Amy Vashlishan Harvard University Science in the News: Stem Cells and Cloning on: Harvard University Harvard Medical School graduate students explore the fascinating facts, and the associated moral, ethical, and public policy issues, surrounding the often controversial topics of stem cells and cloning.
Chris Brennan California Institute of Technology The Amazing World of Bubbles on: Caltech Chris Brennan, Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Caltech, explained how bubbles manifest a range of physical effects through their ability to gather, focus, and radiate energy. In some contexts, that focusing of energy can lead to serious technological problems, but when harnessed carefully, it can be put to constructive use.
E. O. Wilson Harvard University Charlie Rose - RASHID / E.O. WILSON / MATTHIESSEN on: Google Video In the second segment of this show, Edward O. Wilson, Harvard Biologist and author discusses his new book, 'The Future Of Life' [Knopf]
The Future of Gadgets on: UC Berkeley Webcasts Ranging from the ridiculous to the revolutionary, gadgets have stirred hopes of wealth and fame for their inventors.
Pioneering the Laptop: Engineering the GRiD Compass on: Introduced in 1982, the GRiD Compass 1100 was likely the first commercial computer created in a laptop format and one of the first truly portable machines. With its rugged magnesium clamshell case (the screen folds flat over the keyboard), switching power supply, electro-luminescent display, non-volatile bubble memory, and built-in modem, the hardware design incorporated many features that we take for granted today. Software innovations included a graphical operating system, an integrated productivity suite including word processor, spreadsheet, graphics and e-mail. GRiD Systems Corporation, founded in 1979 by John Ellenby and his co-founders Glenn Edens and David Paulsen, pioneered many portable devices including the laptop, pen-based and tablet PC form factors.
Brian Greene Columbia University The Elegant Universe - Part 1 - Einstein's Dream on: MySpace Part 1 of a three part Nova on quantum physics, string theory, and unified field theory, hosted by Brian Greene.
David Kutasov University of Chicago Little String Theory on: Summer School on Strings, Gravity and Cosmology Dr. David Kutasov presented a series of 3 lectures on Little String Theory at the PIMS Summer School on Strings, Gravity & and Cosmolology. When you get to the page, click on 'videos'.
Benjamin Lev California Institute of Technology Benjamin Lev: The Atom Chip on: Caltech Benjamin Lev, graduate student in physics, talks about the atom chip, a device reminiscent of a computer circuit board but designed for cold neutral atoms, and how it is an important new addition to the toolboxes of quantum physics and nanotechnology. Quantum computer hardware and atom laser manipulation are but a few promising atom chip applications.
S. Carroll University of Chicago Cosmology for particle physicists Part I on: CERN The past few years have seen dramatic breakthroughs and spectacular and puzzling discoveries in astrophysics and cosmology. We know much about the universe, but understand very little. Open questions include the nature of the dark matter and dark energy, the origin of the matter/antimatter asymmetry, the possibility of inflation, and the role of string theory and extra dimensions in the early universe. All of these issues impact strongly on, and will be heavily influenced by, upcoming experiments in particle physics.
Ursula B. Marvin Harvard-Smithsonian Center Life on Our Home Turf: Scanning the Solar System on: WBGH Is Earth the only planet with life in our solar system? Mars once had abundant liquid water.
Documents, Data and People: World Wide Webs on: This talk will look at the design and growth of the World Wide Web, at the weblike connections between people, and toward a future of a web of machine-readable knowledge.
Jayshree Blachander World Bank Disease Without Borders on: World Bank Despite advances in fighting infection, more than 10 million deaths worldwide result from communicable illnesses each year. How are global development organizations fighting back against the problem of disease? In
Donald McNeil New York Times A Simple Solution for Clean Water on: New York Times Donald G. McNeil Jr. demonstrates how a new personal water filter, worn around the neck, could help ensure people around the world have clean water to drink.
Craig Mello University of Massachusetts Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on: New York Times Two American researchers won the Nobel Prize for discovery that specific genes have on-off switches.
Micheal Griffin NASA Administrator NASA head apologizes for global warming comment on: Yahoonews The head of NASA told scientists and engineers that he regrets airing his personal views about global warming during a recent radio interview.
Adam Greenfield Keio University Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing on: A video of the talk Adam Greenfield gave at Keio University on July 15, 2006. The topic is Adam's recently published book Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing.
Genes, worms and the new genetics on: A Royal Society A surprising finding over the past 20 years is that all animals have many of the same genes and that they use them in similar ways to grow and develop. Now that we know the complete DNA sequences of several animals, we can see for example that 60% of genes in the small worm C elegans have a human counterpart. These similarities mean that much of what is learned about what genes do in simple animals such as worms can help us understand what human genes do. Using a remarkable new technique called RNA interference (RNAi), we can quickly test the function of individual genes. In this lecture Julie discussed how she has applied the RNAi technique to worm genes to ask for the first time what most of the genes in an animal do. Extending these approaches to other animals is speeding up the rate of biological discovery and understanding.
Astronomical Society of the Pacific Meeting 2002 on: UC Berkeley Webcasts Alex Filippenko, professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley kicks off a day of talks by the country's leading star-gazers as the campus hosts the annual meeting of The Astronomical Society of the Pacific, of which Filippenko is the president. The event took place on September 29, 2002.
Erik Winfree California Institute of Technology Universality of Computation on: Caltech Dr. Erik Winfree, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Caltech, presented this lecture as part of the 0.1 Seminar series. He talks about how the study of computation is among the most fundamental intellectual developments of the 20th century, and how it met with a number of dramatic surprises regarding the universality of computation, which created new connections throughout the sciences, including physics and biology.
C. Johnson University of Southern California String Theory Part V on: CERN The primary emphasis of the lectures will be the study of non-perturbative regimes of string theory. The first lecture will be broad and at a general level, touching on a number of topics. The remaining lectures will be more detailed, exhibiting some key tools and phenomena which have formed the foundation for several recent advances in the field. Among these are D-branes, which will be studied from several points of view, leading to ideas such as strong/weak coupling dualities, open/closed dualities, holography, and gauge/gravity dualities. If time permits, the last lecture will discuss minimal string theories, which are simple but powerful exactly solvable systems which exhibit a range of key non-perturbative phenomena.
