""Anti-Gravity Hills" (also known as "Gravity Hills", "Spook Hills", or "Magnetic Hills") are natural places where cars put into neutral are seen to move uphill on a slightly sloping road, apparently defying the law of gravity. Typically, the "spooky" stretch of road is rather short (50-90 m), only a few meters wide, and surrounded by a natural hill landscape, without nearby buildings. Such places are found in several countries all around the world, and have been tourist attractions for decades. They should not be confused with the "Mystery Spots" [previously] found in amusement parks. These are generally tilted cabins, purposely built as such; a person walking inside feels disoriented, getting a very strong impression of standing at an angle in a perfectly normal room." CSICOP and Discovery News explain the phenomenon, and here's the paper on which the CSICOP article was based (PDF).
posted by cog_nate on Oct 29, 2009 - 41 comments

Car of the Future , NOVA's latest episode, is fully online and includes a slew of extras including CC-licensed content, a brief historical overview of "innovative" automobiles, Amory Lovins flogging his Hypercar concept, the Car Talk guys making nuisances of themselves, and much more. (It's no Design for Dreaming, but really, what could be?)
posted by cog_nate on Apr 24, 2008 - 21 comments

Freethought Multimedia contains dozens of interviews, conversations and lectures on a variety of topics with/by several contemporary skeptics and freethinkers, including Michael Shermer, James Randi, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins. (There's a great links section at the bottom of the page, as well. Particularly good are the University Lectures section and the Lectures Archive.)
posted by cog_nate on Nov 16, 2007 - 21 comments

Cinema Fiction vs. Physics Reality (PDF -- HTML version without addendum here) Two physicists examine certain features of popular myths regarding ghosts, vampires, and zombies as they appear in film and folklore. See also Real Zombies (audio) on the science of zombiefication. Also of interest are Psychological significance of Immortal beings (audio) and Blood Fighting: Dawn of the Robots and Zombies (video), which delve into the prominence of vampires, zombies and other things that go bump in the night in popular culture. Not to your liking? Well, check out some classic (and some not-so-classic) horror tales inside. [more inside]
posted by cog_nate on Oct 14, 2007 - 32 comments

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values are all online for you to peruse. The library consists of around 180 full text PDFs by a wide variety of authors -- Christine Korsgaard, Antonin Scalia, Jared Diamond, John Rawls, Richard Dawkins, Frans de Waal E.O. Wilson, Francis Fukuyama and the previously mentioned Elaine Scarry among them. Lots of interesting reading to be... read. Navigation is to the left. The collection is sorted alphabetically by author.
posted by cog_nate on Apr 25, 2007 - 12 comments