Celebrate the end of finals week with Bad Astronomy at the Downing Planetarium this friday!

Join us as we explore the sky at the Downing Planetarium!.

This month, Movie Night at the Central Valley Alliance of Atheists and Skeptics will be held at the Downing Planetarium.

We will be seeing two shows. 

First is Phil Plait’s “Bad Astronomy”, a show that explores and debunks astronomical myths like the moon landing “hoax”, and alien visitors to Earth in UFOs.  Dr. Plait will also explain several astronomical errors found in movies. 

“Bad Astronomy” is based upon the book “Bad Astronomy” also by Phil Plait.  This is an excellent book for any rational thinker to read and understand why some fringe claims about astronomy just don’t make sense.

The second show is called “The Planets”.  This is a tour of the planets of the Solar System, based on the best data astronomers have currently gathered on our neighbors.  Find out how our solar system was formed, learn about hurricanes on other planets.  Also, we will learn about the extrasolar planets, planets that are orbiting other stars.

We will be attending the Friday, May 21st showing, which starts at 7pm.

To join us, you must call the planetarium to reserve your tickets.  Call the planetarium at 559-278-4071.

The Downing Planetarium is located on the California State University, Fresno campus.  The best way to get there is from Cedar and Barstow, drive to Maple and Barstow, and park in the Green parking area.  (Google map of location)  (Campus map for parking).

For more information, see the Downing Planetarium schedule.

We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

via cvaas.org

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How the wealth of your neighborhood and the water in your yard affect bird diversity

I wrote the following essay summarizing some early conclusions from the Fresno Bird Count for the April issue of the Yellowbill, the newsletter of Fresno Audubon. My student Brad Schleder presented some of these results as part of his masters thesis exit seminar earlier this week, and we also had a poster at the College of Science & Mathematics research poster symposium earlier today. So I thought I should also share this essay with you here:

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The American West faces a water crisis. Drought, urban growth, climate change and the continued demands of agriculture have combined to heighten the competition among water users. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, court-ordered water diversions under the Endangered Species Act have radically decreased water deliveries to many Valley farmers. A recent settlement providing for the restoration of the San Joaquin River and ongoing drought (in a region subject to repeated cycles of drought) have only exacerbated public debate about water and spurred the search for ways to conserve it. Valley farmers are experimenting with dry land farming methods, while valley cities are seeking ways to reduce urban water use. In the Fresno-Clovis Metropolitan Area, the City of Clovis already meters water use (but has relatively low water rates) and the City of Fresno will start metering water in 2013. How does our use of water (amount and method of use) affect other species such as birds that also occupy our urban landscapes? What can we do to improve the environment for ourselves and for sustaining biodiversity in the long run?

The Fresno Bird Count (FBC, http://www.fresnobirds.org/) was established by my laboratory at Fresno State in spring 2008 to begin long-term monitoring of bird species in the Fresno-Clovis metro area in part to address such questions about human actions and their effects on biodiversity. The FBC was modeled after the Tucson Bird Count which is now in its 10th year, as a citizen science project where volunteer birders from the community collaborate to gather data on bird distribution and abundance using statistically rigorous sampling and standardized census methodologies. As in Tucson, our volunteers count all the birds they can detect while standing at pre-determined fixed locations for 5 minutes each (i.e., a 5-min point count; see the FBC website for details of the protocol). Each point is a randomly selected location within a 1 km X 1 km square cell that is part of a 460 square kilometer (approx. 178 square miles) grid covering most of Fresno-Clovis and some outlying areas. In the first two years of the FBC, we have managed to survey about 180-200 of these points, and are seeking more volunteers to expand our coverage, because the more finely we can cover the highly variable urban landscape, the better our understanding of just what constitutes habitat for birds in the city and how various bird species use the spaces and resources we leave for them.

The FBC started with two broad goals: to keep track of how many birds of which species occur in the area and how their numbers change under ongoing urban growth; and, to provide basic bird data for more detailed studies focused on the connections between what we do in the urban environment and how birds respond to resulting changes in habitats. The first of such studies has just been completed by my graduate student and FBC coordinator Brad Schleder in the form of a Masters thesis. Brad focused on how we water our lawns and yards, and how the resulting residential landscapes attract different kinds of birds. After spending much of last summer driving around the city to various bird count locations to measure aspects of the habitat such as the number of trees, canopy cover, amount and height of grass, and degree of watering, Brad found some interesting patterns that may give pause even to some long-term birdwatchers living in the area. Of course, it may not surprise you to learn that we find more species of birds towards the north and north-west, in a slight trend of increasing diversity as we approach the river. On the other hand, would you have guessed that bird diversity is a good indicator of the wealth of a neighborhood? That indeed seems to be the case: more species of birds are found in wealthier neighborhoods than in poorer ones, and this is a pattern I’ve also found in Phoenix, Arizona! The reason here may have something to do with how people water their household landscapes. Brad found that poorer neighborhoods don’t water their yards quite as much as wealthier ones. This surprised us because, without metering, the cost of water is not a constraint for residents in Fresno - yet we already see a pattern predicted to occur as a result of metering! Perhaps the direct cost of water is not the only thing affecting the habitat in poorer neighborhoods; rather, landscaping one’s yard and maintaining it regularly is a costly enterprise regardless of how much water costs. If anything, the metering of water (if coupled with a rate structure designed to encourage water conservation) will only add to the burden and exacerbate the contrast in landscapes between rich and poor parts of the city! And the birds will likely notice the changes in the urban landscape and respond by changing their residential address too.

These first results from the FBC support a conclusion that is emerging from similar studies in other cities throughout the US: that biodiversity in cities is unevenly distributed, and tends to favor the rich. In other words, in addition to economic hardship, the poor also face an environmental injustice because birds (and other wildlife) will also flock preferentially to the richer neighborhoods where they may find more diverse landscaped yards with plenty of water and food. That may not be good news for Fresno and other valley cities facing tough economic challenges right now, with high levels of unemployment and rising poverty. Yet, there is also an opportunity here for city planners and developers to rethink the pattern of urban growth and plan for amenities such as more public parks and roadside landscaping that will support more biodiversity and provide greater access to nature for those who may need it the most in these troubled times.

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Published in the April issue of the Yellowbill.

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Earth Day Celebration at Fresno State

Earth Day Celebration April 22

Event Date:

April 22nd

Earth Day Celebration April 22

40th Anniversary
Fresno State Earth Day 2010 Celebration
April 22, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Sustainability Fair and Panel Discussions

Sustainability Fair: Fresno State Peace Garden
What: Exhibits with information, resources, demonstrations related to sustainability and green living
Where: Fresno State’s Peace Garden adjacent to Henry Madden Library
When: 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Panel Discussions: Madden Library Auditorium #2206
What: discussion, debates, Q&A about important sustainability topics to our region and planet

11 a.m. – 12 noon   
Jesse Morrow Mountain: Which Priorities Should Prevail?
Moderator: Peter McDonald Dean, Henry Madden Library.
Panelists: Audrey Osborne, Traditional Choinumni Tribal Council, and Robert Takacs, Friends of Jesse Morrow Mine.

12-1 p.m.     
Urban Planning & Transportation: Managing Change
Moderator: Andrew Jones Fresno State Sociology Dept & Sustainability Subcommittee.
Panelists: Kristine Cai, Fresno COG; Derya Ozgoc-Caglar, Fresno State Geography Dept.; Eric Fredericks, California High Speed Rail Authority; John Dugan, Director of Planning and Development Department, City of Fresno; and Rollie Smith, Sustainable Communities, Housing and Urban Development.

1-2 p.m. 
Climate Change: Mitigation & Adaptation for Fresno
Moderator: Peter Van de Water Fresno State Earth & Environmental Science Dept.
Panelists: Donald Hunsaker, Director Fresno State Institute of Climate, Change Oceans, & Atmosphere; Tom Cotter, Co-founder Fresno Green; Joseph Oldham, City of Fresno Sustainability Manager.

2-3 p.m. 
Water – The Lifeblood of the Community
Moderator: Lanny Larson, Fresno State University Communications
Panelists:Nora Laikam, City of Fresno Water Conservation Supervisor, and Calliope Correia, Fresno State Horticulture Nursery Technician.

Return Home Archive

via csufresno.edu

Yes, Fresno State is celebrating the 40th anniversary of Earth Day with its second Sustainability Fair! As you can see above, panel discussions will hit several hot-button environmental issues both local and global in scope. There will also be several exhibits/tables (download a flyer for more information) where campus and off campus groups will share information relevant to local and global environmental issues - and I'll be there sharing info about the Fresno Bird Count and Fresno Audubon. So come by if you are on campus around the middle of the day tomorrow. We'll be at the Peace Garden - unless the wet weather continues, in which case the fair moves indoors to within the library.

(And don't ask why none of the panels mention a certain urban ecologist on this campus who happens to be studying urban water use...)

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The Jellyfish are coming! En Masse! To... Fresno? Come check it out this friday!

via zimmer.csufresno.edu

Why yes, we have a Jellyfish mass occurrence... well... occurring on the campus of Fresno State this friday afternoon! Well, ok - I'm not talking about some biblical flood in the valley (its been a wet winter, sure, but not that wet!) or that long anticipated Big One, the earthquake that cleaves coastal California off and converts all our homes here in the valley into beachfront property! No not that - that's not happening this friday (as far as I know). But the jellies will be here in spirit and data form rather than physically present, as we get a seminar from Dr. Michael Dawson of UC Merced just up the road from us. Should be a fun, fascinating talk - here's the relevant info, and you can click on the title below to read the abstract and get further details:

Phylogeny and Ecology of Jellyfish (Scyphozoa) Mass Occurrences
Friday, March 12, 2010
3:00-4:00 PM
Science II, Room 109
CSU-Fresno

And afterwards, you might ask Dr. Dawson what a marine biologist like him is doing in the Central Valley of California... do they know something we don't?

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A California Quail, caught in flight

via flickr.com

Not the greatest of photos, but not bad for one of my very first pictures of this bird (I think, anyway). I caught this bit of action yesterday at the Sierra Foothill Conservancy's McKenzie Table Mountain Preserve, where they will be hosting an open house this Saturday, March 13th. If you live in the Fresno area, and haven't discovered this beautiful little valley, I urge you to go there on Saturday, enjoy the birds (we saw quite a few apart from this quail, including two Bald Eagles yesterday) and the wildflowers, and consider becoming a member of the Conservancy to help them protect more such habitats in this area.

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A rally for higher education in California, at Fresno State tomorrow!

via youtube.com

Tomorrow is the statewide day of action to protest against what is happening to higher education in California these days. I just found this quite good advert from our campus rallying people to join the action tomorrow. Won't you join us?

(and in this instance, I'll overlook the egregious, but all too common in the US, misspelling of GANDHI which made me cringe while watching this clip! Really - what's so hard about that simple name that Americans can't ever seem to get it right??)

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Café Scientifique tonight: Epidemiology of Lung Cancer in the Central Valley

Each year 160,000 Americans die from lung cancer and another 220,000 are diagnosed with the disease. About 85-90% of lung cancer is attributable to cigarette smoking and other tobacco related exposures; however, one in five American adults continue to smoke. Although there has been a decline in smoking during the last several decades, recent national data suggest the decline has leveled off, especially among young adults. In this presentation, the worldwide distribution of lung cancer, state and local patterns of lung cancer will be presented, as well as data on smoking habits and other risk factors for this deadly disease.

via valleycafesci.org

For those of you in Fresno tonight - a reminder: the above is the topic for tonight's talk at the Central Valley Café Scientifique by Dr. Paul Mills of the UCSF-Fresno Medical Education Program. And note that we meet at a new venue tonight. Enjoy - even if some of us regulars have to miss it!

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Sustainability Day at Fresno State campus today, Oct 21, 2009

Many campuses across the US are celebrating tomorrow, Oct 21, 2009 as Campus Sustainability Day. There is even a webcast you can join in via the Society for College and University Planning. If you prefer more direct human contact, and happen to be in the Fresno State vicinity tomorrow, why not check out our campus' First Annual Sustainability Day event - see full announcement below the fold. You might even to win a cool bicycle! I'm glad our campus is finally joining this event in its 7th year - better late than never, eh?

FRESNO STATE'S 1st ANNUAL
CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY DAY
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 21, 2009

10:00 A.M. TO 2:00 P.M.

USU BALCONY

Don't forget to come out this Wednesday and learn about how your fellow Bulldogs are "Going Green". Various departments and student groups from the university, as well as businesses, organizations and programs in the surrounding communities of Fresno and Clovis will be there. Featured participants include:

• Fresno State Recycling Club
• City of Fresno Department of Waste & Recycling
• The Green Issue (Fresno State)
• Department of Risk Management & Sustainability (Fresno State)
• Center of Irrigation Technology
• Fresno State Organic Farm
• Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District
• Fresno Council of Governments
• Bulldog Pantry
• GRID Alternatives
• ...and more!

There will be a raffle for a brand new bike available to those who attend!

In the evening, Director of the Department of Pesticide Regulation and Fresno State Alum Mary-Ann Warmerdam will be guest lecturing at Alice Peters Auditorium at 7:00 p.m. A reception will be held at 6:00 p.m. in the Alice Peters lobby. Enjoy the free food made from produce provided by the Fresno State Farm Market. The lecture is free of charge and open to all students, faculty, and members of the general public! Please encourage your students and colleagues to attend. A sign-up sheet will be at the lecture for any students needing to show proof of attendance!

Alaia Howell
Risk Management & Sustainability
California State University Fresno
559.278.8787
ahowell@csufresno.edu

Fresno State: Powering the New California
   -- Please save a tree: Don't print this message --

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"OMG!! Is that GMO in my dinner?" at tonight's Valley Café Scientifique

We resume the Central Valley Café Scientifique tonight after a prolonged summer hiatus - and at a new venue too! My colleague Dr. Alejandro Calderón-Urrea will start the new season with a talk about GMOs and suicidal worms! You know where to find the details, don't you? The Café's website, of course! And you've always had our Google Group to get email updates. But now there are a couple of new ways for you to keep up with the Café: join us on our new Facebook page, and follow us on twitter too! And soon, if we manage to master the technology, we may start podcasting the talks afterwards! So watch this space (and all the above spaces too) for that development.

Most importantly, of course, I hope to see you in person tonight!

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A river may once again run through it...

This past week has been a remarkable, mixed, week for the environment in the San Joaquin valley! First the good news: water began to flow through the San Joaquin river's heavily impacted (dammed / modified / channeled / dredged / damaged) course as part of a major restoration effort decades in the making, when federal authorities released water from Friant Dam, just above Fresno. The Fresno Bee has been covering the story really well these past few days, with a special feature, and you can jump into the stream with this report from Friday:

FRESNO, Calif. -- When Darrell Imperatrice was a boy, California's San Joaquin River teemed with so many king salmon his father could catch 40-pound fish using only a pitchfork.

Then the salmon vanished from the icy river for nearly 60 years, after a colossal federal dam built to nurture the croplands below dried up their habitat.

Now, as federal officials try to bring the fish back through a sweeping restoration program of the state's second-largest river - opening the valves for the first full day on Friday - those who know it best are debating its value and its virtue.

"There were so many salmon back then, you could fish any way you wanted, even dynamite. But when they built that dam, thousands of fish lay dead on the banks," said Imperatrice, who at age 82 still treasures his father's fishing gear. "There's no real restoration that will bring back the river I knew."

Yes, we are unlikely to ever really bring back the river from before agriculture took over this valley. But we sure can try, and this week we took a major step forward on that long arduous journey towards bringing the old salmon runs back to this damaged/heavily used river. Its an ambitious project that has (supposedly) pitted environmentalists against farmers (at least in the popular caricature, although there are farmers who are environmentalists too!) in many a legal and legislative battle over several decades - and that was before the water started flowing again! Let's see how far we can take this.

Which brings us to the week's bad news: even as the water started flowing down the river, a judge in Fresno reminded us that the battle to restore the river is far from over, when he decided that the government hadn't done enough to justify diverting water away from farmland for the sake of the endangered Delta Smelt - a tiny fish from the San Joaquin Delta that has become a symbol of the fight between "environmentalists" vs. "farmers". In hearing an appeal from some farmers against govt. rules favoring the Smelt under the Endangered Species Act, the judge didn't really raise any serious objections to the fish being listed under the ESA in the first place. Rather, he objects, oddly enough, to a lack of an environmental impact study... on humans!! You read that right - the judge wants the federal govt. to present a study of the environmental impact of saving the Delta Smelt on humans!! Talk about turning the ESA on its head! He apparently thinks that the current rules issued by the govt for water management in the delta are already causing the human environment to deteriorate: our air is fouled by dust from farms that haven't received water in the west valley, and land itself is sinking in some places due to increased groundwater pumping! As if over-irrigating and farming in arid landscapes, and careless use of underground aquifers, don't have anything to do with those environmental impacts! Those are not problems in this Cadillac Desert - but attempts to restore the natural environment for some endangered native species is what we have to worry about, because, darn it, it raises dust into our skies, and forces us to suck so much water from underground that our lands start sinking!!

And you wonder why us environmentalists always have that sinking feeling...

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The forensics of investigating meth labs at tonight's Café Scientifique!

Tonight we — i.e., the Central Valley Café Scientifique — present what appears to be (barring some last minute surprise) the final talk of the academic year - on methamphetamine labs. Before we go on our summer hiatus, Dr. Eric Person, my colleague in the Chemistry Department here who had law enforcement experience up in the Washington area prior to joining academia, will tell us about the forensics of pursuing meth labs in answering the question "Why is it so hard to buy Sudafed?". The Café will be at the usual time (6:30-8:30 PM) and place (Lucy's Lair), and you can get all the details, including map and directions, at our website.

And no, we did not deliberately time this talk about meth labs just days before finals week!!

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Islands in the Sky - at tonights Valley Cafe Sci!

Its time for another Café Scientifique tonight here in Fresno. And this time we have Robin Vijayan, a Fulbright scholar visiting my lab for his graduate research (he actually roped me in as a coadviser for his Ph.D. for some odd reason!) telling us about "Islands in the Sky: Science and conservation in the montane forests of India" - well, southern India, to be exact.

We meet, as usual, at the wonderful Lucy's Lair Ethiopian restaurant in north Fresno, from 6:30 - 8:30 PM. Perhaps I'll see you there!

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Shy flowers on a cold spring morning in the Sierra foothills (Friday Photo)

Even as California continues to experience a drought, and the region is facing water shortages, this winter-spring has brought just enough precipitation to allow the wildflowers to blanket the Sierra Nevada foothills in a riot of colors the like of which I haven't seen in the five years I've lived in this area. My colleagues and students have noticed an increasing grumpiness in me these past couple of weeks, and part of the reason is that I really want to be out there in them thar hills traipsing through the wildflowers, not cooped up in the concrete of the Science building (where, to be fair, I have had quite a few glimpses of snowclad hills this spring - but that only makes being in the office worse!)! Why do we have spring break in April in this goshdarned valley, when actual spring has long since passed us by? I know, I know, it probably has to do with a certain religious holiday in early April - but that's a subject of a rant I'll save for another day. For now, this Friday, let me share some of my attempts to capture the fleeting beauty of spring in the Sierra foothills onto a few digital images. I've managed finally to create a Flickr album to collect these images, including this one of a dewy Baby Blue Eyes and some Goldfields (I think) apparently feeling too shy and/or sleepy to face the morning sun (last tuesday) after the equinox weekend's cold snap:

Click on the picture to access the entire gallery, which I hope will provide you some relief even at your computer desk. Especially if you've been following the circus of the Texas State Board of Education this week as they've been watering down (to put it mildly) their standards on how science is to be taught in that state. (And please do let me know if I've made any errors of identification - floral taxonomy is not my forte!).

Happy Spring, wherever you are! And I also wish you total blissful darkness - or romantic candlelight - this saturday when we celebrate Earth Hour!

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The Rap Guide to Evolution - this weekend in Fresno!

My friend Scott Hatfield just pointed out a brilliant act premiering at the Rogue Festival in Fresno this weekend: The Rap Guide to Evolution! Its Richard Dawkins meets Eminem, to paraphrase the review in Science (yes, that AAAS journal, renowned for its rap reviews!):

Canadian rap artist, performance poet, and actor Baba Brinkman follows up his hilarious award-winning one-man show “The Rap Canterbury Tales” with a journey to the center of history’s greatest controversy: the Origin of Species. Brinkman’s powerful storytelling has been hailed the world over as an ingenious hybrid of rap and theatre. Fresh from a tour celebrating the 2009 Darwin Bicentennial in England, this will be the North American premier of “The Rap Guide to Evolution”.

It's a 50-minute show, rated PG-13 ('sexual references, mature subject matter, but NO SWEARING, he says").

Lead single "Natural Selection" featuring Richard Dawkins. Click here to Download.

“The Rap Guide to Evolution” explores the history and current understanding of Darwin’s theory, combining remixes of popular rap songs with storytelling rap/poems that cover Natural Selection, Artificial Selection, Sexual Selection, Group Selection, Unity of Common Descent, and Evolutionary Psychology. Dr. Pallen has vetted the entire script for scientific and historical accuracy, making it a powerful teaching tool as well as a laugh-out-loud entertainment experience. The show also engages directly with challenging questions about cultural evolution, asking the audience to imagine themselves as the environment and the performer as an organism undergoing a form of live adaptation.

“The Rap Guide to Evolution” was developed with the support of the British Council, and will be touring the UK in the summer of 2009, including the Edinburgh Fringe. Look out for recordings and videos coming soon to this site!

Here's a preview clip, via YouTube:

How can you resist the whole act after that? Perhaps I'll see you there this weekend!

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Happy 200th Charlie! Darwin's Bulldogs got your back in the valley!!

As we celebrate his 200th birthday here on the Fresno State campus, as indeed worldwide, I am thrilled to share the news that some local friends of Charles Darwin have come together to form a new coalition:

Welcome to the Consortium for Evolutionary Studies at California State University, Fresno.

We are a new interdisciplinary campus entity dedicated to the study of evolutionary topics from multiple scholarly perspectives. The consortium has coalesced on the occasion of the the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth - Darwin Day 2009. The consortium consists of faculty and students from several colleges and departments at CSU Fresno. We invite all interested members of the campus community to join us in the promotion of evolutionary theory, science and reason.

[via Darwin's Bulldogs]

Yes, we are calling ourselves Darwin's Bulldogs, establishing a connection not only to our campus mascot, but all the way back to Thomas Henry Huxley, the original Darwin's Bulldog! We can sure use his inspiration here in the Central Valley as we find ourselves still fighting battles Huxley won long ago in England. (and if you must ask, I made a teeny contribution coming up with that association and that moniker for our group! and designing the website too). We've already announced a series of events for Darwin Day 2009 on the website, and look forward to making this a vibrant interdisciplinary venture on campus. Bookmark the website. Join us in the festivities, and email me if you want to know more about the consortium.

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