Our Extraterrestrial DNA

in Life, Physics, Video - Science | August 17th, 2011

The search for extrater­res­tri­al life brings us right back to where we start­ed, plan­et Earth, at least for a moment. NASA researchers have dis­cov­ered evi­dence that some build­ing blocks of DNA, the mol­e­cule that holds the genet­ic instruc­tions for life, were like­ly cre­at­ed in space and then brought to Earth by mete­orites, leav­ing behind a “kit of ready-made parts” that con­tributed to the ori­gin of life. All of this gets spelled out by Dr. Michael Calla­han in this video released last week by NASA’s God­dard Space Flight Cen­ter.

If you still find your­self doubt­ing our extrater­res­tri­al ori­gins, then chew on this more basic fact under­scored by physi­cist Lawrence Krauss. We are all star­dust. Put sim­ply, every lit­tle atom in our bod­ies comes from a super­no­va, an explod­ing star…

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter, and we’ll deliv­er great cul­ture right to your vir­tu­al doorstep, day in, day out.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

50 Famous Scientists & Academics Speak About God: Part II

in Religion, Science, Video - Science | August 15th, 2011

Last month, Jonathan Parara­jas­ing­ham cre­at­ed a mon­tage of 50 renowned aca­d­e­mics, includ­ing many Nobel prize win­ners, talk­ing about their thoughts on the exis­tence of God. And boy did it gen­er­ate some debate. (Watch the video and read the com­ments here.) Now comes Part II, which fea­tures George Lakoff, Richard Dawkins, Simon Schaf­fer, Patri­cia Church­land, and Michio Kaku, among oth­ers. The full list appears below the jump. (Click “more.”) You can find this video, along with the first video in the series, in our col­lec­tion of Great Sci­ence Videos.

(more…)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 10 ) |

Planet of the Apes: A Species Misunderstood

in Film, Video - Science | August 12th, 2011

The Plan­et of the Apes film fran­chise began back in 1968, and it enjoyed a good run dur­ing the 1970s. Now Hol­ly­wood hopes to reboot the series with the release of Rise of the Plan­et of the Apes, a new film star­ring James Fran­co, Frei­da Pin­to, John Lith­gow and Andy Serkis. You don’t need to watch the film to get the gist of the plot: Chimps pow­ered by a genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered retro­virus go wild and start tak­ing over the world. Watch the trail­er and see for your­self.

At Emory Uni­ver­si­ty, Thomas Gille­spie, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Pub­lic Health and Bio­di­ver­si­ty Con­ser­va­tion, has turned the block­buster release into a good teach­ing moment. In this five minute video, Gille­spie dis­cuss­es the real char­ac­ter­is­tics of this often mis­un­der­stood species, cov­er­ing every­thing from their real tem­pera­ment to their breed­ing habits and com­mon social struc­tures. Take a look and get the real­i­ty behind the fic­tion.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

The Moon Up Close, in HD

in Astronomy, Video - Science | August 11th, 2011

For the past two years, NASA’s Lunar Recon­nais­sance Orbiter (LRO) has been orbit­ing the Moon, gath­er­ing data that will help astro­nauts pre­pare for long-dura­tion expe­di­tions to the lunar sur­face, and even­tu­al­ly push fur­ther into the “infi­nite fron­tier of space.” (Read more about the big pic­ture plan here.)

As part of this mis­sion, the LRO has trav­eled approx­i­mate­ly 50 kilo­me­ters (31 miles) above the Moon, cre­at­ing a 3‑D map of the lunar sur­face. And now we’re receiv­ing images that show us the Moon in unprece­dent­ed detail and focus. The val­leys. The craters. The des­o­late sur­face. They’re all there, as nev­er seen before, in HD.

This strik­ing clip oth­er­wise appears in our col­lec­tion of 125 Great Sci­ence Videos.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tour­ing the Earth from Space (in HD)

The Best of NASA Space Shut­tle Videos (1981–2010)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Pendulum Waves as Kinetic Art

in Physics, Video - Science | August 9th, 2011

This Har­vard-pro­duced video has gone viral, and then some, hav­ing clocked more than 3,000,000 views. We’ve watched the pen­du­lum balls swirl, mov­ing almost impos­si­bly from pat­tern to pat­tern, and we’ve remained daz­zled all along. But the mechan­ics behind this chore­o­graphed action haven’t real­ly been brought to the fore. So let’s turn to Har­vard’s web site to under­stand how this kinet­ic art works:

The peri­od of one com­plete cycle of the dance is 60 sec­onds. The length of the longest pen­du­lum has been adjust­ed so that it exe­cutes 51 oscil­la­tions in this 60 sec­ond peri­od. The length of each suc­ces­sive short­er pen­du­lum is care­ful­ly adjust­ed so that it exe­cutes one addi­tion­al oscil­la­tion in this peri­od. Thus, the 15th pen­du­lum (short­est) under­goes 65 oscil­la­tions. When all 15 pen­du­lums are start­ed togeth­er, they quick­ly fall out of sync—their rel­a­tive phas­es con­tin­u­ous­ly change because of their dif­fer­ent peri­ods of oscil­la­tion. How­ev­er, after 60 sec­onds they will all have exe­cut­ed an inte­gral num­ber of oscil­la­tions and be back in sync again at that instant, ready to repeat the dance.

We’re adding this clip to our col­lec­tion of 125 Great Sci­ence Videos. You’ll also find a good num­ber of Physics cours­es in our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Astonish Me: A Magical Mystery Through Nature’s Hidden Secrets

in Film, Video - Science | August 8th, 2011

The World Wildlife Fund turns 50 this year, and, to mark the occa­sion, the acclaimed drama­tist Stephen Poli­akoff and direc­tor Charles Stur­ridge have teamed up to shoot ‘Aston­ish Me,’ a short, mag­i­cal tale that reminds us of the many mys­ter­ies nature still con­ceals.

Every year, sci­en­tists dis­cov­er some­where in the neigh­bor­hood of 15,000 new species. (See some of the most intrigu­ing recent ones here.) But this could all dis­ap­pear if we don’t pay more atten­tion to con­ser­va­tion. Every­one who worked on the film — from actors to film crew — did so for free. The action takes place in London’s Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Richard Feynman: The Likelihood of Flying Saucers

in Physics, Video - Science | August 2nd, 2011

Richard Feyn­man was a once in a gen­er­a­tion intel­lec­tu­al. He had no short­age of brains. (In 1965, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quan­tum elec­tro­dy­nam­ics.) He had charis­ma. (Wit­ness this out­take from his 1964 Cor­nell physics lec­tures avail­able here.) He knew how to make sci­ence and aca­d­e­m­ic thought avail­able, even enter­tain­ing, to a broad­er pub­lic. (We’ve high­light­ed two pub­lic TV pro­grams host­ed by Feyn­man here and here.) And he knew how to have fun. The clip above brings it all togeth­er. Hope you enjoy, and don’t miss our col­lec­tion of Great Sci­ence Videos, or many free physics cours­es in our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

Richard Dawkins’ Uncut Interviews with Peter Singer & Big Thinkers

in Philosophy, Video - Science | July 29th, 2011

In 2008, the evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gist Richard Dawkins pre­sent­ed The Genius of Charles Dar­win, a three-part doc­u­men­tary that was lat­er named “Best TV Doc­u­men­tary Series” at the British Broad­cast Awards. Dur­ing the film­ing of the pro­gram, Dawkins inter­viewed var­i­ous experts — biol­o­gists, philoso­phers, cler­gy­man, evo­lu­tion­ary psy­chol­o­gists, etc. — and wound up with 18 hours of raw footage. Some of the uncut inter­views have now made their way online (as well as DVD), and we’re high­light­ing a few today.

Above, Dawkins spends a good while with Peter Singer, the Prince­ton philoso­pher, oth­er­wise known as the Father of the Ani­mal Rights Move­ment. The wide-rang­ing con­ver­sa­tion con­tin­u­al­ly comes back to ani­mal rights and veg­e­tar­i­an­ism and why Dar­win­ism lends sup­port to both. The best part comes toward the end, when Singer tells Dawkins (a meat eater), “I have assim­i­lat­ed Dar­win on this issue bet­ter than you have because .… you’re still influ­enced by these ves­tiges of reli­gious belief that sep­a­rate us from the ani­mals.…” Dawkins out-Dawkinsed.

Oth­er uncut inter­views fea­ture con­ver­sa­tions with Steven Pinker, Daniel Den­nett, and Craig Ven­ter.

Relat­ed note: We’d like to thank RichardDawkins.net for re-broad­cast­ing our post ear­li­er this week: 50 Famous Aca­d­e­mics & Sci­en­tists Talk About God

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.