Weekly Science Talks: When and what?

[cosmoquest]

Hi All,

Starting the second week of February, we're going to start doing topical talks. This means bringing a scientist or scientists to talk to you on a given topic. We want to make this as accessible as possible, but we don't know where you are, and what times / days would work best.

These will be hosted by Dr. Pamela Gay, who'll give some of the talks and lead round tables as needed. Due to her schedule, we're looking to schedule these for either Monday or Wednesday (in North America). Below is a poll where we'd love to get your feedback on when is best for you.

We'd also love to know what you want to hear. If you have specific topics or people, let us know in this thread.

Cheers,
The CosmoQuest Team

[kmasterdo]

Will you post the links to past episodes just as you do with the Weekly Hangouts?

[Joey]

This is great news! I'd love to hear talks about recent events in astronomy (discoveries of exoplanets, solar activity changes, etc.). I'd also like to hear talks from medical researchers regarding potential upcoming breakthroughs in medicine.

[GeorgiaB]

Will you post the links to past episodes just as you do with the Weekly Hangouts?

An excellent idea! A library/archive of these talks would be a wonderful resource!
Georgia

[GeorgiaB]

This is great news! I'd love to hear talks about recent events in astronomy (discoveries of exoplanets, solar activity changes, etc.). I'd also like to hear talks from medical researchers regarding potential upcoming breakthroughs in medicine.

Welcome, Joey! Thanks for the good ideas... keep 'em coming! What days and times would be best for you?

I'm really looking forward to these talks...

[StarStryder]

Will you post the links to past episodes just as you do with the Weekly Hangouts?

Yes! The plan is to create an archive. I expect there may be rare times scientists ask us to withhold their talks for various reasons. (I did this once when I had tornado sirens go off twice - the mic missed the distant sirens, and I realized any future listener would be confused by my "end of world" references throughout the talk!). Excepting those rare times, things will all go up on YouTube.

This is great news! I'd love to hear talks about recent events in astronomy (discoveries of exoplanets, solar activity changes, etc.). I'd also like to hear talks from medical researchers regarding potential upcoming breakthroughs in medicine.

The fastest way to get to recent events is to tune into our "Weekly Space Hangouts." These lectures are going to be scientists talking about current research, but it won't likely be this week's research. We're also going to focus on astronomy, space science, and space exploration, so while I expect to try and get folks talking about the effects of space travel on humans, talking about medical break throughs is just beyond what we can handle. If another research team wants to set of a "BioQuest" to handle medicine and biology, we'll gladly help them in every way we can. We're trying to limit our focus so we can be as successful as possible.

[Joey]

The fastest way to get to recent events is to tune into our "Weekly Space Hangouts." These lectures are going to be scientists talking about current research, but it won't likely be this week's research. We're also going to focus on astronomy, space science, and space exploration, so while I expect to try and get folks talking about the effects of space travel on humans, talking about medical break throughs is just beyond what we can handle. If another research team wants to set of a "BioQuest" to handle medicine and biology, we'll gladly help them in every way we can. We're trying to limit our focus so we can be as successful as possible.

Ah, okay, I just misunderstood the scope. Regarding current research, I'd like to hear more about the experiments that take place on the ISS. I know that they are doing interesting things up there, but it seems like whenever the astronauts are presented in the media, they're just shown doing flips and playing with their (floating) food. I've always wondered what experiments are taking place in orbit.

Thanks for offering this service. I know you are all busy people.

[Joey]

Welcome, Joey! Thanks for the good ideas... keep 'em coming! What days and times would be best for you?

I'm really looking forward to these talks...

I voted for Monday at 1 PM. I'm always looking for ways to make Mondays better!

[kmasterdo]

We'd also love to know what you want to hear. If you have specific topics or people, let us know in this thread.

As the first project is Moon Mappers, could you perhaps get someone from the LRO team to give a talk?

But whatever the topic will be, I'm looking forward to the Science Hour!

[StarStryder]

It looks like we have a winner!

Starting next Wednesday / Thursday we'll be having weekly lectures at 4pm L.A. / 7pm New York / 12:00am London / 11am + 1d Sydney.

I'll start pulling together speakers and post a blog tomorrow. Next Wednesday, I'll give a talk on the history of Citizen Science to make sure we have all the tech kinks worked out.

Cheers,
Pamela