Is Morality Hardwired in Us?

in Science | January 29th, 2008

Is moral­i­ty a sixth sense that’s in all of us, and is it per­haps a prod­uct of our bio­log­i­cal evo­lu­tion? Writ­ing recent­ly in The New York Times Mag­a­zine, Har­vard psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor Steven Pinker sug­gests that moral­i­ty may well be hard­wired. And he points to fas­ci­nat­ing new research that backs up this belief. Pinker’s arti­cle cov­ers pret­ty much the same ground as does this engag­ing Radio Lab pod­cast (MP3 — iTunes — Feed — Web Site). Tak­ing an hour-long look at the “sci­ence of moral­i­ty,” the pro­gram gets into some fas­ci­nat­ing stuff. It gets into the great Trol­ley moral dilem­ma, into what brain scans (MRI’s) reveal when human brains grap­ple with moral ques­tions, and into how sci­en­tists think that we inher­it­ed moral instincts from our pri­mate ances­tors. You’ll learn all about how moral­i­ty is our “inner chimp.” If this is not enough, you can also lis­ten to Pinker’s inter­view yes­ter­day on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Get it here.

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Cha-Cha-Changes: Politicians Sing Bowie

in Current Affairs | January 29th, 2008

You need to give it a minute:

via The Dai­ly Dish

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Turn Your iPod into a Travel Guide: 20 Travel Podcasts

in Podcasts | January 27th, 2008


Over the past year, we’ve seen a steady sup­ply of new trav­el pod­casts com­ing online. Some are pro­duced by the pub­lish­ers of major trav­el guides; oth­ers by pas­sion­ate indi­vid­ual trav­el­ers. Many are in video, some even in HD. These pod­casts will gen­er­al­ly help you trav­el much more knowl­edge­ably. And, in most cas­es, they’ll say some­thing about a trav­el des­ti­na­tion that a tra­di­tion­al guide nev­er could. This col­lec­tion will grow over time. You can find it housed per­ma­nent­ly in our Pod­cast Library locat­ed on the top right of each page. (There you can also find our col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons, which will be handy, too, for your trav­els.)
  • A Year in Europe iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A well reviewed pod­cast. “Scott and Sheryl quit their jobs and sold their home. Now they’re on a year-long excur­sion through Europe where they’re explor­ing the places they’ve read about and dreamed of vis­it­ing. Fol­low them on their jour­ney as they expe­ri­ence the cul­tures, art and his­to­ry they find fas­ci­nat­ing.”
  • Ama­teur Trav­el Pod­cast — Video iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Focus­es on trav­el sto­ries with a dash of trav­el news, trav­el tips and trav­el resources. And, yes, as the title sug­gests, it’s in video.
  • Antho­ny Bour­dain — No Reser­va­tions iTunes Web Site
    • Pro­duced by the Trav­el Chan­nel, this video pod­cast com­bines trav­el with the love of food.
  • Beau­ti­ful Places (iPod/iTunes) iTunes Down­load Web Site
    • This video pod­cast focus­es on the great out­doors. Des­ti­na­tions explored here include Big Sur, Yosemite, Rocky Moun­tain Nation­al Park, etc. You can find an HD ver­sion of the pod­cast here.
  • Big in Tai­wan HD iTunes Feed Web Site
    • These videos high­light the peo­ple, cul­ture, sights & sounds of Tai­wan.
  • Copen­hagen Pod­walks iTunes Web Site
    • Pod­casts that will get you around Den­mark’s cap­i­tal.
  • Dis­cov­er France with Sebastien iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Gives you a good look at French towns. In video.
  • Find­ing Amer­i­ca iTunes Feed Web Site
    • See the real Amer­i­ca in video. Trav­el every major road in the USA and see the coun­try from some­thing oth­er than a glossy, man­u­fac­tured per­spec­tive.
  • From­mer’s Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Trav­el info from Kel­ly Regan, edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor of From­mer’s Trav­el Guides, and David Lytle, edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor of Frommers.com. So far audio only. (It’s curi­ous that the big pub­lish­ers are pro­duc­ing less dynam­ic pod­casts than the small guys are.)
  • Inside Grand Canyon iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Learn about Grand Canyon Nation­al Park with a park ranger as your guide. This is a video pod­cast.
  • iPod Trav­el­er iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Two Lon­don­ers give you their per­son­al look at Europe. This audio pod­cast was dis­con­tin­ued in 2007, but the exten­sive archive remains.
  • Italy From the Inside iTunes Web Site
    • A native Ital­ian tells first-time trav­el­ers how to make the most of Italy. Some in audio; some in video.
  • Let’s Trav­el Radio iTunes Feed Web Site
    • An inter­net trav­el radio show that takes you to the four cor­ners of the world. Fea­tures talks with glo­be­trot­ters, artists, chefs and musi­cians.
  • Lone­ly Plan­et Trav­el­casts iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Pro­duced by one of the lead­ing trav­el guide pub­lish­ers, these pod­casts are very inter­na­tion­al in scope. Audio only.
  • Lon­don Land­scape TV HD iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A visu­al HD guide to the great city of Lon­don.
  • Saman­tha Brown: Pass­port to Latin Amer­i­ca iTunes Web Site
    • Pro­duced by the Trav­el Chan­nel, this well-reviewed video pod­cast often focus­es on Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca, which is some­thing that’s hard to find .… at least so far.
  • The Trav­el Des­ti­na­tion Pod­cast: Tips for Trav­el­ers iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Unabellav­ista: How to Tour Italy iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Learn about Italy’s art, his­to­ry, archi­tec­ture, food, and lan­guage. In audio.
  • Walks of a Life­time iTunes Feed Web Site
    • Pro­duced by Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Trav­el­er. “Stroll across the world, from crowd­ed city cen­ters to rus­tic coun­try routes, with trav­el expert Rudy Maxa in Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Trav­el­er mag­a­zine’s selec­tion of the world’s great­est walk­ing tours.” In audio.
  • Wash­ing­ton Trav­el­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A week­ly walk­ing tour of the US capi­tol.

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The Subprime Mortgage Meltdown Satirically Explained

in Comedy | January 26th, 2008

Fun­ny but part­ly instruc­tive.…

via Val­ley­wag

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Stay in Bed & Grow Your Hair: John Lennon and Yoko Ono Protesting the Vietnam War

in Music | January 25th, 2008

This looks like it’s the real deal — Yoko Ono’s trib­ute to John Lennon on YouTube. Among the video clips housed in the col­lec­tion, you’ll find footage that recap­tures the “bed-ins” that John and Yoko famous­ly staged in Mon­tre­al and Ams­ter­dam in 1969 to protest the Viet­nam War. As Lennon puts it, there’s no bet­ter way to protest the war than to “stay in bed and grow your hair.” That’s a form of protest that the lost slack­er in me can appre­ci­ate.

The footage is accom­pa­nied by the song, “Give Peace a Chance,” which was writ­ten dur­ing the bed-in. It was fol­lowed lat­er that year by “War is Over! If You Want It — Hap­py Christ­mas From John and Yoko.” The heart­break­ing YouTube video set to this song has over one mil­lion views.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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Earthrise & Earthset in HD

in Science, Video - Science | January 23rd, 2008

In Novem­ber, Japan’s Kaguya space­craft orbit­ed the moon with a high-def cam­era onboard. You can see the first HD footage of an “earth­rise” and “earth­set” by check­ing out these still images (Earth­rise and Earth­set) or watch­ing the video footage below, which has also been added to our YouTube playlist.

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Obama Speaks at Martin Luther King’s Church

in Current Affairs | January 23rd, 2008

The cel­e­bra­tion of Mar­tin Luther King’s birth­day was a lit­tle dif­fer­ent this year. It had a polit­i­cal edge to it, and unavoid­ably so. Dr. King’s work made pos­si­ble what we’re final­ly see­ing today — a black can­di­date mak­ing a seri­ous run at the Amer­i­can pres­i­den­cy. So it seemed entire­ly appro­pri­ate that Barack Oba­ma spoke Sun­day before the con­gre­ga­tion at Ebenez­er Bap­tist Church in Atlanta, where MLK preached long ago. In this 34-minute speech, you get a per­fect reminder of King’s lega­cy and also a stump speech deliv­ered in an ora­tor­i­cal style that King would appre­ci­ate. The video clip below has been viewed close to 450,000 times on YouTube. It’s also been added to our YouTube playlist.

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A Slew of New Audiobooks (for Free)

in Audio Books | January 23rd, 2008

Lib­rivox is on a roll late­ly. Since Decem­ber, the provider of free, pub­lic domain audio­books has released a num­ber of clas­sic works on audio. Below, we’ve list­ed some of the high­lights, which we’ve also includ­ed in our Audio­Book Pod­cast Col­lec­tion. (Here, you’ll also find free audio­books by oth­er providers.) For Lib­rivox’s com­plete cat­a­logue, click here.

2 B R 0 2 B, Kurt Von­negut (MP3 File)

A Child’s His­to­ry of Eng­land, Charles Dick­ens (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3s)

A Short His­to­ry of the Unit­ed States by Edward Chan­ning (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

Hans Brinker by Mary Mapes Dodge, (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

His­to­ry of the Unit­ed States, Vol. IV, Charles Beard (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

Med­i­ta­tions on First Phi­los­o­phy, Rene Descartes (Full Zip - Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

The His­to­ry of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. II, Edward Gib­bon (The Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3s)

The Life of Charle­magne, Ein­hard (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual Files)

The Mas­ter of the World, Jules Verne (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual Files)

The Prob­lems of Phi­los­o­phy, Bertrand Rus­sell (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

The Three Mus­ke­teers, Alexan­dre Dumas (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual MP3 Files)

The Works of Tac­i­tus (Full Zip — Indi­vid­ual Files)

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