Avant-Garde Poet Henri Michaux Creates Educational Film Visualizing Effects of Mescaline & Hash (1964)

in Art, Film, Poetry, Science | September 4th, 2013

You don’t need to under­stand French to appre­ci­ate the project. In 1964, the Swiss phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny San­doz (now Novar­tis) com­mis­sioned the Bel­gian writer, poet and painter Hen­ri Michaux to pro­duce a film that demon­strat­ed the effects of hal­lu­cino­genic drugs. The com­pa­ny saw the film as a way to help its sci­en­tists get clos­er to the hal­lu­cino­genic expe­ri­ence — not sur­pris­ing, giv­en that San­doz was the com­pa­ny that first syn­the­sized LSD back in 1938.

Hen­ri Michaux had already pub­lished accounts where he used words, signs and draw­ings to recount his expe­ri­ences with trip-induc­ing drugs. (See his trans­lat­ed book, Mis­er­able Mir­a­cle.) And that con­tin­ued with the new film, Images du monde vision­naire (Images of a Vision­ary World.) At the top, you can find the trip­py seg­ment devot­ed to mesca­line, and, below that, Michaux’s visu­al treat­ment of hashish. Watch the com­plete film, except for one unfor­tu­nate­ly blem­ished minute, here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

This is What Oliv­er Sacks Learned on LSD and Amphet­a­mines

Aldous Huxley’s LSD Death Trip

Ken Kesey’s First LSD Trip Ani­mat­ed

How to Oper­ate Your Brain: A User Man­u­al by Tim­o­thy Leary (1993)

Beyond Tim­o­thy Leary: 2002 Film Revis­its His­to­ry of LSD

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What We Still Don’t Know: Martin Rees Tackles Deepest Scientific Questions in Great Documentary

in Science | September 3rd, 2013

Episode one: ‘Are We Alone?’

“The Uni­verse is still a place of mys­tery and won­der,” says cos­mol­o­gist Mar­tin Rees in this three-part series from Chan­nel 4. “With each advance, new ques­tions come into sharp­er focus.”

What We Still Don’t Know was first broad­cast in 2004. It won a British Indie Award the fol­low­ing year for best sci­ence doc­u­men­tary. Direct­ed by Srik Narayanan and nar­rat­ed by David Mal­one, the series offers a fas­ci­nat­ing look at some of the most fun­da­men­tal ques­tions in sci­ence — or indeed, in life. “Are We Alone?” (above). “Why Are We Here?” and “Are We Real?” (Both below).

Episode two: ‘Why Are We Here?

Episode three: ‘Are We Real?’

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An Animated History of Physics Introduces the Discoveries of Galileo, Newton, Maxwell & Einstein

in Animation, Physics, Science | August 22nd, 2013

How can you present sci­en­tif­ic ideas to an audi­ence of all ages — sci­en­tists and non-sci­en­tists alike — so that these ideas will stick in peo­ple’s minds? Since 2012, BBC Two has been try­ing to answer this ques­tion with its series “Dara Ó Bri­ain’s Sci­ence Club.” Irish stand-up come­di­an and TV pre­sen­ter Dara Ó Bri­ain invites experts to his show to tack­le the biggest con­cepts in sci­ence in a way that is under­stand­able to non-experts as well. Film clips and ani­ma­tions are used to visu­al­ize the ideas and con­cepts dealt with in the show.

In 2012, Åsa Lucan­der, a Lon­don-based ani­ma­tor orig­i­nal­ly from Fin­land, was approached by the BBC with the task of cre­at­ing an ani­ma­tion about the his­to­ry of physics. The result is as enter­tain­ing as it is instruc­tive. The clip deals with the dis­cov­er­ies of four major sci­en­tists and the impact of their find­ings: Galileo Galilei, Isaac New­ton, James Clerk Maxwell and Albert Ein­stein.

Bonus mate­r­i­al:

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Free Online Physics Cours­es

Leonard Susskind Teach­es You “The The­o­ret­i­cal Min­i­mum” for Under­stand­ing Mod­ern Physics

125 Great Sci­ence Videos: From Astron­o­my to Physics and Psy­chol­o­gy

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Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ Re-Created by Astronomer with 100 Hubble Space Telescope Images

in Art, Harvard, Science, Technology | August 20th, 2013

rsz_starrynight_hst001

Last week, I trav­eled to New York City to gaze into The Star­ry Night. Obvi­ous­ly I’m not talk­ing about the skies above Man­hat­tan, not when my hotel was based in Times Square. No, I’m talk­ing about Vin­cent van Gogh’s post-impres­sion­ist mas­ter­piece that hangs in the MoMA on 53rd Street. Although van Gogh seem­ing­ly felt ambiva­lent about his 1889 paint­ing, many now con­sid­er it one of the most impor­tant works of art pro­duced in the 19th cen­tu­ry. And like any oth­er great paint­ing, it has become a fetishized object, some­times in ways that we can find endear­ing. Take this lit­tle project for exam­ple. Last year, Alex Park­er, a post-doc­tor­al fel­low at the Har­vard-Smith­son­ian Cen­ter for Astro­physics, cre­at­ed a mosa­ic of Star­ry Night using 100 Hub­ble pho­tos. He down­loaded the pho­tos from the Euro­pean Space Agency’s web­site, popped them into a free dig­i­tal art soft­ware pack­age called AndreaMo­sa­ic and, voila, pro­duced the image above. You can — and should — view it in a larg­er, high-res for­mat here.

H/T Robin and Wired

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Simon Schama Presents Van Gogh and the Begin­ning of Mod­ern Art

Per­pet­u­al Ocean: A Van Gogh-Like Visu­al­iza­tion of our Ocean Cur­rents

Van Gogh to Rothko in 30 Sec­onds

 

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Slick Data Visualization Reveals Scientific Collaborations Taking Place Around the Globe

in Science | August 15th, 2013

scientific mapsA few years ago, dig­i­tal human­ists at Stan­ford mapped the Repub­lic of Let­ters, care­ful­ly detail­ing the social net­works that con­nect­ed thinkers dur­ing the Enlight­en­ment of the eigh­teenth cen­tu­ry. Now Olivi­er Beauch­esne, a data sci­en­tist in Cana­da, has used data visu­al­iza­tion tech­niques to map out a more mod­ern set of rela­tion­ships — col­lab­o­ra­tions tak­ing place among sci­en­tists across the globe.

science metrix visualization

What’s an exam­ple of such a col­lab­o­ra­tion? Beauch­esne writes: “If a UCLA researcher pub­lished a paper with a col­league at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tokyo, this would cre­ate an instance of col­lab­o­ra­tion between Los Ange­les and Tokyo.” By check­ing out this cool zoomable map, you can see thou­sands of these col­lab­o­ra­tions tak­ing place world­wide between 2005 and 2009, and pret­ty soon you real­ize the extent to which mod­ern sci­ence is an inter­na­tion­al affair. The data was pulled from Sci­ence-Metrix data­base.

H/T Pavel

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of Data Visu­al­iza­tion: How to Tell Com­plex Sto­ries Through Smart Design

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy Visu­al­ized

Visu­al­iz­ing WiFi Sig­nals with Light

New MOOC Intro­duces You to the Won­der­ful World of Info­graph­ics & Data Visu­al­iza­tion

Watch a Cool and Creepy Visu­al­iza­tion of U.S. Births & Deaths in Real-Time

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Neil deGrasseTyson Receives Irate Mail from Kids After Pluto Gets Booted from List of Planets

in Astronomy, Random, Science | August 5th, 2013

Pluto hatemailIn the late 1990s, Neil deGrasse Tyson and his col­leagues redesigned the Hay­den Plan­e­tar­i­um and, with­out much com­ment, they cre­at­ed a mod­el of the solar sys­tem that ban­ished Plu­to from the list of plan­ets. Dur­ing the fol­low­ing year, no one said very much. But then The New York Times pub­lished an arti­cle (Jan­u­ary 22, 2001) called “Plu­to’s Not a Plan­et? Only in New York,” and all hell broke loose, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the ele­men­tary schools. School kids were incensed, and the let­ters of com­plaint rolled in. You can find one such exam­ple from “Emer­son” above. Five oth­er let­ters can be found over at Men­tal Floss.

hatemail5

Of course, we all know how this sto­ry ends. In 2006, the Inter­na­tion­al Astro­nom­i­cal Union offi­cial­ly exiled Plu­to from the “pan­theon of plan­ets,” and lat­er Tyson wrote a book recount­ing his role in the messy affair, The Plu­to Files: The Rise and Fall of Amer­i­ca’s Favorite Plan­et.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Deliv­ers the Great­est Sci­ence Ser­mon Ever

Stephen Col­bert Talks Sci­ence with Astro­physi­cist Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

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How Climate Change Is Threatening Your Daily Cup of Coffee

in Environment, Food & Drink, Science | August 4th, 2013

Per­haps this will final­ly get your atten­tion. In Ethiopia, glob­al warm­ing is putting the cul­ti­va­tion of cof­fee at risk, to the point where the indige­nous Ethiopi­an cof­fee plant, Cof­fea ara­bi­ca, could go extinct with­in 70 years. That’s no laugh­ing mat­ter, espe­cial­ly if you con­sid­er that cof­fee orig­i­nat­ed in Ethiopia, and the coun­try remains an epi­cen­ter of cof­fee pro­duc­tion today. That’s the depress­ing … and per­haps moti­vat­ing … upshot of an oth­er­wise art­ful­ly-pro­duced film by The Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens (aka Kew Gar­dens) in Eng­land.  If you want to dig into the research show­ing the impact of cli­mate change on cof­fee, see the report pub­lished in Novem­ber, 2012 called: The Impact of Cli­mate Change on Indige­nous Ara­bi­ca Cof­fee (Cof­fea ara­bi­ca): Pre­dict­ing Future Trends and Iden­ti­fy­ing Pri­or­i­ties.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Glob­al Warm­ing: A Free Course from UChica­go Explains Cli­mate Change

132 Years of Glob­al Warm­ing Visu­al­ized in 26 Dra­mat­i­cal­ly Ani­mat­ed Sec­onds

Black Cof­fee: Doc­u­men­tary Cov­ers the His­to­ry, Pol­i­tics & Eco­nom­ics of the “Most Wide­ly Tak­en Legal Drug”

The His­to­ry of Cof­fee and How It Trans­formed Our World

This is Cof­fee!: A 1961 Trib­ute to Our Favorite Stim­u­lant

New­ly added to our list of 750 Free Online Cours­es:

Intro­duc­tion to Lit­er­a­ture and the Envi­ron­ment — YouTube — iTunes Video — Ken Hilt­ner, Prince­ton

How Cli­mate Works — YouTube — iTunes Video — Mul­ti­ple Profs, Prince­ton

 

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132 Years of Global Warming Visualized in 26 Dramatically Animated Seconds

in Science | August 1st, 2013

Cour­tesy of NASA comes a visu­al­iza­tion show­ing how glob­al tem­per­a­tures have changed since 1880. Accord­ing to NASA’s web site, this “col­or-cod­ed map shows a pro­gres­sion of chang­ing glob­al sur­face tem­per­a­tures from 1884 to 2012. Dark blue indi­cates areas cool­er than aver­age. Dark red indi­cates areas warmer than aver­age.”  And the dif­fer­ence between dark blue and dark red is about 7.2 degrees fahren­heit. NASA sci­en­tists note that “2012 was the ninth warmest of any year since 1880, con­tin­u­ing a long-term trend of ris­ing glob­al tem­per­a­tures. With the excep­tion of 1998, the nine warmest years in the 132-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 rank­ing as the hottest years on record.” Copies of the video above and still shots can be freely down­loaded from the NASA web site. To deep­en your under­stand­ing of cli­mate change, spend some time with Glob­al Warm­ing, a free online course from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go. 

via @SteveSilberman/Wash­Po

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Song of Our Warm­ing Plan­et: Cel­list Turns 130 Years of Cli­mate Change Data into Music

Glob­al Warm­ing: A Free Course from UChica­go Explains Cli­mate Change

Per­pet­u­al Ocean: A Van Gogh-Like Visu­al­iza­tion of our Ocean Cur­rents

Sal­ly Ride Warns Against Glob­al Warm­ing; Won­ders If Tech­nol­o­gy Can Save Us From Our­selves

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