Is my baby well-adjusted? - or - Could chiropractic benefit my baby?

Speaker: Dr. Devin Jeanne Vrana
Date: Monday, February 13
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: The Donut Whole, 1720 E. Douglas, Wichita, KS

Description: Join a discussion of chiropractic and the benefits of introducing care to our youth. Highlights will include safety and efficacy, examples of when to visit a Pediatric Chiropractor, and testimonials from happy parents.

Dr. Vrana, based in St. Mark’s, Kansas, works with patients of all ages. She has studied a variety of Chiropractic techniques, including both manual and low force/instrument-adjusting approaches. Dr. Devin is currently working on her fellowship with the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association to become specialized in Prenatal and Pediatric Chiropractic care.

More Info: info@sciencecafe-wichita.com or http://www.sciencecafe-wichita.com

Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Universe

Speaker: Dr. Bharat Ratra, KSU Physics Department

Date: Tuesday, January 24

Time: 7:00pm

Location: Radina’s Coffeehouse and Roastery, 616 N.Manhattan Ave

Description: Dark energy is the leading candidate for the mechanism that is responsible for causing the cosmological expansion to accelerate. (The observational discovery of the accelerating cosmological expansion was recently honored by the award of a Nobel Prize.) Dr. Bharat Ratra will describe the data which persuade cosmologists that (as yet undetected) dark energy and dark matter are by far the main components of the universe.

George Price and the Evolution of Altruism

Speaker: Paul Decelles - Johnson County Community College

Date: January 10, 2012

Time: 6:30 pm

Location: Coaches Bar and Grill, 9089 W. 135th Street, one block west of 135th and Antioch, south side of 135th St.
Please note, this is a new location. Still Coaches, but they have moved

Ever since Darwin, biologists have puzzled over how evolution could favor the spread of “altruistic” behavior. The development of our understanding of this topic is itself a fascinating story. Orem Harman’s 2010 book, the Price of Altruism introduces us to one of the least known and yet important contributors to our understanding of the biology of altruism, George Price. Paul Decelles will use this book as a starting point to introduce some of the main controversies about the evolution of altruistic behavior and its implication for our species.

Paul Decelles is a biology professor at Johnson County Community College. His area of expertise is in population genetics and entomology, especially social insects. He did his undergraduate work at Cornell University, MS at the University of Georgia and PhD at the University of Kansas. He has been involved in Kansas science education issues especially related to the teaching of evolution and has served on the board of Kansas Citizen’s for Science.

For more information: biologycctrack@hotmail.com

It is for real!! We are back in business. Coach’s is open. I have actually been inside and eaten a meal.

Near-Earth Asteroids and the Nov. 8 Flyby of 2005 YU55

Speaker: Jackie Beucher and Dick Trentman - Astronomical Society of Kansas City

Date: December 6, 2011

Time: 6:30 pm

Location*: Coaches Bar and Grill, 9089 W. 135th Street, one block west of 135th and Antioch, south side of 135th St.

*Please note, this is a new location. Still Coaches, but they have moved

Kansas Citizens For Science and the Astronomical Society of Kansas City invite you to attend a presentation on asteroids and the flyby of near-Earth asteroid 2005 YU55. The asteroid passed within 0.85 lunar distances from the Earth on November 8. The ASKC is providing two speakers, Jackie Beucher and Dick Trentman, who will give an overview talk about asteroids with special attention to the asteroidal orbit-refining work done at the ASKC’s Powell Observatory.

The presentation will begin at 6:30 PM on Tuesday the 8th at Coach’s Bar & Grill, in its new location on the south side of 135th just west of Antioch in Overland Park. Weather permitting, around 8:00 we will go up on the roof and observe various celestial objects, including the Moon and Jupiter, through telescopes provided by ASKC members.

Special note: Thank you all for your patience in waiting for our cafes to return. The new Coach’s is very nice and will make a wonderful home as we go forward.

For more information: biologycctrack@hotmail.com

Announcing

Kansas Citizens for Science Annual Meeting

Sunday, November 13, 2011

2:00 PM

Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, 1515 SW 10th Ave

All members are invited to join us for our annual membership meeting.  Light refreshments will be served.  The election of officers and board members will be held.

With another round of elections to occur in 2012, more than ever the direction for the public appreciation of science and science education may be affected.  Plan on attending and sharing with the board your suggestions for our direction and priorities for the coming year.

Bring your checkbook and renew your membership.

Members are reminded that KCFS no longer prints a newsletter, so please check our website occasionally for posts on News and Resources.  Better yet, click on subscribe and you will be notified, by a method of your selection, whenever new information is posted.

Climate – An Exercise in Geometry and Energy Redistribution

Speaker: Dr. Kenneth S. Schmitz - Professor of physical chemistry and environmental studies at the University of Missouri - Kansas City

Date: August 9, 2011

Time: 6:30 pm

Location: Coaches Bar and Grill, 14893 Metcalf, in private room

Dr. Schmitz will provide a follow-up to Dr. Miller’s talk from June. His talk will help us view climate on a geometric basis – the curvature of the Earth and the rotation of the Earth. In this view the climate is a result of energy redistribution as the Earth rotates and moves about the Sun. It will emphasize the role the atmosphere and the oceans play in this redistribution of energy. This view will capture the basics of his Environmental Chemistry class, which he has developed over the past 5 years or so.

Dr. Schmitz received the bachelor degree from Greenville College in Illinois, with majors in mathematics, physics, and chemistry. He received the doctoral degree in the area of biophysics from the University of Washington in Seattle, after which he spent a year at Stanford University on an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship. In 1984 he originated and was the first chairman of the Gordon Research Conference now known as “Macromolecular and Polyelectrolyte Solutions”. He has written two technical books on macromolecular systems and was editor of two symposium volumes.

For more information: biologycctrack@hotmail.com

Announcing

Save Our Schools Rally

Saturday, July 30, 2011

11:00 am - 1:00 pm

South side of Kansas State Capitol, Topeka

http://www.saveourschools-kansasrally.com/Event-Information.html

Kansas Citizens for Science exists to advocate for science education.  For too long now, the anti-public-education forces of Kansas have chipped away at the financing of our public schools.  This jeopardizes the education of the next generation of Kansans, our children and our grandchildren.  The very fabric of a strong America relies on an educated populace and workforce.  As budgets tighten, classroom budgets get cut every year including the budget that has the largest need for capital expenditures and disposable supplies, SCIENCE.

As the economy weakened, here in Kansas and across the nation, we saw our school systems dismantled by cuts in financing.  Now, as tax revenue in Kanas begins to creep upwards, we find legislators calling for lower taxes yet again and not an increase in funding our schools.

It is time for all Kansas citizens to stand up and be counted, students, parents, teachers, and all other supporters of our public schools.  We need to send a message to our legislators that we demand a return to financing our schools, our collective future.  This is one of the only state obligations listed in our state constitution, one we have ignored for too many years now.

KCFS is co-sponsoring the Save Our Schools Rally to be held at the state capitol on July 30.

YES, it will be hot, so come with cool drinks, a chair, and an umbrella.

YES, this is inconvenient, but we need to make the extra effort to get to Topeka and make our legislators take note.  MAINstream members are always asking what they can do to help out.  This is one thing you can do.  Attend yourself and let every friend you know across Kansas know about this rally.  Haven’t we heard lately, “If not now, when?”

The rally website (listed above) includes a call for teachers, parents, and students to wear school t-shirts or school colors with signs indicating your school.  Make signs, but capital guards have lately restricted the use of sticks to hold them.  Suggest you make signs you can hold.

The Geologic Record of Global Climate Change: Context For Modern Global Warming

Speaker: Dr. Keith Miller, Research Assistant Professor in Geology, Kansas State University

Date: June 7, 2011

Time: 6:30 pm

Location: Coaches Bar and Grill, 14893 Metcalf, in private room

Description: The geologic record provides a long-term record of climate change over a range of different time scales. This record gives us a way to understand the range of possible global climate conditions and the various factors that are involved. With this long-term context as a background we can better understand modern climate change.

Dr. Miller’s research, since coming to Kansas in 1990,  has been focused on the reconstruction of climate change during the early Permian (~300-270 million years ago) in Kansas. This is the time during which the rocks of the Flint Hills were deposited — a time that corresponded with an ancient ice age. That period was characterized by repeated alternations between cold glacial and warm interglacial times much like the current Pleistocene and Recent. So he comes at the question of modern climate change from a long-term geological context.

For more information: biologycctrack@hotmail.com

There will be no science cafe in July. We will resume in August.

What studying little worms can tell us about human diseases: or why NIH spends your tax dollars to learn about a worm’s sex life

Speaker: Dr. Matthew Buechner, Cell Biologist, Dept. of Molecular Biosciences, Univ. of Kansas

Date: May 17, 2011

Time: 6:30 pm

Location: Coaches Bar and Grill, 14893 Metcalf, in private room

The Human Genome Project is finding out the location of thousands of mutations that cause genetic diseases in people.  But we don’t know what the “disease genes” normally do until we compare them to similar genes in other organisms, including mice, fruit flies, and roundworms, the topic of tonights’ talk.  Some of those diseases include diabetes, muscular dystrophy, and polycystic kidney diseases.

Dr. Buechner uses genetics to study mutations that affect kidney tubules and the nervous system .  He has won several teaching awards, including the HOPE Award for outstanding teaching at KU.

Updates on Recent Humanoid Fossil Finds and Their Consequences

Speaker: Dick Wilson, PhD, Ken-A-Vision, Retired Biology Professor, Rochhurst University

Date: April 5, 2011

Time: 6:30 pm

Location: Coaches Bar and Grill, 14893 Metcalf, in private room

Dr. Wilson will then examine the wealth of new discoveries in the last 4-5 years. In light of them, he will then examine how, and if, that changes our understanding of human evolution, and our relationships to historically important species and historic inhabitants of Africa, Europe and Asia, like the Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons and others.

For more information: biologycctrack@hotmail.com