]]> http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2011/10/22/foothills-audubon-club-november-meeting/feed/ 0 http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2011/10/05/public-star-night-at-the-little-thompson-observatory-8/ http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2011/10/05/public-star-night-at-the-little-thompson-observatory-8/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 02:54:25 +0000 admin http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/?p=24341  

Friday, October 21, 2011, 7 – 11 PM 

Public Star Night at the Little Thompson Observatory, 850 Spartan Ave at Berthoud High School

(park east of the high school; directions are posted at www.starkids.org).

The guest speaker will be Dr Thomas Bogdan from NOAA. The title of his talk will be “Space Weather”.

Space weather refers to conditions on the Sun and in the space environment that can influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems, and can endanger human life or health.  Space weather takes the form of episodic mass ejections—or “solar tsunamis”—from the Sun, sporadic showers of energetic particles and bursts of radiation associated with solar flares, and intermittent high-speed streams of magnetized solar wind plasma that buffet the Earth’s magnetosphere and induce geomagnetic storms and create the beautiful aurora.  Our rapidly evolving high-tech global economy has become increasingly vulnerable to the disruptive impacts of space weather on satellite telecommunications, GPS-based navigation and timing, transpolar commercial aviation, and the human exploration and commercial utilization of space.  NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center is the Nation’s official source for space weather alerts, watches and warnings.  It operates 24×7, and is designated a National Critical System by the US Department of Homeland Security.

To find out more about space weather go to http://www.spaceweather.gov.

Thomas Bogdan has been the Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center, located in Boulder, Colorado, since May of 2006.  In this capacity he serves as the principal representative for civil space weather operations in the United States and is the national liaison to the World Meteorological Organization for space weather matters.  He is also a co-chair of the multi-agency National Space Weather Program.

The Space Weather Prediction Center is the official source for our Nation’s space weather prediction, forecast and warning services.  It operates 24/7 with a yearly budget of $9 Million, and is one of only four Department of Homeland Security-designated National Critical Systems in the National Weather Service.  Approximately 50 civil servants and a dozen contractors work to provide space weather guidance that is critical for the aerospace industry, our homeland security and national defense, Global Navigation Satellite Services, commercial aviation, and the integrity of the power grid.

A Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, Dr. Bogdan was previously a senior scientist and an administrator with the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), from 1983 to 2006.  There he carried out fundamental research on solar magnetic activity, led the Societal Environmental Research and Education Laboratory, and directed NCAR’s prestigious Advanced Studies Program.  Between 2001 and 2003, Dr. Bogdan served as the Program Director for the Solar-Terrestrial Research Section of NSF’s Atmospheric Sciences Division.  During this time he was instrumental in developing the NSF’s first bridged faculty program in the space sciences, that resulted in the creation of eight new tenure track faculty lines devoted to solar-terrestrial research and education at several major U.S. universities.

Dr. Bogdan earned his Doctorate in Physics at the University of Chicago in 1984, and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. in mathematics/physics from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1979.  He is the author of over 100 papers in solar-terrestrial research, was the recipient of the Gregor Wentzel and Valentine Telegdi Prizes from the University of Chicago.  He spent the summer of 1989 as a Visiting Gauss Professor at the Universitäts Sternwarte in Göttingen.

The observatory doors will open at 7:00pm and the talk will start at 7:30pm.

Weather permitting after the presentation, visitors will be invited to look through our large telescope at various celestial objects.

Public star nights are held the third Friday of each month (except July, when the observatory is closed for annual maintenance).

If you have any questions, please call the observatory information line at 970-613-7793 or check the LTO web site at: www.starkids.org

The Foothills Audubon Club will be having their program on Monday, October 3 at 7 p.m. at the Berthoud Area Community Center, 248 Welch Avenue, Berthoud, Colorado.

Please join in for the October program, “Wild Birding Colorado.”

Cole Wild is the speaker for the October program and will review his successful 2010 quest to set a record for the most bird species seen in Colorado in one year. Cole tallied an amazing 412 species last year and his presentation will illustrate, through his beautiful photographs, the abundance of birdlife that visits our state. Follow Cole’s journeys to see some birds many of us have never seen. He will also point out some of the significant sites in Colorado where one can see both abundant and unique species. Wild has recorded his year-long adventure in a fun-to-read book, “Wild Birding Colorado – The Big Year of 2010,” which will be available for purchase and autographing after the presentation.

Refreshments will be served after the program. This event is free and open to the public, all ages are welcome.
For more information, please call (970) 980-7932 or (970) 532-2619.

Public Star Night at the Little Thompson Observatory, 850 Spartan Ave at Berthoud High School (park east of the high school; directions are posted on www.starkids.org).

Guest speaker John Ensworth will present: “Theories of Everything – from the Beginning of Time to When Time Doesn’t Exist.”

This will be the second of two talks on two consecutive public Star Nights, August 19 and September 16. Given the material being discussed at these two star nights, it would be appropriate for interested early teens but an early high school science background would help those new to the topics.

Part 1 of this presentation went into the earliest theories-of-everything (TOE’s) to modern efforts to unify the forces to see how reality is built. Ensworth touched on the role of the Higgs Boson (the “God particle” that is being sought at CERN near Geneva), zip by black holes, parallel universes and the flow of time itself and the promise of the (still un-testable) String Theory.

Part 2 of this presentation will be held on September 16, and will recap the topics of the first presentation and then move on to Information Theory, Loop Quantum Gravity to the role of entropy in everyday life and the death of the universe. Then we can wonder if a Theory of Everything is even, ultimately, possible in light of the mathematician Kurt Gödel and the computer pioneer Alan Turing. Be ready to ask questions

John Ensworth is the Senior Science Education Specialist at the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies working with NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. He conducts independent reviews of all Earth and Space Science education products produced by or for NASA. (www.strategies.org) He conducts workshops and professional development opportunities year around and at national science education meetings like the NSTA and the AGU. He has a master’s degree in meteorology from the University of Oklahoma and has undergraduate degrees in physics & astronomy, geography & meteorology with minors in math and computer science.

He became interested in astronomy in the 2nd grade and began to teach astronomy to cub scouts and boy scouts by the 5th grade.

He worked for the Arizona State University planetarium when Halley’s Comet paid the inner solar system a visit in 1985-1986 and was a planetarium lecturer at the Oklahoma City Omniplex Planetarium for almost 10 years. He has worked at Steward Observatory, at the University of Arizona, Tucson and conducted site testing for the placement of the Mt. Graham observatory complex. He has also observed at the 4-meter telescope at Kitt Peak, a 36” telescope at Kitt Peak, and at the Multi-Mirror Telescope at Mt. Whipple.

More recently he has conducted over 50 astronomy nights for Oklahoma, Virginia, Maryland audiences, has taught college level astronomy for almost 25 years and is a volunteer for the Little Thompson Observatory in Berthoud, CO.

Weather permitting, after the presentation, visitors will be invited to look through the large telescope at various celestial objects.

Public star nights are held the third Friday of each month (except July, when the LTO is closed for annual maintenance). No reservations are necessary for these nights. Just come and join in for the talk and some observing afterwards.

If you have any questions, please call the observatory information line at 970-613-7793 or check the LTO web site at: www.starkids.org.

The 2011 Arctic sea ice extent maximum that marks the beginning of the melt season appears to be tied for the lowest ever measured by satellites, say scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The CU-Boulder research team believes the lowest annual maximum ice extent of 5,650,000 square miles occurred on March 7. The maximum ice extent was 463,000 square miles below the 1979-2000 average, an area slightly larger than the states of Texas and California combined. The 2011 measurements were tied with those from 2006 as the lowest maximum sea ice extents measured since satellite record keeping began in 1979.

Virtually all climate scientists believe shrinking Arctic sea ice is tied to warming temperatures in the region caused by an increase in human-produced greenhouse gases being pumped into Earth’s atmosphere. Because of the spiraling downward trend of Arctic sea ice extent in the last decade, some CU scientists are predicting the Arctic Ocean may be ice free in the summers within the next several decades.

The seven lowest maximum Arctic sea ice extents measured by satellites all have occurred in the last seven years, said CU-Boulder Research Scientist Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, who participated the latest study. “I’m not surprised by the new data because we’ve seen a downward trend in winter sea ice extent for some time now.”

Scientists believe Arctic sea ice functions like an air conditioner for the global climate system by naturally cooling air and water masses, playing a key role in ocean circulation and reflecting solar radiation back into space, said Meier. In the Arctic summer months, sunlight is absorbed by the growing amounts of open water, raising surface temperatures and causing more ice to melt.

“I think one of the reasons the Arctic sea ice maximum extent is declining is that the autumn ice growth is delayed by warmer temperatures and the ice extent is not able to ‘catch up’ through the winter,” said Meier. “In addition, the clock runs out on the annual ice growth season as temperatures start to rise along with the sun during the spring months.”

Since satellite record keeping began in 1979, the maximum Arctic sea ice extent has occurred as early as Feb. 18 and as late as March 31, with an average date of March 6. Since the CU-Boulder researchers determine the maximum sea ice extent using a five-day running average, there is small chance the data could change.

In early April CU-Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center will issue a formal announcement on the 2011 maximum sea ice extent with a full analysis of the winter ice growth season, including graphics comparing 2011 to the long-term record.

For more information visit http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews.

A new study involving the University of Colorado Boulder shows clear evidence of the continuous control of fire by Neanderthals in Europe dating back roughly 400,000 years, yet another indication that they weren’t dimwitted brutes as often portrayed.

The conclusion comes from the study of scores of ancient archaeological research sites in Europe that show convincing evidence of long-term fire control by Neanderthals, said Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. Villa co-authored a paper on the new study with Professor Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University in the Netherlands.

“Until now, many scientists have thought Neanderthals had some fires but did not have continuous use of fire,” said Villa. “We were not expecting to find a record of so many Neanderthal sites exhibiting such good evidence of the sustained use of fire over time.”

A paper on the subject was published in the March 14 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Neanderthals are thought to have evolved in Europe roughly 400,000 to 500,000 years ago and went extinct about 30,000 years ago. Neanderthals ranged over much of Europe and stretched to Central Asia. Neanderthals were stockier than anatomically modern humans and even shared the same terrain for a time, and there is evidence that contemporary humans carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA. Modern humans began migrating out of Africa to Europe some 40,000 years ago.

Archaeologists consider the emergence of stone tool manufacturing and the control of fire as the two hallmark events in the technological evolution of early humans. While experts agree the origins of stone tools date back at least 2.5 million years in Africa, the origin of fire control has been a prolonged and heated debate.

Villa and Roebroeks, who together speak and read six languages, have visited or worked at dozens of the Neanderthal excavation sites in Europe. They also combed libraries throughout Europe and the United States for research papers on evidence for early fire use in Europe, contacting researchers involved in the excavations when possible for additional information and insight.

As part of the study they created a database of 141 potential fireplace sites in Europe dating from 1.2 million years ago to 35,000 years ago, assigning an index of confidence to each site. Evidence for the sustained use of fire includes the presence of charcoal, heated stone artifacts, burned bones, heated sediments, hearths and rough dates obtained from heated stone artifacts. Sites with two or more of the characteristics were interpreted as solid evidence for the control of fire by the inhabitants.

The second major finding in the PNAS study — perhaps even more surprising than the first — was that Neanderthal predecessors pushed into Europe’s colder northern latitudes more than 800,000 years ago without the habitual control of fire, said Roebroecks. Archaeologists have long believed the control of fire was necessary for migrating early humans as a way to reduce their energy loss during winters when temperatures plunged below freezing and resources became more scarce.

“This confirms a suspicion we had that went against the opinions of most scientists, who believed it was impossible for humans to penetrate into cold, temperate regions without fire,” Villa said.

Recent evidence from an 800,000-year-old site in England known as Happisburgh indicates hominids — likely Homo heidelbergenis, the forerunner of Neanderthals — adapted to chilly environments in the region without fire, Roebroeks said.

The simplest explanation is that there was no habitual use of fire by early humans prior to roughly 400,000 years ago, indicating that fire was not an essential component of the behavior of the first occupants of Europe’s northern latitudes, said Roebroeks. “It is difficult to imagine these people occupying very cold climates without fire, yet this seems to be the case.”

While the oldest traces of human presence in Europe date to more than 1 million years ago, the earliest evidence of habitual Neanderthal fire use comes from the Beeches Pit site in England dating to roughly 400,000 years ago, said Villa. The site contained scattered pieces of heated flint, evidence of burned bones at high temperatures, and individual pockets of previously heated sediments. Neanderthals, like other early humans, created and used a unique potpourri of stone tools, evidence that they were the ancient inhabitants of particular sites in Europe.

The sites catalogued by the team were dated by several methods, including electron spin resonance, paleomagnetism and thermoluminescence. Some research teams also have used microscopic studies of sediment at sites to confirm the presence of ashes. While some of the best evidence for controlled use of fire in Europe comes from caves, there are many open-air sites with solid evidence of controlled fire, they said.

According to Villa, one of the most spectacular uses of fire by Neanderthals was in the production of a sticky liquid called pitch from the bark of birch trees that was used by Neanderthals to haft, or fit wooden shafts on, stone tools. Since the only way to create pitch from the trees is to burn bark peels in the absence of air, archaeologists surmise Neanderthals dug holes in the ground, inserted birch bark peels, lit them and covered the hole tightly with stones to block incoming air.

“This means Neanderthals were not only able to use naturally occurring adhesive gums as part of their daily lives, they were actually able to manufacture their own,” Villa said. “For those who say Neanderthals did not have elevated mental capacities, I think this is good evidence to the contrary.”

Many archaeologists believe Neanderthals and other early hominids struck pieces of flint with chunks of iron pyrite to create the sparks that made fire and may well have conserved and transported fire from site to site.

Some anthropologists have proposed that Neanderthals became extinct because their cognitive abilities were inferior, including a lack of long-term planning, said Villa. But the archaeological record shows Neanderthals drove herds of big game animals into dead-end ravines and ambushed them, as evidenced by repeatedly used kill sites — a sign of long-term planning and coordination among hunters, she said.

Recent findings have even indicated Neanderthals were cooking, as evidenced by tiny bits of cooked plant material recovered from their teeth.

LAKEWOOD, Colo. – Each month, the Colorado Department of Agriculture features a different commodity to highlight the variety and quality of products grown, raised or processed in the state. This month, Colorado millet is featured in our Millet Trail Mix recipe.

Available Now…Millet

What is Millet? Millet is a grain that is most often used for bird seed; however, it is gaining in popularity in the food industry because it is gluten-free. Colorado is the number one millet producing state in the nation, with approximately 200,000 acres planted producing more than 5 million bushels each year. Learn more about this interesting grain online at www.coloradoagriculture.com/millet.

Millet Trail Mix

Chef Jason K. Morse, C.E.C., Valley Country Club, Aurora, Colo.

• 1 Cup Pepita Seeds
• 2 Cups Millet
• 1 Cup Quick Oats, Rolled
• 1 Cup Salted Sunflower Seeds, seeds only, no shells
• 1/2 Cup Dried Cranberries
• 1/2 Cup Dried Cherries
• 1/2 Cup Agave
• 1/2 Cup White Chocolate Chips
• 1/2 Cup Dark Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. In a medium stainless steel bowl combine pepita, millet, oats and sunflower seeds. Roast at 275 degrees for approximately 40 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove from the oven and let stand for 10 minutes. Place the mixture in a bowl, add the cranberries, cherries and agave nectar and mix well. Prepare a cookie sheet by spraying with non-stick spray. Spread the mixture on the cookie sheet and roast at 425 degrees for approximately 12 minutes or until medium golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely for one hour. Mix in the chocolate chips. Shelf life is two weeks if kept in sealed plastic bags in cool dry area.

Rising concentrations of zinc in a waterway on Colorado’s Western Slope may be the result of climate change that is affecting the timing of annual snowmelt, says a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The study focused on the Snake River watershed just west of the Continental Divide near Keystone, Colo., where CU-Boulder researchers have observed a four-fold increase in dissolved zinc over the last 30 years during the lowest water flow months, said Caitlin Crouch. Crouch, a master’s degree student who led the study, said the high levels of zinc affect stream ecology, including deleterious effects on microbes, algae, invertebrates and fish.

The team speculated the increased zinc concentrations may be tied to changes in groundwater conditions and stream flow patterns caused by climate change and the associated snowmelt that has been peaking two to three weeks earlier than normal in recent years, largely because of warming air temperatures. The result is lowered stream flows and drier soils along the stream in September and October, which increases metal concentrations, said Crouch.

“While most of the talk about climate change in western waterways is about decreasing water quantities, we are evaluating potential climate influences on water quality, which is a whole different ball game, ” she said.

Crouch gave a presentation on the subject at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union held in San Francisco Dec. 13-17. The study was co-authored by Professor Diane McKnight of CU-Boulder’s civil and environmental engineering department.

The zinc in the Snake River watershed is primarily a result of acid rock drainage, or ARD, which can come from abandoned mine sites along rivers or through the natural weathering of pyrite in the local rock, said Crouch. Sometimes enhanced by mining activity, weathering pyrite forms sulfuric acid through a series of chemical reactions, which dissolves metals like zinc and carries them into the groundwater.

McKnight, also a fellow of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, said there are nearly 2,000 miles of waterways in Colorado affected by ARD.

One of the most noticeable impacts of ARD in the Upper Snake River drainage is on the fishery downstream, said Crouch, a graduate student in CU-Boulder’s Environmental Studies Program. Rainbow trout populations in much of the river are not self-sustaining because of ecologically harsh stream conditions, and the waterway requires stocking several times a year.

The elevated zinc in the Snake River comes from several ARD sources, said Crouch. Crouch’s study site — where an increasing trend in zinc concentrations is sustained by groundwater discharge — is above the Peru Creek tributary to the Snake River, where natural pyrite weathering is thought to be the main source of ARD. Peru Creek is largely devoid of life due to ARD from the abandoned Pennsylvania Mine and other smaller mines upstream and has been a target for potential remediation efforts.

McKnight said another factor involved in rising zinc levels in the Snake River watershed — which runs from the top of the Continental Divide to Dillon Reservoir — could be the result of the severe 2002 drought in Colorado. The drought significantly lowered waterways, allowing more pyrite to be weathered in dry soils of the watershed and in wetlands adjacent to the stream.

As part of her study, Crouch measured zinc concentrations in an alpine tributary of the Upper Snake River. She found that zinc concentrations there were 10 times higher than in the main stem of the waterway and correlated with increased sulfate, so-called “hard water” containing calcium and magnesium, and a variety of metals.

“This supports our contention that the increasing zinc concentrations we are seeing in the watershed are driven by the acceleration of ARD, ” Crouch said. “One of the things I still am trying to parse out is whether metals like zinc are coming from one discrete source or are being diffused into the watershed from the groundwater beneath. ”

Cleaning up abandoned, polluted mines like the Pennsylvania Mine remains a problem largely because of liability issues since the mine owners who normally would be responsible for the mine cleanup are long gone. The Environmental Protection Agency has begun an agency-wide effort to reduce barriers to the cleanup of abandoned mine sites by local environmental groups and volunteers.

In the case of the Pennsylvania Mine, the Snake River Task Force is working with partners like the Keystone Ski Resort, the Keystone Center, Trout Unlimited, the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments, Summit County, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the EPA and the Blue River Watershed Group.

Seven CU-Boulder graduate students have produced master’s and doctoral theses under McKnight on environmental issues related to the Snake River watershed. Copies of the studies have been provided to the Snake River Task Force to help assess the current and future stream chemistry and biology in the area.

The late Carl Sagan brought the science of the universe to millions of people. He described our existence as being on the shore of the cosmic ocean, where we are  just beginning to learn what lies beyond our present knowledge.

In honor of Sagan’s birthday on November 9, it would have been his 76th, the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute invited the public to submit essays inspired by Sagan’s imagery. Several essays are available on the SETI website and the winners will be announced on November 9.

You can visit the site and read the essays by clicking on this link SETI/NASA.

If you wish to learn more about Carl Sagan and the Cosmos series, visit The Carl Sagan Portal and/or the Center for Inquiry web site.

Wikipedia also has and extensive biography of Sagan.

Visit Brainy Quote to read some memorable Sagan quotes.

By Tyler Kennedy

Photo by Tyler Kennedy

On my drive down I-25 to work this morning, I saw something you don’t regularly see on the plains, a bull and cow moose galloping alongside the interstate.

Today is the summer solstice (the apex of sunlight during the year), and I knew something was special as I prepared iced tea and a game of Bocce Ball for our solstice party at the company where I work – Solstice Arts. As I was pulling off at the Johnstown exit near Johnson’s Corner, I noticed two dark figures frolicking in the green field alongside our corporate headquarters. Upon closer inspection, I found that they were moose and snapped a couple pictures.

This seemingly chance encounter was perhaps fortuitous, as we recently introduced a painting to www.personal-prints.com titled “Moose Tracks” by internationally collected Colorado artist Scott Kennedy.

Since moose are not commonly found at this low elevation, Johnstown police were on the scene shortly thereafter to make sure people did not disturb the massive animals. During the summer months, moose occasionally venture away from their mountain homes and wander along river beds to find food at lower elevations. This time of year, the bulls are growing their antlers. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the velvety antlers beginning to take shape on the young moose’s crown.