The Secret Life of Chaos

Today on Discover Enterprise we take a voyage through the universe of complexity as revealed by Chaos theory.

Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand. It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia – how did we get here?

In this documentary, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to uncover one of the great mysteries of science – how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder?

It’s a mind-bending, counterintuitive and for many people a deeply troubling idea. But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern. And the best thing is that one doesn’t need to be a scientist to understand it. The natural world is full of awe-inspiring examples of the way nature transforms simplicity into complexity.

From trees to clouds to humans – after watching this film you’ll never be able to look at the world in the same way again. Find out more about the secret life of chaos.

The Secret Life of Chaos, with Prof. Jim Al-Khalili

http://www.youtube.com/p/5635A6F305106714?fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D22&hd=1

James May at the Edge of Space

Today on Discovery Enterprise we follow British journalist James May (of Top Gear fame) as he realizes his life long dream of becoming an astronaut and flying to the very edge of space.

To fulfil his boyhood dream May had to first undergo three days of intensive training with the United States Air Force at Beale Air Force Base. During which, he practised safety drills and the proper use of a space suit.

After completing his training May, was taken on a three hour flight aboard a space Lockheed U-2 spy plane flow by pilot instructor Major John “Cabi” Cabigas.

May is then taken on the ride of his life to the fringes of Earth’s atmosphere, an altitude of over 21, 336 metres (70,000 feet).

This documentary first aired on BBC Four on June 21st, 2009 as part of the commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing, and tied in with another documentary hosted by May which aired an hour earlier on BBC Two entitled James May on the Moon.

James May at the Edge of Space

http://www.streetfire.net/flash/SPlayer.swf
James May At The Edge Of Space part 2-2

Europa on Earth – The Lost World of Lake Vostok

It is perhaps the only unspoiled and unexplored isolated ecosystem left on Earth. Deep beneath the great Antarctic ice sheet Russian scientists made an astonishing discovery. They have found one of the largest lakes in the world. Its very existence defies belief. Scientists are desperate to get into the lake because its extreme environment may be home to unique flora and fauna, never seen before, and NASA are excited by what it could teach us about extraterrestrial life. But, four kilometres of ice stand between the lake and the surface, and breaking this seal without contaminating the most pristine body of water on the planet is possibly one of the greatest challenges science faces in the 21st century.

This isolated ecosystem is known as Lake Vostok and this frigid “lost world” may indeed be one of the closest analogues to the Jovian moon Europa we have on Earth.

BBC Horizon – The Lost World of Lake Vostok

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-916423967791797029

How the Earth Changed History – Water World

Today on Discovery Enterprise we are presenting a brand new series entitled “How the Earth Changed History” hosted by Iain Stewart with the first episode entitled “Water World”.

National Geographic Channel first aired “How the Earth Changed History: Water World” on Sunday June 20, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. ET. This was the first of five episodes debuting between June 20 – 22, 2010. National Geographic Channel is taking viewers from deep beneath the crust of the earth to the skies to look back at how Planet Earth has helped shaped human history, and how history has shaped the earth.

How the Earth Changed History: Water World is the first of five episodes of the series. The other episodes include Beneath the Crust, The Skies Above, the Gift of Fire and The Human Era.

Water is the planet’s essential lifeblood. Water is constantly transforming itself, shifting between guises and from place to place. Of all our planet’s forces, perhaps none has greater power over us. Our struggle to control it has been behind the rise and fall of some of our greatest civilizations throughout history.

In Africa the show rediscovers how early communities found water underground in the desert, and how this guided their food supply and economy. Viewers joined Prof. Stewart on a trek to Cherrapunji, India, where average annual rainfall approaches 40 feet, to see how an overabundance of water has created the need for an engineering partnership between man and nature in the form of bridges grown from the roots of trees. These beautiful and ancient constructions take hundreds of years to grow and only get stronger as they grow older.

In Iceland, the viewer follows the never-ending cycle of water as it rises from the oceans to clouds from which it rains down and forms rivers, then is bound up as ice or stored below the Earth’s surface, only to return to the oceans and repeat the cycle again.

How the Earth Changed History – Water World

http://www.megavideo.com/v/V5UUTLV5af1f07c583bb53e40bf70fab44813bb0

The Story of Science – Who Are We?

Today on Discovery Enterprise we will embark on an odyssey that takes us into inner universe of the human mind as we present the sixth and final episode of Michael Mosley’s “The Story of Science”. This voyage will reveal the intimate and personal secrets of our inner selves as revealed by twenty-first century neural science and try to answer a very personal existential question – Who are we?

We now know that the brain is the organ that more than any other defines our humanity. It is the seat of the human soul and intellect. The human brain (and the human mind that resides in it) is one of the true wonders of the known universe, and yet until the 17th century it was barely studied and its inner secrets are only now beginning to be unveiled. Yet, much of the inner landscape of the human mind remains shrouded in mystery.

The twin sciences of neuroanatomy and psychology have offered different visions of who we are. Now these sciences are coming together and in the process have revealed some surprising and uncomfortable truths about what really shapes our thoughts, feelings and desires. And the search to understand how our brains work has also revealed that we are all and, whether we realize it or not, scientists from the moment we are born.

The Story Of Science – Who Are We?

http://www.megavideo.com/v/8I0GIN6Rc6bea08bb5a96922f9393bd118e1fc8e

The Story Of Science – What Is The Secret of Life?

Today on Discovery Enterprise we explore the question – What Is the Secret of Life? In the fifth episode of “The Story of Science,” Michael Mosley traces the story of how science answered this question.

Michael Moseley tells the story of how the secret of life has been unraveled through the prism of the most complex organism known – the human body. It begins with attempts to save the lives of gladiators in Ancient Rome, unfolds with the macabre work and near-perfect drawings of Leonardo da Vinci during the Renaissance, through the idea of the ‘life force’ of electricity, to the microscopic world of the cell. It reveals how a moral crisis unleashed by work on the nuclear bomb helped trigger a great breakthrough in biology – understanding the structure and workings of the master molecule of life, DNA.

The Story Of Science – What Is The Secret of Life?

http://www.megavideo.com/v/JZ11I9FT1526cbcd8ef046d59484bd1f13d074b3

The New Time Lords

Is time travel possible? And if it were what will this reveal to us about the fundamental nature of reality? Will our forays into the fourth dimension reveal to us that all of cosmic existence is in fact virtual and that we are nothing more than mere virtual players in a highly advanced computer simulation? Will our attempts at becoming the New Time Lords only reveal to us that in fact we are mere pawns in a highly sophisticated arcade game?

According to the BBC documentary Horizon-“Time Trip” such possibilities are very real.

Personally I feel that many of the off the wall arguments presented in this episode of Horizon are very good examples of pathologically bad science. I personally feel that in our attempts to stretch the limits of human knowledge to the breaking point we are in fact being led down avenues of muddled headed thinking and in the process science fiction and fantasy are taking the place of real level headed science.

I would very much welcome the comments and observations of my dear readers in our forums page.

BBC Horizon – Time Trip

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-2466746873488846030&hl=en&fs=true

The Story Of Science – Can We Have Unlimited Power?

Today on Discovery Enterprise we explore the question – Can We Have Unlimited Power? In the fourth episode of “The Story of Science,” Michael Mosley tries to answer this question.

We are the most power-hungry generation that has ever lived. This film tells the story of how that power has been harnessed – from wind, steam and from inside the atom. In the early years the drive for new sources of power was led by practical men who wanted to make money.

Their inventions and ideas created fortunes and changed the course of history, but it took centuries for science to catch up, to explain what power is, rather than simply what it does. This search revealed fundamental laws of nature which apply across the universe, including the most famous equation in all of science, e=mc2.

The Story Of Science – Can We Have Unlimited Power?

http://www.megavideo.com/v/ANI1OZP2b33d1f68cc7c50c25375bd52d3b3c4c3

Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong?

Today on Discovery Enterprise we explore the distinct possibility that everything we thought we knew about our Universe may indeed be wrong.

There are subtle signs of a skewed universe present in the WMAP satellite’s map of radiation left over from the big bang.

Something may be out there. Way out there. On the outskirts of creation, unknown, unseen “structures” are tugging on our universe like cosmic magnets, a controversial new study says.

Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour—a movement the researchers have dubbed “dark flow“.

Since this finding was first announced in 2008, a recent study suggests that this mysterious “dark flow” extends deeper than previously seen.

A new generation of Cosmologists has discovered that there’s something very odd going on in space – something that shouldn’t be possible. It is as though vast swathes of the universe are being hovered up by a vast and unseen celestial vacuum cleaner. Sasha Kaslinsky, the scientist who discovered the phenomenon, is understandably nervous: ‘It left us quite unsettled and jittery’ he says, ‘because this is not something we planned to find’.

The accidental discovery of what is ominously being called ‘dark flow’ not only has implications for the destinies of large numbers of galaxies – it also means that large numbers of scientists might have to find a new way of understanding the universe. Dark flow is the latest in a long line of phenomena that have threatened to re-write the textbooks. Does it herald a new era of understanding, or does it simply mean that everything we know about the universe is wrong?

14 billion years ago there was nothing; then everything exploded into existence and the universe was born, but new generations of cosmologists are questioning this theory. Cosmologists have created a replica of the universe by using equations; it’s called the standard model of cosmology and it’s the reason behind the Big Bang theory; however, this model is now doubted. Professor Alan Guth’s theory challenges the Big Bang by stating that the universe started out small, allowing the temperature to even out everywhere, before expanding on a massive scale.

Stars nearer the edge of a galaxy move just as fast as those in the centre. This made cosmologists think that galaxies needed more gravity, but the only way to get more gravity was to create it. Astrophysicist Dan Bauer is hunting for dark matter half a mile under the dark plains of Minnesota in order to trace and record it more effectively. The discovery that the universe is speeding up suggests that a new force is powering the universe. This force is known as dark energy, and cosmologists have no idea what it is.

The combination of the standard model, inflation and dark matter has given way to a new theory called dark flow. The nature of this theory could show that our universe isn’t the only one. The standard model of cosmology has withstood much criticism, therefore making the theory stronger; however it could still be totally wrong.

BBC Horizon: Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong?

http://www.megavideo.com/v/22LZYK51de1afbf724386151ffaf5f22671e3530

Also On YouTube BBC Horizon: Is Everything We Know About The Universe Wrong?

http://www.youtube.com/p/9B611FB16B583D3B?fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D22&hd=1

Wonders of the Solar System – The Thin Blue Line

Today on Discovery Enterprise we continue our whirl wind tour of the wonders of the solar system with episode three of Wonders of the Solar System, presented by Professor Brian Cox.

Professor Cox visits some of the most stunning locations on earth to describe how the laws of nature have carved natural wonders across the solar system.

In the third installment of Wonders of the Solar System, Professor Cox reveals how something as flimsy as an envelope of gas – an atmosphere – can create some of the most wondrous sights in the solar system. He takes a ride in an English Electric Lightning and flies 18 km up to the top of earth’s atmosphere, where he sees the darkness of space above and the thin blue line of our atmosphere below. In the Namib Desert in south-west Africa, he tells the story of Mercury. This tiny planet was stripped naked of its early atmosphere and is fully exposed to the ferocity of space.

Against the stunning backdrop of the glaciers of Alaska, Professor Cox reveals his fourth wonder: Saturn’s moon Titan, shrouded by a murky, thick atmosphere. He reveals that below the clouds lies a magical world. Titan is the only place beyond earth where we’ve found liquid pooling on the surface in vast lakes, as big as the Caspian Sea, but the lakes of Titan are filled with a mysterious liquid, and are quite unlike anything on earth.

Wonders of the Solar System – The Thin Blue Line

http://www.youtube.com/p/D7FB57E823E878E8?fs=1&ap=%2526fmt%3D22&hd=1