News & Public Affairs

Science Cafe in St. Pete debates causes of Climate Change listen

01/26/11 Matthew Cimitile
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Tags: climate change, science, environment, sea-level rise

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama didn’t mention climate change. But the topic was at the forefront last night at the Pier Aquarium’s science café meeting in St. Petersburg.

More than a year removed from the stalemate at the climate conference in Copenhagen and another two months after a follow-up meeting in Cancun, there is still no binding global agreement to cut greenhouse emissions. Without those cuts, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that...

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Science Challenge 2011

12/27/10 Dawn Morgan Elliott
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Tags: science, books, reading, education, nonfiction

Former physicist Jeff Shaumeyer worried about American culture excluding the sciences. So in 2004, he began a company called Ars Hermenuetica in an effort to encourage science literacy.

Shaumeyer implemented the Science Reading challenge a few years later, an attempt to inspire average Americans to read popular science.

"It came about when I noticed some online blogging fri...

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Panel of USF scientists present oil spill findings to the public listen

11/17/10 Jamie Kidder
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Tags: BP, oil spill, science, USF

Last night in St. Petersburg, a panel of USF based marine scientists shared their findings on the impact of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Bob Weisberg is a Professor of Physical Oceanography at the University of South Florida, and a leading expert on the role of the Gulf’s loop current.

"It provides the connectivity between the Caribbean and southeastern United States. It flows into the Gulf of Mexico through the Yucatan, out through the Florida straights and then up the east co...

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Fossil hunters uncover Florida's geologic history listen

11/04/10 Matthew Cimitile
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Tags: Science, Geology, Climate Change, Extinction

Florida’s history didn’t begin with Ponce de Leon, the founding of St. Augustine, Hernando de Soto or even the indigenous Calusa people. Clubs around Florida are venturing out to rock quarries, phosphate mines and river beds to uncover ancient fossils and get a glimpse into Florida’s geologic past.

Kneeling on the limestone surface at Vulcan quarry mine in Brooksville, Shirley Gissy of Port Richey, Florida and a member of the Tampa Bay Fossil Club, takes her rock hammer and meticulously c...

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Science Cafe connects science with everyday life listen

03/16/10 Matthew Cimitile
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Tags: science, education

How is science experienced in everyday life? To answer that question, a science education professor held a "science cafe" at USF St. Petersburg earlier this month.

From medicines that cure illness to communication lines and satellites that transect the globe, routine days are made possible by science and technology. Science connectivity to everyday life is what experts cite as the importance of learning basic scientific principles, and was the theme of a discus...

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New research suggests greater sea level rise listen

03/04/10 Matthew Cimitile
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Tags: sea level rise, science, climate change

Climate change is expected to cause a greater rise to global sea levels than previously thought. That's according to scientific research presented at recent conferences and lectures around the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2007 the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted a ½- to 2- foot rise in sea level by the end of the century. But recent trends in global sea level, temperature and glacial melting suggest these estimates are on the low end of the spectrum.

Steven Nerem is As...

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Ocean acidity is increasing according to a new study listen

01/25/10 Matthew Cimitile
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Tags: acidification, climate change, science, oceans

In addition to making oceans warmers, greenhouse gasses like CO2 in the atmosphere are making oceans more acidic. More acidic oceans could hamper the growth and survival of shell-building organisms like corals and clams. By comparing pH readings from seawater in the northeastern Pacific Ocean between 1991 and 2006, a team of scientists found the first direct evidence of ocean acidification across an entire ocean basin.

WMNF sat d...

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Florida's aquatic problem with invasive species listen

01/15/10 Matthew Cimitile
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Tags: environment, Invasive, science, Fishery management

A broad coalition of groups from the Association of Fish and Wildlife agencies to Dow Agro-sciences is hosting a weeklong summit on invasive species in Washington D.C. The summit is part of the National Invasive Species Awareness Week that is hoping to bring the problem of invasives to the forefront. Aquatic invasives are disrupting Florida waters.

The lionfish is a spiny, venomous fish of contrasting red and white stripes that can grow to over a foot long. Nat...

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Scientists oppose intelligent design bill listen

02/23/09 Seán Kinane
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Tags: intelligent design, science, evolution, Stephen Wise

The Florida Legislature begins its regular session next week. Sen. Stephen Wise, R-Jacksonville, plans to introduce a bill requiring teachers who teach evolution to also present the idea of intelligent design.

The website for the Ben Stein movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed features a video message from Stein, who has been an actor, and a speechwriter and lawyer for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Stein asks people to sign a petition for “academi...

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Nanotechnology the topic of global technology roundtable listen

01/30/09 Seán Kinane
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Tags: Science, research, business, nanotechnology, technology

This morning at St. Petersburg’s Mahaffey Theater, executives from five weapons and technology companies, some with connections to the Tampa Bay area, discussed the future of nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology involves engineering on a very small scale. Most nanotech products are on the order of about 100 nanometers.

But just because a technology is small doesn’t make it nanotech. The properties or functions of the system must change at those small scales.

James Burns, senior vice pre...

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