How the protein folding frontier was conquered, as told by Veritasium's Derek Muller. It's perhaps the most important story in modern biology. And science communicator, Derek Muller—as usual—dives deeper into the topic than most popular science journalists dare to venture.
But Veritasium manages to tell the tale in 24 minutes. It's a dense 24 minutes. I crafted 37 questions to accompany the video, because if I were showing this to students, I would not let them look away for a moment. There's a lot of good information in The Most Useful Thing AI Has Ever Done.
Cowboy biochemistry, Turd of the Century, and evoformers will be discussed. Veritasium has answers, and I have questions.
Dinosaurs are not as extinct as we might have thought. The big ones didn't make it past the asteroid impact 65 million years ago. But some small flying ones did. Hence birds!
Connecting modern birds to ancient dinosaurs was a scientific detective story, and this episode of NOVA retraces the steps. And some of the best evidence is of recent discovery.
Birds have been on an evolutionary journey. A journey that included feathers, powered flight, and many extinctions.
Fossils reveal how birds survived the killer asteroid and became today’s only living dinosaurs. Contrary to popular belief, dinosaurs never went extinct. They’re still alive among us—in the form of birds! Birds are the only dinosaurs that survived the cataclysmic mass extinction caused by an asteroid the size of Mt. Everest crashing into Earth about 66 million years ago. The big question is: How? How did birds manage to not only live through the apocalypse, but also go on to diversify and populate every corner of our planet? Now, rare fossil discoveries are revealing the secrets of bird evolution going back more than 100 million years, telling the story of how some resilient feathered dinos persevered and transformed into the vast array of colorful bird species that fill our skies today.
Latif Nasser is probably best known as a current host of Radiolab, WNYC's celebrated broadcast/podcast program.
Before that, he hosted the Netflix documentary series, Connected: The Hidden Science of Everything. I think it's safe now to say that Connected was a limited series, and—like many Netflix properties—season 1 is as far as it will go. But we got six solid episodes to enjoy. Each episode stands on its own. And each delivers unexpected connections.
They were released in the midst of the lockdowns, so you might have been glued to Tiger King at the time. The title hews close to that of James Burke's classic, Connections. So I was willing to give it a go.
Ever feel like you're being watched? Well, you may be right. Latif explores the sometimes cute, often creepy ways surveillance pervades our lives. Segments: Veeries, Piggies, Selfies, Sweeties.
