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Apply Online Today or email marinscienceseminar@gmail.com if you are interested in applying. Below is a comparison of the internships currently being offered. Deadline to apply is Friday, January 16th at 5 pm.

MSS interns attend and assist with a minimum of 6 science seminars per academic year (there are 12 per year) during which they meet the speakers and assist with various logistical duties. Sessions take place on Wednesday evenings at Terra Linda High School, Room 207, during the school year. Interns arrive evening of a session at 7 pm and are free to leave once breakdown is completed (between 8:30 and 9 pm). 

February 19th, 2014 – The first map of radioactivity in the remnant of a supernova. The blue represents the high energy X-rays observed by NuSTAR.

This is an artist’s interpretation of NuSTAR in orbit

Join us Wednesday, November 12th 2014, to hear Dr. Lynn Cominsky of Sonoma State University discuss NuSTAR and other NASA projects currently being undertaken in SSU’s Astronomy and Physics Department. Join us and learn!

Having suffered three consecutive years with abnormally low rainfall averages, California faces its most severe drought in decades. In 2013, we received less rain than any year since California became a state in 1850. In fact, many Bay Area scientists have proven from tree-ring data, that on the current path, the upcoming rainfall season will be the driest since 1580. The effects of low water levels have left communities fighting over emergency water supplies, fires raging across the state, and whole species and industries are subsequently threatened.

Many reservoirs are only 30 percent full (like Folsom Lake, shown above). Retrieved from Huffington Post.

But we have had little rainfall before, so what makes this drought different? What makes this drought particularly cruel is the record-keeping heat experienced in the first half of 2014. This heat exacerbated an already devastating drought. The National Climatic Data Center released information revealing that California had its warmest January-June season since the recording began in 1895, with the temperature being 4.6 degrees Fahrenheit above average.

This graph shows the extremely low rain fall levels in 2014. Retrieved from Independent.com.

It is thought that this intense heat is being caused by human created global warming and a persistent high pressure ridge above the West and the eastern Pacific Ocean. This ridge has prevented storms from reaching this region.

Information sources:

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24993601/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/09/02/california-megadrought/14446195/
http://ca.gov/drought/

Join us Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014 to learn more at “Pain for Cows and Pumpkins: Drought Impacts on Central Valley Agricultural Water Supply“ with Douglas Charlton PhD of Charlton International.  7:30 – 8:30 pm Terra Linda High School, San Rafael, Room 207. RSVP on Facebook here.

Deadline for application: Friday, September 12th, 2014.

Public school students may apply for the School to Career internship and Work Readiness Certificate program.  Contact your school’s College and Career Center for details.

Join us and Learn! :-}

Located in the heart of the Silicon Valley, the NASA Ames Research Center is one of ten NASA field centers across the country. The Ames Research Center has been a leader in space research and development for over 60 years. It was established in December of 1939 as part of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and was absorbed into NASA in 1958. The Ames Research Center currently employees 2,500 people and contributes $1.3 billion annually to the U.S. economy. It is involved in a variety of fields and a multitude of areas of ingenuity, lists of which can be seen below.

Ames’ Key Goals are as followed:

The focus of the presentation will be on the Human Factors Area of Ames Ingenuity. The human factors area involves “advancing human-technology interaction for NASA missions.” The human factors research is currently conducted by over 150 researchers in more than 20 labs to improve safety, efficiency, and mission success. The rapid advancement of new technology requires humans to make competent, critical decisions in a complex, technological environment. Human factors studies the interaction between humans and engineering systems to ensure safe, effective, and cost-effective operations, maintenance, and training. Ames human factors encompasses a wide range of projects from simple visual perception and motor control to the more complex areas flight deck design and crew operational procedures. One of the featured examples involves placing human subjects in a centrifuge to simulate the vibration and enhanced g-forces experienced during launch and measured the subjects’ gaze stabilization reflexes, eye-movement reaction-time, accuracy, and precision, and hand-movement reaction-time, accuracy, and precision. Ames human factors includes research and development in the following areas:

• Human-Machine Interaction improves NASA software through careful application of human computer interface methods.
• Human Performance: develops new technologies, human performance models and evaluation tools to enhance human productivity and safety for both space and aviation environments.
• Integration and Training: develops and evaluates methodologies to integrate human factors principles and improve aviation capacity, safety and training.
• Intelligent Systems: conducts user-centered computational sciences research.
• Aviation Systems: conducts research and development in air traffic management and high-fidelity flight simulation.                                              (From the NASA-Ames human factors website)

Join us this Wednesday, May 21 for this week’s Marin Science Seminar “This is Mission Control” with Jay Trimble of NASA-Ames in room 207 of Terra Linda High School in San Rafael.

~Claire Watry

This week the Marin Science Seminar introduces a unique presentation on medical education with Rich Fidler PhD MBA and Abi FitzGerald MSN RN of the VA Medical Center and their special guests – robots! These humanlike robots are utilized by medical practitioners at the Simulation Center at the VMCA in San Francisco to learn how to perform a variety of procedures and respond appropriately to different emergency scenarios. 

Rich Fidler is the Director of the Healthcare Simulation which places him in charge of all of the simulation research, education, training, and process evaluations that take place in the entire hospital, including emergency, critical care, surgery, and disaster preparedness. Fidler is also the Co-Director of the Fellowship Program in Advanced Clinical Simulation. Fidler explains this role in the following quote; “I am responsible for ensuring that our advanced fellows are receiving challenging experiences, quality didactic education in statistics, research design, thoughtful data analysis. I also ensure that they will be able to go out to conduct clinical simulations independently.” In order to obtain these job titles, Fidler has collected numerous degrees and gone through extensive medical training. 

Read the interview with Rich Fidler below and be sure to attend this weeks’s Marin Science Seminar. 

How did you become interested in the medical field? 

I developed a special interest in healthcare when my grandfather became ill with heart problems while I was young. As early as 8 years old, I would go to spend every evening with my grandfather to try to make him feel better by pushing the fluid out of his legs. From there, I got more interested in why his heart was failing and how I could make it better. I got more interested in cardiac resuscitation after my grandfather had a sudden cardiac death event and we saved him. Then my own father had a series of 3 cardiac arrests which he survived from high quality CPR and early defibrillation, but he eventually died with the fourth cardiac arrest. 

How did you become involved in the Simulation Center?

I have always liked teaching, and I think that learning with your hands is better than someone talking you to death. When I told my father about what I did with simulation, he said, ” You can’t make a living playing with dolls.” I guess I showed that you should do what you like to do, even if your parents don’t think it’s worthwhile. You have to make yourself, not your parents, happy with your career. The harder stunt is to figure out how to make lots of money doing what you love!

What advice do you have for young people aspiring to have a career in the medical field? 

Do it! My grandfather said that I should either be an obstetrician or an undertaker, that way you can get people either coming or going! If you aspire to go into the healthcare field, explore your options. Becoming a physician or nurse is not your only option to make a meaningful contribution to healthcare. Medical research, especially with the human genome, is really exciting. If I were growing up now, I would probably be fascinated with that. Also, the roles of pharmacists and therapists are frequently overlooked as vital members of the healthcare team. The money should NOT be a factor in your decision. No job is worth getting up every day if you hate going. I love going to my job every single day.

Check out this very exciting presentation “Death-Defying Robots in Medical Education” with Rich Fidler PhD MBA and Abi FitzGerald MSN RN of the VA Medical Center on Wednesday, May 14 7:30 – 8:30 pm, Terra Linda High School, San Rafael, Room 207. 

Read an excellent article about Rich Fidler here 

~Claire Watry

Links:
http://scienceofcaring.ucsf.edu/acute-and-transitional-care/improving-cardiac-care-science-human-use
http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2011/01/8397/new-teaching-and-learning-center-transform-health-education-ucsf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZNa0vmdgSI