Cassini Solstice Mission: Saturn’s Moons Meet Nine Inch Nails

in Astronomy, Video - Science | June 7th, 2011

If you haven’t been fol­low­ing the Cassi­ni space­craft’s sec­ond mis­sion to Sat­urn, here’s a video that will hook you in. It fea­tures incred­i­ble black-and-white images of Sat­urn and its moons, all cap­tured by Cassini’s “cam­era” — also known as the Cassi­ni-Huy­gens Imag­ing Sci­ence Sub­sys­tem — and designer/director Chris Abbas, who edit­ed togeth­er footage from Cassini’s archive and set it to a great Nine Inch Nails sound­track.

Accord­ing to NASA, the Cassi­ni will con­tin­ue orbit­ing Sat­urn until May 2017. It has already dis­cov­ered some amaz­ing things about Sat­urn’s largest moon, Titan, includ­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Titan’s cur­rent state, com­plete with its lakes, rivers, rain, snow, clouds, moun­tains and even vol­ca­noes, may tell us some­thing about what earth was like before life evolved. But Abbas’s short film would be beau­ti­ful to watch even with­out any knowl­edge of the sci­ence behind it.

via @kirstinbutler

Relat­ed Con­tent:

NASA:  The Fron­tier is Every­where

NASA Cap­tures Giant Solar Storm

The Best of NASA Space Shut­tle Videos (1981–2010)

NASA Lauch­es Pho­to Archive on Flickr

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

10 Famous Philosophers in Words and Images

in Philosophy | June 6th, 2011

The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion has post­ed a nice set of por­traits called “Gallery of Minds,” fea­tur­ing images of 10 world-famous philoso­phers, includ­ing Richard Rorty, David Chalmers, and renowned philoso­pher and art crit­ic Arthur Dan­to, who also wrote a com­pelling intro­duc­tion. Dan­to focus­es on the visu­al artistry of the series’ pho­tog­ra­ph­er Steve Pyke, a long-time staff mem­ber at the New York­er, but we found the great thinkers’ own state­ments — their answers to the “why” of their cho­sen pur­suits — equal­ly, if not more, com­pelling. Here is MIT’s fem­i­nist meta­physi­cian Sal­ly Haslinger:

And Robin Jesh­ion, best known for a the­o­ry of sin­gu­lar thought which she calls Cog­ni­tivism, has this to say:

Final­ly, per­haps our favorite ‘mis­sion state­ment,’ from Jer­ry Fodor, the cog­ni­tive sci­en­tist who has worked out the­o­ries on the archi­tec­ture of the mind:

via @brainpicker

Relat­ed Con­tent:

275 Cul­tur­al Icons: Great Artists, Writ­ers & Thinkers in Their Own Words

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Carl Gustav Jung Ponders the Meaning of Death (1959)

in Psychology | June 6th, 2011

On June 6, 1961, the great psy­chol­o­gist Carl Gus­tav Jung died at his vil­la at Küs­nacht, on the shore of Lake Zurich, Switzer­land. He was 86 years old.

Jung viewed death as a ful­fill­ment, rather than a nega­tion, of life. “As a doc­tor,” he wrote in his 1930 essay, The Stages of Life, “I am con­vinced that it is hygienic–if I may use the word–to dis­cov­er in death a goal toward which one can strive, and that shrink­ing away from it is some­thing unhealthy and abnor­mal which robs the sec­ond half of life of its pur­pose.”

To this end, wrote Jung many years lat­er in Mem­o­ries, Dreams, Reflec­tions, a per­son should fol­low his instinct and embrace myth: “for rea­son shows him noth­ing but the dark pit into which he is descend­ing. Myth, how­ev­er, can con­jure up oth­er images for him, help­ful and enrich­ing pic­tures of life in the land of the dead.”

Jung cer­tain­ly embraced the myth of an after­life, as evi­denced in this excerpt from an Octo­ber, 1959 inter­view with John Free­man for the BBC pro­gram Face to Face. The 40-minute interview–in which Jung talks about for­ma­tive events of his child­hood, his friend­ship and falling-out with Sig­mund Freud, and his views on reli­gion and death–can be viewed in its entire­ty here.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Psy­chol­o­gy Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

Carl Jung Writes a Review of Joyce’s Ulysses and Mails It To The Author (1932)

Zen Mas­ter Alan Watts Explains What Made Carl Jung Such an Influ­en­tial Thinker

Carl Jung’s Fas­ci­nat­ing 1957 Let­ter on UFOs

The Most Beautiful Band in the City: A Joyous Prayer from Brazil

in Music | June 6th, 2011

A per­fect way to chase away the Mon­day morn­ing blues. Once obscure, the Brazil­ian musi­cal group A Ban­da Mais Boni­ta da Cidade (or “The Most Beau­ti­ful Band in the City”) has been rid­ing a wave of pop­u­lar­i­ty for the past two weeks, ever since their video, guar­an­teed to put a lit­tle smile on your face, went viral on YouTube. Oração (or “Prayer”) is their song; and it has reg­is­tered some 4.7 mil­lion views since May 17.

Thanks to a com­menter over at Metafil­ter, you can now find a quick and dirty trans­la­tion of the lyrics. (The trans­la­tion also appears after the jump). Plus we have Por­tuguese primers in our col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons.

And if you’re look­ing for a par­o­dy of the viral video — it was only a mat­ter of time, right? — you can find it here. It’s now clock­ing in at 1.2 mil­lion views…

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YouTube & Creative Commons Partnership Will Open Creative Floodgates

in YouTube | June 2nd, 2011

Start­ing at 9 pm PDT tonight, YouTube will make 10,000 Cre­ative Com­mons videos avail­able to any­one using YouTube’s video edi­tor. Ini­tial­ly the Cre­ative Com­mons library will be loaded with videos from C‑SPAN, Public.Resource.org, Voice of Amer­i­ca, and Al Jazeera, and you can bet that more con­tent providers will be added down the line.

This part­ner­ship will let video/filmmakers unleash their cre­ativ­i­ty and pro­duce some extra­or­di­nary video remix­es – à la Don­ald Dis­cov­ers Glenn Beck – with­out run­ning the risk of legal com­pli­ca­tions. And because the Cre­ative Com­mons library will be stocked only with videos released under a less restric­tive CC-BY license, the result­ing remix­es can have com­mer­cial ambi­tions. A boon for some.

Final­ly, we should­n’t miss anoth­er impor­tant com­po­nent of this part­ner­ship: Mov­ing for­ward, any video­mak­er can release their own cre­ative work under a CC license on YouTube. Fast for­ward 6 t0 18 months, and the Cre­ative Com­mons library will be vast,  and the remix oppor­tu­ni­ties, end­less. A good day for open cul­ture.

via YouTube’s blog and GigaOm

Free: European Cultural History in 91 Lectures by Eminent Historian George L. Mosse (1500–1920)

in History, Online Courses | June 2nd, 2011

Dur­ing the 1960s and 1970s, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son put togeth­er one of the finest his­to­ry pro­grams in the Unit­ed States, and it was anchored by George Mosse, a Ger­man-born cul­tur­al his­to­ri­an who authored 25 books cov­er­ing the Eng­lish Ref­or­ma­tion, Luther­an the­ol­o­gy, Jew­ish his­to­ry, and fas­cist ide­ol­o­gy. Though he died in 1999, Mosse still remains a leg­endary fig­ure in Madi­son, and now the uni­ver­si­ty (where I did my under­grad­u­ate work — in his­to­ry, no less) has dust­ed off record­ings of his cours­es and made them freely avail­able online.

Three of his cours­es tie togeth­er into a nice pack­age, offer­ing a long look at Euro­pean Cul­tur­al His­to­ry. The first course takes you from 1500 to 1800, cov­er­ing the Renais­sance, Ref­or­ma­tion, Eng­lish Rev­o­lu­tion, Enlight­en­ment, and French Rev­o­lu­tion. The sec­ond course moves from 1660 to 1880, focus­ing on the ideas that changed Europe. It’s essen­tial­ly an intel­lec­tu­al his­to­ry that traces the rise of Enlight­en­ment think­ing, Ger­man Roman­ti­cism and Ide­al­ism (includ­ing Hegelian­ism), the birth of lib­er­al­ism and Marx­ism and beyond.

And, final­ly, the last course focus­es on the crit­i­cal peri­od 1880 — 1920. Here we have a sur­vey of the cul­tur­al revolt against bour­geois soci­ety, the rise of mod­ern cul­ture (fig­ures like Niet­zsche, Freud, & Brecht take cen­ter stage), the dam­age wrought by World War I, and the begin­nings of fas­cism in Europe.

The cours­es, all pre­sent­ed in audio, are usu­al­ly accom­pa­nied by text sum­maries. You can down­load a fourth course by Mosse called Mod­ern Jew­ish His­to­ry. They all appear in the His­to­ry sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

X‑Men: Science Can Build Them, But Is It Ethical?

in Film, Sci Fi, Science | June 1st, 2011

Ever since Jack Kir­by and Stan Lee cre­at­ed the very first install­ment of the The Uncan­ny X‑Men for Mar­vel in 1963, the beloved team of mutant super­heroes known as the X‑Men have con­quered almost every medi­um in pop­u­lar cul­ture from tele­vi­sion to video games, to movies and of course com­ic books. Their endur­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty isn’t hard to under­stand: What Amer­i­can teenag­er (redun­dant, we know, since all Amer­i­cans are basi­cal­ly teenagers) could ever say no to an angsty band of telegenic out­siders who are per­pet­u­al­ly reviled and per­se­cut­ed for the very attrib­ut­es that make them supe­ri­or?

But there’s more than nar­cis­sism at play. The core of the X‑Men myth — genet­ic muta­tion — is some­thing sci­en­tists have been learn­ing how to manip­u­late for decades, and now it’s just a mat­ter of time before we know how to build X‑Men of our own. But just as in the case of nuclear bombs, killer virus­es and 3‑D action movies, the fact that we can make them does­n’t mean we should. In the above video from Emory Uni­ver­si­ty, Bioethics pro­fes­sor Paul Root Wolpe explores this moral dilem­ma via the lat­est iter­a­tion of the beloved mutants’ saga: X‑Men: First Class (In the­aters June 3rd, and, praise be to Mendel, NOT in 3‑D).

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Hey London! What Song are You Listening To?

in Music | June 1st, 2011

Inspired by Tyler Cul­len’s project in New York, Dan Maas hit the streets in Lon­don and asked “Hey! What Song are You Lis­ten­ing To?” The tracks, list­ed below the jump, appeal a bit more to my geezer­ish tastes. By the time we reach Krakow we should be in good shape …
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3D Map of Universe Captures 43,000 Galaxies

in Astronomy | May 31st, 2011

The 2MASS Red­shift Sur­vey (details here) took 10 years to com­plete, and it has now yield­ed the finest 3D map of the uni­verse ever made, cat­a­logu­ing more than 43,000 galax­ies with­in 380 mil­lion light-years from Earth. The new map was pre­sent­ed last week at the 218th meet­ing of the Amer­i­can Astro­nom­i­cal Soci­ety. You can view the map in a much big­ger for­mat here and, as one user sug­gests, you may want to “right click and save as desk­top back­ground.”

Space.com has more details on this incred­i­ble map­ping project. Thanks Robin for send­ing along.

Don’t miss us on Face­book and Twit­ter.

Penn Sound: Fantastic Audio Archive of Modern & Contemporary Poets

in Poetry | May 31st, 2011

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia hosts an exten­sive and pret­ty remark­able audio col­lec­tion of mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary poet­ry, with a gen­er­ous help­ing of prose writ­ers thrown in. Direct­ed by Al Fil­reis and Charles Bern­stein (whose U. Penn exper­i­men­tal poet­ry cours­es are them­selves works of art), the col­lec­tion includes hun­dreds of names you’ll rec­og­nize imme­di­ate­ly, and oth­ers who are not house­hold names, but ought to be.

You can start with the stars, includ­ing John Ash­bery, F. Scott Fitzger­ald, Amiri Bara­ka, Ezra Pound, William Car­los Williams, and Vladimir Mayakovsky… But don’t be afraid to dig around for a while too. We were delight­ed to find “The Out­cry,” a favorite poem by the won­der­ful William Bronk, and sev­er­al fas­ci­nat­ing pod­cast inter­views with Cid Cor­man.

For more poet­ry, don’t miss the read­ings in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Vari­ety, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.