Physicist Brian Greene will talk today with Leonard Lopate on WNYC about how the US can regain its leadership in science and technology. It’s an interesting time to be having this conversation — funding of basic physics research is much in the news lately. Yesterday, an anonymous donor gave $5 million to Fermilab, outside Chicago, […]
Erik Hersman, at right, above, with David Kobia, reports: Wow, we’re absolutely stunned, but we just won first place at the NetSquared Challenge! That means we have a check for $25,000 that we can spend on further development of the Ushahidi Engine (version 2). Check out this post for a list of ways you can […]
The Huffington Post reports that Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth will be made into an opera for the 2011 season at La Scala in Milan. Composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to set the famous Keynote slide deck to music.
Tomorrow, Thursday, May 29, 2008, begins the World Science Festival: a four-day celebration of scientific exploration and discovery in New York City created by TEDster Brian Greene. Members of the TED team will be liveblogging the event right here on the TED Blog, keeping you updated on the latest from many TEDTalks favorites who will […]
From Agence France-Presse: A team of geneticists from Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) in Holland announced today that they’ve sequenced a woman’s DNA. It’s the first time female DNA has been completely sequenced — first the duck-billed platypus, and now this. The formal announcement, made today at the Bessensap press event, is in Dutch. From […]
Fans of Vik Muniz may be interested to learn the results of a recent study which shows that, when we look at a painting, our brains process its content before registering its style. In the study, paintings were presented in pairs for different time lengths and the participants were asked to judge the similarity within […]
One Laptop per Child designer Yves Behar (watch his TEDTalk) shares exciting news about the top-to-bottom redesign of the XO laptop — sometimes called the “$100 laptop.” He writes: With the XO (1.0), we pushed the boundaries of what a laptop could be by lowering the cost dramatically, being green (no heavy metals, lowest energy […]
Several TEDsters have written in to share this astonishing, close-up look at the processes behind common chemical reactions: David Bolinsky, eat your heart out. (The spot was directed by Roderick Fenske of Hungry Man and commissioned by agency Media Consulta and producer Till Drier to promote the Marie Curie Actions, a European group that provides […]
Above: Professor Stephen Hawking met South Africa’s former president, Nelson Mandela, in Houghton, Johannesburg, today. From left to right are Stephen Hawking, Neil Turok, Nelson Mandela, Pik Botha and David Block. Photograph by Dr Robert Groess. Professor Stephen Hawking today met with South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela to discuss the NextEinstein initiative — part […]
Amy Novogratz reports from the AIMS celebrating weekend in Muizeberg, Cape Town: During a luncheon to celebrate the opening of the new Research Center at AIMS — the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences — Barclays announces their support by starting with 20 AIMS scholarships a year, renewable. Stephen Hawking (right) is in South Africa for […]
Panthea Lee and Dan Shemie write from Shanghai: So after weeks of plotting, scheming and ceaseless fretting, our Friends of Pangea Day event in Shanghai has gone off without a hitch. For those unfamiliar with the situation, a brief explanation: the Chinese government has launched a serious crackdown on cultural events in the lead-up to […]
Visit the Pangea Day Blog for a minute-by-minute feed of what’s coming up next and what we just saw, and reports from Friends of Pangea Day parties around the globe! It’s not to late to start your own Pangea Day party — check in and say hi. Check out the Pangea Day Twitter feed too […]
We’re one hour into the four-hour broadcast of Pangea Day. Follow the show live on PangeaDay.org — and follow the action on the hopping Pangea Day Blog below the video window, with live updates and commenting! Photo: Marla Aufmuth
It’s less than an hour until Pangea Day, the global celebration of the power of film to unite the world. Right now, here in LA, the stage is quiet (above) — but at 18:00 GMT this stage and five others around the world will be full of people and music and amazing films. Watch it […]
(Above: Scenes from the filmmakers’ reception Thursday night in Los Angeles. We were asked: “Raise your hand if you came from outside the United States to be here.”) Last night in Los Angeles, Participant Productions honored 5 films from around the world by giving their filmmakers $5,000 grants. The grants are awarded by Participant, makers […]
(Above: a scene from Thursday’s tech rehearsal on the Pangea Day set) UPDATED: You can follow news from Pangea Day on the Pangea Day Blog — and get updates from bloggers at screenings and viewing parties around the world. If you’re going to be blogging Pangea Day as well, write to us with the subject […]