology
Graduate Program of Rutgers University in 1983. His
primary focus was on estuarine ecology, and his
dissertation was on reproductive cycles of fiddler
crabs. Subsequently he did post-doctoral work at
Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station, where he worked on
the population dynamics of barnacles (the white lab rat
of intertidal ecology) and at the University of
Washington School of Fisheries, where he worked on
environmental toxicology. He has worked for the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
since 1990. He is currently chief of the Assessment and
Monitoring Division in the NOAA National Marine
Fisheries Service's Office of Science and Technology.
|
|
Date: |
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. |
|
Title: |
Ice Ages |
|
Speaker: |
Were scientists really predicting an imminent ice
age in the 70s? Did we avert one 8000 years ago? And when do
we expect the next ice age to start? Well, we've been in an ice
age for the last 25 million years, so maybe these are the wrong
questions. We'll chat about the types of ice ages, answer or at
least clarify the above questions, and in general enjoy some icy
thoughts in a typical blistering Maryland summer.
Robert Grumbine
is a Physical Scientist in the Marine Modeling and Analysis
Branch of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction,
NOAA. His work has included polar processes in meteorology,
oceanography, and glaciology. He also earned a NOAA Bronze
Medal for work towards implementing an Atlantic basin numerical
ocean model. Prior to this, he was a Postdoctoral fellow in the
UCAR Ocean Modeling Program at Pennsylvania State
University where he studied ocean circulation driven by polar
ocean processes. He earned his PhD from the University of
Chicago, Department of Geophysical Science, studying polar water
mass formation. As an undergraduate, he confused quite a few
people by getting his BSc degree from Northwestern University in
applied math - from the school of Engineering. He did his
honors project on continental ice sheets and ice ages, but
making his area of application Astrophysics. (This all made
sense, at least to him.)
|
|
Date: |
TUESDAY, May 27th 2008 |
|
Title: |
Ticks, tick-borne diseases
and vector ecology |
|
Speaker: |
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. |
|
Date: |
Friday March 28 2008 |
|
Title: |
Investigating the Responses of
the Immune System to Nanomaterials. Tales of Language Barriers and
Glow-In-The-Dark Particles. |
|
Speaker: |
Jennifer Nyland
Products incorporating nanotechnology are
becoming ubiquitous. According to the Whiting School of Engineering,
experts predict nanotechnology will have as great an impact on the
twenty-first century as televisions and computers had on the twentieth! As all of this innovation occurs, where will you fit in?
Now is your chance to find out about the potential impact of
nanomaterials on immune systems.
Dr. Jennifer F. Nyland
is a Research Associate in the Department of Environmental Health
Sciences, where her focus is on environmental factors impacting
autoimmune disease. Her work as a Postdoctoral fellow in the Division
of Environmental Health Engineering included such topics as
mercury-induced exacerbation of autoimmune heart disease in mice,
autoimmune dysfunction in human populations exposed to mercury through
occupational exposure or fish consumption in Amazonian Brazil, and immunotoxic impacts of nanomaterials in primary cell culture. Prior to
joining Johns Hopkins, Dr. Nyland worked on developing a vaccine for
systemic lupus erythematosus at SUNY Upstate Medical University and as a
Quality Assurance officer for a private environmental engineering firm. Dr. Nyland has a BA in Chemistry from Cornell University and a PhD in
Immunology from Upstate Medical University.
|
|
Date: |
Friday February 29th 2008 |
|
Title: |
Poultry Pathogens and
Public Health |
|
Speaker: |
Ellen Silbergeld
Trained at Hopkins in geography and environmental engineering with a
postdoctoral fellow in Environmental Health Sciences, Dr. Silbergeld also
received fellowships from Fulbright, Kennedy, Rockefeller, Danforth, and the
Woodrow Wilson Foundations. She was also a MacArthur Foundation "Genius"
Fellow. Presently she is on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health and is the Editor-in-Chief, of Environmental
Research. Silbergeld's research bridges the science of toxicology and
environmental and occupational health and public policy. Areas of current
focus include: cardiovascular risks of arsenic, lead, and cadmium;
immunotoxicity of mercury compounds; and health and environmental impacts of
industrial food animal production. These projects include epidemiological
studies and mechanistic research on gene/environmental interactions and
movement of pathogens in the environment. |
|
Date: |
Friday January 25 2008 |
|
Title: |
The re-introduction of the
American chestnut to North America |
|
Speaker: |
Gary Carver |
|
Date: |
Friday October 26 2007 |
|
Title: |
Beyond ‘An
Inconvenient Truth': How can we control rising atmospheric CO2
and climate change? |
|
Speaker: |
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. |
|
Date: |
Tuesday October 23 2007 Special event
co-sponsored with Alliance for Science:
www.allianceforscience.org |
|
Title: |
The Clergy Letter Project:
Scientists and Clergy Working Together To Improve Science Literacy |
|
Speaker: |
Dr. Michael Zimmerman, Dean of the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of Biology, Butler
University, Indianapolis, Indiana. |
|
Date: |
Friday September 28 2007 |
|
Title: |
Spiders:
Sex, Biodiversity, Webs, God |
|
Speaker: |
Jonathan Coddington, Senior Scientist, Smithsonian
Institution Natural History Museum |
|
Date: |
Thursday June 12
2007
|
|
Title: |
Out of the Blue: A
history of lightning, science, superstition, and amazing stories of survival |
|
Speaker: |
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. |
|
Date: |
Thursday, October 29, 2009 |
|
Title: |
Storms in Space |
|
Speaker: |
Terry Onsage |
|
Description: |
“Vacuum today, vacuum
tomorrow,” is what most people would expect a space weather forecast to declare.
In fact, space is filled with an electrically charged gas, called plasma, as
well as electromagnetic waves, energetic particles, and strong electrical
currents. The particles and electromagnetic fields in space couple strongly to
Earth’s magnetosphere, ionosphere and upper atmosphere creating a dynamic
Earth-Space system driven by explosive events on the sun. Before the advent of
modern technology, the noticeable manifestation of space weather was limited to
the beautiful aurora borealis, or northern lights. Today, however, we are
increasingly relying on technologies that are vulnerable to space weather.
Commercial airline communication, GPS accuracy, and the stability of the
electric power grid are all impacted by storms in space. This presentation will
give an overview of the Sun-Earth system and space weather, and a discussion of
its impacts on our technologies and of the National Weather Service forecasts
that are being developed to mitigate the impacts.
Terry Onsager is a physicist
at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Space Weather
Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. He received his Ph.D. from the
University of Washington in 1988 in physics. He previously worked at the
University of New Hampshire and Los Alamos National Laboratory conducting
research on Earth’s space environment, focusing on Earth’s magnetosphere and its
interaction with the solar wind. At the Space Weather Prediction Center, his
goal is to improve predictions of space weather by utilizing the advanced data
and models made available through worldwide research. He currently is spending
one year in the National Weather Service International Activities Office in
Silver Spring, Maryland to enhance international collaborations in space
weather. |
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