Open Culture » Stanford

The Stanford Mini Med School: Visit the Web Site

Dan Colman — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:36:46 +0000

Back in January, we gave you a heads up about a new course available online: The Stanford Mini Med School. Now it’s time for a quick update: the Stanford School of Medicine has launched a handsome web site that conveniently centralizes the video lectures in one place. 10 lectures (from the Fall term) now appear. Eventually, another 20 lectures will get posted. You can start watching here.

For more courses, visit this big list of Free Online Courses from top universities.

The Stanford Mini Med School: Visit the Web Site is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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The History of the Seemingly Impossible Chinese Typewriter

Dan Colman — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:24:14 +0000

The Chinese language has tens of thousands of characters, and many have considered it nearly impossible to fit these characters onto a single workable typewriter. But that hasn’t stopped inventors from trying … and, to a certain degree, succeeding. Stanford historian Thomas Mullaney is now writing the first history of the Chinese typewriter, and he has found evidence for numerous patents and prototypes that incorporate the most commonly used characters. In addition to making a political impact in China, these machines have also potentially influenced innovations in modern computing. You can read more about Mullaney’s work on Stanford’s Human Experience website, and also watch him discuss his work in this YouTube clip.

The History of the Seemingly Impossible Chinese Typewriter is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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The Stanford Mini Med School: A Free Course Now Online

Dan Colman — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 06:16:53 +0000

Starting this past fall, Stanford’s School of Medicine and Stanford Continuing Studies (my day job) teamed up to offer The Stanford Mini Med School. Featuring more than thirty distinguished faculty, scientists, and physicians, this yearlong series of courses (three in total) offers students a dynamic introduction to the world of human biology, health and disease, and the groundbreaking changes taking place in medical research and health care. 250 lifelong learners (like yourself) attended the first course on Stanford’s campus this fall. And you can now access it on iTunes. We’ve posted the first two lectures (in video), and eight more lectures will soon be coming online. (Update: You can now find the videos on the Stanford Med School web site, and on YouTube.) Below, I’ve added the course description for the fall course, and you can also find it listed in the Biology Section of our ever-growing collection of Free Online Courses. When the winter and spring courses arrive, I’ll be sure to give you a heads up.

This Fall, the Stanford Mini Med School will get started with a journey inside human biology. We will start by familiarizing ourselves with the world of very small things. We will take a close look at DNA, stem cells, and microbes, and see how these and other small players form the building blocks of the human body. This will allow us to understand how human organs develop (and can also regenerate), how our nervous and immune systems work, and how diseases can afflict us. From there, the course will move beyond the individual and take a more global view of health. How do pandemics take shape? How does the environment affect our collective health? And how can we finally implement a healthcare system that makes sense for our nation? Various experts from the Stanford School of Medicine will address these and other big picture questions during the first course in the Stanford Mini Med School.

For a description of the current Mini Med School course (which we will eventually post online) please

The Stanford Mini Med School: A Free Course Now Online is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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What Would MLK Say About the USA Today?

Dan Colman — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 08:54:19 +0000

What would Martin Luther King Jr. think about America in 2010? Few would know better than Clayborne Carson, the Stanford historian who directs the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. In this talk, Carson describes MLK’s likely thoughts about America during the Great Recession. King cared deeply about economic justice, and it’s clear that King wouldn’t have looked unambivalently upon the inequalities that the financial meltdown made so glaringly obvious. Next week, the U.S. will celebrate King’s birthday and bankers will collect their record-setting bonuses …

Note: Clayborne Carson is currently holding Open Office Hours on Stanford’s Facebook Page. Be sure to visit. Also, Professor Carson has taught an online course that you can freely download. It’s called African-American History: Modern Freedom Struggle, and you can find it on YouTube and iTunes. It’s also the first course that appears in our collection of Free Courses.

What Would MLK Say About the USA Today? is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Stanford Releases New iPhone App Development Course

Dan Colman — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:58:32 +0000

Last year, Stanford University gave iPhone owners around the world a boost when it released a free iPhone App Development course (find it on iTunes). Millions have since downloaded the lectures, and many new iPhone apps have been created as a result. (Partly thanks to this course, we developed our own Free iPhone App that gives you mobile access to our educational media collections — free audio books, free university courses, free language lessons, etc. Get our app here.)

This week, Stanford has started rolling out a new App Development course (get it in video on iTunes), one adapted to the new iPhone operating system that Apple released last summer. Two lectures have been released so far. More will get rolled out on a weekly basis. Please note, these courses also appear in our collection of Computer Science Courses, a subset of our larger collection of Free Courses from leading universities.

Stanford Releases New iPhone App Development Course is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Sapolsky Breaks Down Depression

Dan Colman — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:30:00 +0000

Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford biologist, is currently one of the most publicly accessible science writers in the country, perhaps best known for his book on stress, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. In the lecture above, Sapolsky takes a hard look at depression. The topic is a little heavy. I’ll grant that. But, it’s also important. As Sapolsky is quick to point out, depression is pervasive and getting worse. Currently, it’s the 4th greatest cause of disability worldwide, and it will soon become the 2nd. For Sapolsky, depression is deeply biological; it is rooted in biology, just like, say, diabetes. Here, you will see how depression changes the body. When depressed, our brains function differently while sleeping, our stress response goes way up 24/7, our biochemistry levels change, etc. Given the pervasiveness of depression, this video is well worth a watch.

Sapolsky Breaks Down Depression is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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The World’s Smallest Writing Ever. Going Subatomic at Stanford.

Dan Colman — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:22:31 +0000

Visit Stanford’s YouTube Channel here.

The World’s Smallest Writing Ever. Going Subatomic at Stanford. is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Stanford Online Writing Courses – The Winter Lineup

Dan Colman — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 05:28:37 +0000

A quick fyi: On Monday morning (8:30 am California time), Stanford Continuing Studies opens up registration for its winter lineup of online writing courses. Offered in partnership with the Stanford Creative Writing Program (one of the most distinguished writing programs in the country), these online courses give beginning and advanced writers, no matter where they live, the chance to refine their craft with gifted writing instructors. As you will see, there are a couple of courses offered in conjunction with The New York Times. The idea here is that you’ll learn writing from a Stanford writing instructor and then get your work reviewed by a New York Times book critic/writer. Quite a perk. And the courses sell out quickly. For more information, click here, or separately check out the FAQ and the testimonials.

Caveat emptor: These classes are not free, and I helped set them up. So while I wholeheartedly believe in these courses, you can take my views with a grain of salt.

Stanford Online Writing Courses – The Winter Lineup is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Stanford Students Set Record with Model Plane

Dan Colman — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:23:58 +0000

Put a bunch of Stanford graduate students together. Give them 10 weeks to build a model airplaine, and what do you get? A world record at 7,000 feet — something it might cost NASA millions to do.

Stanford Students Set Record with Model Plane is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum

Dan Colman — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:51:05 +0000

For the past two years, Stanford has been rolling out a series of courses (collectively called Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum) that gives you a baseline knowledge for thinking intelligently about modern physics. The sequence, which moves from Isaac Newton, to Albert Einstein’s work on the general and special theories of relativity, to black holes and string theory, comes out of Stanford’s Continuing Studies program (my day job). And the courses are all taught by Leonard Susskind, an important physicist who has engaged in a long running “Black Hole War” with Stephen Hawking. The final course, Statistical Mechanics, has now been posted on YouTube, and you can also find it on iTunes in video. The rest of the courses can be accessed immediately below. Six courses. Roughly 120 hours of content. A comprehensive tour of modern physics. All in video. All free. Beat that.

Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum

Classical Mechanics (Fall 2007) iTunes YouTube
Quantum Mechanics (Winter 2008) iTunes YouTube
Special Relativity (Spring 2008) iTunes YouTube
Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (Fall 2009) iTunes YouTube
Cosmology (Winter 2009) iTunes YouTube
Statistical Mechanics (Spring 2009) iTunes YouTube

PS If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you should consider checking out Prof. Susskind’s new course. It will take a yearlong look at new revolutions in Particle Physics, and how important theories will be tested by the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. His course begins next week. Learn more here.

Learning Physics Through Free Online Courses

Modern Physics: The Theoretical Minimum is a post from: Open Culture. Visit us at www.openculture.com

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