EVENT DESCRIPTION
3/14/18	Stephen Hawking dies at age 76 - read some of his QUOTES; his appearances in Star Trek TNG, the Pink Floyd album 'The Division Bell', the Simpsons, the Metropolitan Opera piece, 'The Prologue', the Big Bang Theory and the movie 'The Theory of Everything' are HERE
	TEACHER IN SERVICE CREDITS: LIPTA will provide you with a 3 hour CTLE certificate for attending our Spring Conference on 4-6-2019 SUNYSB will provide attendance certification for each of the lectures attended during the Fall 2018 semester. NYS teachers who wish to receive CTLE credit for any of these lectures must register HERE  You must register for each lecture you attend and sign-in at the lecture. The Graduate School will send a CTLE certificate about six weeks after each lecture.
Th 10/4/18	Leon Lederman dies at age 96 (1988 Nobel Prize in physics)
Fri 11/9	GEOLOGY LECTURE AT SUNYSB 7:30PM ESS001, Scott McLennan, “Exploring Mars From the Inside Out: The InSight Mission” Recent exploration of Mars has left planetary scientists in a curious situation. With the stunning success of rovers (Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity) and landers (Pathfinder, Phoenix) exploring the Martian surface for over two decades, we now routinely obtain images of rocks and soils with spatial resolutions of well under one millimeter. And yet the most fundamental nature of the internal structure of Mars, such as the thickness of its crust and the depth to the core-mantle boundary are very poorly known. For example, the thickness of the crust could be anywhere from 30-70 kilometers and the depth to the core-mantle boundary is known only to within about ±750 kilometers. A similar degree of uncertainty exists for basic questions related to the thermal character of the planet’s interior – that for Earth provides the driving force for plate tectonics. That is all about to change! On November 26, 2018, NASA’s InSight Lander is due to arrive on the Martian surface. InSight is a mission devoted entirely to the geophysics of Mars. Two of its main instruments, a seismometer (SEIS, supplied by France) and a heat flow probe (HP3 supplied by Germany), will reveal the internal structure and thermal character of Mars to unprecedented fidelity. Because InSight will remain stationary for a very long time, it will also be possible to track wobbles in the Martian orbit very precisely and thus provide better “radio science” (RISE) constraints on the internal structure of Mars (moment of inertia, core size and composition) than has previously been possible. In this lecture, Professor McLennan will provide an overview of InSight – its mission design, science goals, instruments and expected results. In addition, he will also provide a brief update on attempts to recover the Opportunity rover that lost communications with Earth in June 2018, during a massive globe-encircling dust storm.
Fri 11/16	BIOLOGY LECTURE AT SUNYSB 7:30PM ESS001, Paul Greenberg, “The Omega Principle, Seafood and the Quest for Long Life and a Healtier Planet”  Our special presentation, by the bestselling author of Four Fish and American Catch, an eye-opening investigation of the history, science, and business behind omega-3 fatty acids, the “miracle compound” whose story is intertwined with human health and the future of our planet. Omega-3 fatty acids have long been recommended by doctors and dieticians as key to a healthy heart and a sharper brain. In the last few decades, one of America’s most popular dietary supplements - Omega-3s - are today a multi-billion dollar business, and sales are still growing apace–even as recent medical studies caution that the promise of omega-3s may not be what it first appeared.
Fri 11/30	PHYSICS LECTURE AT SUNYSB 7:30PM ESS001, Christopher J. Johnson, “From Molecules to Clouds – How do Atmospheric Particles Form from Thin Air?” Atmospheric particles, including familiar objects such as dust or smoke, have a significant impact on Earth’s climate and human health. Despite their ubiquitous presence, they remain mysterious, primarily due to their extreme chemical complexity. Among the most mysterious are so-called new particles, which form directly out of thin air and can grow into rain droplets or snowflakes. These new particles, which are too small to see with a microscope, can typically only be studied indirectly, and so fundamental questions like how they interact with water remain unsolved.  I will discuss the origins of these particles and how they are expected to impact climate, and my research group’s experiments to figure out how and why they grow. We have constructed an instrument that gives us to control, exactly select, and grow particles, as well as powerful analysis techniques to determine why they grow. The key advance for this work is the use of ion traps, which allow us to float particles in a precisely-defined atmosphere and follow their growth one molecule at a time. Using this capability, we are starting to determine some of the structural transformations occurring as the particles mature and the role of water in the mechanism of growth.
Fri 12/7	ASTRONOMY LECTURE AT SUNYSB 7:30PM ESS001, Anja von der Linden,
Fri eve & Sat 11/16 & 17	NEW JERSEY SECTION REGIONAL MEETING at Bergen Community College, Paramus, NJ Friday Evening: Dinner + Speaker, Poster sessions  $15    Saturday: Presentations, Speakers, Demo show, & more...TBA. $35,   PTRA afternoon workshop Saturday
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