Institute of Philosophy
London, UK
Oct 15th, 2007
Steven Pinker discusses the Games People Play: Indirect Speech as a Window into Social Relationships
Steven Pinker: Games People Play - FORA.tv
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Our Mind,
Societies and Cultures
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Denver, CO
Jan 17th, 2008
Michael Shermer discusses his newest book The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics.
Psychologist Michael Shermer, the author of nine previous books, including the bestselling Why People Believe Weird Things, is a columnist for Scientific American, the publisher of Skeptic magazine, and the founder and director of the international Skeptics Society - Tattered Cover
Michael Shermer: The Mind of the Market | Business - FORA.tv
Institute of Ideas
London, UK, Oct 28th, 2007
Battle of Ideas: My Brain Made Me Do It at the 2007 Battle of Ideas conference hosted by the Institute of Ideas.
With the politics of behaviour in the ascendancy, there is increasing interest in what science can tell us about why people behave the way they do. The British government is funding the creation of the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners, with the express aim of training a 'parenting workforce' to provide science-based child-rearing advice to parents. In the USA, the MRI scanner and the neuroscientific community are entering the court room to give evidence about whether defendants can be regarded as being responsible for their alleged crimes. UK policymakers cite scientific 'evidence' to explain new interventions on everything from early years' education to the alleged impact of school dinners on academic performance. The science of nutrition now informs earnest discussions about how children's diets improve their classroom behaviour, in order to justify policing lunchboxes and putting school meals at the top of the political agenda. Studies of teenage brain development now regularly inform social debates about the impact of new technologies on young people.
But how much can science tell us about behaviour? Do scientific findings justify the government's many interventions into the early years of children's lives? Should neuroscience enjoy an exalted place in the courtroom? Are policies being developed because of genuine advances in scientific knowledge - or is science being (mis)used, perhaps in the place of political conviction, to justify policies?
Battle of Ideas: My Brain Made Me Do It - FORA.tv
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Our Brain
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Corte Madera, CA, Nov 17th, 2006
Louann Brizendine talks about The Female Brain.
Brizendine established the first clinic in the country to study and treat women's brain functions. This revolutionary book combines two decades of her work and the latest information from the scientific community to provide a truly comprehensive look at the way women's minds work. Marilyn Yalom says An eye-opening account of the biological foundations of human behavior. Destined to become a classic in the field of gender studies. - Book Passage
The Female Brain - FORA.tv
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Our Brain
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The Long Now Foundation
Cowell Theater - San Francisco, CA
Oct 13th, 2006
Zooming Out in Time
The graphs we see these days, John Baez began, all look vertical...carbon burning shooting up, CO2 in the air shooting up, global temperature shooting up, and population still shooting up. How can we understand what's really going on? "It's like trying to understand geology while you're hanging by your fingernails on a cliff, scared to death. You think all geology is vertical?"
So, zoom out for some perspective. An Earth temperature graph for the last 18,000 years shows that we've built a false sense of security from 10,000 years of unusually stable climate. Even so, a "little dent" in the graph of a drop of only 1 degree Celsius put Europe in a what's called "the little ice age" from 1555 to 1850. It ended just when industrial activity took off, which raises the question whether it was us that ended it - The Long Now Foundation
Zooming Out in Time - FORA.tv
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Climate Change,
Forums - LongNow.Org
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Cody's Books, Berkeley, CA. Oct 14th, 2006
Jane Poynter tells the story of The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2.
In September 1991, four men and four women sealed themselves inside a miniature replica of Planet Earth called Biosphere 2. They promised to live cut off from the outside world for two years. Nothing would go in or out of their three-acre terrarium - no food, no water, not even air. They would survive on the food they grew, the water they recycled, and the oxygen they created. Now, for the first time, one of those crewmembers tells the inside story of what really happened at the controversial, $250-million project. Some called the experiment a fraud and its proponents a cult. Dr. Jane Goodall calls Poynter's account "a fantastic adventure into the heart of one of the most innovative experiments of the past 30 years." Poynter recounts a life inside Biosphere 2 far from the new Eden proponents had envisioned - hunger, sickness, psychological stress, and shattered friendships were common, combined with celebrations and moments of great joy.
Jane Poynter: Inside the Biosphere - FORA.tv
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Science and Tech
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Politics and Prose
Washington, D.C.
Nov 4th, 2006
The Naked Brain
Each time neuropsychiatrist Restak visits with a new book, we learn more about the exciting findings being made in neurology. In his new book, Restak writes about social neuroscience, the interaction between our brains' hard wiring and our social relationships -
The Naked Brain - FORA.tv
The Long Now Foundation. San Francisco, CA
Aug 17th, 2007
Glut: Mastering Information Though the Ages with Alex Wright speaking at a seminar hosted by The Long Now Foundation.
Alex Wright is a writer and information architect who currently works for the New York Times. His first book, "Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages" is an impressive survey on how societies have dealt with information overload through time. As an information architect, Alex has led projects for The New York Times, IBM, Microsoft, Harvard University, our own Rosetta Project, the Internet Archive, Yahoo!, Macromedia and Sun Microsystems, among others - The Long Now Foundation
Glut: Mastering Information Though the Ages - FORA.tv
PICNIC Network
Westergas, Amsterdam
Sep 28th, 2007
Dick Hardt discusses Identity 2.0: Who Are We Now?
Enjoy this introduction on Identity 2.0 and how the concept of digital identity is evolving - This fast-paced talk will provide perspectives on what is identity, where we are today and what might happen in the future -
Identity 2.0: Who Are We Now? - FORA.tv
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Science and Tech,
Web
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The Long Now Foundation, San Francisco, CA. Oct 12th, 2007
Mapping the Frontier of Knowledge with Juan Enriquez speaking at a seminar hosted by The Long Now Foundation.
Enriquez has a world-class collection of historic maps made at the very point of discovery. He will deploy them for the first time in one of his dazzling presentations, to examine how we image and imagine what we are exploring, and thus image and imagine exploration itself. Enriquez is author of As the Future Catches You and The Untied States of America, and CEO and Chair of Biotechonomy, a life sciences research and investment firm - The Long Now Foundation
Juan Enriquez: Mapping the Frontier of Knowledge - FORA.tv
The Long Now Foundation. C owell Theater - San Francisco, CA. Mar 10th, 2006
The Next 100 Years of Science: Long-term Trends in the Scientific Method with Kevin Kelly.
The co-founding editor of "Wired" magazine and author of "Out of Control" is working on a new book on "what technology wants." His research led to the first-ever history of scientific methodology. Starting from this long-term view of science's past transformation, he speculates on how the practice of science will change in the future.
Science, says Kevin Kelly, is the process of changing how we know things. It is the foundation our culture and society. While civilizations come and go, science grows steadily onward. It does this by watching itself.Recursion is the essence of science. For example, science papers cite other science papers, and that process of research pointing at itself invokes a whole higher level, the emergent shape of citation space. Recursion always does that. It is the engine of scientific progress and thus of the progress of society.
A particularly fruitful way to look at the history of science is to study how science itself has changed over time, with an eye to what that trajectory might suggest about the future. Kelly chronicled a sequence of new recursive devices in science - The Long Now Foundation
The Next 100 Years of Science - FORA.tv
Long Now Foundation, San Francisco, CA. Oct 10th, 2005
The Difficulty of Looking Far Ahead
Esther, Freeman, and George Dyson discuss the difficulty in looking ahead.
This talk took place in the Conference Center Golden Gate Room, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco.
The Difficulty of Looking Far Ahead
About this Talk
"Can we create new life out of our digital universe?" asks Craig Venter. And his answer is, yes, and pretty soon. He walks the TED2008 audience through his latest research into "fourth-generation fuels" -- biologically created fuels with CO2 as their feedstock. His talk covers the details of creating brand-new chromosomes using digital technology, the reasons why we would want to do this, and the bioethics of synthetic life. A fascinating Q&A with TED's Chris Anderson follows (two words: suicide genes).
Why you should listen to him:
Craig Venter, the man who led the private effort to sequence the human genome, is hard at work now on even more potentially world-changing projects.
First, there's his mission aboard the Sorcerer II, a 92-foot yacht, which, in 2006, finished its voyage around the globe to sample, catalouge and decode the genes of the ocean's unknown microorganisms. Quite a task, when you consider that there are tens of millions of microbes in a single drop of sea water. Then there's the J. Craig Venter Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to researching genomics and exploring its societal implications.
In 2005, Venter founded Synthetic Genomics, a private company with a provocative mission: to engineer new life forms. Its goal is to design, synthesize and assemble synthetic microorganisms that will produce alternative fuels, such as ethanol or hydrogen. He was on Time magzine's 2007 list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
In early 2008, scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute announced that they had manufactured the entire genome of a bacterium by painstakingly stitching together its chemical components. By sequencing a genome, scientists can begin to custom-design bootable organisms, creating biological robots that can produce from scratch chemicals humans can use, such as biofuel.
"Either he is one of this era's most electrifying scientists, or he's one of the most maddening." Washington Post
TED | Talks | Craig Venter: On the verge of creating synthetic life (video)
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Forums - TED Talks
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About this Talk
Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.
Brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor studied her own stroke as it happened -- and has become a powerful voice for brain recovery.
Why you should listen to her:
One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor's brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness ...
Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the "Singin' Scientist."
"How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I've gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career."
Jill Bolte Taylor
TED | Talks | Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight (video)
This is what an observer on the Moon would see if she stared at the Earth for roughly fifteen days. It really does make you wonder what Selenite astronomy would be like.
This was made with Celestia with the start date as 1 October 2006. Note that as the Earth stays in the center of image, libration is not visible, except in the motion of the stars.
YouTube - Earth from the Moon
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Space
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Armstrong describes what parts of Earth he saw while orbiting the Moon
YouTube - Earth viewed from the moon by Neil Armstrong
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Our Real Blue Dot,
Space
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This is my Hurricane Hugo chase video. The footage was taken during Hugo's landfall on the northeast tip of Puerto Rico at Luquillo. In my 25 years of hurricane chasing, this remains, overall, the best footage I have ever been fortunate enough to capture. Though I have been in stronger hurricanes, given that Hugo was a Category Four and the strongest portion of the eyewall passed directly over my location (during daylight hours), I had the rare opportunity to document the full force of an intense hurricane at a direct coastal location. Though significant damage begins about 8 minutes into the video, the peak winds occur between 10 through 21 minutes in, and are sustained near 135mph with gusts to 160-170mph. An anemometer on the island of Culebra (just offshore Eastern Puerto Rico) reported a peak gust of 170mph when the same portion of the eyewall passed over that location a couple of hours prior to reaching Luquillo.
YouTube - Hurricane Hugo - Luquillo, Puerto Rico - September 18, 1989
SPACE WEEK immerses viewers in the ambitious, cutting-edge science of space exploration. SPACE WEEK launches Sunday, May 6, with the network premiere of SPACE STATION AND BEYOND, and returns to Earth's surface on Saturday, May 12.
YouTube - Space Week -- View From A Space Station
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Our Real Blue Dot,
Space - NASA
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The crewmembers aboard the space station took a short break Saturday to get a look at the storm from their vantage point. Even from space, the storm expected to reach the Gulf of Mexico Aug. 21 and gain strength as a potential Cat 5 storm, impresses the crew with its size.
YouTube - 'Holy Smokes' Hurricane Dean from Space
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Nature things,
Space - NASA
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STS-117 - ATLANTIS - ISS DOCKING (INSIDE SPACE SHUTTLE) NASA TV
YouTube - STS-117 - ATLANTIS - ISS DOCKING (INSIDE SPACE SHUTTLE)
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Space - NASA
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STS-117 - ATLANTIS UNDOCKS FROM ISS - VIEW OF ISS CAMERA (NASA TV)
YouTube - STS-117 - ATLANTIS UNDOCKS FROM ISS - VIEW OF ISS CAMERA
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Space - NASA
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Expedition 16 Spaceflight Participant Soyuz Launch (NASA TV)
YouTube - Expedition 16 Soyuz Launch
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Space - NASA
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