Learning from the Gecko's Tail

Geckos are well known for their ability to climb even the smoothest of surfaces (like glass) by harnessing the molecular power of van der Waals forces. Scientists are now developing synthetic compounds capable of achieving the same feat... and sacrificing their first-borns in the name of science :)

As Robert Full shows in this great presentation, however, it turns out that everyone's been overlooking one of the most talented aspects of the gecko: its tail.

And you thought the only thing geckos were good for was selling insurance...
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Darwin's Dangerous Idea - Body and Soul

It took Darwin about twenty years to publish the theory that made him feel like he was confessing to a murder (God's perhaps?), but how did he come to articulate the theory in his own mind? His voyage in the HMS Beagle had a lot to do with it, certainly, but it's not all confined to the Galapagos Islands, nor was it confined to his observations of non-human animals... and this latter fact has turned our image of ourselves upside down ever since.

In the first part of this truly fascinating documentary, Andrew Marr explores the scientific idea of natural selection as formulated by Darwin, as well as some of the ways in which this description of the living world has taken on a life of its own, with implications that go far beyond the world of science.

He's an enthusiastic fellow, isn't he? :)
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American Ignorance - Ayatollah So

I wonder if people usually say 'God bless America' because they know just how messed up and ignorant we are...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jason Jones: Behind the Veil - Ayatollah You So
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

And that's not enough. We are also blissfully unaware of our own ignorance. Consider the following college students from a prestigious university who, on the one hand, want degrees from their university to be based on merit and, on the other hand, don't seem to know the basics of American History, like which of the founding fathers were never presidents

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Arizona State Snubs Obama
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

Lucky me, I got my degree from Crackpot University :)
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The History of the Internet

We all take it for granted today, but the idea of artificial computing and a network through which computers might connect with each other has had to overcome a tremendous amount of conceptual and practical obstacles like, say, the danger of nuclear winter.

Although the technical details might go over your head if you're not a computer scientist, the general idea is very interesting and simple to understand, as the following short animation shows.

Of course, if you were to ask an ordinary person what the internet is, their response might look something like this:


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Richard Dawkins - The Purpose of Purpose

Our ordinary use of language betrays an implicit metaphysical assumption: unless we've learned otherwise, we tend to think that the universe is imbued with purposes. We are obsessed with this idea. In fact, this assumption is so pervasive that Aristotle tried to codify it as part of any satisfactory causal explanation. When trying to understand the cause for the existence of any object, he thought, one of the four basic questions you should ask is "what is it for?"

Perhaps part of the reason there is so much confusion about evolutionary theory, apart from its philosophical implications and its challenge to religious tradition, lies in the ease with which we confuse real purposes from the appearance of purposes, and the ease with which we equivocate two different kinds of purposes: archeo-purposes and neo-purposes.

Richard Dawkins explains the distinction in this fascinating, thought provoking, and amusing lecture. He also explains how the mechanisms behind many of our mental and emotional adaptations can be subverted for purposes different from the pursuit of our own evolutionary fitness, with profound and serious implications well worth thinking about.

Check out more Richard Dawkins goodies.
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He's Barack Obama, He's Come to Save the Day

The Bush administration left the country demoralized. Not only were our civil freedoms taken away and our constitution blatantly violated, but our international reputation was ruined by unilateral radical decisions, scandals of government-sanctioned torture, violations of the Geneva Convention, and irreconcileable sanctimonious moral preaching mixed with almost unimaginable hypocrisy hidden behind the arrogant veil of executive power. And let's not even mention the economic crisis to which the Bush administration gave rise or the environmental problems it never dared confront... or even acknowledge.

The good news is we now have a president whose optimistic outlook and willingness to work with the American people and citizens of the world has regained us some trust and good will. He's Barack Obama... He's here to save the day :)

And if you don't think he's that powerful, look at what he did to Stephen Colbert's hair.
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Happy Father's Day

Because sometimes the law of unanticipated consequences has a morbid sense of humor :)

Happy father's day!

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Barack Miyagi Obama

President Obama has karate-kid like reflexes... and Dan Rather thinks Jon Stewart is a big pussy :)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Obama Kills a Fly
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

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Hummingbird in Slow Motion

Imagine running on a treadmill at 70 strides per second, and having a heart rate of 1,270 beats per minute while attempting to perform a delicate surgery. Sounds impossible?

Yet that is the equivalent of what hummingbirds do on a regular basis with astounding precision and elegance... well, minus the surgery, but you get my point.

Check out more amazing time lapse and slow motion photography here.
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Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins on Darwin and Evolution

In this fascinating and thought-provoking discussion between two of the greatest minds of our time, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker discuss the importance of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection as the conceptual foundation upon which we can begin to understand the cognitive structure of the human mind and its emotions.

Perhaps no other scientific theory apart from evolution is as misunderstood by proponents and detractors alike. It is refreshing, therefore, to see two of the people who do understand it well explain how it works, how it can be tested scientifically, the conceptual dangers of trying to explain everything in adaptationist terms, and how to properly understand the teleological language used to convey the dynamics of evolutionary processes without having to adopt a teleological metaphysics.

You want to have their babies, don't you? ;)
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Gymnast Euthanized After Breaking Leg

Tragic news in the world of sports. The Onion reports that Shawn Johnson, the 17-year old gymnast who stole the world's heart after her gold-medal winning performace in the Olympics last year, suffered a knee injury during practice last night, for which her parents and coach had her quickly and humanely euthanized.

This just in: experts claim race horses may yet live fulfilling lives post-injuries. Maybe so will gymnasts one day... :)
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What On Earth Is Wrong with Gravity?

Of the four fundamental forces in nature, gravity is the one with which everyone is most familiar, and yet it is the least understood scientifically.

Sir Isaac Newton, apocryphal apple story or not, was the first to propose a workable model that would explain and predict the motion of objects throughout the universe. The power of his physics is attested by its use in the successful space program of the twentieth century.

It would take the genius of Einstein in the early 1900's to notice that Newton's model could not account for the observed motion of Mercury around the sun, for the motion of objects close to the speed of light, and for the effects of unimaginably massive objects. Instead of a static background of space upon which physical events took place, Einstein proposed that space-time is a fabric which interacts with physical objects, affects them and is affected by them. One of the implications of this theory was that the direction of light could be affected by the curvature of space-time around a massively large object. This insight was beautifully confirmed in 1919, when a solar eclipse bore out the prediction with uncanny precision, to the surprise of the entire world. Einstein became an overnight celebrity.

Yet for all his genius, Einstein's model failed to account for gravitational effects on the subatomic level, and physicists have been scratching their heads ever since. In today's documentary, Brian Cox travels to meet with physicists and astronomers who are doing what they can to try to explain the mystery of gravity.

Related videos:

Documentary on the Large Hadron Collider

Brian Greene's first episode of The Elegant Universe, describing the differences between Newtonian mechanics and Einstein's relativity.

LIGO and how to measure gravitational waves.
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The History of Weed

I don't know many details about this, but apparently marihuana has played a long and complicated role in the history of humanity, and it hasn't always been regarded with the fear and distrust it's received since the Reagan administration.

There have been great books tracing human history from the point of view of our relationship to salt, bananas, and guns, germs and steel, but I'm not sure there is one tracing our history as it intertwines with weed, probably because it's hard for an author to get motivated when he or she is high as a kite :)

Luckily for you, here is a short and amusing animation tracing some of this history.

George Washington?!?
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A Short History of Stoicism

Get ready to be schooled on the history and conceptual basis of the philosophy of life known as Stoicism. Your instructor today will be a high school girl :)

If only my students could do oral presentations like that...
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Stephen Colbert Goes Commando

Stephen Colbert is broadcasting his show from Baghdad this week, paying tribute to the American soldiers stationed in Iraq. In order to establish his cred with the rest of the troops, Colbert had to undergo the mandatory boot camp training, and from the looks of it, he is one tough mother...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stephen Strong: Army of Me - Basic Training
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Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Stephen Colbert in Iraq

To make it all official, Commander in Chief Obama gave the final order: shave Stephen Colbert's hair!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Obama Orders Stephen's Haircut - Ray Odierno
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Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Stephen Colbert in Iraq

We could have just sent him to Iraq by himself and drive the insurgents to madness...
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Sebastian's Voodoo

Today's short animated film explores the lengths to which someone will go, and the sacrifices he will make, in order to save a complete stranger from the terrible and sadistic doom planned by a malevolent psychopath.

The outstanding animation is accompanied by a sweet musical score.

What would you do?
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The Human Sexes 04: Passages of Life

If you came from Mars, as I do, and you started to observe human behavior, you would soon start to notice that for all their talk about individuality and uniqueness, human beings are a relentlessly sheepish species, constantly perpetuating the rituals and traditions inherited from their ancestors, many times not knowing their reason or rhyme.

As isolated facts, virtually all of these activities are simply bizarre, but if you start to think of human beings as historical and biological beings subject to the selection pressures of evolution and the slow and gradual accumulation of knowledge about the world, as Desmond Morris does, then the similarity behind the great diversity of rituals will reveal something simultaneously familiar and oddly strange.

Check out the entire The Human Sexes documentary series.
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Conservatives Warn Quick Sex Change Only Barrier Between Gays, Marriage

Those sneaky queers... they'll do anything to get married, even if that includes undergoing sex-reassignment surgery in order to become members of the opposite sex...

Fortunately, social conservatives cannot be fooled. As we speak, a national transsexual recognition committee is being organized to single out said individuals.

Good luck, gay supporters... This committe cannot be fooled: it is made up of conservative figures who are experts in the arts of cross-dressing: Ann Coulter, Rudy Giulliani, the Pope and his guards.

Listen to Roy Zimmerman's hilarious song: Defenders of Marriage.
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Seth Green on How to Pimp Yo' Crib

Sure, the economy may be tanking, the government may keep bailing out failing corporations, and company after company may be filing for bankrupcy protection, but that's no reason why you should not be keepin' it real, yo.

You might be asking yourself: how can any fool expect me to get my groove on if I'm simply living within my means and being fiscally responsible?

Easy... and Seth Green is here to help you figure out your eco to the nomics, fo' sho'...

That's math all over yo' face, biatch!

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Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor - Ida, the Missing Link

The discovery of an incredibly well preserved 47 million year old fossil, Darwinius Massillae,  published last week all over the news, has been hailed by some as the definitive discovery of "the missing link of human evolution." One should always be cautious of such sweeping claims. The hype over human evolution might be a bit premature, since it is yet to be fully classified, and it may turn out not be one of our direct ancestors after all, but there is no doubt about the fact that the fossil itself, and whatever it ultimately tells us about evolution is certainly worth all our attention.

Although Ida is 47 million years old (yes, we know she is a girl), she is so incredibly well preserved that there are traces of her soft tissue and even the contents of her last meal. This amazing level of detail is allowing scientists to look back in time and figure out whether primates like Ida gave rise to the evolution of prosimians (the line to which modern lemurs belong) or to the evolution of anthropoids (the line to which modern monkeys, apes and humans belong).

Despite Attenborough's excitement, I'm sorry to say the jury is still out, so keep your eyes open for new developments on this story.

When I die, I'm going to try to leave an even better fossil! :)
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