The Hayden Planetarium director and pop-culture go-to science guy offered expert advice on how Superman could watch the destruction of Krypton.
Tagged with “science”
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Neil deGrasse Tyson Helps His New ‘Bud’ Superman Get A Glimpse Of Home : Monkey See : NPR
Tagged with npr science superman book:author=neil degrasse tyson
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The Life Scientific: Steven Pinker
Jim al-Khalili talks to Steven Pinker, a scientist who’s not afraid of controversy. From verbs to violence, many say his popular science books are mind-changing. He explains why toddlers say “holded” not held and “digged” rather than dug; how children’s personalities are shaped largely by their genes and why, he believes the recent rioters had plenty of self-esteem.
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Duncan Watts: Using the Web to do Social Science
Social science is often concerned with the emergence of collective behavior out of the interactions of large numbers of individuals; but in this regard it has long suffered from a severe measurement problem - namely that interactions between people are hard to measure, especially at scale, over time, and at the same time as observing behavior.
In this talk, Duncan will argue that the technological revolution of the Internet is beginning to lift this constraint. To illustrate, he will describe four examples of research that would have been extremely difficult, or even impossible, to perform just a decade ago:
Using email exchange to track social networks evolving in time Using a web-based experiment to study the collective consequences of social influence on decision making Using a social networking site to study the difference between perceived and actual homogeneity of attitudes among friends Using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to study the incentives underlying ‘crowd sourcing’ Although internet-based research still faces serious methodological and procedural obstacles, Duncan proposes that the ability to study truly ‘social’ dynamics at individual-level resolution will have dramatic consequences for social science.
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The Dysons | In Praise of Open Thinking
"As a working hypothesis to explain the riddle of our existence," says Freeman Dyson, "I propose that our universe is the most interesting of all possible universes, and our fate as human beings is to make it so." One of the characteristics of diversity—in science, in technology, in biology, in culture, in software, or in children—is that the underlying programming tends to be open source, or connected in all directions. Freeman Dyson and George Dyson think in all directions, but each filters through a particular lens: Freeman Dyson writes about the future and George Dyson writes about the past. This discussion, moderated by Tim O’Reilly, goes in both directions. Questions from the audience are invited either spontaneously or in advance. (Unfortunately the third Dyson, Esther, was unable to participate, having been stuck in Texas.)
This keynote presentation was recorded at the Open Source Convention (OSCON) 2004 in Portland, Oregon.
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Brighton SF with Brian Aldiss, Lauren Beukes, and Jeff Noon
On the eve of dConstruct 2012, Jeremy Keith hosts an evening of readings and chat with three of the brightest stars of the science-fiction world at the Pavilion Theatre in Brighton.
- Lauren Beukes, author of Moxyland, Zoo City, and The Shining Girls.
- Jeff Noon, author of Vurt, Automated Alice, and Channel SK1N.
- Brian Aldiss OBE, author of Hothouse, Nonstop, and the Helliconia trilogy.
Event details: http://brightonsf.adactio.com/
Transcript: http://adactio.com/articles/5740/
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The Life Scientific - Richard Dawkins
In this BBC Radio 4 interview with Jim Al-Khalili, Professor Dawkins discusses his enthusiasm for the science that inspired the book and how he popularised the idea of the immortal gene.
Jim asks what he hoped to achieve by writing the book and finds out why he would rather be known for his science than his atheism.
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Paul Davies: Are we alone in the universe?
Is intelligent life trying to communicate with us from space? Professor Paul Davies explores the potential and limits of research into the origin and evolution of life, and the search for life beyond Earth. Has ET maybe visited our planet ages ago and left us a message? At the Australian National University, Paul Davies discussed his latest book The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone in the Universe?
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E.O. Wilson: The Social Conquest of Earth
The author of more than 25 books, including two Pulitzer Prize-winning works of nonfiction, E.O. Wilson has won a raft of scientific and conservation prizes, including the prestigious National Medal of Science. Wilson’s writing explores the world of ants and other tiny creatures, illuminating how all creatures great and small are interdependent. A Harvard professor since 1953, his ideas have had an immeasurable influence on our understanding of life, nature, and society. He remains an outspoken advocate for conservation and biodiversity, fighting to preserve the wondrous variety of the natural world. In The Social Conquest of Earth, Wilson lays out a reexamination of human evolution—addressing fundamental questions of philosophy, religion, and science—in explaining how socially advanced species have come to dominate the earth.
In conversation with Steven L. Snyder, Ph.D.
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The 100 Year Starship
Dr. Mae Jemison was the first black woman in space. Now, she’s leading a wildly ambitious project: to achieve interstellar travel in the next 100 years. She’s with us.
Think Star Trek and you won’t be far off. A new Pentagon project is putting out seed money for interstellar travel. Humans, rambling around among the stars. It’s called the 100 Year Starship project. It’s as wildly ambitious as just about anything you can imagine.
The spaceship, its energy source, its passengers’ survival – full-blown or just as DNA… all giant challenges. Not to mention that we’re sort of broke and not even flying space shuttles right now. Leader of the new effort: astronaut Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space. She’s with us.
This hour, On Point: the 100 Year Starship.
Tagged with space nasa mae jemison stars starship science darpa astrophysics interstellar astronaut
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Ray Bradbury: The Fresh Air Interview : NPR
Ray Bradbury has been awarded the 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters by the National Book Foundation. He is the author of over 23 books, including I Sing the Body Electric, The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451, all classics of science fiction. Bradbury created the scenario for the U.S. Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair, and the concept for Spaceship Earth at EPCOT at Disney World. In the early ’60s, he wrote screenplays for the television programs The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He lives in Los Angeles, Calif.
Tagged with npr interview science fiction sci-fi writing book:author=ray bradbury
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