Informative videos from AMNH
The American Museum of Natural History has some great videos on their channel. Here are a couple I was particularly interested in. See hominins evolve over millions of years, from bipedalism to controlling fire: Seven Million Years of Human Evolution See human population grow faster and faster over hundreds of years: Human Population Through Time […]
The story of the dodo
The dodo has been the exemplar of an animal that went extinct because it was too stupid. Scientists found out much more about the dodo after 2005 when some bones were discovered. The myths about the dodo, in other words what we heard about it as kids, are not true. Here’s the story from PBS […]
Astrology debunked
Since astrology is an industry worth billions of dollars, i wanted to place here what I think about it. It’s garbage. Here’s Professor Dave explaining what the deal is: Astrology: Fact or Fiction? He tests the claims of astrology, going through the possible mechanisms by which astrology might work, and testing to see if its […]
4 billion years of evolution
If you don’t have time to read The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins, you can watch this video. Prosanta Chakrabarty gives a TED talk on evolution and dispels some myths. He argues that it’s important to understand where we come from, in order to treat others on this planet the right way. Four billion years […]
Astonishing ancient works of art & science
From the Funny Foxy YouTube channel, here are some items from hundreds or thousands of years ago that are amazing. See things from people you’ve heard of like Michelangelo and Galileo. And things you haven’t heard of like 1000-year-old windmills in Iran, a globe from 1504, and a hut made from mammoth bones. Very Old […]
The Story of More
{5/5} “If we can refrain from overestimating our likelihood of failure, then neither must we underestimate our capacity for success.” The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here by Hope Jahren, published in 2020 Jahren uses her birth year of 1969 as a marker to compare how […]
We went to the Moon
Here’s a nice article from the Smithsonian about what led to the US landing on the Moon 50 years ago. It points out that when JFK gave his speech about going to the Moon NASA didn’t have the knowledge or equipment to do it at that point, and many people at the time didn’t want […]
A type of bird that went extinct evolved again
A bird called a white-throated rail went extinct 136 000 years ago but then evolved again, in a process called iterative evolution. The same conditions appeared again and the same evolution happened again. What were those conditions? The birds settled on an island with no natural predators, and they became flightless. From the Independent: Bird […]
Global warming explained clearly
In case you know any deniers you’re having trouble convincing, here’s an explanation of global warming from Ethan Siegel on Forbes: The Simplest Explanation Of Global Warming Ever
What your ancestors looked like and did
This tale with drawings by Tim Urban starts with your most recent ancestors and goes back in time. It describes what your great grandfather might have been doing in the 1800s, and what your great500 grandfather might have been doing in 11 000 BC. Going further back to before there were humans, you get to […]