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Category Archives: television
PBS Series Looks at Online Culture
Is it just me or has the pace of culture-memorializing been rapidly increasing? One day your friend sends you a link to a hilarious new video; the next day, it’s on a list of “the top 10 videos of yesterday”; … Continue reading
The Biggest Matchup Since John Henry
Surely you’ve already invited all of your family and friends over for next week’s epic battle between man and machine: an IBM supercomputer is facing off against Jeopardy champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter Monday through Wednesday. If you want … Continue reading
Posted in Radio Segments, television
Tagged computers, Game Shows, IBM, Jeopardy, language, man vs. machine
4 Comments
“Father of BioArt” Joe Davis on Colbert
Last night, BioArt pioneer Joe Davis got the Colbert treatment. You wouldn’t know it from the interview, below, but Davis is a researcher in the Biology Department at MIT, where he studies things like whether E. coli respond to jazz … Continue reading
The Birds and the Bees are Weirder Than You Think
Birds do it, bees do it, and so do bedbugs, spiders, and snails. Seahorses do it — but the male is the one who gets pregnant. Dolphins do it — but boy, do things get weird. And certain species of … Continue reading
Posted in Features, Film, television, Video, Visual Art
Tagged animals, Environment, Green Porno, Isabella Rossellini, Mating
4 Comments
The History of The World, Abridged
If you’re curious about the history of all human knowledge and invention, but you’ve only got a minute to spare, check out this stop-motion spot created for BBC Knowledge. From our “evolutionary bust-up with chimps” to the discovery of DNA, … Continue reading
Happy Birthday Cosmos!
This week marks the thirtieth anniversary of the groundbreaking PBS science series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Developed and hosted by the legendary scientist Carl Sagan, Cosmos was an instant hit with its winning formula of scientific concepts explained with wonder, … Continue reading
Save the Hubble! Jimmy Fallon’s Milky J Starts a Rumble
If you’ve been watching Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, you might have noticed a new recurring character: Milky J. He loves the Hubble Telescope, and he’s not giving it up without a fight.
“We Were Traumatized by Science” – BBC Spoofs Science Education
The Brits really know how to make science absurd. Before John Cleese’s nonsensical science podcasts, there was the BBC spoof, Look Around You. The show, which aired in the early aughts, made fun of old science education videos – right … Continue reading
The Connection Between Prime Numbers and Music
Prime numbers––those divisible only by themselves and one––have confounded mathematicians for centuries. Because mathematicians rely on patterns, the fact that primes occur at seemingly random intervals (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13…) makes them the Holy Grail of math. Many … Continue reading
Posted in Film, television
Tagged BBC, Documentary, Marcus du Sautoy, primes, Riemann's Hypothesis
1 Comment
The Inspired “Story of Math”
The excellent four-hour BBC documentary The Story of Math introduces viewers to the great mathematicians and their contributions by traveling to the places they lived and that inspired them. Host and Oxford Professor Marcus du Sautoy is most engaging as … Continue reading
