Dr. Paul Sereno

For episode 60, we talk about Paleontology with Dr. Paul Sereno.  Dr. Sereno is a world-renowned paleontologist and Professor of Organismal Biology & Anatomy at the University of Chicago.  He joins us to talk about what’s new in the field of paleontology.

Links:

• paulsereno.org
• Project Exploration
• Paul Sereno – University of Chicago Experts
• Paul Sereno, National Geographic Explorer in Residence
• Latest Dinosaur Find – a Precursor to T-Rex (Jan 11, 2011 – CBS Chicago.com)
• Paul Sereno TED Profile & TED Presentation: Paul Sereno Digs Up Dinosaurs
• Paul Sereno, One of 50 Most Beautiful Chicagoans (ChicagoMag.com)
• Illinois State Fossil – the Tullimonster
• U-Haul SuperGraphics – Illinois
• The Archaeopteryx, an early bird (University of California Museum of Paleontology)
• Are Birds Really Dinosaurs? (University of California Museum of Paleontology)
• T-Rex Feathers (npr.org)
• Fermilab
• Fermilab Lecture Series Presents Dr. Paul Sereno
• Argonne National Laboratory
• Principles of Paleobiology (University of Maryland Masters of Life Science)

2010 University of Chicago Spring Convocation Speech

Featured Image showing Sereno with Nigersaurus, a plant-eating dinosaur (Lauren Victoria Burke/Associated Press) from the Boston Globe Online

Direct download: LOL60.mp3

The Quantum Frontier

With the Large Hadron Collider scheduled to come back online in November, we were able to talk with writer and physicist Don Lincoln again (see Episode 8).  Dr. Lincoln talks about the LHC and his new book: The Quantum Frontier.

Links:

• The Quantum Frontier
• The Large Hadron Collider – CERN
• Lab Out Loud Episode 8: The Future of Particle Physics
• Fermilab (Illinois) education office
• Fermilab Today (Don writes every other article)
• Argonne National Laboratories (Illinois)
• Become a Fan of Don on Facebook

Education Links

• CERN Education
• Quarknet
• I2U2
• Fermilab Education Office
• Physics Master classes
• LIGO Louisiana
• Soudan Minnesota
• DUSEL South Dakota
• Brookhaven New York
• TJNAF Virginia
• CROP Nebraska
• NALTA North America

Experiments:

• CMS
• ATLAS
• LHCb
• ALICE
• CDF
• Dzero

Don’s Books:

The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider.  The book “describes in layman terms the exciting new research program about to start at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland.”  Find it at Amazon.com.

Understanding the Universe: From Quarks to the Cosmos.  “The target audience for this book is a lay audience of science enthusiasts. I had high school teachers in mind as I wrote it.” Find it at Amazon.com.

Update:

Don will be speaking…

• Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles on November 6 & 7
• Adler Planetarium on November 19th in their new “Adler After Dark” series

Direct download: LOL35.mp3

Understanding the Universe

In this episode, Dale talks with physicist Don Lincoln of the DZero detector experiment at Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratories. Don talks about physics, Fermilab, his books, and some opportunities for teachers and students with QuarkNet.

Preview from the Show:

Basler: Can you give us an overview of what the [Fermilab] does, and what the facility’s goals are?

Lincoln: My own lab, Fermilab, accelerates protons and antimatter protons near the speed of light and collides them together. Fermilab has some other programs also where we accelerate protons and smash the protons into a target, which is usually some material – nickel or something. And from that, we extract other particles – which could be neutrinos – which is what we’re doing mostly – and experimenting with those as well.?”

Basler: What do you say to the person that says “I hated Physics“??

Lincoln: Well I ask them why they hated physics. Usually they say “well, ‘cuz it was too math oriented and it was difficult”. And I say, “let’s talk about the world. Have you ever wondered why the sun came up?” or things like that. And usually I can get them to talk about some aspect of the world that they’re interested in, and show them that, in fact, the study of physics really is interesting in that it explains an awful lot, and shows these interconnections that they might not be aware of.

Basler: And you have a book that could help out teachers… Tell us a little about that.

Lincoln: Well actually I have two books. The first book…was written intentionally for people who come to my public lectures, because the people who come to the science lectures are usually of course very enthusiastic about science, and they’ve read many of the popular books. This particular book that I wrote, was actually aimed at them, for those who wanted to go a little bit deeper. The second book is not even out yet – it’ll be out in the summer of 2008 – details the new accelerator that is going to be turning on this year in Europe – the large hadron collider, and that one is also aimed at the general audience.

Lincoln: High School teachers can join the QuarkNet program. They will then go and work with the researcher, for perhaps a week during the summer, and get a sense of what research is going on. Then they bring that information back to their classrooms. And for many of the QuarkNet center – of which I think there are 50 currently in the country – they get funded to bring high school students in the laboratory to work for the summer – and they get paid to work even.

Don’s Books:
“Understanding the Universe: From Quarks to the Cosmos” The target audience for this book is a lay audience of science enthusiasts. I had high school teachers in mind as I wrote it. Find it at Amazon.com.

New book: “The Quantum Frontier: The Large Hadron Collider” (name subject to change, will be out summer 2008.) Maybe it’s just better to say that the new book “describes in layman terms the exciting new research program about to start at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland.”

Links from Don Lincoln:

• http://particleadventure.org (just cool information about particle physics).
• http://quarknet.fnal.gov (details quarknet and how to get involved.)
• http://www.interactions.org/cms/ (a worldwide site for education and image resources)
• http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/scied/PST/choose.htm laboratory opportunities
• Slightly outdated database (geographically searchable): http://ed.fnal.gov/lasso/hep_search/search.html

• Fermilab (Illinois) education office: http://ed.fnal.gov/index.shtml
• Argonne (Illinois): http://www.anl.gov/Visiting/index.html
• Brookhaven (Long Island): http://www.bnl.gov/education/
• Jefferson Lab (Virginia): http://education.jlab.org/
• Stanford (California): http://www-group.slac.stanford.edu/com/ed_educators.htm
• Los Alamos (New Mexico): http://www.lanl.gov/education/
• US Department of Energy (national) http://www.doe.gov/foreducators.htm
• National Science Foundation (national): http://www.nsf.gov/news/classroom/physics.jsp
• CERN (Europe) http://education.web.cern.ch/education/

Experiments:

• CMS: http://cmsinfo.cern.ch/outreach/index.html
• ATLAS: http://atlasexperiment.org/students.html
• LHCb: http://lhcb-public.web.cern.ch/lhcb-public/
• ALICE: http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/Public/
• CDF: http://www-cdf.fnal.gov/
• D0: http://www-d0.fnal.gov/

Direct download: nstalol8.mp3