Video
jtoney | January 5, 2011This Friday, a new bill will introduced in the 112th session of Congress by Rep. Cantor (R-VA), the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act."
Such a provocative title! This may be time for a basic overview of the Affordable Care Act, regardless of your political affiliation. The video below, produced by the Kaiser Family Foundation, is one of the best that I have seen; in fact, I have used it for teaching purposes to begin discussions about the current law.
jtoney | January 2, 2011
A recent article in Science, "Computational Physics in Film" reminded me how far we have advanced in computer simulation - all based upon basic physics of fluid dynamics.
Exoticmatter NAIAD City flood from Igor Zanic on Vimeo.
A spectacular example blending fluid dynamics and art: "Naiad City Flood":
Some of the most spectacular examples of physics in film involve fluids, where non-linearities in the underlying Navier-Stokes equations that describe fluid motion lead to accumulation of remarkable geometric complexity.
Computer-based algorithms for animation offers more than speed,…
jtoney | January 1, 2011Protecting and sustaining our environment is a core value that seems to be common sense. It never occurred to me that this value might somehow conflict with religion - after all, isn't being a good steward of the earth a goal of numerous faiths? Apparently not.
As reported in The New York Times, there is a strong push back by Christian evangelists against environmentalism. I find this mind boggling.
This movement refers to itself as "Resisting the Green Dragon" {is such a moniker supposed to conjure images of fire breathing dragons in a prehistoric era?} and refers to enviornmentalism as…
jtoney | December 16, 2010As an antidote to recent postings about Christmas on Pharyngula, which have nothing to do with science or holiday cheer, I would like to share with you a wonderful innovative example of bridging science and technology with the arts: the Virtual Choir.
Composer Eric Whitacre embarked upon an experiment in online social media: he invited singers to post their performances on YouTube and then blended them into a single, integrated performance using Google Earth.
According to his website, the Virtual Choir -
"Featuring 185 voices from over 15 countries worldwide, The Virtual Choir began as a…
omnibrain | December 13, 2010Just be warned - there's a teensy (tinsy, teensie?) weensy bit of crude language.
See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.
jtoney | December 9, 2010This is a powerful portrayal of how we have used Google to access information, summarized for 2010 in less than three minutes. I simply had to share this with ScienceBlogs readers, with acknowledgement from Mashable.
From the Mashable article:
"In terms of news searches, Haiti proved the most popular, followed by Turkish sports club Besiktas, Chile, "earthquake," Lady Gaga and the iPhone 4. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill ranked 10th."
Funny - that covers several topics that captured my attention! Our imaginations have become engaged in a digital world changing at an incredible rate - I can…
cagapakis | December 7, 2010An incredible (if unscientific) look at the history of life:
The video has been around for a few months and has a gajillion hits so sorry if I'm late to the party, I just had to share!
By Blu, via Bio Fiction
jtoney | December 6, 2010As a member of the American Diabetes Association, I attended the ADA annual meeting several years ago and heard an inspiring lecture by Prof. Gene Barrett (Univerrsity of Virginia). Dr. Barrett delivered that year's President's Address titled: "The Sheep, the Ostrich, the Ant, Diabetes, and the Tragedy of the Common". {You can read the published article from this address here.}
As Dr. Barrett explained, the "tragedy of the Common" can be described as follows:
"Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit - in a world that…
jgoldman | November 30, 2010An awesome video from our friends over at BBC Earth Life Is:
We caught up with Richard Sorger, a hot British fashion designer who draws inspiration directly from animals and nature. As well as designing for big name celebrities his work he has also designed for Swarovski and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
jgoldman | November 23, 2010In one of a series of stories on animal intelligence, Anderson Cooper went to see Kanzi, probably the most famous bonobo in the world, and primatologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, who has worked with Kanzi almost his entire life. Using his board of symbolic "lexigrams," Kanzi apparently indicated that Cooper should don a bunny suit. One wonders whether the producers asked Savage-Rumbaugh to selectively interpret Kanzi's intentions in that way, and how much footage wound up on the cutting room floor. In any case, its actually pretty funny.
jgoldman | November 8, 2010From the new National Geographic Great Migrations mini-series.
Open comment thread: Did you watch it last night? What did you think?
drorzel | October 29, 2010The New York Times has a video highlighting particularly clever campaign commercials in the New York area, which includes this spot from my uncle John Orzel's state senate campaign:
I'm not aware of any polling regarding the race, so I have no idea how things will turn out next Tuesday. The word from my parents is that spirits are high in the campaign (read: Uncle John is enjoying the process, and the friends and relatives making up the campaign staff are as well), so that's good, at least.
Anyway, if you're in the Binghamton area, vote for my uncle next week. If not, enjoy the award-worthy…
jgoldman | October 15, 2010Non-human primate, that is.
Ape actor Peter Elliott shares his knowledge of chimpanzee and gorilla vocabulary and facial expressions.
via IMDb:
Peter Elliott is the film industry's primary primate. He both as a performer, in films like Missing Link and The Island of Doctor Moreau, and as a choreographer of other performers, as in Gorillas in the Mist and Congo. He also teaches animal study at London's Central School of Speech and Drama.
cagapakis | October 12, 2010It's not just Scott Kern who thinks that science is only about tedious benchwork and that grad students should be boring robots moving small volumes of liquid around 20 hours a day for the greater good. An unscientific analysis of the 169 comments and numerous comment thumbs ups of Hydrocalypse Industries' most popular video shows that a significant percentage of the commenters who aren't saying something completely inane, off topic, or conspiracy-theory laden are criticizing us for not working hard enough.
I hopefully don't need to go into detail about how many hours we are all actually…
drorzel | October 9, 2010This is a couple weeks old, but I only just got around to uploading it. It should give you some idea of what it's like reading books with SteelyKid, though:
That's Kate and SteelyKid going through some of Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. SteelyKid is big into pointing things out in the art of whatever book we happen to be reading. This has a slight tendency to undermine the effectiveness of Goodnight Moon as a bedtime ritual, as there's a lot of "Mouse right there!" and "Cow jumping over moon!", but it's really, really cute, so I roll with it.
jgoldman | October 8, 2010This one is worth watching all the way through:
(h/t Sara)
And, from the sublime to the mundane:
(h/t Dr. Kiki)
lborkowski | October 7, 2010If you feel like you could use an overview of the new healthcare law - the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - head over the the Kaiser Family Foundation's website and watch their nine-minute animated video. Cokie Roberts narrates, explaining the problems the law's designed to address and its major provisions.
If you want more details, check out KFF's Implementation Timeline, which lists and briefly summarizes the various provisions that will be taking effect each year (including several that were implemented last month).
And for a more irreverant look at dysfunction of the status…
jgoldman | October 7, 2010I showed this video today as an intro to my 8-week "mini-course" on Canine Cognition.
In it, narrator John Lithgow presents two slightly different versions of the dog domestication story. The first version is essentially the Belyaev story: young wolves would be adopted into the camps of early humans. Only those who were most tame would breed with eachother, and over many generations, the domestic dog would emerge. The second is the version in which wolves "chose" to be domesticated - they noticed a lot of tasty trash around human encampments, and if they were unafraid enough to hang around,…
cagapakis | October 7, 2010iGEM students are nothing if not creative, fun, and super nerdy. Here is a taste of some of the awesome videos being made by this year's crop, enjoy!
Cambridge, with a catchy song about new techniques for joining pieces of DNA together:
(via LabRat)
Hong Kong University's Inception trailer:
TU Delft, finding science in pop music:
And of course, Harvard, being dramatic in the lab: