As museum and zoological parks around the country look for ways to appeal to broader (older, hipper, willing to part with discretionary income) audiences, Valentine’s Day provides the perfect opportunity for a community that typically caters to the under-12 set to let down their hair for a little after-hours action, if you know what I mean.

Here’s a list of events around the Bay Area for those looking to mix a little science with pleasure:

Sexplorations
Exploratorium
Thursday, February 4, 6pm

The Pitch:

Join us as we delve into the whys and wherefores of sex, and investigate the ways nature is both conservative and creative in its pursuit of procreation. Explore insect peep shows, collect your DNA, enjoy the latest reproductive dress fashions, and check out a variety of sperm from across the plant and animal kingdoms. See sex-related exhibit prototypes that will one day grace the Life Sciences collection in an Exploratorium greenhouse, films, and much more!

Featuring:

• Mary Roach, author of Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
• Project Inform Evening of Hope: A Night of Life-Saving Fashion
• Condom Couture Fashion Show

Sign me up:
$15/free to members

Nightlife: Romance and Reproduction
California Academy of Sciences
Thursday, February 11, 6pm

The Pitch:

We have a pre-Valentine’s day treat, “Romance and Reproduction”. Throughout the Academy, you can learn about how different plants and animals from many different parts of the natural world reproduce. Among other things, you’ll see baculum (penis bones) from a variety of different mammals, learn about how the invertebrates in the tidepool exhibit reproduce, and find out exciting information about the frequency and duration of lion mating, penguin mating and zebra mating.

Featuring:

• DJ Jeff Stallings co-founder of “REAL BAD” party at Folsom Street Fair
• San Francisco Amateur Astronomers, led by blogger

Paul Salazar

Sign me up:
$12/$10 for members

Woo at the San Francisco Zoo
San Francisco Zoo
Saturday February 13, 6pm (Evening Event)
Sunday, February 14, 11am (Brunch Event)
Sunday, February 14, 6pm (Evening Event)

The Pitch:

“Woo At The Zoo – Finally turns 21! Be you penguin, primate or possum you are cordially invited to celebrate a San Francisco Zoo original – the 21st Annual Sex Tour/Woo At The Zoo led by Jane Tollini. Come join us for her exciting presentation full of wild animal facts and kinky information about animal mating. It includes all animals A to Z including U! Heads and Tails above flowers and candles, there is no better way to impress your Valentine. If that isn’t enough, there will be up-close animal encounters from some Zoo residents to top off this unique event.

Featuring:

• Romantic brunch including mimosas, A French toast station, maple sausages, scrambled eggs, pastries, fresh fruits and delicious desserts.
• Evening event dinners of beef tenderloin, herbed couscous, salad, chocolate delights, champagne and more.

Sign me up:
Brunch: $65/$60 for members
Dinner: $75/$70 for members
Reservations recommended

Animal Amore Tour
Oakland Zoo
Saturday, February 13, 9am
Sunday, February 14, 9am

The Pitch:

Ever wonder about the love lives of Animals? Are they Monogamous or Romantic? Do they really fall in Love?

This Valentine’s Day, surprise your sweetie with something unique—an animal encounter you both will never forget! Join us for “Animal Amore” and learn about the courting, mating, and child-rearing habits of some of Oakland Zoo’s most amorous Zoo animals. We’re featuring a special walking tour in honor of Valentine’s Day!

Sign me up:
$11/free to members
Reservations recommended

Valentine’s Day Love Missions
Chabot Space and Science Center
Saturday, February 13, 1:30pm and 3:30pm
Sunday, February 14, 1:30pm and 3:30pm

The Pitch:

Celebrate with your Valentine on a simulated space mission to the Red Planet. This package includes an all access pass to the Center, chocolates, fizzy Martian beverage, and a souvenir of your trip.

Sign me up:
$85 per couple/$80 members
Reservations recommended.

What is a Science “Zine”?

Imagine a mini-magaZine you make yourself. Now make it smaller – nope, smaller still! From a single 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper you can make an 8 page booklet that fits in the palm of your hand. You’ll be amazed how much entertaining science can be packed into a zine and shared with the world!

Curious how to participate? Just follow these four simple steps–

1. Choose a topic and theme.

(You can zine about anything in science — from pigeons to earthquakes to neutrinos — but we are going to ask you to align it with one of our YoS themes.)

2. Design it!

(Here’s a template.)

3. Fold it!

(These instructions make it easy.)

4. Submit it!

(Complete the online submission form here.)

What is the contest deadline?

All submissions must be postmarked by November 1, 2009.

Click for more tips on creating a great zine and examples on the Small Science Collective Web site.

What might you win?

Your zines will be read by a panel of scientists, artists, and students from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Field Museum of Natural History. There are three entry levels by age: Youth (8-12 years), High-School (13-17), Adult (18 and older) and there are twelve themes … so there will be 36 different awards! Each winner will receive prizes donated by YoS partners and:

• One top zine contributor will receive a $500 grand prize!
  The grand prize is generously provided by Shodor: A national resource for computational science education
• Two prize winners will receive a $250 prize each.
  These two awards, sponsored by UnderstandingScience.org, will be given to the zine authors who best reinforce the process of science in their design and text (see Understanding Science.org for ideas and information)

Selected zines will also be highlighted and shared through the Year of Science 2009 website & the Small Science Collective.

July is Astronomy month and we’re featuring one of our astronomical partners: The Astronomical Society of the Pacific. The ASP has been around a whopping 120 years and they are celebrating with their annual meeting in Millbrae. This year’s theme is Science Education and Outreach: Forging a Path to the Future.

ASP regularly holds local events in the Bay Area (under the guise of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures). They podcast many of the lectures including a popular lecture making the Bay Area rounds:

Dr. Patricia Burchat (Stanford University): “The Dark Side of the Universe: Dark Matter and Dark Energy”
In the last decade or so, astronomers have been forced to accept two mysterious observations. About a quarter of the universe is made of “dark matter,” which attracts things with its gravity, but is otherwise invisible. And roughly two-thirds of the universe is composed of “dark energy,” which causes space itself to expand at an ever-increasing rate. That means only a small fraction of the universe is made of ordinary matter — the stuff we understand! In this non-technical presentation, Dr. Burchat explores the evidence for the dark side of the cosmos, and the experiments that are being developed to investigate it further..

You can sign up to receive advance e-mail notification of each lecture by clicking here.

Possible impact site is dark spot at the top of the image

Images depicting a mysterious dark spot on Jupiter are starting to come in from amateur astronomers around the world. According to Anthony Wesley, the Australian astronomer who first reported the find on Sunday, July 19, 2009, the dark blot in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere is an impact mark.
Yes, you read that right, initial reports are beginning to confirm the very real possibility that earth-based telescopes have once again imaged the remnants of either an asteroid or cometary impact with Jupiter. According to Wesley:

Glenn Orton from JPL has imaged this site using the NASA Infrared Telescope on Hawaii and confirms that it is an impact site and not a localised weather event.

You may recall the 1994 Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts as the last time the world witnessed an impact on the solar system’s largest planet. It looks like it has happened again, albeit with a smaller object, and with no prior warning.
Professional astronomers are currently working to point their telescopes at Jupiter in the coming days in a continuing effort to confirm that the dark spot is an actual impact site and not some kind of weather phenomenon.
Wesley has set up a mirror site with additional images.

For the last couple of days, the science blogs have been going nuts over photos, shot from the ISS, of an in-progress volcanic eruption. Back on June 12, Sarychev Peak on Ostrov Matua (Matua Island) in the Kuril Island chain erupted right around the time the ISS was passing over. You can download hi-resolution versions of the pictures from the Gateway of Astronaut Photography.

Video Animation:

The pictures are quite stunning as they reveal a number of interesting eruption features, not normally seen from above.

Sarychev Eruption

For example, I counted at least 3 pyroclastic flows coming down the flanks of the volcano; you can see the steam erupting from where two of them enter the sea at the 1 o’clock and 9 o’clock positions on the island. Note the bubble of condensation at the top of the mushroom cloud. Scientists are not sure if that’s caused by moisture erupting from the volcano itself (that’s why the ash cloud is whitish), or from atmospheric moisture shoved up into the stratosphere. Also, there seems to be some dispute over the cause of the round “hole” in the clouds surrounding the island:

One explanation is that the hole in the clouds has nothing to do with the eruption at all. In places where islands are surrounded by oceans with cool surface temperatures, it is common for a sheet of clouds to form and drift with the low-level winds. When the cloud layer encounters an island, the moist air closer to the surface is forced upward. Because the air above the marine layer is dry, the clouds evaporate, leaving a hole in the cloud deck. These openings, or wakes, in the clouds can extend far downwind of the island, sometimes wrapping into swirling eddies called von Karman vortices.

The other two possibilities that scientists have offered appeared in the original caption. One is that the shockwave from the eruption shoved up the overlying atmosphere and disturbed the cloud deck, either making a hole or widening an existing opening. The final possibility is that as the plume rises, air flows down around the sides like water flowing off the back of a surfacing dolphin. As air sinks, it tends to warm and expand; clouds in the air evaporate.

The NASA Earth Observatory site has some interesting pictures taken from their satellites showing the ash cloud as it dispersed over several days. What is more interesting to me are the beautiful von Karmann vortices surrounding the islands.

Kuril Islands

I broke out the Shake and made an animation of the eruption. It’s not quite the morph the NASA guys did, but I thought I’d teach myself something about image stabilization. Enjoy:

Sarachev eruption: Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center
MODIS satellite of Kuril Islands: NASA

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that once again, San Francisco Department of Public Works crews are undertaking the arduous task of removing sand from the Great Highway adjacent to Ocean Beach.

No matter how many times work crews clear it off the Great Highway and the adjacent pedestrian promenade at the city’s western shore, it keeps coming back.

“It’s a regular cycle,” said Mohammed Nuru, deputy director of the San Francisco Department of Public Works.

As it does every year, the city will undertake a major project to remove sand from Ocean Beach, and the adjacent walkway and highway between Noriega and Santiago streets in the Outer Sunset, and relocate it a bit south to shore up an eroding seawall.

Anyone that visits the SF Zoo or the beach knows there are dunes everywhere, but where does all that sand come from?

Some of it is just ordinary beach sand eroded from the sandstone cliffs near Fort Funston to the south. These cliffs are the exposures of a pair of rock formations geologists refer to as the Merced and the Colma.

These sandstone formations are relatively young (1.8-0.01 Myo.), and stretch down the peninsula coastline from Lake Merced to just past Mussel Rock. Because they’re weak, Pacific winter storms regularly chip away at the cliff faces, causing landslides threaten to carry parts of Daly City’s subdivisions to the beaches below.

Interestingly, the rest of the sand actually comes from a source 100 miles to the east and 16,000 years in the past: the Sierra Nevadas.

Back during the last glacial period, around 20-16 Kya, glaciers ground down the granite rocks that make up the Sierra, and seasonal melt waters fed those sediments to the tributaries of a Pleistocene Era Sacramento River.

However, back then sea levels were considerably lower, on the order of 400 ft. lower, so while sediments nowadays get dropped into the Bay, the Sacramento would have been able to deposit its sediments onto a vast shelf of relatively dry land stretching out past the Farallon Islands, because there was no bay to flow into.

After the runoff floods receded, all that alluvial sand dried out, leaving it vulnerable to northerly winds which picked it up and carried it right back across the what is now the Bay Area, all the way to Oakland. Check out this portion of the USGS Geologic Map of The San Francisco Bay Region:

Click to see larger version

The areas marked “Qs” are Q(uaternary) s(ands). Nearly half of modern San Francisco sits on top of these ancient dunes. Visitors to Golden Gate Park and can see the residual hilly outlines of these ancient dunes. When Western San Francisco was built, there was no way to truck out all the sand, some of which had piled into dunes 60 ft. high, so they were stabilized with acres and acres of vegetation.

Examination of the sand reveals its origins in the Sierra Basolith. It’s composed of translucent quartzes; black magnetites (you did bring a magnet?); and if you’re lucky, even traces of gold. If you plan to mine it for Cash4Gold, the Department of Public Works can probably direct you to where they’d like you to start digging.

Coming of the heels of NASA creating a public contest to name a part of the space station, A scientific team is opening up the naming of a new species of jellyfish to help celebrate the Year of Science.

The species was discovered by a young girl swimming off a beach in Bonaire, down in the Carribean. She was stung and ended up in the hospital. Cue a scientific team investigating the event and voila we have a new species. This happens all the time, thousands of new species are discovered each year.

But it is a first to open the naming up to the public. There are of course some rules:

* Names have to be in Latin letters (not Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, etc.).
* No accents, apostrophes, or hyphens, etc. are allowed (no diacriticals).
* As mentioned, the species name begins with a lowercase letter.
* The name has to be more than one letter long.
* The name can be a word, name, in any language, and even just mixed up letters (but what would be the point of that?).
* The name (Genusname speciesname) has to be unique. So, in our case, species names that have been used for
Tamoya, such as haplonema or prismatica would not be allowed, having already been used.

To submit your own name, head over to the Year of Science’s Website.

And yes, Colbert Nation is already throwing a name into the ring: Tamoya colberti.

Watch a video of the jellyfish below:

This week, I’ll be taking a look at the Land of the Lost (opening 06.05.09), a remake of the Sid and Marty Kroft Saturday morning TV series of the same name. In Land of the Lost, explorers [Rick] Marshall, Will, and Holly survive the “greatest earthquake ever known” only to find themselves transported to an strange world filled with vengeful dinosaurs, alien technology, and the slow-witted but somehow menacing Sleestak.

Unlike its mid-70’s predecessor which was taped entirely on a soundstage with crude by contemporary standards chromakey effects, the big-screen version of the Land of the Lost has the luxury of state-of-the-art CGI visual effects and location shooting.

For Land of the Lost’s other-worldly look, producers looked to the nearby Mojave Desert for suitable locations. For years, California’s Mojave Desert has been the go-to location when moviemakers wanted to depict the Western frontier, barren wastelands, or alien worlds. Situated in the Basin and Range southeast of the Sierra Nevada, extension (stretching) of the earth’s crust creates a distinctive pattern of valleys (basins) bounded by mountains (ranges). As the land literally pulls apart from east to west, huge blocks of stone fracture and dip downward, creating the characteristic north/south trending ranges.

This California geological province, called the Mojave Block, is one of the driest and hottest places in the world. It is home to the lowest point in the U.S: Death Valley, a deep rift between the Panamint Range to the west and the Amargosa Range to the east. Each of these ranges, as well as the Inyo Mountains and the Sierra Nevada to the west, cast their 10,000+ foot “rain shadows” across the entire region. Storms from the Pacific cannot make the climb up these mountains, instead shedding their moisture far to the west. Only an occasional seasonal monsoon sneaks in from the south. Wind scours the landscape, picking up sand and blasting it against every surface, pocking it and whittling it down relentlessly. The Mojave can appear to be a hellish alien world, but it also a hauntingly beautiful one.

Trona Pinnacles

Fans of science fiction television and movies have undoubtedly seen the Trona Pinnacles used as the backdrop for countless alien worlds, and Land of the Lost is no exception. After arriving in the Land, Will Farrell’s Rick Marshall finds himself on the wrong side of Tyrannosaurus Rex, nicknamed “Grumpy,” and humorously tries to evade him amidst a forest of jagged stone towers. What are those features anyway, and where did they come from?

The Trona Pinnacles are rock formations called tufa, a calcium carbonate deposit formed in the waters of deep alkaline lakes. If these lakes are sited over springs, groundwater can percolate into the lake. In the case where groundwater picks up calcium from rocks under the lakebed, the dissolved calcium will react with the soda carbonates in the lake water to produce a calcium carbonate precipitate. When the lakes evaporate, tall stacks of the carbonate are left high and dry.

The formations are quite fragile, and so sites like the Trona Pinnacles and Mono Lake, where tufas are still being formed, must be protected. For example all visitors to the Trona Pinnacles as well as the Land of the Lost production are required by BLM rules to “leave no footprints.”

The 500-odd tufa pinnacles that make up the Trona Pinnacles formed in what is now called Dry Lake Searles, back when it was one of a chain of lakes that filled with Sierra Nevada glacial runoff at the end of each ice age. As the massive runoff flowed down off the Sierras, an interconnected drainage system that filled lakes from Mono Lake in the north to Death Valley in the south.

The pinnacles are classified into three groups, each group corresponding to different glacial periods from 100,000 years ago for the earliest, to 10,000 years ago for the most recent. The tallest of the towers reach as high as 140 feet, giving an impression of how deep the lake must have been.

Human artifacts, including spear points, sticks, and animal bones indicated that 8-10 kya., when the climate was milder and Searles Lake had water, both humans and animals were drawn to it. The lake and others like it supported a complex ecosystem of plants, insects, and birds, not unlike Mono Lake does to this day.

The Trona Pinnacles are 20 miles east of Ridgecrest off SR178. Access to the Pinnacles is via dirt road, and there is a pretty easy hiking trail around them. There are no services other than a vault toilet, and only primitive camping is permitted by the BLM. It can get to over 115º during the summer, so go early in the morning, late in the evening, or during some other season.

Dumont Dunes

When the heroes of Land of the Lost meet their native guide, Chaka the cave-boy, they are standing on the real-life Dumont Dunes. For years, dune buggy and sand-rail enthusiasts have flocked to this assemblage of sand dunes east of the Amargosa river. The dunes stretch across nearly 12 miles of desert, and may contain on the order of 6.8 billion cu. ft. of sand. Some dunes can reach 400 ft. in height.

It’s a bit difficult to pin down the origins of the dunes. As near as I can tell, these eolian (wind-created) dunes were created from the sediments left over after the Pleistocene-era lakes described above dried up. The fine sediments are periodically carried into the area by the Amargosa river or brought in on the wind. Since the neighboring Dumont Hills form a natural amphitheater, the dune sands fed by the prevailing westerly winds are entrapped rather than blow away. Over time, the winds alter the configuration and location of the dunes, and even now, studies have shown the eastern edge of the dunes to be slowly migrating to east.

The Dumont Dunes is notable for another reason. Sand avalanches on the dunes can often produce a low humming sound, and dunes that produce these sounds are referred to as “booming” or “singing.” Supposedly, it is quite easy to produce the sounds at Dumont and at the nearby Kelso and Eureka Dunes.

For years, various theories as to the cause of the sounds have been floated, but in 2005 and 2006 a group of engineering undergraduates at Cal Tech systematically recorded the booms with geophones in an effort to get to the bottom of the mystery. Their work, which looked like a lot of sliding around on their butts, was featured in a 2005 Nova: ScienceNow episode. The resulting 2007 paper is rather technical, but here’s the gist: the booms are produced by sand grains rubbing against each other, and the interface between the dry surface sand and the moist interior sand forms a “waveguide” to amplify the sounds.

The Dumont Dunes Off-highway Vehicle Area is located off CA127 31 miles north of Baker, CA. Access passes are available from the BLM and camping is permitted.

La Brea Tar Pits/George C. Page Museum

If you don’t feel like venturing out into the harsh environment of the eastern Mojave, you can find another Land of the Lost location located in the heart of a major California metropolis. When the movie introduces Dr. Rick Marshall, he is a discredited “quantum palentologist” reduced to entertaining schoolchildren in a basement lab at the La Brea Tar Pits.

Now, the George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits does indeed host a research facility dedicated to studying the largest collection of Ice Age plant and animal specimens in the world’s only active urban paleontological site. Visitors can even observe scientists and volunteers work in the “fish bowl” laboratory.

For Land of the Lost, filmmakers consulted with the staff of the Page Museum in order to authentically create Rick Marshall’s laboratory setting, even stocking it with bone samples from the same supplier. Additionally, they were given unprecedented access to the famous tar pit at Wilshire Blvd. and Curson, where even now gas eerily bubbles up through the tarry asphalt.

The La Brea Tar Pits and Page Museum are located at Hancock Park in the Miracle Mile district at 5801 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. The Museum is open Tuesday-Sunday from 10am-6pm.

Land of the Lost stills: NBC-Universal Pictures
Trona Pinnacles photo: Doug Dolde
Dumont Dunes photo: Doc Searls

Tired of science shoveled in your head at a 5th grade level? Over the animatronic dinosaurs the dot most of the museums? Then it’s time for you to check out Science4Grownups.

Science4Grownups is the brainchild of Eric Salituro (who helps blog for BayAreaScience). S4G lists everything from events, citizen science programs, and even video reviews…it’s a quick, fun, adult take on science.

My favorite part of S4G is the review section. Recently, Eric posted a review of The History Channel’s “The Link”:

On its face, The Link is another in a long line of splashy documentaries “revealing” some new scientific breakthrough, usually in anthropology or paleontology. I can’t help but wonder why the astronomers or molecular biologists can’t get in on this gig, too. Like its cousins, The Link hews closely to the conventions of the genre. There are closeups of revolving fossil, aerials (from a balloon no less!), scientists striding through doorways, scientists peering through microscopes, scientists pointing at computer screens, computer animations, and talking head interviews.

I say HA! The “Datelining” of all TV shows, especially science shows has long been a pet peeve of mine and illustrates the dumbing down of science.