"Science Friday" coming live to Pasadena

CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; ScienceFriday.com; KPCC 89.3 FM (scpr.org)

KPCC FM presents Science Friday LIVE in Pasadena at Caltech's Beckman Auditorium!

 

KPCC presents Science Friday LIVE: Science of the Silver Screen

Join host Science Friday host Ira Flatow and KPCC FM's own Sanden Totten as Science Friday comes to Caltech's Beckman Auditorium this summer for a thought-provoking evening of science news and entertainment in front of a live audience.

 

A veteran NPR science correspondent and award-winning journalist, Flatow will discuss current science topics with local experts and welcome audience questions. The entire show will be taped for a subsequent national broadcast.

 

Science Friday is a trusted source for science news with an entertaining flair. Started as a radio show by host and executive producer Ira Flatow, Science Friday now also produces award-winning digital videos and original Web content covering everything from octopus camouflage to cooking on Mars. He (and Flora Lichtman) call it “brain fun” for curious people. More

Host Ira Flatow loves the weird (and Flora)

Science Friday is broadcast locally in Los Angeles and Orange County on KPCC (89.3 FM), Fridays from 9:00-11:00 pm.
 

This will be a 90-minute program with no intermission. Purchase tickets here or by contacting the Box Office directly at (626) 395-4652, M-F, 9:00 am-4:00 pm. 

• Wednesday, Aug. 27, 7:30-9:00 pm
• Beckman Auditorium
• Caltech (California Institute of Technology) 
• 332 S. Michigan Ave., Pasadena, CA 91125

Desktop Diaries: Prof. Tim White This office is not short on artifacts.

Engineering in Service of a Dark Art A biologist takes shadow puppetry to the next level.

DIY Summer Hacks, From the Pool to the Grill Try your hand at homemade sunscreen, water bottle rockets, and “cooler corn.”

Desktop Diaries: Jill Tarter “People have described my office as an eight-year-old’s daydream,” says SETI scientist Jill Tarter.

Living Large in 140 Square Feet Chris Tack made seven unloading trips to Goodwill before moving into the tiny home he and his wife Malissa designed and built.

Coffee’s Natural Creamer What’s that frothy stuff that sits on top of an espresso?

Rolling Out Bamboo Bicycles Valid Cycles makes handcrafted bamboo bikes in Woodinville, Washington.

Comet Shines Light on Sun Dynamics

Comet Lovejoy grazed the sun’s corona and lived to tell the tale. Its tail movements were the most telling. More

The Truth About Religion (audio)

Wisdom Quarterly; the Right Reverend Alan Watts (alanwatts.org)

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, which truth is the truest of all?"

The Episcopalian minister turned Zen Buddhist priest Alan Watts blows the lid on the real meaning of religion as it is practiced in the West and East. It is staggering what we have come to in the West looking to the insights of the East for guidance. Watts originally delivered this two part talk under the name "Democracy in the Kingdom." Part 2 will be played on the first Sunday in July at 8:00 am. This one was aired on June 29, 2014 at 8:00 am. AUDIO: PLAY

Aum & Garden's Body, Mind, Spirit Expo

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; AumAndGarden.com; KPFK.org

Aum & Garden is a retail gathering place in Sherman Oaks, California that celebrates life by offering a variety of products and services for inner and outer sanctuaries. 

Statues for the garden, candles for the home, books for the soul, A&G has much to add beauty to life. Meeting home and garden needs, classes, workshops, and media events in the Valley are all part of a mission to bring the world more peace, joy, and beauty. More

• Aum & Garden, 13363 Ventura Blvd.
• Sherman Oaks, CA 91423, (818) 788-3400

Buddhist Brains: Meditation and Science (video)

Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. Anne Harrington (hosted by the Center for the Study of Religion and Psychology at Boston University's Danielsen Institute)

(BU) Eastern Brains: Probing the Partnership Between Buddhism and and Brain Science

  

MRI brain scan of meditating monk (BBC)

Harvard University's Professor Anne Harrington (Ph.D., Oxford University) discusses the relationship between Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) and the brain. The presentation was hosted by the Center for the Study of Religion and Psychology at Boston University's Danielsen Institute.
 

Want me to concentrate or bliss out? (MR)

She refers to the research of the University of Wisconsin's Dr. Richard Davidson on the brain functions of Buddhist monastics during long periods of meditation as well as American fascination with the Eastern-style of meditation of the human 1960s and 1970s counterculture.
 
She covers Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the Dalai Lama's first visit to the U.S. as well as why he was so important to the West's academic and scientific investigation of mystical meditative states.
  

Happy Pi Day! (Science Friday) π

Pat Macpherson vs. Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; ScienceFriday.com; Vihart (video)

E=MC2 thinks Einstein (NVOR)

Today is March 14th, which means Pi (π) Day. You know that stupid math thingy, not the time Peter figured out how much he really loved pie (or not). Sorry, pi (and pie) lovers! Both can be solved with toothpicks. Maybe pick a better favorite number and food next time? Here's a celebratory video from sexy Flora(l) Lichtman, MA Shumin, and Ira Flatow over at SciFri.
 

Ooh, Pat, who gives an s?

Friday 3.14 is Pi Day, and we're all celebrating. Sci Fri even hit the streets of New York City to spread some math-holiday cheer. One might be surprised how many π enthusiasts are lingering outside of New York University's Math Department.
 

P.S. It's also famous Jewish-Buddhist-Pantheist Albie Einstein's birthday.

(Family Guy) The love of pie in another part of the multiverse

 

Winnie on what sucks

Twenty-five years ago, physicist Larry Shaw, of San Francisco’s Exploratorium, established the first “Pi Day” on March 14th, or 3/14 -- a fitting date to commemorate an irrational number that so familiarly begins 3.14. 

 

The event started as a little staff get-together but ballooned into an international holiday. (Really, just listen to this SciFri segment).

I love pie, and pi is nice, too.

To get everyone -- including Winnie from in the celebratory mood, here are some tributes to those endless digits, and to the Greek letter that symbolizes them. More

Definition: (Wiki) The number π is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, approximately equal to 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter "π" since the mid-18th century also sometimes spelled out as "pi."

Math sucks because math is a religion, and religion sucks (Calvin & Hobbes)

• The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower...
• The NSA has impersonated Facebook to spread malware (Gizmodo)
• Three years after the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown 
• Delving into security of Internet of things
• The Internet's DARK side, exposed in three new films

Origin of Universe (Buddhism and Einstein)

Wisdom Quarterly; Andreas Mamet, 2013

The Origin of the Universe through the eyes of Gautama Buddha and Albert Einstein (Part 1) in English with French translation. Continues in Part 2

New research on PLANT intelligence (video)

Dev, Dhr. Seven (eds.) Wisdom Quarterly; Science Friday/The World (PRI, Jan. 10, 2014)

Field of brilliant sunflowers (Bruce Fritz/USDA/Wiki/pri.org/sciencefriday.com)

   

New research on plant intelligence may change how we think about plants

Flower girl bhumi-devi (Getty Collection)

Plants have senses that put humans to shame. Not only do they hear and smell, they can also sense the presence of water, and even sense an object within their space. [This was suspected, scientifically verified, and largely ignored long ago from a series of botanical experiments published in The Secret Life of Plants.] Now new research suggests that plants can actually learn and remember.

The Secret Life of Plants

TopDocumentaryFilms.com

Glorious Bhūmi (Gaia) blooms each spring, Landmark Nat'l Park, Mt. Rainier (13som)

  

The Secret Life of Plants

Even on the subordinate levels of the life scale, there is profound consciousness -- an awareness that binds all sensitive things together. The Secret Life of Plants: A fascinating account of the physical, emotional, and spiritual relations between plants and man (Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird) was published in 1973.

The book forwards the idea that plants are sentient, despite the absence of a physical nervous system and brain. This sentience is testable through changes in a plant's conductivity, as measured with a polygraph, a technique pioneered by Cleve Backster. The book also summarizes Goethe's theory of plant metamorphosis.

 

Right wing survivalist seed supply

But the book is about much more than plants. It delves deeply into such topics as the aura, psychophysics, orgone, radionics, Kirlian photography, magnetism/magnetotropism, bioelectrics, dowsing, and the history of science. It served as the basis for the 1979 documentary of the same name, with a soundtrack especially recorded by Stevie Wonder.

• The Secret Life of Plants (Inside NOVA, PBS)
• "The Intelligent Plant" (The New Yorker)
• Michael Pollan: Omnivore's Dilemma, The Botany of Desire