MetaFilter posts tagged with bbc and science

Giants and Spiders and Frogs, Oh My!

Hardcore Poser — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:08:28 -0800

As many as 40 new species may have been discovered near the crater of a volcano in New Guinea. Not to alarm anyone but Fearless Giant Rats, Caterpillars that look like Snakes and Fanged Frogs have been spotted and are said to be at large. BBC producer Steve Greenwood took a small crew from the BBC Natural History Unit in to Mount Bosavi crater. The extinct giant volcano is in the southern highlands of Papua, New Guinea. Partnering with a team from the London Zoo and Oxford University led by George McGavin, the crew recorded some of the team's fascinating discoveries. There were other dangers, besides the Rodents Of Unusual Size:

The area is so remote and inaccessible that no people live in the crater. Even villagers in the few scattered settlements surrounding the volcano rarely ventured in, due to the difficulty of climbing the slopes leading to a 2,800m summit. "'If you fall when climbing in,' one village elder said, 'no one will ever find your body,'" recounts Greenwood.

The series, titled 'The Lost Land of the Volcano' will air on BBC One on Tuesday September 8th, at 2100 BST. The Invertebrate Diary blog has a preview. _{First post, be gentle honest.}

I'll huff and I'll puff and ...

bwg — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:02:37 -0800

Vortex Cannon : SLYT "Jem Stansfield builds a vortex cannon to pick up where the big bad wolf failed to blow over a house of brick." More details at the BBC.

Time

nola — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:33:18 -0800

Flow of Time is a BBC documentary that "tries to explain time and covers the different ways we have used to understand Time, religion, mathematics, relativity, and quantum mechanics." Part 1, 2, 3, 4

Atom

empath — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 12:41:22 -0800

Atom. -- The Clash of the Titans -- The Key to the Cosmos -- The Illusion of Reality

Nature gone Wild

ewkpates — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 10:06:40 -0800

Birds that rap and cows with accents. The big picture is urban adaptation, which is pretty cool. (...and the egg wins.)

"Einsteinbrain!"

goodnewsfortheinsane — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 09:59:59 -0800

Japanese professor Kenji Sugimoto has a long-standing fascination with the brain of Albert Einstein. In the early nineties he travelled to the United States in search of it. This bizarre 1994 documentary (YouTube, multiple parts) by Kevin Hull (UK) chronicles his quest. Fake or real? [more inside]

Restoration by Animation.

juiceCake — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 21:57:03 -0800

Fill in the blanks, connect the dots. We've had Star Trek special effects possibly redone, we've had Battlestar Galactica "reimagined". Now the BBC is replacing a couple of lost episodes in a live series Doctor Who DVD with animated versions, to match the soundtracks, which weren't lost. Of course, we've seen some Flash based episodes already.

telescope worthless by 2050

goldism — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 09:41:13 -0800

via BBC Ground-based astronomy could be impossible in 40 years because of pollution from aircraft exhaust trails and climate change, an expert says.

Take One Museum

feelinglistless — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 08:53:44 -0800

Take One Museum on BBC Four is the Russian Ark of documentaries as expert Paul Rose looks around a museum, with the help of some tour guides in one take over a thirty minute period. I caught the tail end of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum episode and he seemed like a man of great enthusiasm. Much like New York's Museum of Modern Art's podcast official and unofficial, an audio podcast version of the show is available so that a visitor to the actual museum can cover the same ground with the aid of their mp3 player. Excellently, it's the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester next week so I'll definitely be going there again soon to see what this is like.

Indonesia - new species discovered

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 05:16:20 -0800

"Lost World" found in Indonesian Papua (with audio)

EU weather satelite unit

longsleeves — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 20:37:10 -0800

accurate weather forecasts...yes... Add your own sound effects.

Sky@Night

feelinglistless — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 05:25:44 -0800

The Sky At Night Every episode of the BBC science series made since the end of 2001 viewable online. Anything I know about the universe I learnt from Patrick Moore.

Reith Lecture 2005

srboisvert — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 08:21:19 -0800

Reith Lecture 2005: The Triumph of Technology Lord Broers -In the five lectures, he sets out his belief that technology can and should hold the key to the future. He says: "It is time to wake up to this fact. Applied science is rivalling pure science both in importance and in intellectual interest. We cannot leave technology to the technologists; we must all embrace it. We have lived through a revolution in which technology has affected all our lives and altered our societies for ever."

SexID

srboisvert — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 14:26:22 -0800

SexID Some researchers say that men can have 'women's brains' and that women can think more like men. Find out more about 'brain sex' differences by taking the Sex ID test, a groundbreaking experiment designed by a team of top psychologists:

But can they blog?

Steve_at_Linnwood — Fri, 09 May 2003 10:27:08 -0800

Apparently monkeys cannot write Shakespeare.

Beware the giant squid

plep — Thu, 03 Apr 2003 00:52:12 -0800

'A colossal squid has been caught in Antarctic waters, the first example of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni retrieved virtually intact from the surface of the ocean. ' Related (old news from January) :- giant squid attacks boat.
More squid sites :- Search for Giant Squid, a Smithsonian exhibit about a 1999 expedition. 'Whether living or extinct, on land or at sea, in literature or in life, large animals have long fascinated people. The largest animals have been known and hunted since prehistory: whales, walruses, elephants, rhinos, hippos, giraffes, and large fishes... However, one large animal has gone almost unnoticed or certainly unobserved in its habitat. That animal is the giant squid. Although these animals have been found in the nets of commercial fishermen, in the stomachs of sperm whales, and washed ashore on different continents, no scientific information has been gathered by direct observations of live giant squid ... '
The UnMuseum's article on the giant squid.

Waving their strange limbs, beckoning....

troutfishing — Sun, 23 Feb 2003 21:00:30 -0800

Synthetic Trees could purify the air - "It looks like a goal post with Venetian blinds," said the Columbia University physicist...synthetic trees could help clean up an atmosphere grown heavy with carbon dioxide..."You can be a thousand times better than a living tree...There are a number of engineering issues which need to be worked out," he said. (BBC) Hurry up, then - "Ice dams are blocking Latvian ports, winds and storms are battering Europe, Portugal is freezing, Vietnam has lost one-third its rice crop, and the cold has caused close to 2,000 deaths in usually temperate South Asia."

KirkJobSluder — Thu, 07 Nov 2002 10:25:58 -0800

NASA Challenges Moon Hoax Conspiracy After decades of almost ignoring claims that the Apollo missions were hoaxed, NASA commissioned aerospace writer James Olberg to write an official rebuttle. Perhaps a bit more reasonable than the NASA Stooge, the book is aimed at the general public.

phatboy — Thu, 20 Jun 2002 04:15:57 -0800

BBC presents: The Science of Superheroes! Ever wonder how Spider-Man climbs on walls? How do lie detectors such as Wonder Woman's lasso work? What was gravity like on planet Krypton? The BBC takes a scientific look at our favorite superheroes to teach the physics behind the fantasy.

MintSauce — Wed, 17 Apr 2002 06:20:25 -0800

Bionic Man? "Australian scientists say they have created a "thinking cap" that will stimulate creative powers. It is based on the idea that we all have the sorts of extraordinary abilities usually associated with savants."

The device is said to improve drawing skills within 15 minutes.

susanlucci — Thu, 28 Mar 2002 08:11:27 -0800

We are all made of stars. And Moby knows it.

canoeguide — Mon, 27 Aug 2001 20:35:58 -0800

This interesting mini-series about the human face on TLC (via BBC), claims that technology and the Internet are replacing face-to-face contact, but without much needed facial expressions that play a crucial role in communication. No doubt, this is why we THINK OF CAPITAL LETTERS as "yelling" and use :) and :P in online communication. Where do you see online communication in 10 years?

twistedonion — Mon, 18 Jun 2001 01:49:50 -0800

In favour of the death penalty? Don't worry, it's in the genes

nonharmful — Sat, 19 May 2001 04:24:18 -0800

Patient confidentiality vs. cancer research. New rules on patient confidentiality prevent "research that recognises dangerous side effects of treatments and it would prevent research that would recognise avoidable causes of diseases and death. " What is more important: 'medical progress' or 'your medical file'?

jjg — Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:17:00 -0800

More than meets the eye. Next stop, Cybertron!