Axis of Evil: Christopher Hitchens

Acclaimed writer and political scholar Christopher Hitchens may just be the only writer to have recently visited Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Hitchens - known for his keen wit, sharp political insight and often controversial opinions - examines the differences between the countries once linked as the "axis of evil," while revealing intriguing connections between the nations.

How We Staged the Morristown UFO Hoax

How We Staged the Morristown UFO Hoax
Joe Rudy and Chris Russo

In this video, Chris and Joe show the supplies used to construct their UFOs and try to verify the dates and times to prove they, in fact, set up the balloons.



In this video, Chris and Joe let go of the flares in the woods. The first part shows their test launch on January 4, 2009.



In this video, you'll see the reactions of eyewitnesses to the "UFOs", plus various clips from news programs, footage from an "Alien Sale" at a car dealership, and the producers' final thoughts on the experiment
The Reactions - 29:06

Douglas Adams - Conversations

Douglas Adams - Conversations

Juan Enriquez: Beyond the crisis, mindboggling science and the arrival of Homo evolutis

About this talk
Even as mega-banks topple, Juan Enriquez says the big reboot is yet to come. But don't look for it on your ballot -- or in the stock exchange. It'll come from science labs, and it promises keener bodies and minds. Our kids are going to be ... different.
About Juan Enriquez
Juan Enriquez thinks and writes about the profound changes that genomics and other life sciences will cause in business, technology, politics and society.

Time - A Documentary

In this four-programme series, string theory pioneer Michio Kaku goes on an extraordinary exploration of the world in search of time. He discovers our sense of time passing and the clocks that drive our bodies. He reveals the forces of time that make and destroy us in a lifetime. He journeys to some of the Earth's most spectacular geological sites to look for clues to the extraordinary depths of time at a planetary level. Finally, he takes us on a cosmic journey in search of the beginning (and the end) of time itself.




PART ONE - Daytime
We humans seem to run to the beat of time, often without being aware of how this is the case or how our perception of it may differ from another person's, from nature's rhythms or from our own internal clock. In the first episode of the series, string theory pioneer Michio Kaku witnesses one of the most extraordinary feats of timing in nature on a remote Californian beach.




We also meet a French caver who spent months in complete isolation to see what would happen to his sense of time - and discovered that we have an internal clock that drives our days. Michio self-experiments by being monitored over 24 hours to see how this clock shapes his whole body chemistry. And we test a family with a rare disease to uncover the very roots of the body clock itself.

Where does our sense of time passing come from? We all know it's critical - as comedians demonstrate at a Soho comedy club. Michio discovers this critical timer (the stopwatch) in a brain-scan experiment at Duke University. It seems that this 'sense' of time is plastic: crash victims report that time seems to slow under extreme stress. We conduct a unique experiment to test this - by dropping someone 150 feet. Meanwhile, back at Duke an experiment with cocaine and marijuana on rats reveals the chemical process by which our sense of time is altered.

But time for us is even more than this. We have a unique knowledge of time. We 'know' past and future. It's an ability shared by no other animals... apart from a special few. King the Gorilla demonstrates his awareness of time to researchers in Miami. We meet a man with no memory and reveal how much we depend on being able to place ourselves in time. This special awareness of time raises some of the most important questions about time itself: Why does it only flow in one direction? Why can't we stop it, see it or hold it? And if it so elusive, then is it real or just a figment of our minds?

PART TWO - Lifetime
Why is our time limited? And does it have to be? Could our age-old dream of immortality ever be possible? In episode two, Michio Kaku explores these questions and meets some of the key people involved in the cutting-edge research into ageing. He travels to the amazing Methuselah tree, which is almost 5000 years old and still producing new pine cones. He discovers that time does get faster as you get older and, under hypnosis, he goes in search of his lost time, stored as memories. But it only proves that lost time is really gone forever.




We are incredible machines for living - but if we're programmed to live, are we also programmed to die? As we grow, our cells divide into a complex colony of three trillion individual cells in our bodies. Sir Paul Nurse has spent a lifetime studying cells to search for the most basic process of life - the secret of cell division. We discover that cells seem to be potentially immortal. They continue to divide again and again perfectly. Even our own bodies are replaced through our lives - most of our cells are replaced in a roughly seven-year cycle. Yet we know that we age and that time wreaks changes on our bodies.

This episode reveals the biological changes in our cells that make our skin wrinkle and our bones become brittle. This new understanding is beginning to reveal the process of time in our bodies and, through this, scientists are now looking at ways of slowing or even stopping time. Scientists in California are studying sea urchins for clues as they not only live longer than ever thought before but they appear to show no sign of ageing. Genetic manipulation is extending the lives of mice. And a British scientist is now suggesting that the pace of advance is so fast that the first immortals are already living today; that before our children have reached the end of their natural lives, the technology to stop and even reverse ageing will exist. But what will that mean for our essential humanity?

PART THREE - Earth Time
Our awareness that time stretches back long before we were born, and will continue to stretch into the future long after we're gone, lies at the heart of our humanity. Without this sense we couldn't learn from the past, and wouldn't plan for the future But where did we come from, and where are we going in time? Every culture mythologises time and attempts to answer the ultimate questions: was there a beginning? And will there be an end?




In the 17th century an Irish bishop used the scientific method and the Bible to calculate a date of creation - approximately 6000 years ago. It was a remarkable achievement, but he was wrong. Michio climbs down the layers of rock from which the Grand Canyon is carved to discover that the world must be much older. Meteorites hold the ultimate clues to the formation of the Earth - a staggering 4.6 billion years ago. Michio reveals that, far from being fixed, the Earth has been reshaped with incredible violence. It's usually too slow to witness directly, but inhabitants close to the world's most active volcano, Kilauea, on Hawaii know the Earth's forces all too well as they recover their homes from volcanic ash.

It's almost impossible to conceive of the vastness of Earth time: in an attempt to illustrate the planet's lifespan, Michio travels from the West to the East coast of America each millimetre representing one year. But where do we fit in? Our time seems so insignificant, but we're part of perhaps the greatest story ever told - the story of life itself. The programme looks at bacteria that have been brought to life from a time capsule of rock after 250 million years, encounters creatures in which evolution can be seen in action, and explores the ultimate biological clock - DNA. Michio has his own DNA tested to reveal his ancestral journey all the way back to our first human ancestors in Africa. Finally, the episode concludes with a look into the future to ask where we are ultimately going.


PART FOUR - Cosmic Time
Throughout history, one thing has never changed - time. It is something we rely on to plan our lives, and it is consistent, regular and ceaseless. But is it? High in the Alps, Michio encounters a mystery - tiny particles called muons which shouldn't exist. They don't last long enough to be detected on Earth - and yet here they are. The answer to this mystery lies in one of the greatest discoveries of all time - Einstein's theory of relativity. The faster you travel, the slower time ticks. So time is not fixed at all.




Michio goes on a journey to places where time becomes very strange. Inside atoms, time blurs to such an extent that something can be in two places at once. Within extreme places in space, like black holes, time is squeezed to such an extent that, to an observer, it seems to stand still. Time is more variable that it could ever have been thought possible. It can even, theoretically, move backwards. This leads to one of the most extraordinary possibilities - a time machine. This episode shows a graphical representation of what it might look like: the size of a planet and consuming unimaginable amounts of energy but still a possibility.

Finally, Michio tackles the greatest questions of all - did time itself have a beginning, and will it have an end? He explains how the time capsule of the stars revealed the evolution of the Universe - and pointed the way to the ultimate beginning, the Big Bang, 13.6 billion years ago. And the future? Michio discovers that the cosmos of the stars is only a moment in the Universe's history, that we live in the stelliferous age - the age of the stars - the second of the Universe's five ages of time. But Michio explains that it is hardly an age at all: within the entire lifetime of the Universe the stars shine for less than a finger-click of history.

Growing Up in the Universe - Richard Dawkins

Oxford professor Richard Dawkins presents a series of lectures on life, the universe, and our place in it. With brilliance and clarity, Dawkins unravels an educational gem that will mesmerize young and old alike. Illuminating demonstrations, wildlife, virtual reality, and special guests (including Douglas Adams) all combine to make this collection a timeless classic.

Gapminder Google Talks Conference - Presentation of human development, the reality of income distribution, etc.

Google TechTalks
March 7, 2006

Amazing presentation of human development, the reality of income distribution, etc.

Ola Rosling
Anna Rosling Rönnlund
Johan Nystrand

The 2005 Human Development Trends - Gapminder presentation

Gapminder is an interactive presentation of The 2005 Human Development trends report produced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

GapCasts - Human Development Trends, Globalization, Bangladesh Miracle - Gapminder.org

Gapcast #3 - Human Development Trends
With Staffan Landin. A short overview of the trends in Human Develompent from 1960 to 2001. From Gapminder Foundation.



GapCast #4 - Globalization
How has the Global Economy effected the income of people across the world?Although the percentage of poverty has gone down, the number of poor people is still very high. Still, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has gone down from around 40 percent 30 years ago to todays number of around 20 percent
The good news is that the eradication of poverty is within human range.




Gapcast #5 - Bangladesh Miracle
Have you heard about Miracle that has happened in Bangladesh over the last 30 years? No? Bangladesh has the highest population density among the worlds big countries, today, Bangladesh has more people than Russia. But the area is smaller than Florida.
So what is the Miracle? In 1970 an average women in Bangladesh gave birth to 7 children, and on of four of them died before the age of five. But after independence from Pakistan in 1971 things has improved. See Hans Roslings GapCast to see how much.

GapCasts - Child Mortality, Urbanization, Public Services, carbon Dioxide - Gapminder.org

GapCast #11 Reducing Child Mortality

Nearly 10 million children under five die every year. Almost 90% of all child deaths are attributable to just six conditions: neonatal causes, pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, measles, and HIV/AIDS.
The aim (Millenium Development Goal 4) is to cut child mortality by two thirds by 2015. How can this be achieved? Which countries make sufficient progress?
And by which rate did a country like Norway reduce its child mortality the last 100 years? Watch Gapcast #11 to understand the background and the current status of a Millenium Development Goal.



Gapcast #10 - Carbon Dioxide
Everyone contributes to carbon dioxide emissions, but some more than others. Reducing global CO2 emissions requires that we have a good understanding of the current picture. Serious progress can be made if we develop a renewable source of electricity that is cheaper than coal.




Gapcast #9 - Public Services
Public services (safe water, education, healthcare) meet basic human needs, but are currently unavailable to many people.
Better information about access to these services is needed by service users and providers in order to make and measure progress in this area.



Gapcast #2 - Urbanization
With Hans Rosling. In this GapCast, Hans Rosling focuses on urbanization. In four minutes he give a short overview over the urban challenge, showing the last 40 years of development in urbanization and economic growth.




GapCasts - Gapminder.org

Origins - our creation and the universe

Documentary about our creation and the universe.

Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything

Douglas Adams was the best-selling British author and satirist who created The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In this talk at UCSB recorded shortly before his death, Adams shares hilarious accounts of some of the apparently absurd lifestyles of the world's creatures, and gleans from them extraordinary perceptions about the future of humanity.



YouTube - Douglas Adams: Parrots the Universe and Everything

Hans Rosling: Watch the end of poverty

In a follow-up to his now-legendary TED2006 presentation, Hans Rosling demonstrates how developing countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. He shows us the next generation of his Trendalyzer software -- which analyzes and displays data in amazingly accessible ways, allowing people to see patterns previously hidden behind mountains of stats. (Ten days later, he announced a deal with Google to acquire the software.) He also demos Dollar Street, a program that lets you peer in the windows of typical families worldwide living at different income levels. Be sure to watch straight through to the (literally) jaw-dropping finale.



YouTube - Hans Rosling: Watch the end of poverty

Parag Khanna: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order

World Affairs Council of Northern California
San Francisco, CA
Mar 26th, 2008

How Emerging Markets Are Reshaping the Global Balance of Power with Parag Khanna.How are the forces behind globalization dividing countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and East Asia along political, economic, and cultural lines? As "second world" nations struggle to rise into the first world and avoid falling into the third, how will resources in countries like Azerbaijan, Colombia, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam impact the fate of China, Europe, and the United States?
To help us understand the shifting balance of power at this intersection of geopolitics and globalization, Parag Khanna joins the Council to discuss his new book, The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, and how the European Union and China now compete with the U.S. to shape world order - World Affairs Council of Northern California







FORA.tv - | Parag Khanna

Milton Friedman (December 26, 2005)

An hour with Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman. Friedman discusses his life, his contributions to economics, the Republican Party and his view on the direction of the United States and the world in coming years.

George Johnson: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments FORA.tv -

Cody's Books
Berkeley, CA
May 1st, 2008

George Johnson, acclaimed New York Times science writer, discusses The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, an irresistible book about the ten most fascinating experiments in the history of science, drawn from physics, chemistry, biology, and psychiatry.
Johnson takes us to those times when the world seemed filled with mysterious forces, when scientists were dazzled by light, by electricity, and by the beating of the hearts they laid bare on the dissecting table. We see Galileo singing to mark time as he measures the pull of gravity, and Newton carefully inserting a needle behind his eye to learn how light causes vibrations in the retina.
These ten elegant histories remind us of the original romance and excitement of a single soul staring into the unknown.
George Johnson writes regularly about science for The New York Times. He has also written for Scientific American, The Atlantic Monthly, Time, Slate, and Wired, and his work has been included in The Best American Science Writing. He lives in Santa Fe - Cody's Books




FORA.tv - George Johnson: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

Juan Enriquez: Mapping the Frontier of Knowledge - FORA.tv

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

Earth viewed from the moon by Neil Armstrong

Armstrong describes what parts of Earth he saw while orbiting the Moon



YouTube - Earth viewed from the moon by Neil Armstrong

Earth View From A Space Station

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

Wade Davis: Cultures at the far edge of the world TED | Talks | (video)

About this Talk
With stunning photos and stories, National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis celebrates the diversity of the world's indigenous cultures, now disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate. He argues passionately that we should be concerned not only for preserving the biosphere, but also the "ethnosphere" -- "the sum total of all thoughts and dreams, myths, ideas, inspirations, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination."



TED | Talks | Wade Davis: Cultures at the far edge of the world (video)