Great new books to read:
The Folly of Fools by Robert Trivers
Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker
Lying by Sam Harris
Passing Pains: Revenge, Retaliation, and Redirected Aggression in a New Light by Barash and Lipton
Also anything by Tomas Tranströmer, and perhaps a few more Nobel laureates in Literature.
Cool TED talks:
Jae Rhim Lee: My mushroom burial suit
Marcel Dicke: Why not eat insects? (like this one maybe)
Rachel Sussman: The world's oldest living things
Viktor Frankl: Why to believe in others
Graham Hill: Why I'm a weekday vegetarian
Craig Venter unveils "synthetic life"
Charles Anderson discovers dragonflies that cross oceans
Mary Roach: 10 things you didn't know about orgasm
Robert Lang folds way-new origami
Tierney Thys swims with the giant sunfish
Media fun:
Victor Stenger mused on the implications if effects can precede causes.
What I saw on TV:
Nova: Surviving the Tsunami – an excellent account given by survivors of the tsunami
Japanland – interesting series on Japan (made me want to buy sake)
Organism fun:
Tigriopus californicus "tigger pods"
Euphorbia lactea var. Cristata "coral cactus"
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Great list! I enjoyed reading a book by Pinker once and I have watched a video with Craig Venter unveiling his synthetic lifeforms though I'm not sure it was a TED talk. So, it's all new to me! Have you finished up any of these yet?
ReplyDeleteI haven't read any of these books, but I have watched several of the videos. Mary Roach is hilarious and an all around great video. I've not been too active online since allocating most of my free time to building a sauna - now three quarters finished. But I managed to post a few entries today that have been on the back burner for a while.
ReplyDeleteI finished watching Dicke's talk, and here is the thought provoking message:
ReplyDelete1) Insects are so distantly related from us that cultivating them has no danger of creating new diseases (Consider swine flue, bird flue).
2) Insects convert animal feed into meat more efficiently than animals (90 percent of feed).
3) Less manure from insects, less ammonia and greenhouse gases, as compared to other animals.
4) Insect meat is comparable to anything we eat as meat, in terms of protein, fat, vitamins, and calories, it's very good. (Consider shrimp, crabs, or crayfish, which are very closely related.)
I wouldn't mind being a small scale organic insect farmer, like what Kobe Wagyu is to the meat industry. If entomophagy catches on, that is.