Life in Cold Blood - The Cold Blooded Truth

In this fascinating documentary series, Sir David Attenborough brings to bear a new sense of awe, respect and admiration for our cold blooded cousins: the reptiles and the amphibians. Since they can't produce their own body heat the way we mammals can, these creatures must face daily struggles just to acquire enough energy to move, feed, digest, mate and protect themselves. And although they haven't quite evolved their own internal heating system (yet?), the adaptations they have developed represent the almost unlimited creativity of the blind evolutionary process.

And if you think about it, though surely loads of fun, mating must be particularly difficult for reptiles, not just because of the energy it requires, but because they have to somehow get around the huge female tail blocking the way :)

Watch out for the hilarious scene of a battle between two competing tortoises, why females prefer males with assets and good real estate instead of a shiny personality... or the macabre footage of a gigantic python swallowing a deer... whole.

Check out the entire Life in Cold Blood series (as it becomes available).
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The PCR Songs

PCR, or Polymerase chain reaction, is the genetic equivalent of creating a bacteria culture: in this case, you start with a small sample of DNA, and you amplify it many orders of magnitude through thermal cycling (a fancy word for a process of repeated sessions of heating and cooling).

That may all sound boring and geekish to the lay person, but you'll have to admit the way PCR has been advertised is pretty funny :)

And here is some more for good measure:

Who's your daddy? :)

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Don't Eat the Marshmallow

In the 1960's, Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel conducted what seemed to be an ordinary experiment: to see whether and/or how long children could refrain from eating a marshmallow in order to receive two marshmallows later.

Just about every kid gave in and ate the marshmallow, but some lasted more than others before giving in. Mischel followed up with his original subjects years later and came to realize that his seemingly trivial marshmallow experiment had become the greatest single predictor of future life success, from SAT scores to domestic and professional satisfaction. The key to this puzzle has to do with discipline, self control and will power.

Here is a hilarious taste of the experiment conducted on Colombian children:

RadioLab recently interviewed Professor Mischel about this fascinating story:

And because there is an important set of lessons here, and because I can't stop watching these kids' reactions, here is some more of this hilariousness:

I have a feeling I would have failed this test :)

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Perseid Shower Timelapse

There are two main meteor showers I try to watch every year: the Perseids and the Leonids. Here is a short, but impressive timelapse of this year's Perseids for your enjoyment:

Check out this truly amazing timelapse of the skies.

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Galileo's Battle for the Heavens

400 years ago today, Galileo Galilei introduced his first telescope to the world. The discoveries Galileo would make with this rather simple instrument, as well as the application of mathematical descriptions of his observations, would revolutionize our understanding of the universe and our place within it, and would mark him not only as a great mathematician and philosopher, but as one of the founding fathers of modern science.

Galileo's discoveries, as well as his passion for truth and demonstration over authority and dogma (a skill he learned from his father), placed him in a dangerous tension with the Church, which eventually convicted him to house-imprisonment for life. Science and religion have never quite been able to reconcile since, and for the past four centuries, science has consistently continued to undermine not only religious beliefs but the fundamental epistemic assumptions behind its method of faith (if you can call that a method).

Although a Christian himself, Galileo is famous for asserting a conviction that resonates with great significance even today:

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo its use.

This is his story:

It only took the Vatican four centuries to 'pardon' Galileo... for being right :)
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Quentin Skinner - What Is Freedom?

In this fascinating lecture, Cambridge University philosophy and history professor Quentin Skinner provides an engaging and thought-provoking geneological analysis of the ever-changing concept of freedom (primarily political) as it has evolved from the time of ancient Greece and early Christianity to modern liberalism.

We all think of it as a core and fundamental value, and may take it for granted as obvious, but as Professor Skinner aptly demonstrates, competing conceptions of liberty can clash terribly, and lead to essentially counterintuitive and paradoxical implications.

Check out more on the Masters of Philosophy.

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Brainspotting - Part 3

As you can probably tell from the majority of my blog entries, I love science, but even science with all its evidence, experiments and equipment can't compare with the kinds of questions that philosophy investigates and seeks to answer. Here is a taste: Can you be conscious, but not have a sense of self? Do you have a self? What kind of thing is it? If you do have one, what is the you that has this self? Does it persist through time? Can you lose it? And if you lose it, what is the you that has lost it? Are you identical with or different from your self? Are you a unity or a conglomeration of multiple identities? Why do you even think there is a 'you'? Where does that feeling come from, and why? And what exactly are you? Are you your soul, your brain, your body, your consciousness? How do you know?

In this last episode of the excellent and ethereal Brainspotting series, Ken Campbell discusses these and related questions, as well as some of their weird implications, with eminent authorities in the fields of philosophy of mind and consciousness such as Derek Parfit, Marvin Minsky and John Searle, as well as neuroscientist Susan Greenfield (who, in my opinion, doesn't quite get the grip of the philosophical question). In any case, you're about to disappear :)

If you don't buy the idea that you, a 'normal' person, can be divided into multiple selves, just think about what happens when you confront a moral dilemma.

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The Ascent of Man - The Grain in the Stone

Having explained the nature of our ancestors' transition from nomadic tribes to settled communities through the invention of agriculture in the previous episode of the documentary series The Ascent of Man, Jacob Brunowski now sets out to understand how the splitting of a stone begins the history that will lead to the building of a wall, a house, a cathedral, a city...

This essay is an exploration of the history of architecture, an inspiring celebration of man the builder, architect, sculptor, and the conditions through which humanity constantly seeks to improve itself.

In the process, Brunowski visits the cliff-dwelling ruins of the Pueblan people in the American South-West; the Inca city of Machu Picchu and its system of irrigation high up on the mountains of the Andes; and shows the architectural evolution from horizontal beams in Greek Temples to circular and oval arches as developed by the Romans and the Moors, and finally perfected by the Europeans of the Medieval Era.

Check out how Pizarro managed to conquer the Incas overnight.

Explore the intellectual, architectural and artistic legacy left to us When the Moors Ruled Europe.

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Darwin's Secret Notebooks

In today's documentary, evolutionary biologist Armand Leroi (from the excellent documentary What Makes Us Human?) retraces Charles Darwin's famous five-year voyage on the H.M.S. Beagle, and exposes us to the serendipitous biological and geological clues that would eventually lead Chuck to revolutionize our understanding of the development and variety of life.

Of course, it wasn't merely his fortunate exposure to key phenomena that explains Darwin's revolutionary vision (everyone else on The Beagle saw it as well). His ability to question received dogma, his refusal to dismiss what everyone else took for granted, his search for patterns, his quest to find naturalistic principles to provide real explanations for the phenomena all around him, and his unique ability to understand the immense power of small cumulative effects through time and space, all help to explain why it was Darwin, more than anyone else (at least until Wallace), who dared challenge the received wisdom of his day and open our eyes to his grander vision of life.

Check out a beautiful reenactment of Darwin's personal and intellectual life, or anything in the Darwin tag.

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Relationships 101

Relationships can take many forms, and may be based on a variety of foundations, but perhaps the most basic is communication. It also helps if you like the other person :)

Communication doesn't just mean yapping a lot, however. It also involves listening to what the other person has to say, as the couple in the hilarious video below found out the hard way...

Don't you feel better about your relationship now?
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Advocacy Group Decries PETA's Inhumane Treatment of Women

If you think that beautiful creatures should not be exploited merely for the publicity you can milk out of them, or for the shock value they can inflict on the rest of society in order to advance some twisted little ideology, and regardless of whether these poor creatures have the cognitive ability to understand they're being exploited and manipulated for the sake of some other group that, quite frankly, doesn't give two hoots about them, then you might find PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and their campaigns utterly disgusting and objectionable: The Onion reports PETA has been using beautiful women and subjecting them to the same unspeakable conditions they want to liberate animals from...

And it's not just women PETA hates... it's all humans. You should see what they have planned for men, starting with Ron Jeremy:

What a dilemma! ;)
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Synaesthesia

Synaesthesia, the blending of different modalities of sense perception (like seeing numbers represented by colors, or tasting sounds), is one of those baffling mental conditions, the understanding of which has shed tremendous amounts of light into the workings of the brain. V.S. Ramachandran, for instance, has developed a fascinating theory of aesthetics based on this phenomenon.

Instead of adopting the traditional method of representing sounds as visual impressions, the following short film portrays the phenomenon of crossed senses conceptually in a stunning display of colors, textures and sounds, which I hope you'll find fascinating and thought-provoking.

Are you a synesthete?
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The Atheism Tapes - Steven Weinberg

Continuing his thought-provoking discussions with leading intellectuals for the Atheism: A Short History of Disbelief series, Jonathan Miller interviews physics Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg about his thoughts on the relationship and history between scientific discovery and religious belief, and why 'explaining' the regularity of nature as the result of a designer merely moves the question one step back and raises an even larger mystery.

Weinberg also talks about his respect for the intellectual legacy of some of the major religions, but of course, the story is not that simple, and he draws precisely the right distinctions one ought to consider when analysing the merits behind any religious belief. As we've come to expect, the discussion provides some deliciously interesting food for thought, whatever our opinions on the matter. Oh yeah, he's also jealous of biologists :)

Check out the documentary series and the rest of the atheist tapes here.
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How Google Can Protect Your Privacy

If you are concerned about the Big Brother State, and don't want to resort to hang out in Dick Cheney's man-sized closet or his Google-Earth-protected pixelated dungeons, but still want to preserve your privacy, Google is here to help.

Following their 'Do No Evil' motto, The Onion reports that Google now offers the option of opting out and completely protecting your privacy: no more read emails, no more spam, no more embarassing google-street view photographs, no more google maps zooming capability into your home. It's easy, all you have to do is move to their remote village :)

Hi Google! I know you're there...
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Attenborough & Cicada, Sittin' On A Tree...

I love the wonders of the natural world, even some of the really disgusting ones, but I'm not going to lie to you... I think cicadas are gross... they look like giant cockroaches with wings, and who wants that?

Still, when you start learning about cicadas, even they manage to impress, for the odd length and periodicity of their reproductive cycle is still something of a mystery to scientists.

And if you want to get your groove on, Sir David Attenborough is here to show you how to flirt with these horny bugs, but beware: they might start humping you :)

Here is what the late Stephen Jay Gould thought (in "Of bamboos, cicadas and the economy of Adam Smith") might be a good explanation for this curious 17-year cycle: it's all about prime numbers... they are not divisible by any other number:

Many potential predators have 2-5-year cycles. Such cycles are not set by the availability of cicadas (for they peak too often in years of nonemergence), but cicadas might be eagerly harvested when the cycles coincide. Consider a predator with a life-cycle of five years: if cicadas emerged every 15 years, each bloom would be hit by the predator. By cycling at a large prime number, cicadas minimize the number of coincidences (every 5 x 17, or 85 years, in this case). Thirteen- and 17-year cycles cannot be tracked by any smaller number.

I wonder if Ms. Attenborough is upset with her philandering bastard of a husband :)

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Dawkins Is the Dick to the Dawk to the PhD

The days for religious belief are coming to an end, and not simply because of their intellectual shortcomings. As you'll see in this hilarious and stylish rap video, Richard Dawkins has decided to open up a can of whoop-ass and lay down some motherfucking lyrics.

As if that weren't enough, he is backed by an intimidating and pimping posse: Charles Darwin, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, PZ Meyers, Eugenie Scott and the machine. Yeah, you'd better watch out, he's smarter than you, he's got a science degree!

Oh snap!

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Janine Benyus - Biomimicry in Action

For those of you who want to invent things, Janine Benyus has a message: look to nature first. Mother nature has had millions and billions of years to work out practical problems with very meager budgets and incredibly stringet demands: succeed or perish. Yes, she may be a tough cookie, but the results speak for themselves, and the technology being inspired by biological designs is leading the way to greater efficiency and minimal energy consumption. It's a win-win...

Kind of makes you wonder to what extent Leonardo da Vinci's genius derives simply from his ability to observe in better detail than the rest of us, doesn't it?
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Yahweh or No Way - Dinosaurs and Black Market Kidneys Edition

I don't know whether this is pure hilarious genius or whether my sniffles medication is making me delirious, but the following Colbert Report segment has me rolling on the floor laughing, so I feel compelled to share with everyone.

There is probably no better get-out-of-jail-free card for corruption and ethical misconduct than the faith card of religion, from creationist claims of human/dinosaur coexistence, to evasion of taxes, retroactive and posthumous religious conversion and the human organ black market... oye vay!

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Yahweh or No Way - Dinosaur Adventure Land & Black Market Kidneys
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Tasers

Amen, brotha!
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Human's Closest Relative?

When pressed to choose a new over an older, well established hypothesis, one should never merely ask oneself whether the novel hypothesis can explain a few scattered traits or phenomena (think perhaps aquatic ape hypothesis?): the real test of a better hypothesis is whether it can explain everything the hypothesis it seeks to replace can explain, plus something more.

Apparently, that basic lesson has been lost on a biology professor from Pittsburgh University who thinks orangutans are our closest evolutionary relatives. John Oliver reports.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Human's Closest Relative
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Spinal Tap Performance

I take it those Discovery Channel documentaries didn't show this example of face-to-face copulation?


Maybe he should keep up with this blog...
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Hiroshima

On that horribly fateful day in the city of Hiroshima, 64 years ago today, the sad and morbid reality is that the lucky ones were those who were instantly pulverized into oblivion once the atomic chain reaction took full force. The only trace of their existence is the shadows they cast on the walls and the ground of the city when the initial burst consumed their bodies in a fraction of a second. Some of those dark shadows are still visible half a century later. For those who survived the original blast, things would only get worse...

In the following documentary from the BBC, and through the use of original footage and moving dramatizations, the story of the saddest day in human history comes to life through the eyes of those who experienced the awesome power of its destruction: American soldiers charged with dropping the bomb and Hiroshima citizens who, against all odds, survived this devastating catastrophe.

If you want to understand the science behind the bomb, check out Einstein's Equation of Life and Death or E=mc²: Einstein and the World's Most Famous Equation.
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Fermat's Last Theorem

In 1637, the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat wrote a note on a margin of Diophantus' Arithmetica, claiming to have found a most elegant proof for the idea that no three integers can satisfy the formula aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ for any value of n greater than 2. In other words, aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ only works for the Pythagorean Theorem.

Rather conveniently, the margin of the classic text was too small for Fermat to demonstrate his ingenious proof, and the puzzle of whether his theorem was correct has haunted mathematicians ever since.

In 1993, however, and after having secretly worked for seven years on a proof for the theorem, mathematician Andrew Wiles announced he had found it thanks to a serendipidous insight originally proposed by Gerhard Frey: if he could prove the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture, he would automatically prove Fermat's theorem. Though complex in its execution, Wiles' solution was the culmination of a childhood dream brought to fruition.

Unfortunately, there was a fatal, fundamental flaw with his proof and Wiles had to go back to work. Missing the calm of his previous secrecy, Wiles was confronted with the pressure to succeed in the eyes of professional academia. Two years later, in a promethean stroke combining all sorts of state-of-the-art 20th century mathematics, Wiles finally demonstrated a proof for which he will go down in history as a mathematical hero.

I'm no mathematician, but I was just thinking about Fermat's last theorem for the past few minutes, and I think I may have just found a much simpler proof for it?!? Somebody call the Annals of Mathematics! :)

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Lifetime of Sleeping, Eating and Breathing Finally Catches Up to Area Man

So you think you can sleep, eat and breathe carelessly without any real consequence? Well, guess what? These ubiquitous and dangerous habits are starting to catch up with people, and some are even starting to die!

And being a fitness buff will only make it worse...
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Richard Feynman - The Character of Physical Law

When I was a college student, I was blessed to have truly inspiring and knowledgeable professors who planted in my mind the seeds of questioning, learning and wonder. My life is infinitely richer because of them. Still, I wouldn't have minded being taught some physics by Richard Feynman, not only because of his expertise and his unique way of understanding the world but because of his quirky personality and his great sense of humor.

Thankfully for all of us, Bill Gates recently purchased the rights to Feynman's 1964 Messenger Lectures, and has made them all publically available at Project Tuva, so now we can all learn some physics and philosophy of science from the master of disaster. Here is the first lecture to whet your intellectual apetite:

Watch Feynman meditate on the pleasure of finding things out.
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Defending the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis

When it comes to the question of human origins, there are certain traits we possess which cannot straightforwardly be explained by the coming-down-from-the-trees hypothesis, especially as they relate to some major differences between humans and the rest of the great apes:

We are the only apes to possess subcutaneous fat (this is why we don't sink like a ton of bricks in water), we are the only ones permanently bipedal, we are the only ones with the ability to vocalize and volitionally regulate inhalation and exhalation, we are streamlined and equiped with a very flexible spine that makes our swimming graceful and swift, we are the only naked apes, we have genes for webbed toes and fingers, we have a diving reflex that slows down our heartbeat when we submerge our face in water, human babies are the only baby apes who can instinctually swim underwater and hold their breath without any sign of panic or distress, and finally, women look great in bikinis :) I honestly can't remember the last time I got turned on by a gorilla wearing a two-piece...

There is one hypothesis that attempts to explain all these interesting facts, and octogenarian scientist Elaine Morgan is here to defend it: our evolutionary ancestors were aquatic creatures. I also get the sense she's about to make some yummy cookies and tell us an awesome bed-time story, but let's get on with her agenda first in this captivating and delicious presentation.

You don't believe me about the babies? Go ahead, drop a baby in water and see what happens :)

For more on this hypothesis, check out The Hunting Ape, with zoologist Desmond Morris.

Unfortunately, there are many aspects of our morphology the aquatic ape hypothesis can't explain, not to mention the almost complete absence of a fossil record to support it, but maybe it's time to put the speculation to rest and find evidence that can confirm or refute this awesome hypothesis because, let's face it, right or wrong, it is pretty damn cool :)

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