It's Okay To Be Smart is now on YouTube!

Thank you, everyone.

I want to start by saying that, because without all of you reading, sharing and supporting this science blog over the past couple years, today’s announcement would never be happening.

Starting today, It’s Okay To Be Smart is also a YouTube series from PBS Digital Studios! I’ll be teaching you about science in fun, creative, unique and quirky ways, just like I always have, only now you get to watch and listen instead of just reading along. Here’s my first episode, “Life By The Numbers,” which looks at just how many things there are on Earth.

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be doing this, or that I get to work with PBS. I grew up with PBS and their programming is a large part of what made me realize the value of combining education with creativity. I feel like me and Big Bird are basically co-workers now. We’ll be posting a new episode every other week on our YouTube page, and I’ll still be maintaining this blog like always. You’ll even get added bonus material to go along with each episode and expand your knowledge that much more.

Here’s how you can help:

  • Share this awesome science channel with your friends on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Reddit or wherever you like to hang around on the internet. If you could get Neil deGrasse Tyson to watch, that would be great.
  • Subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don’t miss any future episodes. Seriously, subscribe :)
  • Speak up and leave us a comment telling us what you think of the show, any questions you have, and if there’s something you’d like to see in a future episode. You can also email me at itsokaytobesmart <at> gmail <dot> com.
  • Sit back … enjoy the showand expand your knowledge and your curiosity!

Let’s go learn something amazing together! Stay curious, everyone.

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk is now on YouTube!

I know you’re all fans of the great Neil Tyson in general, and many of you may be listeners of the StarTalk podcast. Now that podcast is being put out in video form as well, so that you can feed your Tyson addiction in a new and exciting way, because I know you can’t get enough of that sweet, sweet astrophysics, baby.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-check ‘em out here. Here’s a recent episode about the science of video games.

YouTube SpaceLab - The Results!

Join Bill Nye as he interviews the winning young scientists of the YouTube SpaceLab contest. Here is where we find out the results of their orbital experiments! Will jumping spiders be able to adapt to microgravity while they hunt? Can a beneficial bacterium get more beneficial by evolving in microgravity?

I hope they counted all those spiders to make sure they don’t leave one on the ISS …

physicsphysics:

Watch the live stream of YouTube Space Lab from the ISS September 13th 2012 10:50 (EDT) aka: TOMORROW


What is YouTube Space Lab?

[We] challenged you to come up with a science experiment for space and put it on YouTube. From thousands of teams, a group of space and science pioneers shortlisted six regional winners with the help of the YouTube community . Finally, two global winners were selected to have their experiments performed on the International Space Station and streamed live on YouTube for the whole world to see.

I’ll be tuning in. Essentially the coolest science fair ever devised.

(via scishow)

Source: physicsphysics

climateadaptation:

Good.

300 Years of Fossil Fuels in 300 Seconds

This made the rounds a few months ago, but popped up on NPR today. It’s worth revisiting.

(via jtotheizzoe)

Source: kohr

curiositycounts:

Google launches YouTube for Schools, offering schools access to 400,000 free educational YouTube videos, including content from organizations like Stanford, PBS and TED, while limiting access to other YouTube content. Schools can customize their YouTube for Schools experience, adding videos that are only viewable within their school network. An interesting take on curation in education.

deconversionmovement:

Human Evolution Episode 1 (2010) (NOVA) 1/4 HD

Broadcast (2010) First Steps : Examines the factors that caused us to split from the other great apes. The program explores the fossil of “Selam,” also known as “Lucy’s Child.” Paleoanthropologist Zeray Alemseged spent five years carefully excavating the sandstone-embedded fossil. NOVA’s cameras are there to capture the unveiling of the face, spine, and shoulder blades of this 3.3 million-year-old fossil child. And NOVA takes viewers “inside the skull” to show how our ancestors’ brains had begun to change from those of the apes.Why did leaps in human evolution take place? “First Steps” explores a provocative “big idea” that sharp swings of climate were a key factor.

Nothing is more fascinating to us than, well, us. Where did we come from? What makes us human? NOVA’s groundbreaking investigation explores how new discoveries are transforming views of our earliest ancestors. Featuring interviews with world-renowned scientists, footage shot in the trenches as fossils were unearthed, and stunning computer-generated animation, Becoming Human brings early hominids to life, examining how they lived and how we became the creative and adaptable modern humans of today. In the first episode, NOVA encounters Selam, the amazingly complete remains of a 3 million year-old child, packed with clues to why we split from the apes, came down from the trees, and started walking upright. In gripping forensic detail, the second episode investigates the riddle of Turkana Boy -a tantalizing fossil of Homo erectus, the first ancestor to leave Africa and colonize the globe. What led to this first great African exodus? In the final episode, Becoming Human explores the origins of us -where modern humans and our capacities for art, invention, and survival came from, and what happened when we encountered the mysterious Neanderthals. Crucial new evidence comes from the recent decoding of the Neanderthal genome. Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals? Exterminate them? Becoming Human examines why we survived while our other ancestral cousins-including Indonesia’s bizarre 3 foot-high Hobbit -died out. And NOVA poses the intriguing question: are we still evolving today?

Wonderful brain food for your Saturday.

Space Lab Wants You: Your Experiments Could Be Performed on the International Space Station!

Are you a student between the ages of 14-18 who has an idea for an experiment to be done in space? Well the YouTube SpaceLab is calling for submissions by December 7th to decide which bright young scientist will get their project picked!

Check out the entry details and more info here! I’d love to see one of my followers get their science shot into space.

(by spacelab)

Source: youtube.com

11.11.11 - Numberphile

YouTube is launching its 100 Featured Channels featuring all original content. Some of them are not very intriguing, like the one by Ashton Kutcher, but there is some good news here. Ten of them are dedicated to science and education!

Here’s the launch of one of those channels - Numberphile by James Grime.

James take us to Nottingham Forest’s football stadium to look at the significance of the last binary day of our generation: 11-11-11

(by numberphile)

Source: youtube.com

alogan:

Richard Feynman is still a facinating individual for me. I love his books and need to read more.  I think he is a great story teller and his voice adds to the appeal.

This video overlays Dr. Feynman talking about beauty and some great video from nature to space to microbiology. It just works.

Via Kottke.

Love this one.

“All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.”