Bummer BBC refused to let us watch this on You Tube and their videos rarely work and are hard to find so I just removed the link. You can try them Via: Inky Circus
The video was very cute.
Category Archives: Podcast
Brain in a Dish
It’s Alive (ish) by Brandon Keim:
Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology figured they could learn more from neuron clumps that acted more like real brains, so they’ve developed “neurally controlled animats” — a few thousand rat neurons grown atop a grid of electrodes and connected to a robot body or computer-simulated virtual environment.
In theory, animats seem to cross the line from mass of goo to autonomous brain. But Steve Potter, a neuroscientist and head of the Georgia Tech lab where the animats were created, said his brain clumps won’t be reciting French philosophy anytime soon.
“Our goal is not to get something as conscious as a person,” he said. “We’re studying basic mechanisms of learning and memory.” The researchers are focusing on how groups of individual cells interact and change when stimulated.
Two videos of growing brain cells in a dish. More from,
Human 2.0 by the BBC.
iWoz
iWoz, autobiography of Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder is now available. Quote from Guy Kawasaki:
Every engineer—and certainly every engineering student—should read this book. It is about the thrill of invention, the process of making the world a better place, and the purity of entrepreneurship. I, Woz is the personal computer generation’s version of The Soul of a New Machine. It is, in a nutshell, the engineer’s manifesto. I hope that the so-called “innovation experts” and MBAs choke when they read it.
Cobert report interview with Steve Wozniak. NPR interview: Computer Pioneer Steve Wozniak Tells His Story
Related: woz.org – Interview of Steve Wozniak – The Woz Speaks – science and engineering books
More Great Webcasts: Nanotech and more
ScienceLive video archive from Cambridge University Science Productions. Videos include:
- Viruses as nanomachines by Peter Stockley
- Powering nanodevices with biomolecular motors by Amir Khan
- Ice Cream, Chocolate, and Einstein by Chris Clarke
- Communicating Science by Brian Trench and David Dickson
- So many experiments, live in the studio! by Paul McCrory
Great stuff, another example of universities providing open access content 🙂
Related: Curious Cat Science and Engineering Webcast Directory – Google Tech Talks – Open access science posts – Berkeley and MIT courses online
Engineering Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak
Disappear into thin air? Scientists take step toward invisibility by Peter N. Spotts:
Flip a switch and make something disappear? It’s been the stuff of science fiction for decades. Now, two Duke University scientists and their colleagues have built the world’s first device to render an object invisible.
At least, it’s invisible to microwaves.
But researchers say the work demonstrates that, in principle, objects could be made to disappear from radar, cameras, and other detection devices. The trick? A new class of engineered substances called metamaterials.
Update: more info from Duke, including a video.
Hawaiian Jellyfish
Engineers Save Energy
Arthur Rosenfeld the 2005 Enrico Fermi Award Winner which is the “government’s oldest award for scientific achievement” according to the Department of Energy. I question that, and on another page they say “one of the oldest…”
“Dr. Rosenfeld is one of the ‘founding fathers’ of energy efficiency, and the legacy of his research and policy work is an entire new energy efficiency sector of our economy, which now yields an astounding annual savings of around $100 billion, and growing.”
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Rosenfeld received his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1954 and was Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi’s last graduate student.
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In 1973, when OPEC embargoed oil sales to the West, Dr. Rosenfeld redirected his career. He recognized the potential for energy savings in the building sector, which uses one third of U.S. primary energy and two-thirds of our electricity. In 1975, he founded a program which grew into the Center for Building Science at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
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The U.S. National Research Council (NRC) has estimated that energy efficiency improvements developed solely at DOE’s National Laboratories, saved the U.S. $30 billion between 1978 and 2000
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Rosenfeld received his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1954 and was Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi’s last graduate student.
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In 1973, when OPEC embargoed oil sales to the West, Dr. Rosenfeld redirected his career. He recognized the potential for energy savings in the building sector, which uses one third of U.S. primary energy and two-thirds of our electricity. In 1975, he founded a program which grew into the Center for Building Science at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
…
The U.S. National Research Council (NRC) has estimated that energy efficiency improvements developed solely at DOE’s National Laboratories, saved the U.S. $30 billion between 1978 and 2000
Great stuff. Another great example of how much good scientists and engineers can do. And also a good reminder of the economic benefits that are less obvious – such as increasing energy efficiency.
Related: MIT’s Energy ‘Manhattan Project’ – Wind Power – Large-Scale, Cheap Solar Electricity
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50 New Species Found in Indonesia Reefs
“Walking” Sharks Among 50 New Species Found in Indonesia Reefs
The sharks are about 3 to 4 feet (1 to 1.2 meters) long and walk along the shallow reef flats on their fins, preying on shrimp, crabs, snails, and small fish.
“If they get spooked they can swim away, but the thing that stands out is their walking over the bottom,” Troeng said.
The photo is of one of two species of walking sharks found. See video of the sharks and of more of the species found in Indonesia.
More Great Science Webcasts
Lectures from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center including: Whispers of the Big Bang by Sarah Church, Archimedes: Accelerator Reveals Ancient Text by Uwe Bergman, Our Lopsided Universe: The Matter with Anti-Matter by Steve Sekula and The Runaway Universe by Roger Blandford. This collection is yet another great resource.
The number of great resources has prompted me to created a directory of great science and engineering webcast libraries: Curious Cat Science and Engineering Webcast Libraries. These sites have awesome science and engineering videos. Definitely worth viewing.
Related: Google Technology Webcasts – open access science posts – Google Tech Talks – UC-Berkeley Course Videos – The Inner Life of a Cell: Animation
UC-Berkeley Course Videos
Google offers a huge number of University of California, Berkeley course videos. They include full courses on subjects including:
- Physics for Future Presidents (with 26 lectures by Richard A. Muller including: Atoms and Heat; Gravity and Satellites; Radioactivity; and Electricity and Magnetism)
- Search Engines: Technology, Society and Business (including a lecture by Sergey Brin: Search, Google, and Life
- Electrical Engineering 213 / Applied Science & Technology 210 with 31 lectures on Soft X-Rays and Extreme Ultraviolet Radiation by David T. Attwood
Great stuff and hopefully much more to follow. A great example of open access education material. It is a bit surprising that it is not easier to navigate the videos to find what you might be interested in. The videos are not great quality (like all of Google Video) but the content is great. And it seems likely (hopefully) 5 years from now we will get great quality such videos from many schools.
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