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Mind-blowing Video: Whale Fall (after life of a whale)
by Robert Lamb | November 17, 2011
You guys remember Sharon Shattuck, right? She’s the documentary filmmaker responsible for “Parasites: A User’s Guide” and a frequent collaborator with Radiolab. The recent “Loops” Radiolab episode featured a segment on the ultimate fate of a dead whale: how its body becomes not only a feeding ground but an ecosystem all its own. To help us envision this particular loop of life and death, Sharon created this lovely video detailing the stages of whale decomposition via puppets. Let’s watch:
I referenced “shrimp on a treadmill” in a recent episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, so here’s a quick refresher on what I was talking about. As reported in this excellent NPR story, when politicians such as Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn push to cut National Science Foundation funding, they love to point out the more preposterous-sounding details in the research. In the past this has included studies on the link between STDs and penis size (which didn’t actually use tax dollars), and “shrimp on a treadmill” is just the latest favorite among the anti-science funding crowd.
Given the popularity of the post on how English sounds to foreign ears, I thought it’d be cool to touch on a few other cool videos that showcase the linguistic similarities and differences in global human culture. Rap music provides an excellent test subject for this. It emerged in the late 1960s United States and has subsequently spread around the globe. Let’s run through examples of rap in 30 different world languages:
Mind-blowing Video: Voyager Greetings From Planet Earth
by Robert Lamb | August 10, 2011
Launched in 1977, the Voyager space probes are currently drifting through our Heliosheath. This is what we call the outermost layer of the heliosphere, the immense magnetic bubble that contains our solar system. As of today, Voyager 1 is more than 117 astronomical units (AU)away from the Earth, while Voyager 2 is more than 96 AU away (current distances updated here). They each carry the Voyager Golden Records, which feature a number of scenes, music, sounds and greetings from Earth.
Claire L. Evans produced the following video for the 2010 World Science Festival, which compiles the 55 earth greetings contained on the disc. Let’s watch:
It’s hump day, so why not take a quick break from your labors for some mind-expanding visuals courtesy of yours truly? These three videos come via a raid on a rather cool little blog called Awesome Robo! First up is “The Known Universe” from the American Museum of Natural History. It takes us from the Himalayas, up through Earth’s atmosphere and all the way through space Powers of Ten style to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Let’s watch:
I spent three years of my childhood in Newfoundland, Canada and I know that I was taken out to glimpse the ghostly lights of the aurora borealis on a few occasions — specifically while my my mom was giving birth to my youngest sister. But as we all know, sometimes the more amazing aspects of this world are lost on the young, so the only things I remember from that night were leafing through my favorite dinosaur book and playing with some monster toys.
Have you ever traveled far enough north or south to glimpse the northern or southern lights (aurora australis)? If not, here’s a taste of what it’s all about via a Norwegian time lapse video:
Julie and I have an episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind coming out this week on the connection between music and math, so I was really excited to run across “Resonance Film: Where Sound Meets Geometry” over at the excellent Coilhouse Blog. Thirty independent animators and sound artists teamed up for this project to create 12 to 20 second short forms that “explore the relationship between geometry and audio in unique ways.” In other words, it’s all about allowing the music to animate a mathematical world.
Let’s jump right into this first piece. Artist Esteban Diacono took the music of Gavin Little and Joe McHugh of Echolab and gave it power over a simple geometric shape that evolves with the audio. So there were no keyframes or storyboards. Everything you see (except for the camera work) is driven by the audio. Let’s watch:
This installment of Mind-Blowing Video is going to be all over the place, so BEAR WITH ME and for Carl‘s sake don’t play them all at once. First up, let’s hit the trailer for the best nature documentary you probably never saw. Why? Because when France’s 1999 film “Microcosmos” traveled to the US, distributes went with this horrible promotion art instead of the original. Hey, “A Bug’s Life” was doing big business, so why WOULDN’T you repackage the film with a cheesy shot of a mantis in shades?
What does English sound like to foreign ears?
by Robert Lamb | June 14, 2011
We’ve all heard examples of fake Chinese or German from speakers who lack familiarity with either language. While typically cringe-worthy, these examples do raise interesting questions regarding our own language. What does English sound like to non-English speakers? After more than 40 years, Adriano Celentano’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol” remains one of the most illuminating examples. Prepare to rock out and sorta kinda rap with an Italian comedian:
Your Stuff to Blow Your Mind duo is back in HowStuffWorks’ Atlanta home base after attending the World Science Festival in New York City. We’ll be sharing all we learned in a series of forthcoming blog posts and podcasts, but here’s just a little something I came across when I fit in a trip to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Yes, what you’re seeing is essentially storm chasing as an art form.
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