LogiCON 2013 Schedule

Talk Schedule: May 4th and May 5th at CCIS at the University of Alberta

This schedule may change: watch our twitter feed for changes and new talk titles: @logiconnews. Room names will be posted on this page prior to the event and at the registration table. Jump to Sunday's Schedule.

Note that each 30-minute talk has a 15 minute break afterward.

Saturday, May 4th
 Track 1Track 2Family Track
11:30am - 12:00pm

Epistemology Frank Jenkins

Evaluating Claims to Knowledge

Through the media we are confronted with many claims to knowledge about issues related to health, climate, science, politics, and consumerism. Our school curricula and the media do not provide us with the criteria and processes to evaluate these claims; e.g., understanding controls, placebo and double-blind. Learn what questions to ask.

Physics Marc MacKenzie

Northern Exposures: Radiation in Canada

Radiation has always been with us since, quite literally, the dawn of time, but we only began to understand it a little over a century ago, and it is still somewhat mysterious to many of us. With the exception of the warmth we feel from infrared radiation, our five senses generally give us no direct experience of radiation. In terms of the physics, we understand radiation quite well. In terms of the biological effects, our journey over the last century has taken us from ignorance, to believing radiation to be a cure-all, to being fearful, and finally to a better understanding, at least in the scientific community. In the general populace there are still fears and misunderstandings about such things as WiFi, cell phones, and microwaves in general; there are also concerns about radiation from sources like medical imaging, nuclear power, and radon in the home. In this talk, I'll try to sort some of the facts from the misinformation, and place some of it in a Canadian context.

Paleontology Tiago Simoes

Going Beyond Jurassic Park

Paleontologists have been made famous for their appearance in Hollywood movies, but what is paleontology? How does a paleontologist work? Is this the same as archeology? Paleontology helps us to understand the evolution of life on our planet, and to better comprehend how animals, plants and other organisms came to be as they are today. Also, I will show some exciting discoveries done by paleontologists and what is behind the curtains of museums and movies.
12:15pm - 12:45pm

Programming Mack Male

Why You Should Learn to Code

Is programming art or science? It doesn’t really matter. We live in a world powered by software! Nearly every industry has been disrupted by software and online services, so understanding even just a little about how it all works is essential. This quick introduction to programming will cover the very basics and will highlight many useful resources for you to take the next step.

Physics Ross Lockwood

Mysteries from the Frontiers of Physics

In the late 19th century, physicists believed that all of the problems arising from classical physics were solved—only a few decades later modern theory emerged. In today’s world, popular science fixates on the notion that experimental results are converging towards well-established theories. However, many small problems crop up on every scale of physics that aren’t broadly reported. I will discuss these mysteries, and why their current explanations don’t quite match our understanding of the universe.

Astronomy Sharon Morsink

What is the Sun?

What is the Sun? Why does the Sun shine? How did it form? What will happen to it in the future? In this presentation, I'll try to answer these questions and any others that you have about my favourite star.
1:00pm - 1:30pm

Genetics Dave Pilgrim

The Time Machine in Your Genes

Most people hear about genes in the media as either some contaminant in their food, or something that will cause them to get cancer, mental illness or fat. But your genes, or more precisely the sequences within your chromosomes, can also tell us where, when and how we became who we are, as well as where we may be going. The ability to alter those genes will fundamentally alter our world and it will be up to you to decide whether those changes will be good or bad. Have smarter kids? Build a dinosaur? Get rid of your families characteristic nose shape once and for all?

Physics Rhys Chouinard

Dark Matter: The Why, How, Where, and What of A Missing Chunk of Our Universe

The last 80 years worth of astrophysical data suggests we only understand a small fraction of our entire Universe. A large portion of the "missing" component of the Universe is the elusive and mysterious "dark matter". This presentation will go over some of the evidences for dark matter, and explain some of the possible dark matter candidates. We will then discuss the three methods that scientists are using to try to detect dark matter on Earth.

Astronomy Workshop Sharon Morsink

Follow-up to "What is the Sun?"

Follow Sharon Morsink up to the observatory to see the sun, weather permitting.
1:45pm - 2:15pm

Biology Stephanie Vogt

Microbes: Our Silent Partners in Health

Humans like to think that we are in control of our own bodies. But the truth is that only 10% of the cells that make up our bodies are human cells - the other 90% are microbial. We are just now starting to understand how the trillions of microbes in or on our bodies affect human health. This talk will discuss how learning to manage our microbial ecosystems could be medicine's new frontier.

Meteorology Stephanie Barsby

Forecasting the weather with CBC Edmonton's Meteorologist Stephanie Barsby

Stephanie will walk you through what it takes to put a forecast together for both the morning radio show Edmonton AM on 93.9FM/740AM, or the evening TV newscast CBC News Edmonton. She'll explain how she uses technologies such as satellite, radar, and model data to create her 7-day forecast. She'll also give you a look behind the scenes as to what it takes to be a radio and television Meteorologist.

Critical Thinking Frank Jenkins

Experiments vs. Scams

There are many claims and scams out there that need to be tested. Experiments can test these claims; e.g., using controls and special experimental designs. Is Coke better than Pepsi? What about that bracelet with super properties? Is global warming real? Let's have some fun by designing experiments to test some claims. Learn how to be a skeptic.

This presentation is an hour long.
2:30pm - 3:00pm

Paleontology Tiago Simoes

Paleontology in Antarctica

The frozen continent of Antarctica once was a warm and humid place with thriving life. This was found out by paleontologists, who have been working on the different aspects of past life in Antarctica and revealed exciting discoveries from a continent still largely unknown to science. Dinosaurs, birds, marine reptiles and exuberant vegetation once dominated this continent, being gradually replaced by the different life forms that currently dominate Antarctic ecosystems. Here it will be presented some of these discoveries that have been made during the last century, as well as recent ones, and how they contributed to the advancement of paleontology and to our knowledge about this mysterious continent.

Astrophysics Abigail Stevens

Exo-lent Planets!

Travelling to another world has long been a dream of humankind, and astronomers have been adding hundreds of so-called ‘exoplanets’ to the list of possible destinations. We also see representations of these exoplanets in sci-fi and fantasy, but how realistic are they? There are a variety of types of exoplanets, and some of them are even Earth-like. I'll talk about how exoplanets are formed, how scientists discover them, and if we could ever move to one.
3:15pm - 3:45pm

Paleontology Victoria Arbour

Why Can't I Have a Tyrannosaurus in My Living Room?

In May 2012 a tyrannosaur skeleton from Mongolia was put up for auction in New York. The resulting uproar from the palaeontological community brought to light the serious problem of fossil poaching in China and Mongolia. Why is it important for dinosaur fossils to be in museums, and why do palaeontologists discourage people from owning their own dinosaur fossils? In this talk, you'll learn about the role of museum collections in palaeontological research.

Math Alan Thompson

The Mathematics of Knots: Or, What Do Pure Mathematicians Do All Day?

As a pure mathematician, I find that the people I meet in my day-to-day life often have very little idea of what my job actually entails. How does pure mathematics work? What do pure mathematicians do? And why? However, as these are some pretty big questions to try to answer in half an hour, we will turn our focus instead to a subdiscipline of pure mathematics: the theory of knots. We'll discuss how mathematicians approach the study of knots, from the basic foundations (how do we make sense of a knot mathematically?) to some the deeper questions (given two knots, how can we tell if they're the same?). Along the way we'll hopefully uncover answers to some of the bigger questions about the nature of pure mathematics itself.

Physics Ross Lockwood

The Dizzying Top(ic) of Rotation

Why does a spinning top stay balanced? How do airplanes navigate with the aid of a gyroscope? What does this all have to do with an unsolved mystery in science? Come for a hands-on discussion about the dizzying topic of rotation!
4:00pm - 4:30pm

Paleontology Michael Burns

Experimentless Science: Using Prediction and Palaeontology to Address Armoured Dinosaur Paleobiology

Science is often linked inextricably to the experiment, but explanations and predictions can also be addressed based on observation in systems which defy such testing. Armoured dinosaurs present such an example in the form of historical biology. Not only did they possess features not seen in any modern organism, but they have no close living relatives. How can we make and test predictions about processes that we cannot manipulate directly?

Statistics Rodrigo de la Jara

Most Studies Are Wrong and Other Useful Things You Should Know About Statistics

Consumers of information, whether uneducated or educated (e.g., physicians) can be bewildered by misleading or even contradictory statistics. You'll learn what is behind it, what scientific publishers could do about it, plus tips to arm yourself against bad conclusions that might impact you and those you care about.

Physics Workshop Ross Lockwood

Physics: Hands On

Have you ever experienced the feeling of being electrically charged? Have you seen real levitation over a superconductor? Heard the sound of a singing bowl? Join us for these and other fascinating physics demonstrations. Experience physics as it is meant to be: hands on!
4:45pm-5:00pm Door prize draw

 

Sunday, May 5th
 Track 1Track 2Family Track
11:30am - 12:00pm

Cognitive Science Kelly Arbeau

Creating our Visual World: How Expectation Drives Object Recognition

Our personal experiences influence how we see the world. We will use illusions and picture riddles to explore this relationship between experience and interpretation of the visual world. While we may be “free” to choose our interpretation of the world around us, expectations and experience can do the choosing for us.

Medicine Lisa Belanger

Beyond the Pill Bottle: Why Exercise is Medicine

Often we talk about exercise preventing disease; here we will examine how exercise is being used for treatment of disease. There is an increasing amount research demonstrating exercise is being used post diagnosis for many different conditions. Imagine this medication given in the proper dose can eliminate the use of some pills with negative side effects and has the side effects of better mood, decreased blood pressure and increased physical fitness. What is the impact of this medicine? How does it work and why isn’t this medication being prescribed?

To Be Announced...
12:15pm - 12:45pm

Science in Everyday Life Craig Sherburne

A scientist, a lawyer, and a comedian walk into a bar... and he orders a drink.

They talk about alternative careers in science, and they talk about alternative careers in law, but I don’t think they ever considered standup comedy as one of them. Craig Sherburne has worked in scientific research, drug development, investment banking and practiced law all while also performing across North America. Craig will talk about the path that lead to where he is today, some of the learnings he gained as he progressed and how the rigor of scientific training applies to what he does today.

Science Outreach Wade Kelly

Becoming a Science Evangelist: Spreading the Nerd Love

I have always been interested in science but as my academic career progressed I slowly moved further and further away from it. I found myself no longer gently brushing up against science by happenstance. I recognize that if I want to be excited about science again it is my responsibility alone to make it happen. Join me as I talk about the many ways we can encourage ourselves and others to be exposed to and excited by science; from web based fun stuff, to your personal reading list; from public lectures to science centric courses. In addition, I'll share my experiences of having to educate myself so I can educate/edutain others as the co-boss of Nerd Nite Edmonton.

Physics Rhys Chouinard

Quarks to Quasars: Studying the Extremely Tiny and the Extremely Large

How can we study the things we can't see? How can scientists "zoom in" to unimaginably small scales to examine the building blocks of matter? In the other direction, how to astronomers "zoom out" and study the largest structures in the Universe? This talk will examine how we study the smallest and the biggest things in the known Universe.
1:00pm - 1:30pm

Engineering Patricio Mendez

The Science of Welding

Did you know that the spark of an electric weld can be three times hotter than the surface of the sun? How about realizing that  over the weld nugget there are winds as fast as the speed of sound? While the act of welding takes many hours of training but little formal knowledge of the science, the design of welding equipment and welding processes involves the mastery of many natural phenomena, ranging from electromagnetics, fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, heat transfer, thermodynamics, metallurgy, and more. You'll never see a welder the same way after this talk, and there are plenty of them in Alberta!

Philosophy Ingo Brigandt

Is Science Value-Free?

Apart from studying nature out of curiosity, science is to serve society by providing medical treatments and various technologies, including environmental technologies. So it seems that social aims and environmental values are relevant to science. However, those who maintain that science is value-free grant that a climate scientist may have chosen her research project because of her environmentalist agenda. What they claim is that science is value-free in that a theory is to be accepted not because it fits a particular social or environmental agenda, but purely because the theory is supported by the evidence. I will explore different ways in which social and environmental values matter even in the context of theory acceptance, using examples from the biological and biomedical sciences.

Philosophy Jason Taylor

Philosophy for Children: Enthusiasm about Ideas

In this interactive talk, you'll learn about Philosophy for Children Alberta including its history and connection to the wider P4C movement, as well as the methodology used in a P4C session. We'll see the importance of - among other things - the ability to identify problems, of harnessing enthusiasm, and of the collaborative community of enquiry.
1:45pm - 2:15pm

Math Paul Buckingham

Group theory and the Number of Sudoku Grids

Groups come into play whenever you want to string together sequences of reversible operations or instructions. For example, the instructions might be the moves of a chess piece (but not a pawn!) on an infinite chess board (pawns' moves are not reversible). Think about which pieces can go everywhere on the board—the queen and the rook, certainly, but also the king and the knight if you give them long enough. On the other hand, the orbit of the poor bishop, who can only move diagonally, consists of only half the squares. The notion of an orbit—where a sequence of instructions can take you—allows group theorists to find the number of essentially different Sudoku grids and the number of Rubik cube configurations, for example. In this talk, we will see what groups are and how to use them to discover some simple but surprising facts.

Science Law Ubaka Ogbogu

Tackling Stem Cell Tourism: Educating the Desperate or Whacking the Mole?

Stem cell tourism refers to medical travel to foreign destinations for the purpose of receiving scientifically unproven and unapproved stem cell treatments. Although very few stem cell-based treatments have been introduced into clinical care, the promise and potential of the field has led to an explosion of clinics around the world marketing stem cells as a panacea for virtually every ailment known to man. Although estimates vary, it is believed that over 10,000 patients have travelled from destinations such as the Canada, the UK, US, and Australia to receive stem cell treatments in clinics based in China, India, and Mexico. Stem cell tourism raises a host of scientific, regulatory and health care challenges, including medical risks to patients, questions regarding physicians’ duties to patients seeking or requesting such treatments, and the potential impacts on both our publicly funded health care system and legitimate stem cell research. This presentation will review these challenges and discuss measures that might be taken to deal with them.

Linguistics Timothy Mills

Mouthful of Physics: Language, Acoustics, and Speech Technology

Want to be a speech lab?

The great thing about studying human speech is that you carry your laboratory with you wherever you go: your lungs, voicebox, and mouth. Bring your own speech lab along and we will examine how you use it to produce sounds. You'll find out what those sounds look like. (What does that mean? Come and see!) You'll also learn a little about how computers can try to reproduce human speech.
2:30pm - 3:00pm

Critical Thinking Desiree Schell

Reading Between The (head) Lines: Separating the Bluster from the Breakthroughs in Science Media

When you go from watching science news as merely an interested party to running a weekly science radio show, you really have to up your game when it comes to spotting the real scientific breakthroughs and discoveries from the misplaced speculation, flashy headlines, and poorly constructed studies. In a conversational setting, we'll discuss techniques and tactics for reading science media with a critical eye, and where to turn if you're just not sure what to believe.

Medicine Lisa Belanger

Beyond the Pill Bottle: Why Exercise is Medicine

(Lisa reprises her talk for a family audience)

Often we talk about exercise preventing disease; here we will examine how exercise is being used for treatment of disease. There is an increasing amount research demonstrating exercise is being used post diagnosis for many different conditions. Imagine this medication given in the proper dose can eliminate the use of some pills with negative side effects and has the side effects of better mood, decreased blood pressure and increased physical fitness. What is the impact of this medicine? How does it work and why isn’t this medication being prescribed?
3:15pm - 3:45pm

Math Remkes Kooistra

Gödel’s Incompleteness and the Strange Troubles at the Logical Heart of Mathematics

In 1931, Kurt Gödel published his two Incompleteness theorems, thus proving (in generally agreed upon interpretations) that the great goal of a perfect logical system of mathematics was impossibly illusive. What was the great insight that led Gödel to this result? Why did Bertrand Russell and David Hilbert care so much about it? Does mathematics have a secure basis and is it trustworthy? What reflections does this result inspire concerning the general human need for and reliance on logical thinking? These questions and more will be tackled in a presentation assuming no advanced mathematical knowledge or skill.

Science in Everyday Life York Underwood

Revenge of the Nerds

Why Science and Nature should be the metaphor and motif of modern art and culture--OR, Why science is awesome whether you like or not.

Geology Claire Currie

Shaking the Earth: Earthquakes and Scientific Revolutions

The Earth is an active place! Each day, the Earth experiences earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. And over millions of years, the Earth’s surface changes as new mountains form, old mountains erode, and ocean basins open and close. Seismic waves from earthquakes are the main tool for exploring the interior of the Earth and linking the internal dynamics with surface motions. This talk will provide an overview of earthquake seismology and plate tectonics, a scientific theory that revolutionized the understanding of the Earth.
4:00pm - 4:30pm

Geology Hans Machel

Radiometric Dating - How it Works, and Why it Matters

Radiometric dating is one branch of geochronology, which is the science of determining the ages of rocks and fossils. While the other branches yield only relative ages (younger or older), radiometric dating is an 'isotopic clock' that can yield absolute ages, i.e., that something is so-and-so many years old. Over the last 100 years radiometric dating has helped to revolutionize our understanding of planetary evolution, the origin and evolution of life on Earth, and exploration for mineral and energy resources, and more. The method has even been applied to non-geological materials, such as the Shroud of Turin. This talk will explain in laymen's terms how radiometric dating works and provide a few examples of application.
4:45pm-5:00pm Door prize draw