Dark Matter

This video doesn't quite have the same humor and flair as Neil DeGrasse Tyson's explanations of back hole death but it is very clear explanation of the evidence that suggests the existence of dark matter and dark energy.

Not So Rational...

In this video Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist from Duke University, demonstrates how and why our decision making is often less than rational. There are some obvious connections to be made between this presentation and the aspects of Lakoff's work that deal with what he sees as the out-dated notion of enlightenment reason. Aside from the intellectual content this is worth watching for its entertainment value. Who would have thought an economist could be this funny.

Black hole death

In this hilarious, entertaining and informative discussion writer and astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses death by astrophysical phenomena including being sucked into a black hole and being wiped out by an asteroid-impact tsunami. Discussing the possibility of avoiding a specific asteroid impact that may occur in 2036 by blowing the thing out of the sky Tyson says "We, particularly Americans, are very good at blowing stuff up... we're less good at understanding where the pieces go after it blows up." So much insight in so few words. The other interesting fact about the larger asteroid impacts (like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs) is that subterranean bacterias are in the best place to survive them, perhaps another reason to think of those bacterias as "the most intelligent organisms on earth". Here's the link to the full program (well worth it for the extra five minutes of this gem).

Free Markets?

In the current climate a title like "free speech, free minds, free markets" suggests that we're in for a last ditch effort by the right to deploy democratic ideals in a bid to avoid tighter regulation of the financial system. So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that in this case it referred to a presentation by Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) talking about the ideals of the organization and his plan for an open source search engine. His plan definitely represents an alternative rationality to the advertising driven search-engines that dominate our current use of the internet. If you have some listening time I recommend the full program rather than the excerpt I've posted below.

Fake Memoirs

From the book show on radio national an excellent program on the proliferation of faked memoirs recently re-aired as part of the summer series of repeats. Presenter Ramona Koval talks to a film-maker, a journalist/editor/academic and a publisher about people who fake it. There are some interesting answers in here to the question of why these people don't just write fiction.

James Frey author of A million little pieces

the "memoir" famously endorsed by Oprah Winfrey.