Why Sitting Is The New Smoking: An Animated Explanation

in Biology, Health | August 4th, 2015

Dur­ing the past year, sit­ting has become the new smok­ing. “Past stud­ies have found,” declares a 2014 arti­cle in The New York Times, “the more hours that peo­ple spend sit­ting, the more like­ly they are to devel­op dia­betes, heart dis­ease and oth­er con­di­tions, and poten­tial­ly to die pre­ma­ture­ly — even if they exer­cise reg­u­lar­ly.” What’s the sci­ence behind this alarm­ing claim? The ani­mat­ed TED-ED video (above) begins to paint the pic­ture. But it does­n’t get into the lat­est and per­haps most impor­tant research. Accord­ing to sci­ence writer Gretchen Reynolds, a recent Swedish study pub­lished in the British Jour­nal of Sports Med­i­cine sug­gests that when you sit all day, your telom­eres (the tiny caps on the ends of DNA strands) get short­er. Which is not a good thing. As telom­eres get short­er, the rate at which the body ages and decays speeds up. Con­verse­ly, the study found “that the telom­eres in [those] who were sit­ting the least had length­ened. Their cells seemed to be grow­ing phys­i­o­log­i­cal­ly younger.”

Sev­er­al months ago, KQED radio in San Fran­cis­co aired a pro­gram ded­i­cat­ed to this ques­tion, fea­tur­ing med­ical and ergonom­ics experts. To delve deep­er into it, lis­ten below. Or click here.

Mean­while, if you have advice on how to incor­po­rate move­ment into your day, please share it with your fel­low read­ers in the com­ments sec­tion below.

And if your mind imme­di­ate­ly drifts to buy­ing a stand­ing desk, then check out our relat­ed post: Who Wrote at Stand­ing Desks? Kierkegaard, Dick­ens and Ernest Hem­ing­way Too

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Endangered Species (Including Cecil the Lion) Projected Onto the Empire State Building

in Art | August 2nd, 2015

Any­one with a Face­book or Twit­ter account last week could­n’t avoid hear­ing about Wal­ter James Palmer, the Min­neso­ta den­tist who alleged­ly went tro­phy hunt­ing in Zim­bab­we and killed Cecil the Lion, a local favorite who had been ille­gal­ly lured away from a pro­tect­ed wildlife pre­serve. I won’t say any­thing more about it, oth­er than that you can sign a peti­tion to get Palmer extra­dit­ed to Zim­bab­we and let him defend his actions to local author­i­ties.

Mean­while, back in New York City, two artists Travis Threlkel and Louie Psi­hoyos were get­ting ready to turn The Empire State build­ing into a Noah’s Ark of Endan­gered Ani­mals. And that’s exact­ly what hap­pened on Sat­ur­day night. Plac­ing “40 stacked, 20,000-lumen pro­jec­tors on the roof of a near­by build­ing,” Threlkel and Psi­hoyos pro­ject­ed an array of endan­gered ani­mals “onto a space 375 feet tall and 186 feet wide cov­er­ing 33 floors,” reports The New York Times. You can see pho­tos of the ani­mals over at the Rac­ing Extinc­tion Twit­ter stream. Touch­ing­ly, there was an homage to Cecil the Lion. A video from the Times appears above; anoth­er from The New York­er below.

To learn more about how Project Map­ping works, and to see oth­er exam­ples of Threlkel’s work, see the videos on this page.

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Brooklyn–Based Makers of Artisanal Water Let You Sip From America’s Great Cultural Waters

in Uncategorized | July 31st, 2015

The Tim­my Broth­ers, based in Brook­lyn, cre­ate hand­craft­ed water. It’s not just any water. It’s water that lets you trav­el to dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al times and places. Want to drink water that evokes mem­o­ries of Mark Twain’s Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er? Or the great jazz that came out of New Orleans? Well, the Tim­my Broth­ers have just the prod­uct for you.

If you’re in Brook­lyn, also con­sid­er mak­ing a side trip to Bea­con, NY where David Rees lov­ing­ly cre­ates arti­sanal hand­craft­ed pen­cils. You’ll nev­er look at pen­cils the same way again. :-)

via Digg

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1,000 Musicians Perform Foo Fighters’ “Learn to Fly” in Unison in Italy

in Music | July 30th, 2015

Despite break­ing his leg dur­ing a gig ear­li­er this sum­mer, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fight­ers have blitzed their way through Europe and Amer­i­ca, play­ing some­times 5–6 shows per week, in cities often large, but some­times small.

On Sep­tem­ber 16th, the band will make a pit­stop in my home­town, Moun­tain View, CA (pop­u­la­tion 75,000). So it does­n’t seem implau­si­ble for the res­i­dents of Cese­na, Italy (pop­u­la­tion 100,000) to ask the Foo Fight­ers to play a show in their small city, which sits right near the Adri­at­ic Sea.

And boy did they make the request in style. I get chills when I watch this, every time.

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Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins & Grace Jones To Star in Gutterdämmerung, “The Loudest Silent Movie on Earth!”

in Film, Music | July 28th, 2015

Once upon a time, Joe Strum­mer wrote and direct­ed Hell W10, a silent black & white film fea­tur­ing the music of The Clash. And the Pix­ies’ Black Fran­cis cre­at­ed a dri­ving, jan­gling sound­track for one of Weimar Germany’s finest silent films, The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920).

If the meld­ing of vin­tage and mod­ern aes­thet­ics appeals, then get ready for Gutterdämmerung. Direct­ed by the Bel­gian-Swedish visu­al artist Björn Tage­mose, Gutterdämmerung promis­es to be “the loud­est silent movie on earth,” with Iggy Pop, Grace Jones and Hen­ry Rollins play­ing star­ring roles. BEAT describes the premise of the film as fol­lows:

The film is set in a alter­nate real­i­ty where God has saved the world from sin by tak­ing from mankind the Devil’s Evil Gui­tar. As a result the Earth has been cleansed into a puri­tan world with no room for sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll (boo). [Queue] Iggy Pop as the punk angel Vicious, who secret­ly sends the Evil Gui­tar back to Earth, unleash­ing all man­ner of sin upon mankind.

Things get even cra­zier when Hen­ry Rollins, as the puri­tan priest, coerces a girl to destroy the gui­tar, a quest that see’s her face the most evil rock ‘n’ roll bas­tards on the plan­et. Grace Jones plays the only per­son capa­ble of con­trol­ling all the testos­terone of all the no good rock ‘n’ rollers – obvi­ous­ly.

The direc­tor and cast set the scene a lit­tle more in the “launch video” above. To be hon­est, the video feels a bit like a spoof, mak­ing me won­der whether this is all a big put on. But they’ve cer­tain­ly set up a respectable web site where, each week, they’ll announce oth­er per­son­al­i­ties star­ring in the film. So, stay tuned…

via Pitch­fork

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Ger­man Expres­sion­ist Film, The Golem, with a Sound­track by The Pix­ies’ Black Fran­cis

The Clash Star in 1980’s Gang­ster Par­o­dy Hell W10, a Film Direct­ed by Joe Strum­mer

101 Free Silent Films: The Great Clas­sics

Harper Lee Gets a Request for a Photo; Offers Important Life Advice Instead (2006)

in Letters, Life, Literature | July 27th, 2015

Harp­er Lee wrote To Kill a Mock­ing­bird in 1960. More than a half decade lat­er, the nov­el remains one of the most wide­ly-read books in Amer­i­can class­rooms. And stu­dents still write the 89-year-old author, request­ing pho­tographs and auto­graphs.

Occa­sion­al­ly, they get a lit­tle more than they bar­gained for. Take, for exam­ple, a stu­dent named “Jere­my,” who wrote Lee in 2006 and request­ed a pho­to. In return, he got some­thing more valu­able and endur­ing: some pithy life advice. The let­ter Harp­er sent to Jere­my reads as fol­lows:

06/07/06

Dear Jere­my

I don’t have a pic­ture of myself, so please accept these few lines:

As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to oth­ers, and don’t think you are the most impor­tant being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look any­one in the eye and say, “I’m prob­a­bly no bet­ter than you, but I’m cer­tain­ly your equal.”

(Signed, ‘Harp­er Lee’)

Lee’s sec­ond nov­el, Go Set a Watch­man, was just released last week — 55 years after her debut. You can read the first chap­ter (and also hear Reese With­er­spoon read it aloud) here.

via Let­ters of Note

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen King Writes A Let­ter to His 16-Year-Old Self: “Stay Away from Recre­ation­al Drugs”

Harp­er Lee on the Joy of Read­ing Real Books: “Some Things Should Hap­pen On Soft Pages, Not Cold Met­al”

74 Essen­tial Books for Your Per­son­al Library: A List Curat­ed by Female Cre­atives

Neil deGrasse Tyson Presents a Brief History of Everything in an 8.5 Minute Animation

in Astronomy, Creativity, Physics | July 24th, 2015

Patre­on, a crowd fund­ing site where fans can auto­mat­i­cal­ly tithe a set amount to their fave artist every time that per­son uploads con­tent, is a great way for pas­sion­ate, under-rec­og­nized indi­vid­u­als to gain vis­i­bil­i­ty and a bit of dough.

So what’s astro­physi­cist Neil deGrasse Tyson doing there? He’s already famous, and one would think his gig as direc­tor of New York City’s Hay­den Plan­e­tar­i­um, cou­pled with the pro­ceeds from his books and dvds, would prove suf­fi­cient to any finan­cial needs.

(Is it some sort of Aman­da Palmer thing?)

Nope. Turns out Dr. Tyson is there on some­one else’s behalf, nar­rat­ing an episode of Har­ry Reich’s Minute Physics. The video series often employs white­board ani­ma­tions to explain such sci­en­tif­ic phe­nom­e­na as dark mat­ter, wave/particle dual­i­ty, and bicy­cles.

The lat­est Tyson-nar­rat­ed episode, above, shoots the moon by cram­ming the entire His­to­ry of the Uni­verse (and some com­pli­men­ta­ry Stravin­sky) into an 8.5‑minute frame­work (a neg­li­gi­ble amount when you con­sid­er phe­nom­e­na like light years, but still many times the series’ stan­dard minute).

Thus far, 1075 fans of Minute Physics have anted up, result­ing in a take of $2,992.66 per video. (Click here to see how that amount com­pares to the var­i­ous wages and salaries of Dr. Tyson’s cowork­ers at the Amer­i­can Muse­um of Nat­ur­al His­to­ry…it’s clear Reich devotes a lot of labor to every episode.)

If you’re feel­ing flush (or ner­vous about the upcom­ing school year), you can join these 1075 fans, earn­ing admis­sion to a sup­port­ers-only activ­i­ty feed where you can ask ques­tions, watch out­takes, pre­view upcom­ing attrac­tions, and pos­si­bly even get your name in the cred­its.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Col­bert & Neil deGrasse Break Down Our Awe­some 3 Bil­lion-Mile Jour­ney to Plu­to

Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks Aster­oid Physics & “Non New­ton­ian Solids” with Inspir­ing 9‑Year-Old Stu­dent

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk Radio Show Pod­cast Tack­les the His­to­ry of Video Games

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

School Teachers Turn Old Lockers Into Literary Works of Art

in Art, Books | July 22nd, 2015

At Biloxi Junior High School, the teach­ers are spend­ing their sum­mer pret­ty pro­duc­tive­ly. They’re tak­ing an entire hall­way lined with dull green (cur­rent­ly unused) lock­ers and they’re repaint­ing each and every­one of them — 189 in total. By the time stu­dents return in the fall, each lock­er will look like the spine of a famous book, and the hall­way will be known as the “Avenue of Lit­er­a­ture.” One teacher told WLOX, “We want stu­dents to come back to school in August and … be absolute­ly amazed with what we’ve done and be curi­ous. We want that to be the spark for read­ing in our class­rooms… We’re hop­ing the stu­dents come and they become com­plete­ly immersed in a col­lec­tion” that con­tains every­thing from Water­ship Down and John­ny Tremain to books in the Twi­light series, reports Elec­tric Lit.

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Stephen Colbert & Neil deGrasse Break Down Our Awesome 3 Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto

in Astronomy | July 20th, 2015

The Late Show with Stephen Col­bert won’t hit the air­waves until Sep­tem­ber 8th, but Col­bert is already get­ting his Late Show Youtube chan­nel up and run­ning. That’s where you will find this video break­ing down NASA’s amaz­ing fly­by of Plu­to last week, a jour­ney that involved the New Hori­zons space­craft trav­el­ing a stag­ger­ing 3 bil­lion miles. (See pho­tos here.) Join­ing Col­bert is Neil deGrasse Tyson, who needs no intro­duc­tion around here. Enjoy the ban­ter, and don’t for­get that you can down­load Tyson’s short course, The Inex­plic­a­ble Uni­verse. It’s free from The Great Cours­es for a lim­it­ed time.

If the con­cept of Col­bert inter­view­ing Tyson intrigues you, don’t miss this lengthy inter­view orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on OC in 2011.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter, Google Plus and LinkedIn and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps. 

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Col­bert Reads Ray Brad­bury Clas­sic Sci-Fi Sto­ry “The Veldt”

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

Neil deGrasse Tyson Deliv­ers the Great­est Sci­ence Ser­mon Ever

Free Online Astron­o­my Cours­es

Read the First Chapter of Harper Lee’s New Book, Then Hear It Read by Reese Witherspoon

in Audio Books, Books | July 10th, 2015

After much press and debate, Harp­er Lee’s new nov­el — a sequel of sorts to her beloved book, To Kill a Mock­ing­bird — will be released on July 14th. You can pre-order Go Set a Watch­man: A Nov­el (already #1 on Ama­zon’s best­seller list). But, even bet­ter, you can head over to the The Wall Street Jour­nal or The Guardian and read the first chap­ter online. The Guardian also fea­tures an audio ver­sion read by the Oscar-win­ning actress Reese With­er­spoon. Stream it right below. (And, fyi, you can always down­load a free audio copy of To Kill a Mock­ing­bird through the free tri­al pro­grams run by Audiobooks.com and Audible.com.)

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