All Blog Posts (462)

Objectified

Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.

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Added by Aaron Claassens on March 12, 2010 at 11:43am — No Comments

To Infinity and Beyond

By our third year, most of us will have learned to count. Once we know how, it seems as if there would be nothing to stop us counting forever. But, while infinity might seem like a perfectly innocent idea, keep counting and you enter a paradoxical world where nothing is as it seems. Mathematicians have discovered there are infinitely many infinities, each one infinitely bigger than the last. And if the universe goes on forever, the consequences are even more bizarre. In an infinite universe, th… Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on March 12, 2010 at 11:38am — No Comments

Mainstreaming Psychedelics: From FDA to Harvard to Burning Man

ABSTRACT Presented by Rick Doblin, Ph.D., Executive Director MAPS. We're now in the midst of a worldwide renaissance in psychedelic research, after decades of political suppression. Scientists from around the world will present their new findings at the largest psychedelic conference to take place in the US in 17 years, on April 15-18, 2010, in San Jose, CA (http://www.maps.org/conference/ ). Even media reports, which usually men… Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on March 12, 2010 at 11:25am — No Comments

To Age or Not to Age

In this panel discussion moderated by Robert Kane Pappas, director of To Age or Not to Age, distinguished panelists debate the future of anti-aging research. Panelists include: Dr. Robert Butler, Gerontologist, Psychiatrist & Pulitzer-Prize Winner, President and CEO of the International Longevity Center; Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Biomedical Gerontologist, Chief Science Officer, SENS Foundation; and Dr. Leonard P. Guarente, Novartis Professor of Biology, MIT, Director, Paul F. Glenn Lab for Science… Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on March 11, 2010 at 3:29pm — No Comments

Gary Flake: is Pivot a turning point for web exploration?

Gary Flake demos Pivot, a new way to browse and arrange massive amounts of images and data online. Built on breakthrough Seadragon technology, it enables spectacular zooms in and out of web databases, and the discovery of patterns and links invisible in standard web browsing. Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on March 10, 2010 at 3:47pm — No Comments

Tim Berners-Lee: The year open data went worldwide

At TED2009, Tim Berners-Lee called for "raw data now" -- for governments, scientists and institutions to make their data openly available on the web. At TED University in 2010, he shows a few of the interesting results when the data gets linked up. Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on March 10, 2010 at 3:41pm — No Comments

Eric Topol: The wireless future of medicine

Eric Topol says we'll soon use our smartphones to monitor our vital signs and chronic conditions. At TEDMED, he highlights several of the most important wireless devices in medicine's future -- all helping to keep more of us out of hospital beds.

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Added by Aaron Claassens on March 2, 2010 at 10:53am — No Comments

Pawan Sinha on how brains learn to see

Pawan Sinha details his groundbreaking research into how the brain's visual system develops. Sinha and his team provide free vision-restoring treatment to children born blind, and then study how their brains learn to interpret visual data. The work offers insights into neuroscience, engineering and even autism.

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Added by Aaron Claassens on March 2, 2010 at 10:49am — No Comments

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory

Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our "experiencing selves" and our "remembering selves" perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for economics, public policy -- and our own self-awareness. Widely regarded as the world's most influential living psychologist, Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel in Economics for his pioneering work in behavioral economics -- exploring the irrat… Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on March 2, 2010 at 10:41am — No Comments

Nutrients for Better Mental Performance

Google Tech Talk December 2, 2009 ABSTRACT Presented by Steven Wm. Fowkes. The talk will answer questions like: 1. Which nutrients promote optimal brain function? 2. What nutrients are commonly deficient enough to impair mental performance? 3. How can you get a better nights sleep without Ambien? 4. What nutrients counteract aspects of aging? 5. Is there an alternative to serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) antidepressants? 6. What modern nutrition myths lead us to consume products that sabot… Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on March 1, 2010 at 4:15pm — No Comments

Jaron Lanier: Alan Turing and the Tech World's New Religion

Silicon Valley guru Jaron Lanier explains how the man credited with helping invent the computer also planted the seed for a new religion for technologists. Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on March 1, 2010 at 4:02pm — No Comments

BBC - The Day I Died, NDE & Consciousness Documentary

A very interesting documentary on the NDE phenomena.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1D5F1BDE07EE2E47&search_query=NDE Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on February 23, 2010 at 8:05am — No Comments

Kevin Kelly tells technology's epic story

In this wide-ranging, thought-provoking talk from TEDxAmsterdam, Kevin Kelly muses on what technology means in our lives -- from its impact at the personal level to its place in the cosmos.

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Added by Aaron Claassens on February 22, 2010 at 1:37pm — No Comments

Tech4thought interviews Vernor Vinge

Part 1

Part 2

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Added by Aaron Claassens on February 19, 2010 at 9:23am — No Comments

The Man Who Builds Brains by David Kushner

Using computer processors that behave like neurons in the neocortex, Henry Markram is inching closer to building a simulated human brain—a truly conscious machine

On the quarter-mile walk between his office at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and the nerve c

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Added by Aaron Claassens on February 18, 2010 at 11:30am — No Comments

The Wisdom of the Hive: Is the Web a Threat to Creativity and Cultural Values? One Cyber Pioneer Thinks So

Jaron Lanier rails against the social trends being fostered by the Internet--in particular its power to stifle creativity and grant anonymity as well as encourage groupthink and a lynch-mob mentality

To virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier, nothing less than our culture and highest moral values are at s… Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on February 17, 2010 at 2:05pm — 1 Comment

The Secrect You | Consciousness Parts 1-6

Part 1

Part 2… Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on February 17, 2010 at 10:12am — No Comments

Erik Davis’ Expanding Mind

Erik Davis has had a lot of very interesting podcasts recently on his show, Expanding Mind. I recently enjoyed listening to the Mark Pesce and RU Sirius interviews as well as the one with Richard Doyle, professor of (science &) Rhetoric at Penn State and Berkely and author of On Beyond Living, Wetwares and soon to be published The Ecodelic Hypothesis: Plants, Rhetoric and the Evolution of The Noösphere.

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Added by Anders Claassens on February 14, 2010 at 7:46pm — No Comments

Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos augmented-reality maps

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Added by Aaron Claassens on February 14, 2010 at 7:30pm — No Comments

Horizon | Pill Poppers

Over a person's lifetime they are likely to be prescribed more than 14,000 pills. Antibiotics, cholesterol lowering tablets, anti-depressants, painkillers, even tablets to extend youth and improve performance in bed. These drugs perform minor miracles day after day, but how much is really known about them? Drug discovery often owes as much to serendipity as to science, and that means much is learnt about how medicines work, or even what they do, when they're taken. By investigating some of the… Continue

Added by Aaron Claassens on February 9, 2010 at 12:26pm — No Comments