This is one of our articles that stretches the definition of "entertainment" a bit. We're not featuring a local band here, but instead a different genre of entertainment - the kind that entertains you while educating you about the world we live in - and some other worlds that are "out there" waiting to be discovered.
A monthly dose of real science
Science Cafes started over a decade ago in Europe, and today are found in taverns, bookstores and coffee houses like Sweet Marlay's on Beach Street. Science Cafés are fun, informal gatherings that welcome people with or without a science background to have a conversation in “plain English” about a relevant topic with a local scientist. These are not lectures, but fun and lively dialogues.
Science Cafés' casual, open format easily engages their audience in conversations about science. They are live, monthly events that involve a face-to-face dialogue with a scientist from the community about current science topics. They are open to everyone. Don't assume that this is a geek-fest for the techies in town. Science Cafes bring science down to earth in terms that we all can understand.
Daytona's own Science Cafe
Daytona Beach's Science Café is ably led by Kristin Mixell, who books the speakers, organizes the meetings, and gets the word out to everyone on her growing e-mail list. Her 2011 Daytona Science Café calendar closed on December 15 with the topic "The Star of Bethlehem and Our Night Sky," featuring Dr. Robert Fleck from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University.
Dr. Fleck gave a captivating (and timely) talk about the Star of Bethlehem, assisted by Dr. Jason Aufdenbergfrom ERAU's Creekside Observatory, and Seth Mayo from the Museum of Arts and Sciences Planetarium, who set up telescopes across the street from Sweet Marlay's -- giving their audience a live view of Jupiter and star systems many light years away.
Next up: Life Beyond Earth
The first Science Café meeting of 2012 (January 19) is titled Finding Life Beyond Earth, a topic featured on PBS-TV's NOVA program last October 19. The speaker is Dr. Ted von Hippel from ERAU.
Recently, the NASA Kepler space telescope found two new planets orbiting a distant sun-like star, and the researchers who made the discovery say these two are the size of Earth or smaller. That's a first in the search for extraterrestrial life.
The January meeting will take us to the distant realms of our solar system, where secret forms of life may lie hidden, and explain why top astrobiologists say these places are changing how we think about the potential for life in our solar system. We used to think our neighboring planets and moons were fairly boring — mostly cold, dead rocks where life could never take hold. Today, however, the solar system looks wilder than we ever imagined.
Powerful telescopes and unmanned space missions have revealed a wide range of dynamic environments—atmospheres thick with organic molecules, active volcanoes, and vast saltwater oceans. This ongoing revolution is forcing scientists to expand their ideas about what kinds of worlds could support life. If we do find primitive life-forms elsewhere in the solar system, it may well be that life is common in the universe — the rule, and not the exception.
The Science Café Calendar
The Daytona Beach Science Cafe meets on the third Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm in the relaxing atmosphere of Sweet Marlays' Coffee, located in Downtown Daytona at 214 South Beach Street, featuring espresso drinks, coffee, loose leaf tea, bubble tea, fruit smoothies, pastries, desserts, panini, quiche, local artwork, and free Wi-fi. Trust me, it's all good!
For more info
- National Science Cafes -- sciencecafes.org Facebook: facebook.com/sciencecafes
- Daytona Beach Science Café (on Facebook): facebook.com/#!/pages/Daytona-Beach-Science-Cafe/211226972231415, or via e-mail: daytonabeachsciencecafe@yahoo.com
- Sweet Marlay's Coffee -- facebook.com/sweetmarlays
- PBS / NOVA -- pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/finding-life-beyond-earth.html
- Daytona's ERAU Creekside Observatory: observatory.db.erau.edu/
- Daytona's Museum of Arts and Sciences: http://www.moas.org/
Comments