Balticon 58 Science Presentations 2024
Friday 2:30 PM “The Background and the Foreground: To Recognize the Unexpected, Learn What’s Expected” Andy Love
“When talking about science, the eureka moment (when something is suddenly understood) and the “that’s funny” moment (when something unexpected turns up) are often described. In this talk, Andy Love will talk about the moments before those moments can happen, when the scientist takes care to notice what’s going on outside the experiment, or when the experiment isn’t running, to have context for “eureka” and “that’s funny.””
Friday 4:00 PM “Ohhhh…that feels good: Texture and Stability in Food Science Ms. LeShawn Gee, PCQI – Quality Engineer, Ingredion Inc.
Ingredion Alliance of Black Employees (A.BL.E) North American Lead
Do you want to know how ice cream survives the freeze-thaw cycle from production to home consumption? Have you ever wondered how the color and flavor stays in suspension in beverages? Do you know how food companies can reduce sugar content while maintaining mouthfeel? Texture in food affects taste by attracting or detracting from a food’s other flavoring and increasing the perceived sweetness or saltiness. Crunchy foods stimulate your teeth and jaw which can enhance the perceived saltiness or sweetness. Soft foods tend to coat your tongue which gives a creamier or richer sensation. Texture is always top of mind when designing new products or improving existing products. Determining the texture target is an important step in food design and creation. Join me for an exciting session on building texture and stability in food and beverages with hydrocolloids.
Friday 5:30pm The Science of NASA’s Artemis Missions and about small instruments in cubesats and the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiatives. Dr. Barbara A. Cohen, lunatic (she/her) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, with aide Robert Coker
PI for the Mid-Atlantic Noble Gas Research Laboratory (MNGRL) and that you are developing a flight version of your noble-gas geochronology technique, the Potassium-Argon Laser Experiment (KArLE), for use on future planetary landers and rovers. NASA’s Artemis program is the first step in the next era of human exploration, returning humans to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo program and planning for Mars. The lunar rocks brought home by Apollo astronauts reshaped our understanding of our Moon, the Earth, and the entire solar system. Gathering more of them is one of the most important reasons to go back to the Moon. The Artemis program is enabling lunar sample return both by humans and robots, to places we’ve never been in some the oldest, coldest places in the solar system. Mars Sample Return is already underway, with scientifically-rich samples collected from Jezero Crater by the Perseverance team, cached for return to Earth for worldwide study. Our desire for sample return across the Solar System far exceeds our financial capacity and projected technological ability to collect, cache, and return samples from all of them. NASA is also invested in the development of innovative in situ dating techniques. Instruments that can measure radiogenic isotopic systems (K-Ar and Rb-Sr) are being developed and flown. In this lecture, we’ll discuss the most important science from lunar and Martian samples and how we are planning for more, both by sample return and in situ analysis.
Dr. Barbara Cohen is a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Her main scientific interests are in geochronology and geochemistry of planetary samples from the Moon, Mars and asteroids. She is a Principal Investigator on multiple NASA research and space flight projects, including Lunar Flashlight, a lunar cubesat mission, and PITMS, a mass spectrometer manifested aboard the Astrobotic Peregrine lander for a lunar surface mission. She has been a member of the science teams operating the Mars rovers Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity and Perseverance, and is a co-Investigator on the upcoming lunar rover VIPER. She serves in the Artemis program as the Sample Integrity Lead and as the Artemis IV Project Scientist. She has participated in the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET) in four seasons, where she helped recovered more than a thousand pristine samples for the US collection. Asteroid 6816 Barbcohen is named for her. She is a warm-water scuba diver and enjoys reading, hiking, and board games.
Friday 7pm “Developing Fire Protection Strategies for Refugee Camps like the Rhohinga” Genevieve Tan, M.S. Fire Protection Engineering and Jessica Gallo Fire Protection Engineering
Genevieve Tan is an associate fire protection engineer with Jensen Hughes where she assists with code consulting and fire protection design as well as risk analysis and detailed fire modeling for nuclear power projects. She holds a Master of Science degree in Fire Protection Engineering from the University of Maryland, with a research focus on fire risk in informal settlements. She completed a thesis project involving MATLAB-based image processing to validate FDS models of a single thin-walled humanitarian shelter.
Jessica Gallo is a sophomore majoring in Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland. For the past 18 months, Jessica has worked for Fire & Risk Alliance in Rockville, Maryland as a research intern focusing on electric vehicle and battery fires. She also was an engineering intern for Whiting-Turner during Summer 2023, where she had the opportunity to learn about fire systems, codes, and inspections while working in new construction. Additionally, as a rising senior in high school, Jessica was a research intern for the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland where she focused on fires in informal settlements. Her research was published by the Society of Fire Protection Engineers in August 2021, and she continued her research with the Department throughout the 2021-2022 school year. She is also a member of the UMd Society of Fire Protection Engineers Chapter .
Saturday 10am White matter matters: Myelin’s galactic quest for a better brain health — Unveiling the secrets with MRI. Dr. Mustapha Bouhrara, Neuroimaging Scientist, National Institute of Aging, Director NIA, MRI study
In the vast expanse of our brains, white matter plays a crucial role in transmitting information between regions. Myelin, the fatty insulation surrounding nerve fibers, is the hero of this story. Its galactic quest is to optimize communication, enabling lightning-fast processing and seamless coordination. But what happens when myelin’s shield is damaged or degraded?
That’s where MRI comes in, a powerful tool allowing us to explore the neural galaxy like never before. By harnessing the latest MRI techniques, we can visualize and analyze myelin’s intricate networks, uncovering hidden patterns and secrets. With each new discovery, we gain a deeper understanding of brain health and its connection to myelin’s cosmic quest.
Join us on this journey through the stars of the brain, as we venture into the mysteries of white matter and unravel the enigmas of myelin. With MRI as our trusty compass, we’ll chart new territories and unlock the potential for better brain health. The fate of our neural galaxy depends on it! Extreme calorie reduction, like anorxia nervosa, would decrease myelin levels in the brain?
Myelin study in brain at Magnetic Resonance Physics of Aging and Dementia Unit: The MRPAD Unit performs biophysical and physiological studies of the human central nervous system (CNS). The overarching mission of MRPAD is to establish links between functional and structural changes that occur in normative aging and age-related diseases, and to develop accurate pre-symptomatic biomarkers that will assist with differential diagnosis, characterize the rate of disease progression, and facilitate development of therapeutics. This research program incorporates three major distinct, but complementary, components. The first component is expanding upon and refining existing methods in addition to developing novel magnetic resonance (MR) techniques, such as: methods that are based on multicomponent relaxometry and diffusion, magnetization transfer, water exchange, high-dimensional imaging, susceptibility imaging and cerebral functioning, for the quantification of fundamental determinants and properties of the CNS, including myelin content, axonal and neurite densities, neuroinflammation, iron content, sodium content, cerebral blood flow and cerebrovascular reactivity. The second component of this research program involves studying the effects of reversible and nonreversible metabolic, functional, vascular and genetic risk factors on these imaging biomarkers of CNS’s microstructure, composition and function in normative aging and disease. The third component is studying the impact of changes in these imaging biomarkers on functional, behavioral and cognitive impairments, in addition to combining them with liquid biopsy biomarkers to further elucidate the mechanisms underlying the aging physiology and age-related diseases pathophysiology. Much of this work incorporates measures collected in the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging (BLSA), the Genetic and Epigenetic Signatures of Translational Aging Laboratory Testing (GESTALT) cohort, the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults.
Saturday 11:30 AM “Every single mosquito that’s ever bitten you has been female. For them, a meal of blood is the ultimate girl dinner. But pre-historic insects found trapped in amber, suggest that male mosquitoes may have once drunk blood, too. Dr. Dale Greenwalt, Smithsonian Natural History Museum Paleobiologist
When small animals or plants get stuck in gooey tree resin, they can be preserved if the resin hardens into amber. “In Lebanon, I have found some 450 different outcrops of amber, which is a lot for a small country,” said Dany Azar, a paleontologist at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology and Lebanese University, and an author of the paper. Lebanese amber is rich in preserved fossils, called inclusions, and dates to around 125 million years in the early Cretaceous period. In addition to being the age of the dinosaurs, it was also a time when flowering plants were becoming more widespread. Dr. Azar says he studies inclusions with the aim of understanding how flowering plants and pollinator insects have evolved together.
Dr. Greenwalt collected the amber specimens in this study about 15 years ago in central Lebanon, but he thought they belonged to a group of insects that he didn’t focus on, so Dr. Azar didn’t prioritize them for study. But while polishing one of the specimens to a thin slice that could be examined under a microscope, he was taken aback. “To my big surprise, I said, ‘Oh, gosh, this is a mosquito,’” Dr. Azar said. …..
(Dale Greenwalt is a research associate in the Paleobiology Department of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and the author of the award – winning book Remnants of Ancient Life. The New Science of Old Fossils.
Over the last 15 years, Dr. Greenwalt has established the Kishenehn Formation fossil insect collection at the National Museum of Natural History. His field work at this northwestern Montana fossil site has resulted in dozens of publications on selected specimens from the more than 10,000 exceedingly well-preserved fossils collected there. Greenwalt’s discovery of well-preserved ancient biomolecules in specimens from the Kishenehn locality resulted in publication of Remnants of Ancient Life (Princeton University), a book that introduces the lay public to the science of biomolecules preserved in fossils. The fossil record of ancient biomolecules is a continuing focus of Greenwalt’s research.
In the late 1970’s a group of scientists held informal meetings on their mutual interest in the possibility of preservation of biomolecules in insects entombed in amber. After Michael Crichton interviewed one of these scientists, he gave the world Jurassic Park, one of the great science fiction stories of all time. It was, of course, fiction–in 1980, there was no record of fossilized blood-engorged mosquitos. However, shortly after the debut of the movie Jurassic Park, a college student and his parents discovered a fossil locality in northwestern Montana that contained some of the best–preserved fossil insects in the world, including the first specimen of a blood-engorged mosquito. Remarkably, that specimen contained remnants of hemoglobin in its abdomen.
Today, there is a wealth of scientific reports of ancient biomolecules preserved in the fossil record. These include genetic material (DNA) that allows us to trace the appearance of the world’s deadliest pandemic (the black plague), protein sequences that established the identity of the world’s largest primate, and deadly pigments used to warn away potential predators. Amazingly, scientists have recovered not just ancient biomolecules but live ancient organisms. These include the world’s largest known virus, tiny worms (nematodes) and plants, all preserved in 40,000-year-old permafrost.
To what degree can these and other new additions to the fossil record, provide storylines to authors of new science fiction? Can knowledge of, for example, ancient biomolecules from the teeth of Megalodon or ancient pigments used in female sexual displays form the bases of works of science fiction that introduce new and original concepts to the lay public? Michael Crichton did just that over forty years ago. Dr. Greenwalt’s presentation will review numerous examples of ancient biomolecules and describe what their existence can tell us about the physiology and behavior of ancient organisms. A book-signing session will take place immediately after the presentation.
Dr. Greenwalt received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota and a doctorate from Iowa State University. He was an assistant professor of chemistry at San Jose State University but spent most of his career in the biotechnology industry. He was a research scientist at the American Red Cross’ Holland Laboratory where he worked on membrane proteins, at Human Genome Sciences in protein-based drug discovery and at Cambrex Corporation where he developed patented drug discovery technologies.
Saturday 1pm “Science stranger than fiction; electric eels, star-nosed moles, and zombie-making wasps”. Kenneth (Ken) Catania, Vanderbilt University, professor or neuroscience and biology
With a specialty is strange animals and their senses, brains, and behaviors, Dr. Catania studies electric eels, star-nosed moles, and zombie-making parasitoid wasps among others with their amazing abilities. “A neuroscientist by training, Ken Catania has spent much of his career investigating the unusual brains and behaviors of specialized animals. These have included star-nosed moles, tentacled snakes, water shrews, alligators, crocodiles, electric eels, and parasitoid wasps. His studies often focus on predators that have evolved special senses and weapons to find and overcome elusive prey.
Saturday 2:30pm How NOT to die from pneumonia: Let’s review the current state of pneumonia, sepsis and respiratory failure care and state of the art for high intensity palliative care “Jack” Theodore Iwashyna , MD
Theodore J Iwashyna, MD PhD is the new Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, JHU.
His JHU affiliations incl Graduate Training Program in Clinical Investigation (GTPCI), Precision Medicine / In-Health, and the Center for Health Equity (CHE). He recently was recruited from the University of Michigan
Saturday 4pm “Synthetic Biology: Engineering Artificial and Natural Components For Biological Factories – The Update” —Panel discussion with Jennifer Weller and Ronald Taylor
Synthetic Biology is the art and science of extending the biologically possible to produce results that are currently impossible. SynBio does this by applying engineering principles to develop new biological parts, devices, and systems, or by redesigning existing systems found in nature. Examples of current target applications: modifying inborn errors of mutation that cause genetic diseases, driving out invasive pests using gene drives, and developing plants that can self-adjust their suite of small molecule toxins to repel emerging pathogens. There are also wilder aims of SynBio research, such as: developing completely novel genetic codes, resurrecting long-dead organisms, and making novel proteins that are compatible with living organisms but have unique functional abilities.
Join Jennifer Weller and Ronald Taylor as they give an update on work published in the past year. Plans include a discussion of how an exciting scientific area – deep learning/ generative AI / Large Language Models (LLM) methods – are being used to guide synthetic biology work.
Dr. Jennifer Weller is a Program Director in the Division of Biological Infrastructure, Directorate of Biological Sciences, National Science Foundation. Her program responsibilities include: Bioinformatics, Research Methods, and Accelerating Research Translation.
Dr. Ronald Taylor is Chief of the Information Technology Branch, Developmental Therapeutics Program, Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis at the National Cancer Institute. He works on planning, developing, and implementing biomedical informatics solutions to advance the discovery and development of new cancer therapeutics.
Saturday 5:30pm Time Crystals: Impossible? Improbable? No, Quantum Mechanical! John Ashmead
Crystals we know: they are structures that are periodic in space: fun to look at and very useful besides. But a few years back Nobel prize winner Frank Wilczek came up with the idea of a “time crystal”; a structure that is periodic in time, that oscillates among a couple of different states. Forever. Without pumping energy in. Or losing energy. Not possible in classical physics (Second Law of Thermodynamics and all that), but according to the laws of quantum mechanics, just barely! What do these tell us about time? How do we build one? What uses might they have? You may have seen them at work on Star Trek: Discovery; turns out they are real! So now what?
Saturday 7pm The Fifth National Climate Assessment: Impacts, Risks, and Responses
Ted Weber The new Fifth National Climate Assessment, an interagency report on U.S. climate change impacts, risks, and responses, paints an alarming picture of the climate crisis. The news of current and future climate impacts, however, is not all dire as there are encouraging trends in mitigation and adaptation responses. Mr. Weber will give an overview of its findings, focusing primarily on solutions. https://www.tcweber.com/
As an FYI, check this blog article focusing on the wildlife aspect: https://defenders.org/blog/2024/01/top-takeaways-national-climate-assessment
8:30pm Break for Masquerade / Cosplay
Sunday 10am Neutron & X-ray Tomography : including finding multiple dinosaur bones in the belly of the shattered crocodile, Dr. Jacob M LaManna, Physicist Jacob Lamanna, NIST Neutron & X-ray Tomography facility leader
Dr. LaManna has a BS, MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering. His graduate research centered around heat and mass transfer in automotive hydrogen fuel cells. Since starting at NIST, he has been responsible for development & operation of the simultaneous Neutron & X Ray Tomography (NeXT) system, which allows for fully simultaneous acquisition of 3D neutron & X ray images of objuects. Hi s research are primarily directed at applying NeST to image combined gas & liquid flow I porous materials, including hydrogen cells, lithium ion batteries, concrete degradation, oil and gas recovery, water flow underground, etc.
As part of running the NIST neutron imaging facility user program, he has additional publications in meteorite materials characterization, identifying dinosaur fossils evolutionary features, historical
artifacts studies, understanding the 3D printed metal ceramics sintering process and understanding how rocket propellants interact with storage tanks.
Sunday 11:30 AM “How the Vampire Virus interacts with the MindFlayer Virus”, Elia Mascolo
No one had ever seen one virus , a bacteriophage, latching onto another virus to choke it , until anomalous sequencing results sent a UMBC team down a rabbit hole leading to a first-of-its-kind discovery. A UMBC team describe the first view of a satellite bacteriophage (a virus that infects bacterial cells) consistently attaching to a helper bacteriophage at its “neck” by remnant satellite tendrils—where the capsid joins the tail of the virus.
Elia Mascolo, co-first author of the paper, received a BS in Biological Sciences and an MS in Molecular Biology in Italy at the University of Milan. He graduated with a Master’s thesis on developing graph inference algorithms to predict the gene regulatory networks in bacteria. He is now doing his Ph.D. research in the laboratory of Dr. Ivan Erill at UMBC, where he also serves as a Teaching Assistant, teaching General and Molecular Genetics.
Dr. Mascolo’s research in the Erill Lab involves the application of information theory to understand gene regulatory systems in biology and their evolution. The research subjects are usually members of the micro world, like bacteria and viruses, which are excellent models due to their fast and exuberant evolvability. His work relies heavily on developing new predictive tools using statistics, mathematical modeling, and computer simulations. The ultimate goal of his research is to foster a quantitative understanding of biological information and its evolution.
Sunday 1pm “Synchrotron radiation: fiction vs. use in the analysis of art”, Annette S. Ortiz Miranda
Dive headfirst into the fascinating fusion of science and art with a talk about synchrotron radiation. Synchrotrons are a ring-shaped particle accelerator used in nuclear science. In them, nuclear physicists accelerate particles near the speed of light to generate electromagnetic radiation. This technology is widely used in many scientific disciplines, including the analysis of artworks. During this presentation, participants will discover the stark disparity between the fantastical portrayals of radiation in fiction and its tangible utility in analyzing art. Through illuminating case studies, attendees will gain insights into its pivotal role in uncovering the secrets embedded within artistic masterpieces.
Attendees will gain a profound understanding of how synchrotron radiation serves as a powerful tool in art conservation and analysis, allowing for the examination of artworks with unparalleled precision. The viewers will get a backstage view of how artworks are analyzed in a particle accelerator and how the information gathered helps us understand our history and heritage
Annette Ortiz, PhD is a chemist with a Ph.D. in Science and Restoration of Historic and Artistic Heritage from the Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain, and the Biochemistry, Analytical, and Environmental Chemistry at the Universität Greifswald in Germany. She joined The Walters Art Museum in March 2023 as conservation scientist, where she focuses on the characterization of artists’ materials and techniques and their degradation patterns. Previous to her appointment at the Walters, she worked at the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) – Centre for Art Technological Studies and Conservation as a researcher/ conservation scientist. And the Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts at Northwestern University and the Art Institute of Chicago. Since 2021, she has been the conservation scientist chair on the Board of Governors of the Centro de Conservación y Restauración de Puerto Rico (CENCOR).
Beyond her work at the Walters, Annette is engaged as a scientific consultant with museums and cultural institutions in the Caribbean, is a mentor of the STEM careers mentoring program Seed for Success, and is part of the largest virtual collection of profiles of Latina scientists organized by the “If Then She Can.” She is one of the resources of the program Científicos al Servicio en Línea, organized by CienciaPR, and a member of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and the American Institute for Conservation (AIC).
Sunday 2:30pm “Aliens with Bad Eyesight: When Worlds Get Confused”, Tim Livengood
Earth is famously called a double planet, because we have such a large Moon. If an alien were looking at Earth from afar, could they tell that Earth has a Moon, or would it seem like just one planet? How much would that planet seem like our planet, or something else? What if that Moon were not our Moon, but were a planet like Mars? Science fiction has even imagined true double planets, with a habitable Moon orbiting a habitable planet – a little Earth and a big Earth. How could we tell? How wrong would we be if we couldn’t tell? Many questions, with only a few beginnings of answers.
Sunday 4pm annual DINOSAUR UPDATE
In the Main Ballroom Dr. Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. Principal Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology and Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, U of MD College Park Scholars.
Sunday 5:30pm “We have imaged, for the first time, the stellar wind bubble blown by a Sun-like star in the Galaxy” Carey Lisse
In 2021 our group used the NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory to observe the well-known debris disk system HD61005. A nearby ~100 Myr old Sun-like G9V star at the other side of the Local Bubble, HD61005 is well known for having a bright disk of orbiting circumstellar dust surrounded by two swept-back wings. Observed edge-on, these wings are thought to be due to blowback of small dust particles by interstellar medium (ISM) ram pressure effects as HD61005 travels through a locally dense part of the Milky Way galaxy. The same dense ISM should also cause a strong stellar wind-ISM interaction called charge exchange (CXE) which produces XUV line radiation. (Million-dgeree kelvin stellar plasma winds are sourced from the stellar corona, like the one just seen around our Sun during the Great Eclipse of April 2024.) We report the first ever detection of a resolved bubble of CXE x-rays around HD61005, a young main sequence G-star at only 2% of the Sun’s present age, showing us what our own system’s protective heliosphere looked like from the outside in its infancy.
Sunday 7 PM “An Exploration into the Scientific Study of Laughter – What Does Laughter Reveal about your Relationships.” Dr. Sally Farley, Professor of Psychology, The University of Baltimore, Director of the Helen P. Denit Honors Program, Associate Editor for Special Issues, Journal of Nonverbal Behavior
Dr. Sally Farley is Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Baltimore. She also directs the Helen P. Denit Honors Program. Dr. Farley is a social psychologist whose research lies at the intersection of relationship science and nonverbal behavior. Her recent work has focused on the relational importance of laughter and the significance of the heartfelt gesture (which involves placing one or both hands flat against the center of the chest). Dr. Farley and her colleagues argue that this gesture is used in moving situations that involve feeling suddenly and deeply connected to others, and thus may be an embodiment of the self-transcendent emotion kama muta.
Sunday 8:30pm Earth and its Tempestuous Relationship with the Star Next Door
From its earliest days as a planet emerging from the rough and tumble origins of the solar system, Earth has had a rough time with its neighboring star, the Sun. Its original atmosphere was blasted away by a young Sun, just like its sister planets, Venus and Mars. All three planets started out similarly, but Earth is the one that continues to harbor an extraordinarily rich variety of life. Thanks to its sensible location 93 million miles away from the Sun, it maintains an accommodating climate while Venus bakes under an oppressive atmosphere and Mars freezes. We’ll explore why Earth’s climate is so nice, how the Sun drives it, and the many parallels between the Earth’s atmosphere and that of the Sun.
The Earth’s climate features a variety of climate zones. We’ll explore how those are driven by the Sun and the responses of the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and landmasses. We’ll explore how those have changed over its lifetime and how those are changing. And we’ll explore a little about how all these systems interact with each other to produce weather and climate.
The Sun, meanwhile, appears entirely different, with a raging fusion furnace at its core and giant storms on its surface, but in many ways its behavior has direct analogs to phenomena on Earth. From storms to jet streams, many facets of the Sun are similar while many are different!
Dr. Jeff Stehr (he/him) works at his dream job at the Department of Energy, where he and a colleague run the Atmospheric System Research program in the Office of Science. Before that, he worked at NASA Headquarters, mostly in the Earth Science and Heliophysics Divisions, especially in the Applied Science Program. His first job in his field was working on air pollution and climate change at the U.of Md in College Park where he also founded the undergraduate program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science. Dr. Stehr earned his bachelors from U. of Michigan and his Ph.D. from U. of Minnesota, both in Physics. But you’ll forget all that when you hear that he occasionally performs improv and standup comedy at a variety of arts venues around the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
Dr. Barbara J. Thompson (she/they) has worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for nearly 30 years. Thompson received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in recognition of innovations in image processing, is the founder and lead of a NASA center focusing on AI/ML development, was on the development and launch team of multiple NASA missions, and serves as Associate Editor for Bitingduck Press, an independent science fiction publishing company. Thompson also is a long-time member of the National Puzzlers’ League (NPL) and dedicates much of their free time to the pursuit of collaborative solving.
Sunday 10-11pm Science Greatest hits in 2023 Jim Beall
What were the most interesting and impactful Science Contributions last year?
This is of course my judgement call and you, the audience, will be encouraged to add your selections to the list.
11-midnight Science Greatest Hits cont. : Audience Participation – Miriam WK moderator with Pamela Gay
After 11:pm will not be Streamed.
MONDAY
9 am – No Streaming – In person only
Journey to the Chocolate Forest” Dr. John LaPolla, professor at Towson University,
I explore the intricate and delicious world of chocolate production. We will embark on a journey to the tropics where cacao grows and cocoa beans are harvested then move on to the factories where those beans are transformed into the wonderful thing we call chocolate. Along the way, I will sprinkle in anecdotes of how my studies on ants have brought me to the tropics and to the forests where cacao grows. There may also be the opportunity to taste some craft chocolate from some local makers as well!
Dr. LaPolla will include a little about the natural history of cacao, a little about how humans have used it over time and then get into modern chocolate making, including the emergence of the craft chocolate movement.
There will be small chocolate samples.
Monday 10am “Space Junk: The Challenge of Cleaning Up Earth’s Orbit” Adeena Mignogna
Ever wondered what happens to outdated satellites or spent rocket stages? Discover the clutter circling our planet and learn about the risks this debris poses to ongoing and future space missions. Explore innovative solutions being developed to address the cosmic mess. From space nets to magnetic tugs, find out how science and technology are working together to tackle this orbiting obstacle course!
Adeena is a Mission Architect at Northrop Grumman with 25 years of experience involving all aspects of satellite, and now space station, design and development. Adeena is also the author of The Robot Galaxy Series of books, a podcast co-host of The BIG Sci-Fi Podcast, and a STEM speaker, using her lifelong love of science fiction and science to inspire others through writing and speaking about robots, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, exoplanets and more. She received Bachelor’s of Science degrees in Physics and in Astronomy from the University of Maryland and a Master’s of Science in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. Her books and website. Author, Speaker, Systems/Software Engineer, Geek
Monday 11:30am Citizen Science: Expanding our Understanding of the Universe Pamela Gay
Every day people of all ages are playing an ever-expanding role in science. From mapping the asteroid Bennu, to mapping the effects of relativity during the recent 2017 and 2024 Total Solar Eclipses, researchers are finding their big science requires your help. In this presentation, the director of the CosmoQuest science community invites you to learn about recent discoveries made by people of all ages (including school kids learning epi pens become poison in space). You are also invited to join her and myriad people around the world as we explore the moon and other worlds in never-before-seen detail. Take a facts-based journey with Astronomy Cast.
Monday 1pm “Earth’s Worst Day Ever: Untangling the Cretaceous/Paleogene Mass Extinction” Dr. Holtz
Explores the discovery of causes of the end of the Age of the Dinosaurs, and how recent information helps refine our knowledge of how an asteroid impact can ruin your whole day. Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. Principal Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology and Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, U of MD College Park Scholars