Join us on Wednesday, July 4 at 7:30pm for another evening of skeptical fun, food, drinks, and conversation at the Billy Bishop Legion (map). Come out and discuss skepticism-related activities in Vancouver with your fellow science enthusiasts, rationalists, and critical thinkers, and maybe meet some new friends. As always, the Billy doesn’t serve meals, but you are welcome to bring in food from the nearby restaurants, or go in with a few others and have pizza delivered.
You can RSVP to this event on Facebook or Meetup.
Upcoming events:
- Imagine No Religion 3Fri. May. 17, 12:00 am Mon. May. 20 - 12:00 am
- Women in Secularism 2 - A Center for Inquiry ConferenceFri. May. 17, 11:00 am Sun. May. 19 - 9:30 amWashington Marriott At Metro Center, 775 12th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20001, United StatesREGISTER NOW: http://action.centerforinquiry.net/site/Calendar?id=103061&view=Detail
REGISTRATION
Register now to be sure to get these early bird discount prices.
Early bird registration ends March 15, 2013.
Reserve your hotel room
at the discounted conference rate. » https://resweb.passkey.com/Resweb.do?mode=welcome_ei_new&eventID=10167518
http://www.facebook.com/events/124054447749399/ - CFI Café Inquiry: Why Nuclear Power?Sat. May. 18, 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm555 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BChttps://www.facebook.com/events/168848679945694/
Room 1520 SFU Harbour Centre
Café Inquiry is a monthly casual discussion group run by CFI Vancouver. Come along and enjoy afternoon tea and stimulating discussion with fellow freethinkers on a variety of topics.
In order to be economical and useful, a power plant must produce more energy than it costs to build and run it. This concept is known as Energy-returned-on-energy-invested, or EROI. Careful consideration of this concept in conjunction with a rigorous skeptical eye on the numbers produced (see http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544213000492 ) seems to rule out certain popular approaches to energy production. Nuclear energy on the other hand excels from an EROI perspective but remains unpopular for a variety of other reasons.
Our May Café will be moderated by Lars Martin. Lars is a physicist in the process of finishing up his PhD in Nuclear Astrophysics at TRIUMF. He is not directly involved in nuclear energy but generally in favour. He has voted for the Green Party before.
Café Inquiry is free but donations are requested to keep the program running. - The rocket science of sustainability: What alien worlds teach us about our own -- by Prof. Jaymie Matthews (UBC)Tue. May. 21, 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm181 Roundhouse Mews, Vancouver, BChttp://www.eventbrite.ca/event/6594086089
Water is important to all of us, but it has recently become especially exciting to astronomers hunting for alien worlds.
We are now finding planets that orbit in the "habitable zones" around their parent stars. In astro-exoplanetary-science-speak, "habitable zone" translates as "the range of distances from a star where the temperature at a planet's surface is between 0 and 100 C." Think of it as a Goldilocks zone, where the planet is not too hot, not too cold, but "just right" for liquid water oceans to exist.
Water alone doesn't equal life. But "no water" equals "no life" as we know it. That equation applies not just on alien worlds, but on our home world as well. We can't experiment with the global environment (or at least we shouldn't) and astronomers can't experiment with conditions on other planets. But we're finding planets with conditions that astound even science fiction writers. Those extreme alien environments will help us refine models of how the Earth responds to change.
How do we search for exoplanets and what have we found so far? What can you expect in the next few years... indeed, in the next few months? What lessons can a student of global sustainability learn from a rocket scientist?
Listen to an astrophysicist grapple with these questions and hear his answers on Tuesday, 21 May at 6:30 pm.
Free Refreshments offered -- RVSP info@arpico.org
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Speaker: Prof. Jaymie Matthews
Recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal 2012
Professor of Astrophysics in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of British Columbia
Mission Scientist leading the Canadian Space Agency's MOST project
Officer of the Order of Canada
Prof. Matthews’ media adventures include frequent appearances on CBC TV and Radio, CTV, Global, CNN, CityTV, The Knowledge Network, Shaw TV, and Space: The Imagination Station, as well as playing himself (“Jaymie – Rocket Scientist”) in a national Fountain Tire television ad campaign. Dr. Matthews posed in multiple guises (from a microwave repair man to an X-ray version of Austin Powers) in the Discovery Channel documentary series "Light: More Than Meets The Eye", and as himself in the documentary “LUNARCY!” which premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. He has yet to live down being quoted in Discover Magazine as saying "Exploding Star Contains Atoms from Elvis Presley's Brain - Scientists Confirm the King of Rock & Roll Lived in Another Galaxy 170,000 Years Ago!” - PWIAS Lecture at Vogue Theatre: "Bugs 'R Us: The Role of Microbes in Health, Disease and Society"Tue. May. 21, 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm918 Granville St, Vancouver, BChttp://www.pwias.ubc.ca/the-wall-exchange/2013-spring.php
"Bugs 'R Us: The Role of Microbes in Health, Disease and Society"
Tuesday, May 21, 2013 at 7:30 pm at The Vogue Theatre
Doors open at 6:30 pm. Come early to hear the Oscar Hicks jazz sextet!
Tickets are free but must be reserved and are in limited supply. Reserve your ticket online: http://voguetheatre.com/events/
You can always find the latest event information on the Vancouver Skeptics Event Calendar on VancouverSkeptics.org.