TED: The Intriguing sound of marine animals

TED: Let's raise kids to be entrepreneurs

TED: Computing a Theory of Everything

This is amazing.... Truly amazing!!!

http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_computing_a_theory_of_everything.html

Ted Talk: How we wrecked the Ocean

http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_jackson.html

Who would have thought that this talk would have been filmed a few days before the Gulf Oil spill.....

Ted Talk: Design of the Universe

He's a little dry, but bear with, amazing stuff here, filmed in 2008.

Ted Talk: The Danger of Science Denial

TED: Let my dataset change your mindset

A friend shared this AMAZING TED with me the other day. I'm glad I saw it- its simply amazing. The data he shows is put together in an intuitive (and interactive!) way. Simply brilliant.

Aesops Fable is True- Crow Study

So last September I posted about Crows.

The original link is here. It was an excellent TED speech by Joshua Klein. Well today I found another link on the subject. Interesting stuff (if you're a geek like me). In addition to the link, I've posted the video again off of TED.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5983953/Aesops-fable-is-true-shows-crow-study.html

"In a series of tests, the four rooks named Cook, Fry, Connelly and Monroe were offered a tempting treat - a juicy worm floating on the surface of water in a vertical tube.

To start with, the worm was out of reach. Videos of the experiments show the birds examining the tube from different angles, appearing to think the problem through.

Then the researchers provide a solution in the form of a handful of pebbles. The rooks can be seen picking up the stones and dropping them into the tube to raise the water level and bring the worm within reach.

Cook and Fry succeeded straight away, while Connelly and Monroe took two attempts.

The birds appeared to estimate how many pebbles were needed from the outset. Rather than try for the worm after each stone was dropped, they waited until the time seemed right.

They also selected larger stones over smaller ones, for greater effect.

In other experiments, the rooks quickly understood that sawdust cannot be displaced in the same way as water."

TED: Paul Romers Radical Idea- Charter Cities

Interesting TED Talk here.

TED Talk: 4 Environmental "Heresies"

I'm glad that we're seeing more and more people talk about our world and how fragile its systems are. He's got some interesting data on the developing world as well.

TED Talks: You are the Future of Philanthropy

Acting our way into a new way of thinking. Great speech here.

TED Talk: Yann Arthus-Bertrand

WOW. Watch this TED Talk and look for the film: Home on June 5th.

Just amazing...

http://www.6billionothers.org/index_en.php
http://www.home-2009.com/us/index.html
www.youtube.com/homeproject

TED Talk: JJ Abrams Mystery Box

Awesome talk for a Saturday morning =D

TED Talk: Re-wiring the Brain

Very interesting speech

TED Talk: What went wrong at the LHC

Are you as geeky as I am? Want to know what went wrong with the Large Hadron Collider?

Here you go:

Spirit's in reverse

Is anyone else as amazed of the Mars rovers as I am? They were originally slated to only last- what, 6 months? I don't know the precise figure because frankly I'm too lazy to look it up. But man, they're going on something like 1800 days in service.

Pay little attention to the fact that Spirit is now traveling in reverse because her front wheel is broken. Its amazing to me.

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/03/31/spirits-serendipitous-science/


Way to go Nasa on these (and hopefully more to come) extraordinary achievements.

Check out the TED talk about the rovers here, also gives some candid stories from the NASA team:

TED Talk: Virus Hunter Nathan Wolfe

Interesting speech. If you have an aversion to seeing dead animals, you may want to skip this one.

Skin Cell to Stem Cells, minus Cancer

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/virusfreeips.html

Amazing stuff being done in this field of study, I wonder what it will be like when my kids are grown up. Having personally lived with cancer, and having known many loved ones that died by it, I can only hope that research continues to exponentially expand, and one day might halt the deadly disease.

Though of course, stem cell implications are so broad that all manner of ailments might one day be cured. I look back on Craig Ventner's TED talk about literally programming cells, as you would program a piece of hardware, and I can't help but wonder when we'll begin to see real-world applications.

Here's that TED talk:

Already organs are being regrown and implanted, the deaf can hear and the blind can see minor changes in light. It's only a matter of time before permanent blindness and deafness are a thing of the past.

It is both an amazing and dangerous thing.

For more info on this topic, try these TED talks:

The Ocean

...Is a wonderfully complex and fragile ecosystem. I strongly suggest watching the Planet Earth series, they include a few amazing sections on the ocean. Well okay the whole series is awesome. Just watch the whole thing...

But during the Shallow Seas chapter I especially enjoyed the discourse on the ocean's grasslands. I had no idea there was that much sea-grass in some areas on the ocean. Check out this video, I think its around 4 minutes in when they talk about the sea grass... I had no idea.

Also, I enjoyed this TED talk about NOAH. Hopefully they can get the funding they need to continue to explore it more thoroughly. It was interesting the difference in funding that NOAH and NASA receive, and sad at the same time. Another interesting point is how much of the United States land area lies under the ocean... 50% if you can believe it.

I mean, as most of you reading this might know, I'm not one to complain about the money being spent on space exploration. In fact, I think in some ways we're not doing enough. But the ocean is an equally viable source for exploration. And it is much closer to home. You'd think it would cost less than sending rockets up into space... It boggles my mind to think that we've not had the chance to map the entire planet. Though it is also a bit exciting, knowing that more is being done every day.

Things are changing I think, and perhaps global warming might be one of the catalysts that is bringing exploration of the ocean into focus. I think it's good that more attention is being made on the oceans of our world. In fact, now Google Earth allows you to search the ocean like you would the continents, after all, the earth's surface area is 70% water, so why not...

This article was also intriguing, to think that dead coral reef could tell us what the climate and global environment was like 40,000 years ago... Amazing stuff.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/03/03/eod.popsci.species/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Anyways I seem to be rambling today. Hrm.

TED Talk: How Benjamin Button got his face

Outstanding! Its really amazing how far we've come technologically.