All Videos Archives - 51�� Science Bag

Secrets of Animal Sounds: The Music of Insects & Frogs

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 22:01:45 +0000

Gerlinde Höbel, Associate Professor 51�� Dept. of Biological Sciences

Rafael Rodríguez, Professor 51�� Dept. of Biological Sciences

All animals communicate. How that is done, of course, varies by the creature and the purpose. This presentation focusses on treefrogs and treehoppers, whose sometimes raucous choruses provide an ideal way in which to ask questions and learn about the social and environmental factors that govern their lives.

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Genes and Environment: Adapting to Changing Conditions

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 22:00:28 +0000

Michael Carvan,

Shaw Professor 51�� School of Freshwater Sciences

When environmental conditions change, animals must also change, in order to live.  In this program, we will explore some truly unique ways that animals use to adapt to environmental extremes to enhance survival.  We also look at molecular processes used by some animals which allow them to adapt to both short- and long-term environmental changes.

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A Cold Wind Off the Lake… In August?

Mon, 12 Aug 2019 20:31:04 +0000

Presented by Carmen Aguilar and Russell Cuhel from 51��’s School of Freshwater Science.

In 2015, a previously unusual weather pattern caused dramatic late summer cooling along the western shore from Milwaukee to the Sturgeon Canal. 12°C (55°F) or cooler water covered nearly 25% of Lake Michigan for almost 2 months, driving away beach-goers and drawing in sport fishermen. How this happened, how high humidity contributed to its effects, and how it affected lake biology are subjects of this demonstration-laced presentation. Take off your shades and put on a sweater as you learn about chillin’ in Lake Michigan!

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Friend or Foe? The Two Faces of Microbes

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 13:45:51 +0000

The Two Faces of Microbes” describes what a microbe is, and then covers some interesting facts and perspectives about microbes. On one hand, they are essential to life, on the other, the can cause devastating and sometimes fatal diseases. McLellan talks about some epidemics that have shaped history, and how today, we are using microbiology to assess pollution sources in the Great Lakes.

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Wisconsin Rocks!

Tue, 19 Apr 2016 20:44:45 +0000

Whatever rock genre you’re into — classic rock, soft rock or alternative rock, the Badger state has all three. But they’re not on your iPod — they lie just beneath your feet. Join us for a very different kind of rock concert at the March edition of 51��’s Science Bag show “Wisconsin Rocks!” Robert Graziano unearths strange and wonderful things about the various categories of rocks and even backs up his presentation with some music.

Geologists have different names for them, but each of these kinds of rocks has each have a distinctive “life cycle,” from formation to final use. Though most rocks take millions of years to form, audience members will help “create” some replica Wisconsin rocks in no time, including the official state rock, red granite. Then it’s on to a cheesehead volcano demonstration, using foam from the Milwaukee company Foamation to explain igneous rocks.

Like to shake, rattle and roll? Then enjoy, as Graziano uses shaker tubes to create sedimentary rocks and a hydraulic rock crusher to deform rocks into the metamorphic kind. Epic!

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Matters of the Heart: Cells and Cardiovascular Disease

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 21:19:35 +0000

Biologist Julie Oliver explains the inner workings of our heart and circulatory system in “Matters of the Heart: Cell and Cardiovascular Disease.” With audience participation, Oliver will unravel how blood cells called platelets function at the site of an injury to form a plug. There’s good and bad news about our body’s ability to stop bleeding. While this rapid response is critical to wound healing, its regulation can be disrupted, causing a cascade of events that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. As she leads a tour into our veins, discover the what’s inside that activates the platelets – and what inhibits them. She also investigates how drugs like aspirin inhibit platelet’s clotting function. A demonstration reveals why platelets in mammals (that’s us!) respond particularly well to a daily, low-dose aspirin treatment for cardiovascular disease.

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Scientists Who Turned the World Upside Down

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 18:59:13 +0000

In “Scientists Who Turned the World Upside Down,” mathematician Bart Adrian takes audience members on a trip through the history of game-changing discoveries by Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Richardson and Lorenz – but not always the breakthroughs you’ve heard about. Feel first-hand what radical idea Galileo discovered without a telescope. Take a spin, courtesy of Sir Isaac Newton and see what angular momentum is all about. Find out who Edward Lorenz and Lewis Richardson were, and then explore the scientific concept of stability in a demonstration with a tennis ball and a large salad bowl. Finally, Adrian leads an investigation of the “missing mass” that Albert Einstein referred to in his famous description of the relationship between energy and mass, E = mc².

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Hidden Colors Revealed

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 17:48:53 +0000

With color, what you see isn’t always what you get. Discover the reasons in “Hidden Colors Revealed” when 51�� chemist Alan Schwabacher shows various ways that color can be present, but not visible — or uncovered. He’ll make a white cloth made of fiberglass invisible before your very eyes by submerging the cloth in a liquid of the same index of refraction. He’ll demonstrate how substances can change from one color to another by removal of “obscuring” colors. On the flip side, Schwabacher will show some ways that colors caused by chemical reactions can form, and how other colors can hide by being mixed with still other colors. Finally, although colors like ultraviolet and infrared are invisible, we’ll learn how they impact the visible world: ultraviolet and sunburn; infrared and the effectiveness of insulation.

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Science, Society and Sustainability: Can We Make the Pieces Fit?

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 20:25:03 +0000

Knowing how parts of nature interact in time and space is critical to our understanding of sustainability. Ecologist Tim Ehlinger looks at our interaction with the land from our first arrival on the continent: trapping, logging, farming, industrialization, urbanization, and suburbia. Through demonstrations he traces human behavior and how it has, and continues, to modify our environment. He builds a “beaver dam” and has “rain” fall on a farmyard and an urban development to show the enormous difference in rainwater retention. Meeting our needs without jeopardizing those of future generations is the theme throughout this look at sustainability.

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A Survey of Spacetime

Wed, 13 Apr 2016 21:16:54 +0000

Jolien Creighton — Geometry was invented to measure the Earth—to survey plots of land and to find distances between towns. We now use the same surveying methods to measure the distances to stars and the shape of the universe. But geometry is now understood to be the essence of space and time and the origin of gravity. Ripples in the geometry of spacetime produced by colliding black holes or by the big bang are now being sought with new types of observatories that are giving us our most precise survey of spacetime.

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All Videos Archives - 51���� Science Bag