05-22-18 David McClintock - Demography Part 1

05/22/18

Welcome to SciTechNature get-togethers

Stephen Goodfellow/David McClintock present:

Hour 1 - Latest Science/Tech/Nature news.

Hour 2 - David McClintock takes us where he goes; never boring!

Location & Time:

Tuesdays, 11:30am to 1:30pm

Quinta Loreto Hotel, Cjon. de Loreto 15, Centro, Zona Centro, 37700 San Miguel de Allende, Gto.

From Cjon. de Loreto, enter the Mercado de Artisanias alley (East, going up-hill) about twenty yards and turn to your left into the Hotel Quinta Loreto compound.

The community center is on the Southeast side of the little central park. If you are coming by car, there is a parking lot within the compound.

(The community center is in the same location as the Philosophical get-together which is held on Fridays.)

A 50 pesos donation is suggested.

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Introductions/News

We introduce ourselves; A quick overview of weekly news in science, nature and technology.********SMA Science Book Club news( if any)

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Presentations

Hour 1 - Latest ScienceTechNature news.

Hour 2 - David McClintock takes us where he goes; never boring!

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Stephen Goodfellow's presentation links from last week:

Water plumes on Jupiter's moon Europa? Old data reveal new evidenceAbout the size of our Moon, Europa is the 2nd closest of Jupiter's four moons. (Closeup image.) The discolored cracks could denote frozen algae that welled up from the interior sometime in the past.

Akin to the color of Europa's cracks, the Miller–Urey primordial ooze experiment.

Google search query: "Is space empty?"

"The Nature of Nothing" gives some sense of how mindbogglingly complex it is to wrap one's head around the physical concept of 'nothing'.

You may recall in the previous two presentations "Persistent Inconsistencies and Big Rewards" we talked about how small observational discrepancies can lead to major findings; for instance, Einstein considered the discrepancy in the orbit of Mercury as one of the proofs of Relativity. In this case, the further minor discrepancy appears to be from the perturbations caused by other planets: "We might be a tiny bit wrong about Mercuries orbit"

Still on the subject of annoying discrepancies, Although being largely discredited for his unforgivable sin of wandering into the proof-less realm of psychic research, Rupert Drake, a formally-respected-scientist nonetheless hits the button on the head, at least in this fragment of a lecture offered here on the Gravitational Constant, especially when one considers the link following this one:

Why do measurements of the gravitational constant vary so much?

Still in the realm of the almost invisible, Watch this just published video - Trippy NASA Visualizations of Space Magnetism.

Stepping back and looking at the picture on a larger scale, the Heliosphere, Strange Magnetic Bubbles at the Edge of the Solar System.

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David McClintock's presentation notes from last week:

NASA'S Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is an Exoplanet Hunter PLACED INTO is a very clever orbit. I find the entire TESS Project a remarkable example of superb project design. https://youtu.be/rhHP6-GGeuI Seven (7) days ago, May 9 - TESS Mission Update After Perigee Maneuver 2 was completed, the spacecraft is in Coarse Pointing Inertial mode. Pointing is stable and all spacecraft systems are nominal. The cameras are on, taking data, and are continuing cooling to approximately -85C. Two (2) days ago, May 13 - TESS Mission Update The spacecraft is in Coarse Pointing Inertial mode, with the instrument ensemble boresight at -54deg pitch. Battery is healthy and between 33.1-33.3V. No spacecraft activities yesterday, the cameras are on and taking data, and have reached -85C ± 1C. One (1) day ago, May 14 - TESS Mission Update Perigee Maneuver 3 was completed successfully with nominal performance from the thrusters. TESS is on its way to a lunar flyby at 06:34:35 UTC on 17th May. Moon here we come! Vladimir Putin Boasts About Russia's New Nuclear Weapons -- TODAY https://youtu.be/hBcrESnizBQ This video clip chosen mainly because it was short (~3 minutes) Searching on Putin's new weapons will find many references and video recordings of his bizarre domestic-consumption press conference. How many new weapons would Russia need to build? Perhaps as few as five each. Two to test, one for spares, and two ready to use. The next video presents reasons why just a few nuclear devices can seriously damage the planet for humans. Even Reagan and Gorbachev came to accept that as real. Short Ted Talk on nuclear war https://youtu.be/M7hOpT0lPGI What Huygens Saw On Titan - New Image Processing https://youtu.be/9L471ct7YDo

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Some folks wanted to know where they could get reliable medical journals. Pat Somers recommended

"How to Access Research Articles for Free" - NutritionFacts.org

I also recommend Google Scholar

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The other SMA Science Group

i³: Ideas that Inform and Inspire - Join mailing list ********

The SMA Rotary Club rests upon a foundation of compassion and science, so it too gets a heads up from SciTechNature.

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Link to John Wharton's Shelter Space; an excellent source of SciTechNature trace elements:sheltervg4.com

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Best,

Stephen Goodfellow