First Annual
This conference is open to everyone, not just to SAS members. You can register directly on our on-line store.
Program of Events | Workshops
| Papers in Absentia | Franklin
Award Nominees
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Where The events will be held at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in Logan Hall
Dates June 28-30. The 28th will be a day of arrival and celebrating the 250th anniversary of Franklin's famous kite experiment. The conference events will take place on the 29th and 30th. Conference Lectures: Saturday and Sunday. Poster Session: Sunday afternoon. |
Special Events FREE Public Lectures, Saturday-- Meet famed paleontologist Jerry MacDonald and science humorist Marc Abrahams. This program begins promptly at Noon on Saturday, June 29. This special public event will be held in 17 Logan Hall, on the Univ. of Penn campus. This even is FREE and open to the public. Seating is limited so please get there early! FREE Public Lecture, Sunday-- Come get a special sneak preview of the new PBS miniseries "Benjamin Franklin" and meet it's producer Muffie Meyer, and writer Ronald Blumer starting on Sunday, June 30 at 12:30 PM. This special public lecture will be held in the Terrace Room of Logan Hall on the Univ. of Penn. campus. This event is FREE and open to the public. Franklin Tour of Philadelphia-- Friday afternoon, June 28. Visit the American Philosophical Society and take a special Franklin tour of old Philadelphia. American Philosophical Society tour begins promptly at 2:00PM at 104 S. 5th Street. Walking tour begins at 3:30 PM at Welcome Park, across the street from the City Tavern. Banquet at the historic City Tavern restaurant, guest speaker-- famed paleontologist Jack Horner. Saturday, June 29. 6:30 PM 138 South 2nd Street at Walnut Street, 215-413-1443 Astronomy at Franklin Institute: Enjoy an evening of astronomy at the Franklin Institute, Saturday after the banquet. Evening begins at 8:00 PM at 222 North 20th Street, 215-448-1200
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Costs
Non-members: Registration fee $50/day.
Members: Registration fee $80
Accommodations
We have a few rooms reserved both in dorm-style, and full hotel style, for three nights. Dorm style accommodations consist of are four separate rooms that share a common kitchen and bathroom and cost $55 per night per person. It's a great way for a group of folks traveling together to save some money on accommodations. Or, you can stay in quality hotel accommodations for $160 per night per room. We've reserved only forty rooms of each type so if you're coming, you need to reserve a room right away. If you wait, you'll have to find your own accommodations, and they may not be very close to the campus.
Jerry
MacDonald
Permian Track ways Project
Nominee: Benjamin Franklin Citizen Scientist Award
"Permian Track ways: 250 Million Year Old Window Into Earth's
Past"
Jerry MacDonald is a citizen scientist whose skill and dedication led directly to what may paleontologists have called the discovery of the 1980's. After some inspired scientific detective work, Jerry discovered an extremely well preserved bed of animal tracks that were laid down about a quarter of a billion years ago. This unique window into the distant past that has revealed a great deal about how the evolution of life on earth. Jerry will tell us about his discovery, what it all means, as well as give important advice for citizen scientists.
"Many discoveries can be entirely serendipitous. The only prerequisite for discovery is that the discoverer have enough prior knowledge or awareness of the things observed to recognize it as important." Jerry MacDonald
FREE PUBLIC LECTURE: Begins promptly at Noon on Saturday, June 28, in 17 Logan Hall. Seating is limited so please get there early!
Marc
Abrahams
Editor, Annals of Improbable
Research (AIR)
"How to Win the Ig Nobel Prize"
Improbable science is often done best by amateurs (and sometimes done most amateurishly by professionals). Marc Abrahams is the editor of the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) and organizer of the annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Marc will discuss current improbable research, and demonstrate how, through hard work and/or hard luck, you can earn yourself an Ig Nobel Prize.
FREE PUBLIC LECTURE: Begins promptly at 1:00 PM on Saturday, June 29 in 17 Logan Hall.
Muffie Meyer and
Ronald Blumer
Producer
Special Sneak Preview of "Benjamin Franklin"- A New Three-Part Documentary for PBS
Get an advance peak (to be released this Fall) at the story of the life and times of this remarkable man. If George Washington was politically the father of the United States, Franklin--with his earthy humor and extraordinary creativity-- is its spiritual creator. He defined his age, an age of experimentation in science, government and human relations. Three hundred years after his birth, he continues to shapre our thinking and our values as Americans.
Muffie and Ron will provide the ultimate insider's view of this never before seen documentary, including an advanced screening.
FREE PUBLIC LECTURE: Begins promptly at 12:30 PM on Sunday, June 30 in the Terrace Room, Logan Hall. Seating is limited so please get there early.
Jack
Horner, Ph.D.
Curator of Paleontology
Museum of the Rockies
Nominee: Benjamin Franklin Citizen Scientist Award
"Dinosaur Eggs and Citizen Paleontology"
Jack Horner never earned a college degree. (His Ph.D. is honorary.) Nevertheless, Jack is widely recognized as one of the word's leading paleontologists. Back in the 1970s Jack made what many paleontologists then called "the discovery of the decade" when he uncovered the first nests of dinosaur babies ever found. Since then he has always been at the forefront of paleontology. He'll tell us how he made it happen, what it all means, and give important advice for citizen scientists.
"The most important thing in all of science is to do careful enough work or analysis that you have the opportunity of making discoveries. Discoveries can come as new ideas or new specimens or whatever, but the most important thing is to have a really good background so that you can make discoveries. Preparation is the most important thing." Jack Horner.
D.M.
Lindsay
Nominee: Benjamin Franklin Citizen Scientist
"Chronic Fatigue, Dysautonomia, and the Development of a Novel Treatment"
Douglas "D.M." Lindsay has worked tirelessly over the last several years to discover the cause of, and develop a treatment for the illness that has left him virtually housebound. D.M. Lindsay's contentions about the metabolic aspects of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome may change the way fatigue related disorders are viewed and treated. D.M. hopes that his work will also bring greater attention to dysautonomias, which are disorders of the autonomic nervous system and can cause chronic fatigue. His contentions specifically relate to the role of adrenaline in metabolism.
D.M. will be speaking about the process of developing and researching his contentions despite his ill health and a medical community virtually oblivious to the existence of dysautonomias. He will also explain how the same dedication that made his work possible is crucial to citizen scientists in all fields, including that of medicine.
Richard
Fragale, CPA
Heffler, Radetich & Saitta, LLP
"Tax Options for Citizen Scientists"
Richard Fragale is a Certified Public Accountant. He'll will explain how citizen scientists who conduct pure or applied research, or who carry out educational programs as he does, can take advantage of benefits that exist in the law to help support these kinds of activities.
This could be the most important talk you attend at the conference.
John Lighton,
Ph.D.
University of Nevada
"Why Scorpions Eat Their Young"
John is a world-renowned
entomologist who has been a good friend of SAS since our early
days. He's Packard Fellow and a Professor at the University of
Nevada. But don't let his professional credentials scare you.
He's been a dear friend of the amateur and has contributed a great
many cutting-edge projects for people who want to get down and
dirty with insects, including some really cool stuff like how
to measure the metabolism of a single ant. John also sits on the
selection committee for the Benjamin Franklin Citizen Scientist
Award. His talk will explain how a low metabolic rate and a diet
of one's young is a recipe for desert success.
Andrew
M. Bowen
Chemical Microscopy Workshop-- two hours
Chemical microscopy was once taught at many universities and applied by most of the leading scientists in various fields. Today, emphasis has shifted from light microscopy to other (usually more expensive) analytical techniques. This workshop is meant to provide an appreciation for light microscopy as an analytical tool. It will be a very general introduction to chemical microscopy, describing some of the optical, chemical and physical properties of substances that we are able to observe using light microscopy. In addition, some quick and easy techniques for observing these various properties will be covered. The use of these techniques along with morphology for identifying small particles will be summarized. The participant will leave with an appreciation for the powerful problem solving abilities of the light microscope.
Andrew M. Bower is a Research Microscopist
and Instructor at McCrone Research Institute
He has taught courses in applied polarized light microscopy, forensic
microscopy, pharmaceutical microscopy, microscopical identification
of asbestos, and forensic microscopy of glass.
David Brooks,
Ph.D.
Principal Investigator, GLOBE Aerosols Monitoring Project
Drexel University
"How amateur scientists and students can validate remote-sensing satellites using simple ground-based instruments."
Various satellites routinely measure the atmosphere's aerosol optical depth and the total column abundance of water vapor, ozone and other gases. Because of instrumental degradation and calibration drift, it is important to regularly validate data provided by satellite remote sensing instruments. Amateur scientists and students can play an important role in such comparisons. A family of very stable, miniature Sun photometers has been developed that provides an inexpensive means to validate various kinds of satellite remote-sensing instruments during or near overpasses when the solar disk is unobscured by clouds. Measurements by several such instruments, some of which have been calibrated annually at Mauna Loa Observatory since 1990, have been compared with measurements by several satellites. There is excellent agreement in a long term comparison of surface observations of total ozone and UV-B with ozone measured by EarthProbe TOMS and UV-B inferred from these measurements. There is general agreement in the annual trend of optical depth measured at the surface with the aerosol index measured by EarthProbe TOMS. There is good agreement in a comparison of optical depth and column water vapor measured at the surface and by TERRA's MODIS instrument.
Kevin Kilty
Consulting Industrial Physicist/Engineer
"Experiments and Historical Science"
Historical sciences
(earth sciences most specifically) appear to follow a model different
from that which has proved so successful in chemistry, biology,
and physics, namely controlled experimentation. Instead, the earth
sciences practice a method of intepreting their observations in
the form of a model, and then looking for confirmatory evidence.
Often this occurs with the aid of computer simulations, and what
results is never more than the assigning of constraints to the
model. Many earth scientists seem only vaguely aware of how different
this is from ordinary experimental inquiry, and only a minority
appear troubled by it. In fact, a current philosophical strain
promotes this alternative model as being not only the equal of
controlled experimentation, but dictated by the asymmetry between
past and future. In my presentation, I'll examine the disparities
between this approach to science and experimentation, and offer
suggestions on how historical sciences, or sciences similarly
motivated, might be made more experimental.
Sam Stanifer
Los Angeles Chapter, SAS
"Earthquake Precursor Experiments: Exploring Mysterious Earthquake Preparation Physics with Amateur Built Sensors and Data Networks"
Sam leads an imaginative collaboration of citizen scientists in our Los Angeles chapter. Sam will report on the outstanding work his chapter has carried out towards creating a network of detectors that monitor the earth for telltale electromagnetic emanations that have been associated with at least some large earthquakes in California and Japan. Since these signals appear before the ground starts shaking, this network could lay the foundation for a future network that could provide early warning of at least some earthquakes. Sam's group also plans on presenting a paper for the poster session.
Joseph
A. DiVerdi, Ph.D.
XTR Systems, LLC
"Collecting, Processing, Archiving, and Sharing Real-Time Data in an Inter-Networked World"
Many scientific applications require the collection of experimental data on a continuous and long-term basis. Manual collection of these data would be tedious and error prone it were even possible to accomplish. The marriage of scientific instrumentation and computer-based acquisition systems, now a long-standing tradition, has made it possible to accurately capture a wealth of data which would have otherwise remained inaccessible. Although many applications are satisfactorily served by private and/or local access to the captured data many others benefit from rapid deployment and distribution. In certain applications it is the rapid and widespread distribution of experimental data which drives the application itself.
A scheme is described
where on-going, real-time measurements of the earth's magnetic
field are quickly and routinely made available to all interested
parties using the HTTP client-server protocol popularized by the
World Wide Web. This scheme offers enormous benefits to suitable
applications. Data are available to all interested parties without
the need for special arrangements. The user interface for casual
access is the
standard Web client that we all use daily and with which even
the most non-technical user is familiar. More interested users
can utilize existing programs designed to "slurp" data
from the Web. Advanced users can develop programs for customized
situations The HTTP protocol is well-known, extensively documented,
and in place to provide transport all over the Internet from a
wide variety of devices.
A description of the systems used to implement this scheme and make the experimental measurements will be provided with special emphasis to the technologies used including modest-cost PC based hardware, the Linux Operating System, the Apache Web Server, and the Perl Programming Language.
James Levine
James Levine Communications
How to Get Your Book Published Workshop-- One Hour
James Levine Communications is a literary agency that already represents a number of citizen scientists and advocates for citizen science, including Shawn Carlson, Sheldon Greaves, and Forrest Mims. Jim founded this agency and is a world-expert on the publishing business. He's explain how write a successful book proposal, find an agent, get a big advance and get your passion into print. If you don't think you've got anything to write about, you need to hear what Jim has to say. Check out their web site at www.jameslevine.com
John
Dooley, Ph.D.
Physics Department, Millersville
University
"A Short Driven Foucault Pendulum"
As we rotate to the East with the earth (counterclockwise as seen from above the North pole), we rotate (counterclockwise) about the plane of oscillation of the Foucault pendulum. To our eyes, the plane of oscillation of the pendulum rotates clockwise. The slowly changing plane of the pendulum is the most convincing direct evidence for the rotation of the earth on its axis. This paper describes a 1 meter Foucault pendulum, driven asynchronously from the pivot point, which can be built from ordinary materials for a cost less than $200.
Sheldon
Greaves, Ph.D.
Society for Amateur Scientists, Director
"The Secrets of Guerrilla Scholarship"
Sheldon defines "Guerrilla scholarship" as "the use of unconventional methods to help independent scholars and scientists gain access to tools and resources normally available only to academicians." Sheldon will explain how you can gain access to many of the same resources that professional scholars rely on to do their research.
Monty Robson
Western Connecticut Chapter SAS
Presentation Two: "Science at the McCarthy Observatory"
Monty and his fellows at the Western Connecticut Chapter of SAS will talk about the wonderful observatory they built in New Milford, CT, give poster sessions on some of the exciting science they are doing, as well as give a primer on how to local chapters can raise money to implement projects that make a difference in their communities.
Mark
Streitman
Central New Jersey Chapter SAS
"Science Off the Cutting-Edge"
Mark will explain the benefits of doing science off the cutting edge, that is, of developing research projects that are focused on trying to measure a well-known number. The talk will highlight his group's work to develop an easy way to measure the speed of light and the benefits this program is having in teaching hands-on science to the community.
Workshops
We're planning workshops on the following topics:
Ely Silk
"LED Fluorescence Microscopy"
Ely Silk is one of our most prolific members and although he will not be able to attend in person, we will be presenting his paper on how to do fluorescence studies of living systems with simple LEDs. Ely's ground breaking work makes it possible to carry out all sorts of detailed experiments into biological systems that would otherwise be impossible for citizen scientists to do. His photomicrographs are stunning, as is his home movie of cyclosis. If you have any interest in either biology or microscopy, you are going to want to see this poster session.
Norman Stanley
"The History of Amateur Science 1900-1945 (with emphasis on chemistry)"
Norman writes the
excellent Chemistry Corner series for the E-Bulletin. He's an
expert on the history of amateur science, in fact, at 85 years
old, he has lived through much of it. Norman will provide a retrospective
of amateur science in the early part of the 20th Century, with
a special focus on amateur contributions to chemistry.
Forrest
M. Mims III
Geronimo Creek Observatory
"How amateur scientists and students can validate remote-sensing satellites using simple ground-based instruments."
Various satellites routinely measure the atmosphere's aerosol optical depth and the total column abundance of water vapor, ozone and other gases. Because of instrumental degradation and calibration drift, it is important to regularly validate data provided by satellite remote sensing instruments. Amateur scientists and students can play an important role in such comparisons. A family of very stable, miniature Sun photometers has been developed that provides an inexpensive means to validate various kinds of satellite remote-sensing instruments during or near overpasses when the solar disk is unobscured by clouds. Measurements by several such instruments, some of which have been calibrated annually at Mauna Loa Observatory since 1990, have been compared with measurements by several satellites. There is excellent agreement in a long term comparison of surface observations of total ozone and UV-B with ozone measured by EarthProbe TOMS and UV-B inferred from these measurements. There is general agreement in the annual trend of optical depth measured at the surface with the aerosol index measured by EarthProbe TOMS. There is good agreement in a comparison of optical depth and column water vapor measured at the surface and by TERRA's MODIS instrument
Ben Franklin Citizen Scientist Award Committee
A diverse panel of luminaries who represent some of the greatest scientific talent in the world today will decide the winner of the first Benjamin Franklin Citizen Scientist Award. They include:
Dudley Herschbach, Ph.D. Professor of Chemistry Harvard University
Nobel Prize
Inventor of extraordinary methods to study chemical kinematics
Professor of Biology Univ. of Nevada
Packard Fellow
Inventor of numerous experimental methods in biology.
Founder CEO Aerovironment Inc.
Guggenheim Medal
Father of human-powered flight
Douglas D. Osheroff, Ph.D. Professor of Physics Stanford University
Nobel Prize- Physics
Discoverer of superfluidity in helium-3
