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http://www.ted.com In his lab, Martin Hanczyc makes "protocells," experimental blobs of chemicals that behave like living cells. His work demonstrates how life might have first occurred on Earth ... and perhaps elsewhere too.

a frog is levitated using a 10 tesla magnetic coil using diamagnetism

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world's most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum,  is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.     Data: Digital Universe, American Museum of Natural History  http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/universe/    Visualization Software:  Uniview by SCISS    Director: Carter Emmart  Curator: Ben R. Oppenheimer  Producer: Michael Hoffman  Executive Producer: Ro Kinzler  Co-Executive Producer: Martin Brauen  Manager, Digital Universe Atlas: Brian Abbott    Music: Suke Cerulo    For more information visit http://www.amnh.org

December 9th, 02005 - Sam Harris"The View From The End Of The World"This is an audio only presentation. This talk took place in the Conference Center Golden Gate Room, San Francisco. Quote: With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling non-believers as well as believers? What should be our response? Harris began with Christianity. In the US, Christians use irrational arguments about a soul in the 150 cells of a 3-day old human embryo to block stem cell research that might alleviate the suffering of millions. In Africa, Catholic doctrine uses tortured logic to actively discourage the use of condoms in countries ravaged by AIDS. "This is genocidal stupidity," Harris said. Faith trumps rational argument. Common-sense ethical intuition is blinded by religious metaphysics. In the US, 22% of the population are CERTAIN that Jesus is coming back in the next 50 years, and another 22% think that it's likely. The good news of Christ's return, though, can only occur following desperately bad news. Mushroom clouds would be welcomed. "End time thinking," Harris said, "is fundamentally hostile to creating a sustainable future." Harris was particularly critical of religious moderates who give cover to the fundamentalists by not challenging them. The moderates say that all is justified because religion gives people meaning in their life. "But what would they say to a guy who believes there's a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in his backyard? The guy digs out there every Sunday with his family, cherishing the meaningthe quest gives them." "I've read the books," Harris said. "God is not a moderate." The Bible gives strict instructions to kill various kinds of sinners, and their relatives, and on occasion their entire towns. Yet slavery is challenged nowhere in the New or

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/23/Marcus_Chown_in_Conversation_with_Fred_Watson Marcus Chown, author of Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You: A Guide to the Universe, discusses the mechanics behind quantum computers, explaining that they function by having atoms exist in multiple places at once. He predicts that quantum computers will be produced within 20 years. ----- The two towering achievements of modern physics are quantum theory and Einsteins general theory of relativity. Together, they explain virtually everything about the world in which we live. But almost a century after their advent, most people havent the slightest clue what either is about. Radio astronomer, award-winning writer and broadcaster Marcus Chown talks to fellow stargazer Fred Watson about his book Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You. - Australian Broadcasting Corporation Marcus Chown is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. Formerly a radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, he is now cosmology consultant of the weekly science magazine New Scientist. The Magic Furnace, Marcus' second book, was chosen in Japan as one of the Books of the Year by Asahi Shimbun. In the UK, the Daily Mail called it "a dizzy page-turner with all the narrative devices you'd expect to find in Harry Potter". His latest book is called Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You.

The supply of secure, clean, sustainable energy is arguably the most important scientific and technical challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. Rising living standards of a growing world population will cause global energy consumption to double by mid-century and triple by the end of the century. Even in light of unprecedented conservation, the additional energy needed is simply not attainable from long discussed sources these include nuclear, biomass, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric. The global appetite for energy is simply too much. Petroleum-based fuel sources (i.e., coal, oil and gas) could be increased. However, deleterious consequences resulting from external drivers of economy, the environment, and global security dictate that this energy need be met by renewable and sustainable sources. The dramatic increase in global energy need is driven by 3 billion low-energy users in the non-legacy world and by 3 billion people yet to inhabit the planet over the next half century. The capture and storage of solar energy at the individual level personalized solar energy drives inextricably towards the heart of this energy challenge by addressing the triumvirate of secure, carbon neutral and plentiful energy. This talk will place the scale of the global energy issue in perspective and then discuss how personalized energy (especially for the non-legacy world) can provide a path to a solution to the global energy challenge. Daniel G. Nocera is the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director of the Solar Revolutions Project and Director of the Eni Solar Frontiers Center at MIT. His group pioneered studies of the basic mechanisms of energy conversion in biology and chemistry. He has recently accomplished a solar fuels process that captures many of the elements of photosynthesis outside of the leaf. This discovery sets the stage for a storage mechanism for the large scale, distributed, deployment of solar energy. He has b

Easy to understand evidence for a common ape-like human/chimp ancestor. One of thousands of collaborating pieces of evidence, but this one is very conceptual. Whip it out anytime a creationist starts preaching.

Brain, bodily awareness, and the emergence of a conscious self: these entities and their relations are explored by Germanphilosopher and cognitive scientist Metzinger. Extensively working with neuroscientists he has come to the conclusion that, in fact, there is no such thing as a "self" -- that a "self" is simply the content of a model created by our brain - part of a virtual reality we create for ourselves. But if the self is not "real," he asks, why and how did it evolve? How does the brain construct the self? In a series of fascinating virtual reality experiments, Metzinger and his colleagues have attempted to create so-called "out-of-body experiences" in the lab, in order to explore these questions. As a philosopher, he offers a discussion of many of the latest results in robotics, neuroscience, dream and meditation research, and argues that the brain is much more powerful than we have ever imagined. He shows us, for example, that we now have the first machines that have developed an inner image of their own body -- and actually use this model to create intelligent behavior. In addition, studies exploring the connections between phantom limbs and the brain have shown us that even people born without arms or legs sometimes experience a sensation that they do in fact have limbs that are not there. Experiments like the "rubber-hand illusion" demonstrate how we can experience a fake hand as part of our self and even feel a sensation of touch on the phantom hand form the basis and testing ground for the idea that what we have called the "self" in the past is just the content of a transparent self-model in our brains. Now, as new ways of manipulating the conscious mind-brain appear on the scene, it will soon become possible to alter our subjective reality in an unprecedented manner. The cultural consequences of this, Metzinger claims, may be immense: we will need a new approach to ethics, and we will be forced to think about ourselves in a fundamentally new way. At

This video is a pretty impressive showcase of graphics technology that is possible with the Unreal 4 engine TODAY. I seriously had to do a double take as well on a few of these! My brain was fooled a few times, for sure. It's a showcase of various technical demos and a tribute if you will to the sheer power of the Unreal 4 engine. Some of these were from 2015 or earlier! So imagine, what's going to be possible in 2016 and beyond! And with the advent of VR upon us, this only makes the future of gaming that much more exciting! What's everyone think of these? Is the photorealism of gaming graphics shown here going to be possible in every game over the next few years or is this just going to be for the top tier developers?

"This Disgraceful video was published by the European Commission for a campaign designed to attract more women to a career in science. The commission said that the video had to "speak their language to get their attention" and that it was intended to be "fun, catchy" and strike a chord with young people. "I would encourage everyone to have a look at the wider campaign and the many videos already online of female researchers talking about their jobs and lives," The original video was taken down after it received so many negative comments. "

Jane McGonigal: The game that can give you 10 extra years of life

"Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats" human development last 200 years

Harald Ott: Scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have created a bioengineered kidney that can be transplanted back into a rat, where it begins making urine"