Fall 2006 Seminars
Seminars are held on Tuesdays, 3:45-4:45pm in SB110, unless otherwise noted. Meet at 3:30 in SB157 for refreshments (refreshments are available even on Tuesdays with no seminar!). See Calvin's Visitor Resources for maps and directions to the Science Building.
| Date | Title | Speaker |
Tuesday, September 12 (in North Hall room 078) |
Development of a Fourier Technique for Automated Spiral Galaxy Morphology |
Andrew Butler (student) |
Tuesday, September 12 (in North Hall room 078) |
Chris Beaumont (student) | |
Friday, September 22; 2:30 PM. Engineering Seminar (in Gezon Auditorium) |
Energy: Our Responsibility | Dr. Sigval M. Berg, Executive Vice President at the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) in Atlanta, GA. |
Tuesday, September 26 (in Science Building 110) |
Prof. Matt Walhout, Ross Norman (student), and Dan VandenAkker (student) | |
Tuesday,October 10 (in Science Building 110) |
Investigating the Role of RhoA in the Development of Nerve Cell Electrical Excitability |
Prof. Loren Haarsma and David Will (student) |
Tuesday, October 17 (in Science Building 010) |
Asteroids Up Close and Personal | Prof. Daniel J. Scheeres, University of Michigan Aerospace Engineering Dept. |
Friday, October 20, 3:30pm (in Science Building 110) |
Technology Research Jobs Opportunities talk: |
Dr. Matthew J. Vanderhill; Staff Scientist, M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory |
Tuesday, November 7 (in Science Building 110) |
A Classical Description of Double Ionization of Helium by Intense Laser Light |
Prof. Stan Haan, Armin Karim (student), and Zach Smith (student) |
| Tuesday, November 14
(in Science Building 110) |
Determining the Physical Properties of an Eclipsing Binary Star System |
Prof. Larry Molnar, John VanderHeide (student), and Jessie Taylor (student) |
| Tuesday, November 21 (part 1) (in Science Building 110) |
Jessie Taylor (student) | |
| Tuesday, November 21 (part 2) (in Science Building 110) |
John VanDyke (student) | |
| Tuesday, December 5
(in Science Building 110) |
Towards understanding membrane fusion: Experimental Studies of DEPE and Computer Simulations |
Prof. Paul Harper, Joshua VanderHill (student), and Jess Vriesema (student) |
September 12 (part 1) : Development of a Fourier Technique for Automated Spiral Galaxy Morphology
Andrew Butler, Calvin College
It has long been known that morphological classification of galaxies is a crucial foundation for understanding the physics of each galaxy type. This classification has historically been a matter of visually inspecting galaxy images and categorizing the galaxies in bins according to their appearance. Recently, however, more efficient, continuous and quantitatively meaningful classification methods have been required for insight into galaxy formation and evolution that must be gained from the ever-growing amount of data available to the astronomical community. Our goal was to develop an automated method of recognizing structures in spiral galaxies and to quantify their strength for classification purposes. I present a preliminary automated method of reconstructing select galaxy images from the Ohio State University Bright Spiral Galaxy Survey using two-dimensional Fourier models of galaxies.
September 12 (part 2) : Maser Emission and Star Formation in the Orion Nebula
Chris Beaumont, Calvin College
The Orion BN/KL region is a nearby star formation region, and a site of powerful maser (radio analog of laser) emission. These masers are centered on, and thought to be powered by, a massive young star. The research that I participated in involved analyzing data from these masers in an attempt to characterize the physical environments associated with massive star formation. In this talk I will discuss what masers are, how we can study masers with radio telescopes like the Very Large Array, and what this information can reveal about star formation processes.
September 22: Energy: Our Responsibility (Engineering Department seminar, Friday, 2:30 p.m. in Gezon Auditorium))
Dr. Sigval M. Berg, Executive Vice President at the Institute of Nuclear
Power Operations (INPO) in Atlanta, GA.
Responsible
management of the world's energy resources is essential if we are to
reconcile global human need, preserve the biosphere, and provide for
future generations. Energy issues are complex. Their solutions are
equally so, because of a unique confluence of technical, social,
economic, political and environmental factors. This seminar will briefly examine the need for energy resources
(including nuclear) and God's call to be responsible leaders and
managers of the world in which we live, and be faithful to the Lord whom
we serve, Jesus, the Christ.
September 26 : Methods for Producing Metastable Atoms
Ross Norman, Daniel VandenAkker, and Prof. Matt Walhout; Calvin College
Krypton atoms that are decelerated, cooled and trapped by laser light
are used in a variety of scientific applications. At Calvin College they
are used in studies of subtle quantum mechanical interactions, and at
Argonne National Labs (ANL) they serve as the basis for a new isotopic
dating technique. For these experiments to work, the atoms must start in
a particular energy state that is long-lasting (metastable) and interacts
strongly with laser light. While various methods exist for the efficient
excitation of this energy state, the work at ANL has introduced minimal
contamination as a new design constraint in the excitation method.
During the summer of 2006, Ross Norman, Dan VandenAkker and Prof. Matt
Walhout began a project that will allow different methods of
metastable-atom production to be compared systematically. In their
seminar talk, they will discuss the progress that they have made in
designing, building, and testing the experimental system, and they will
present some intriguing preliminary observations.
October 10: Investigating the Role of RhoA in the Development of Nerve Cell Electrical Excitability
David Will and Prof. Loren Haarsma; Calvin College
Stem cells have the ability to become other types of cells, including nerve cells. PC12 cells can be used to study this transition because, when cultured with Nerve Growth Factor (NGF), they become more nerve-like in at least three ways. (1) They stop dividing. (2) They grow long processes similar to axons and dendrites. (3) They become more electrically excitable. Previous research showed that if, prior to addition of NGF, PC12 cells are transfected with DNA which up-regulates the protein RhoA, the up-regulated RhoA prevents NGF from causing the first two changes. In our experiment, we used electrophysiology patch clamp techniques to study the third change, the development of electrical excitability. We found that up-regulating RhoA, perhaps surprisingly, did not prevent the increase in excitability caused by NGF, indicating that a different signaling molecule or pathway is involved with this change. In our talk, we’ll describe the techniques used to measure the cells’ electrical excitability, and we’ll discuss possible future experiments to further study the signaling pathways in this important transition.
October 17 : Asteroids Up Close and Personal
Prof. Daniel Scheeres, University of Michigan Aerospace Engineering Dept.
Over the last 15 years our scientific understanding of asteroids has
gone through a dramatic transformation, due both to spacecraft
missions to these bodies and to powerful new observational techniques
and instruments. The study of asteroids is of compelling scientific
interest, as they are thought to be remnants from the solar system's
formation, and of societal interest, as they occasionally impact with
the Earth. Recently two spacecraft paid extended visits to
asteroids: NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission to
asteroid Eros in 2000 and the Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa
(Falcon) mission to asteroid Itokawa in 2005. These missions have
revealed asteroids to be complex worlds, with their own versions of "oceans", "weather" and "seasons." This talk will discuss these
missions and present some of their dramatic findings. Also, some
very recent results on binary near-Earth asteroids will be shown.
October 20 : An Overview of Research at M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory
Dr. Matthew J. Vanderhill; Staff Scientist, M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory
MIT Lincoln Laboratory has pioneered in advanced electronics since its
origin in 1951 as a Federally Funded Research and Development Center of
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its fundamental mission is to
apply science and advanced technology to critical problems of national
security. The scope of the problems investigated has grown from the
initial emphasis on air defense to include communications, space
surveillance, missile defense, tactical surveillance, and air traffic
control. Throughout its history, the Laboratory has had an extensive
program in advanced electronics technology, which has supported the other
programs with state-of-the art sensors and processors. The laboratory's
approach to problem solving starts with concept development and then moves
through simulation and analysis, to the development of hardware with the
ultimate goal of demonstrating an integrated system in the field. This
presentation will provide a brief overview of the research conducted and
then describe what it is like to work at one of the nation's premiere
applied technology laboratories, what we offer as a workplace, and why you
might consider it for your first or a later professional position.
November 7 : A Classical Description of Double Ionization of Helium by Intense
Laser Light
Armin Karim , Zach Smith, and Prof. Stan Haan; Calvin College
We have employed computer models of ensembles of 400,000 "classical
atoms" to study the dynamics of double ionization of helium by intense
laser beams at 780 nm and 390 nm. This talk will review the technique and
our major findings. We find that--as expected--double ionization occurs
through recollision, in which one electron ionizes and is subsequently
impelled by the laser back to the positive ion where it smashes into the
other electron. We also find a previously unreported time delay between
the recollision and the final ionization; we use this time delay to
explain experimental results from around the world regarding final
electron momenta and energies.
November 14 : Determining the Physical Properties of an Eclipsing Binary Star System
John VanderHeide, Jessie Taylor, and Prof. Larry Molnar; Calvin College
One year ago we reported the discovery of a new, fully eclipsing binary
star system (known by the catalog number PPM 706067). Such systems are
valuable in astronomy because their main physical properties (the mass,
radius, and temperature of each star along with the orbital period and
separation of the stars) can with effort be determined independent of any
theory of stellar structure or assumptions about the system history.
This particular system was unusually interesting because it also showed
evidence of strong magnetic activity (starspots and X-ray emission).
Last spring, our collaborators and we made extensive measurements of the
spectrum and the brightness at many wavelengths. Our Rehoboth telescope alone
obtained nearly 15,000 images from which brightness could be determined. We
will show how analysis of these data lead to a set of physical properties for
the system. Furthermore, we will show evidence for substantial changes in the
magnetic activity over a timescale of months. Finally, we will suggest a
possible model for the system: how it got where it is, what it may do next, and
what we must do to test our ideas.
November 21 (part 1) : In Search of A Super Carbon Nanotube Supercapacitor
Jessie Taylor, Calvin College
In the past decade, an abundance of research has been done focusing on carbon nanotubes: their properties, production, and applications. One
such application is in the field of supercapacitors, where highly
porous electrodes, sometimes made of nanotubes, are combined with
electrolytes to produce capacitors with capacitances several orders of
magnitude greater than that of conventional capacitors. Recently,
researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a new way
to produce carbon nanotube aerogels, resulting in a material with,
theoretically, a much higher porosity than other CNT aerogels. Such a
high porosity should lead to high capacitances. My work this summer
focused on creating and studying a capacitor made with this gel. In
this talk, I will present the results of my research, placing it within
the context of research on supercapacitors and nanotubes.
November 21 (part 2) : Studies of An Ultracold Plasma
John Van Dyke, Calvin College
In the sun and in fusion reactors, plasmas (a gaseous state of matter in which some electrons are free to move from atom to atom) are quite hot. Ultracold plasmas form a newly accessible regime in plasma physics, thanks to advances in laser cooling and trapping of atoms. Cooled neutral atoms are stored in a magneto-optical trap (MOT), and then ionized by a laser pulse. The dynamic evolution of the plasma is studied as the atom cloud expands into the vacuum. In this talk, I will explain the basic techniques used to create an ultracold xenon plasma as well as some of the results and on-going work by the University of Maryland’s Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics group.
December 5 : Towards understanding membrane fusion:
Experimental Studies of DEPE and Computer Simulations
Joshua VanderHill, Jess Vriesema, and Prof. Paul Harper; Calvin College
Understanding how membranes fuse is of fundamental importance to understanding cell fusion, viral infection, and inter-membrane transport.
Also, there has been a growing awareness that fats with cis double bonds are
preferable to fats with trans double bonds. We use laser light scattering to
make measurements of a model membrane system composed of DEPE, a phospholipid
which has trans double bonds in its tail, and compare its behavior to DOPE,
which is identical, except for having cis double bonds in its tails. We also
construct ultra-coarse grained simulations of lipid membranes and show some
preliminary results.
