Saturday, September 22, 2012

Do We Really Need the Moon?

The moon is such a familiar presence in the sky that most of us take it for granted. But what if it wasn't where it is now? How would that affect life on earth?

Space scientist and lunar fanatic Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock explores our intimate relationship with the moon. Besides orchestrating the tides, the moon dictates the length of a day, the rhythm of the seasons and the very stability of our planet.

Yet the moon is always on the move. In the past it was closer to the Earth and in the future it'll be farther away. That it is now perfectly placed to sustain life is pure luck, a cosmic coincidence. Using computer graphics to summon up great tides and set the Earth spinning on its side, Aderin-Pocock implores us to look at the moon afresh: to see it not as an inert rock, but as a key player in the story of our planet, past, present and future.















Thursday, September 20, 2012

Rick Falkvinge - The Pirate Party - the politics of protest

Rick Falkvinge
Political evangelist

In 2006, Rick Falkvinge, a Swedish software entrepreneur, founded a new political party centred around the subjects of file sharing, copyright and patents. He called it the Pirate Party and it rose to prominence after a government crackdown on the file-sharing site, the Pirate Bay. Since then, the Pirate Party has swept Europe and beyond to become an international political movement, active in 40 different countries with representation in the European parliament.

In Sweden, it's the largest party for voters under the age of 30 with 25% of the vote, and in September 2011, the German Pirate Party won an unprecedented 8.9 per cent of the vote and now has several members in the Berlin state parliament. Focused on the subjects of government transparency, internet privacy and copyright law, the Pirate Party hosts Wikileaks on its servers and uses new technology to leverage political power in new and interesting ways. In 2011, Foreign Policy magazine called Falkvinge one of the top 100 global thinkers.















Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Symphony of Science - Our Biggest Challenge (Climate Change Music Video)

A musical investigation into the causes and effects of global climate change and our opportunities to use science to offset it. Featuring Bill Nye, David Attenborough, Richard Alley and Isaac Asimov. "Our Biggest Challenge" is the 16th episode of the Symphony of Science series by melodysheep.















Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Universe or Multiverse?

















What Is Space?

Space. It separates you from me, one galaxy from the next, and atoms from each other. It is everywhere in the universe. But to most of us, space is nothing, an empty void. Well, it turns out space is not what it seems.















Quantum Leap

oin Brian Greene on a wild ride into the weird realm of quantum physics, which governs the universe on the tiniest of scales. Greene brings quantum mechanics to life in a nightclub like no other, where objects pop in and out of existence and things over here can affect others over there, instantaneously—without anything crossing the space between them. A century ago, during the initial shots in the quantum revolution, the best minds of a generation—including Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr—squared off in a battle for the soul of physics. How could the rules of the quantum world, which work so well to describe the behavior of individual atoms and their components, appear so dramatically different from the everyday rules that govern people, planets, and galaxies? Quantum mechanics may be counterintuitive, but it's one of the most successful theories in the history of science, making predictions that have been confirmed to better than one part in a billion, while also launching the technological advances at the heart of modern life, like computers and cell phones. But even today, even with such profound successes, the debate sill rages over what quantum mechanics implies for the true nature of reality.















The Illusion of Time

















The Real Eve

Broadcast (2002) Narrated by Danny Glover, "The Real Eve" reveals that our shared genetic heritage links every living person on earth and traces the expansion of modern humans throughout the world. The discovery of the Eve gene stunned the world. It seems we could all be descended from just one female who lived in Africa. In this telling anthropological video, we access the very latest DNA reconstructions, and for the first time, tell conclusively the story of where, when and how the human race came about and then populated the world. The real Eve refers to Mitochondrial Eve, a name used for the most recent common ancestor of all humans in the matrilineal (mother to daughter) line of descent. Scientists have traced the human race to one female in Africa several million years ago and traced the migration pattern of her descendants as they spread across the earth

In the field of human genetics, Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal "MRCA" (most recent common ancestor). In other words, she was the woman from whom all living humans today descend, on their mother's side, and through the mothers of those mothers and so on, back until all lines converge on one person. Because all mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is generally passed from mother to offspring without recombination, all mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in every living person is directly descended from hers by definition. Mitochondrial Eve is the female counterpart of Y chromosomal Adam, the patrilineal most recent common ancestor, although they lived thousands of years apart.

Each ancestor (of people now living) in the line back to the matrilineal MRCA had female contemporaries such as sisters, female cousins, etc. but none of these female contemporaries of the "Mitochondrial Eve" has descendants living now in an unbroken female line. Mitochondrial Eve is generally estimated to have lived around 200,000 years ago, most likely in East Africa, when Homo sapiens sapiens ("anatomically modern humans") were developing as a population distinct from other human sub species. Mitochondrial Eve lived much earlier than the out of Africa migration that is thought to have occurred between 95,000 to 45,000 CE. The dating for 'Eve' was a blow to the multiregional hypothesis, and a boost to the hypothesis that modern humans originated relatively recently in Africa and spread from there, replacing more "archaic" human populations such as Neanderthals. As a result, the latter hypothesis is now the dominant one.

One of the misconceptions of mitochondrial Eve is that since all women alive today descended in a direct unbroken female line from her that she was the only woman alive at the time. Nuclear DNA studies indicate that the size of the ancient human population never dropped below tens of thousands. There may be many other women around at Eve's time with descendants alive today, but sometime in the past, those lines of descent included at least one male, who do not pass on their mother's mitochondrial DNA, thereby breaking the line of descent. By contrast, Eve's lines to each person alive today includes precisely one matrilineal line.















Journey Of Man: Genetic Odyssey

Broadcast (2003) Where did we come from? Spencer Wells, a 33 year old population geneticist, has closed the door on his laboratory and is embarking on the biggest adventure of his life. His mission to retrace the most extraordinary journey of all time, a journey that involves every man, woman and child alive today. He offers his thoughts on this puzzling question, employing the latest in DNA research and technology to track the migration of humanity across the globe.

By collecting blood samples from thousands of men living in isolated tribes around the world and analyzing their DNA, Spencer and his colleagues discovered that all humans alive today can be traced back to a small tribe of hunter-gatherers who lived in Africa 60,000 years ago. Following this genetic trail, Spencer has charted the ancient journey of our ancestors as they populated the planet.

Spencer scours the world for indigenous people with deep roots in one place, asking for samples of DNA to test, in order to piece together our "big family" genetic tree. In Indiana Jones mode, Wells tacks down common ancestors and comes up with some surprising candidates. He shows with DNA results the diverse ways in which people and tribes react to the news of what science says about their arrival and relations. View this as adventure travel or as a painless way to begin your genetic literacy.















Monday, September 10, 2012

Garbage Island: An Ocean Full of Plastic (Part 3/3)

As if polluting an entire hemisphere's worth of the ocean with plastic weren't enough, we've also poisoned the food chain. Congrats, humanity. We're fucked.

Come aboard as we take a cruise to the Northern Gyre in the Pacific Ocean, a spot where currents spin and cycle, churning up tons of plastic into a giant pool of chemical soup, flecked with bits and whole chunks of refuse that cannot biodegrade.















Garbage Island: An Ocean Full of Plastic (Part 2/3)

As the Gyre sails into view, we realize Garbage Island isn't an island at all. It's something much, much worse.

Come aboard as we take a cruise to the Northern Gyre in the Pacific Ocean, a spot where currents spin and cycle, churning up tons of plastic into a giant pool of chemical soup, flecked with bits and whole chunks of refuse that cannot biodegrade.















Garbage Island: An Ocean Full of Plastic (Part 1/3)

Vice sails to the North Pacific Gyre, collecting point for all of the ocean's flotsam and home of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: a mythical, Texas-sized island made entirely of our trash.

Come aboard as we take a cruise to the Northern Gyre in the Pacific Ocean, a spot where currents spin and cycle, churning up tons of plastic into a giant pool of chemical soup, flecked with bits and whole chunks of refuse that cannot biodegrade.















Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Pink Floyd HD - PULSE Full Concert (Live at Earls Court, 1994)

















Phil Collins - Finally...The First Farewell Tour Live Paris 2004

Phil Collins - Finally...The First Farewell Tour:

1. Something Happened On the Way to Heaven
2. Against All Odds
3. Don't Lose My Number
4. Chat to Audience
5. You'll Be in My Heart
6. One More Night
7. Can't Stop Lovin' You
8. Hang in Long Enough
9. True Colours
10. Come With Me
11. Groovy Kind of Love
12. I Missed Again
13. Another Day in Paradise
14. No Way Out
15. Separate Lives
16. In The Air Tonight
17. You Can't Hurry Love
18. Two Hearts
19. Wear My Hat
20. Easy Lover
21. Sussudio
22. It's Not Too Late
23. Take Me Home















Gary Moore Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival 2010













Weather Report: Live in Offenbach 1978

Weather Report Live in Offenbach, Germany Sept. 28, 1978

Artists:
- Joe Zawinul (keyboards)
- Wanye Shorter (tenor and soprano saxophone)
- Jaco Pastorius (electric bass)
- Peter Erkskine (drums)

Tracklist:
01. Black Market
02. Scarlet Woman
03. Young and Fine
04. The Pursuit of the Woman with the Feathered Hat
05. A Remark You Made
06. River People
07. Thanks for the Memories
08. Dolores / Portrait of Tracy / Third Stone from the Sun
09. Mr. Gone
10. In a Silent Way
11. Waterfall
12. Teen Town
13. I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good / The Midnight Sun Will Never Set On You
14. Birdland
15. Introductions
16. Fred & Jack
17. Elegant People
18. Badia

Previously unreleased recordings from pioneering fusion band Weather Report playing live in the 1970s are streaming from the late Joe Zawinul's estate in the group's 40th anniversary year. This spring's 1975 Live in Berlin set caught the band beginning to sense its power over a rock audience. Live in Offenbach, from September 1978, features the band that included bass-guitar star Jaco Pastorius. It also included Peter Erskine, a shrewd drummer who helped reintroduce a cooler jazz feel after the critical hammering that had greeted the overcooked, studio-made Mr Gone earlier that year. Stripped down to a quartet, the band sound engaged (particularly the sometimes enigmatic saxist Wayne Shorter), and after the standard early workouts on their hits, they get surprisingly loose and open. Shorter exhibits Sonny Rollins's muscular solo-sax whimsicality on the standard Thanks for the Memory, and Zawinul's wealth of acoustic-piano improv ideas burst out of I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good, while Birdland has a bright, rough-and-ready energy. Pastorius's driving basslines thunder through the music, even if his solo spots tend to emit more heat than light. It's a vivid show from a WR period sometimes considered short of inspiration.















Eric Clapton - MTV Unplugged FULL concert

"Signe" (Clapton) -- 0:0
"Before You Accuse Me" (McDaniel) -- 3:14
"Hey Hey" (Broonzy) -- 7:12
"Tears in Heaven" (Clapton/Jennings) -- 10:41
"Lonely Stranger" (Clapton) -- 15:55
"Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" (Cox) -- 21:20
"Layla" (Clapton/Gordon) -- 25:10
"Running on Faith" (Williams) -- 29:39
"Walkin' Blues" (Johnson) -- 36:05
"Alberta" (Traditional) -- 40:00
"San Francisco Bay Blues" (Fuller) -- 44:55
"Malted Milk" (Johnson) -- 48:20
"Old Love" (Clapton/Cray) -- 52:00
"Rollin' and Tumblin'" (Waters) -- 59:35















Monday, September 03, 2012

The Road We've Traveled

Remember how far we've come. From Academy Award®-winning director Davis Guggenheim: "The Road We've Traveled".

This film gives an inside look at some of the tough calls President Obama made to get our country back on track. Featuring interviews from President Bill Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Elizabeth Warren, David Axelrod, Austan Goolsbee, and more. It's a film everyone should see.















Exclusive interview with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy

Uruguayan journalist Jorge Gestoso interviews Julian Assange from within the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Originally aired on GamaTV, August 30, 2012.















Forgiveness Forgone

This video places you in the room at the July 2012 Conversations with God spiritual renewal retreat as Neale Donald Walsch offer a powerful tool for ending anger, sadness, and resentment, with a deeply insightful explanation of why forgiveness can be a completely unnecessary part of the human experience.