The Evolution of Ecological Consciousness is a well made and must watch presentation by the Permaculture designer Andrew Faust of the Center for Bioregional Living. He summarizes many of the ideas presented by Carl and Dorion Sagan and Lynn Margulis. In addition, he presents many fascinating visions for a future living experience in conjunction with biology.
Category: evolution (Page 2 of 7)
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, by Adam Curtis, provides a grand overview of many of the people and ideas which have shaped the development of computers, systems, social theory, and politics over the past century. It is one of the better documentaries I have every seen and definitely worth watching; however, I agree with the reviewer John Preston who said it had an “…infuriating glibness too as the web of connectedness became ever more stretched. No one could dispute that Curtis has got a very big bite indeed. But what about the chewing, you ask. There wasn’t any – or nothing like enough of it to prevent a bad case of mental indigestion.”
Watch it:
Being a huge fan of Carl Sagan’s books, I was delightfully surprised when I found that his son, Dorion Sagan, is a prolific writer on the subjects of science, philosophy, and evolution. The first of his works which I decided to read is entitled Cosmic Apprentice: Dispatches from the Edges of Science. For a good review see Maria Popova’s review here. I loved reading the book and I look forward to reading more of Sagan’s writings.
“A picture is worth a thousand words”, a cliché, but true. A semester or even a textbook can be condensed into a beautiful visualization thanks to modern graphics. This is why I find the work of Drew Berry, XVIVO, and David Goodsell so powerful. Seeing DNA replication and intracellular transportation makes me speechless. Many of these are created with Maya or Molecular Maya. I really want to explore Maya to visualize financial networks and data after watching these…
With computer graphics we can now see an invisible world, the result of billions of years of evolutionary interaction. This vast expanse of time created the truly magnificent complexity of life. Secret Universe: Journey Inside the Cell provides a remarkable graphic visualization of this complexity. The processes of cellular function are slowed down and magnified so that viewers can see and understand the continuous activity occurring within their own bodies. It is simply stunning to realize what is happening in the microscopic world of the cell.
Also called: Secret Universe The Hidden Life of a Cell
Watch it: Hulu, Dailymotion, YouTube
Think of the Earth as a human cell; the human body would stretch the length of Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun.
Approximate Diameter of Earth: 12,742 km
Average Diameter of Jupiter Orbit: 1,557,094,400 km (122,201.7 times Earth’s Diameter)
Approximate Diameter of Human Cell: 15 micrometers
Average Height of Human: 1.8 meters (120,000.0 times the Diameter of Human Cell)
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