We Are Singing Stardust: Carl Sagan on the Story of Humanity’s Greatest Message and How the Golden Record Was Born by Maria Popova “We [are] a species endowed with hope and perseverance, at least a little intelligence, substantial generosity and a palpable zest to make contact with the cosmos.” In 1939, just before his fifth birthday, Carl Sagan visited the New York World’s Fair, where he marveled at the Time Capsule evincing the fair’s confidence in the future — a hermetically sealed chamber, filled with newspapers, books and artifacts from that year, buried in Flushing Meadows to be revisited in some far-off future era by a future culture very different from and curious about the present. Sagan, in his characteristic eloquence, writes of the motivation, offering a poetic, humbling, and timelier than ever reminder of just how misplaced our existential arrogance is: The coming of the space age has brought with it an interest in communication over time intervals far longer than any [of our predecessors] could have imagined, as well as the means to send messages to the distant future. The Golden Record
40 more maps that explain the world Maps seemed to be everywhere in 2013, a trend I like to think we encouraged along with August's 40 maps that explain the world. Maps can be a remarkably powerful tool for understanding the world and how it works, but they show only what you ask them to. You might consider this, then, a collection of maps meant to inspire your inner map nerd. 1. Data source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, World Bank. Those dots represent people: the brighter the dot, the more people. 2. Click to enlarge. Human beings first left Africa about 60,000 years ago in a series of waves that peopled the globe. 3. (Wikimedia commons) The Mongol conquests are difficult to fathom. 4. Click to enlarge. This map shows the Spanish and Portuguese empires at their height. 5. This map shows British, Dutch and Spanish shipping routes from 1750 to 1800. 6. Click to enlarge. 7. Bluer countries have better income equality. Yes, the United States has worse income inequality than Nigeria. 8. Click to enlarge. 9. 10. 11. 12.
Four sisters in Ancient Rome - Ray Laurence | TED-Ed Welcome to the world of Lucius Popidius Secundus, a 17-year old living in Rome in 73 AD. His life is a typical one of arranged marriages, coming-of-age festivals, and communal baths. Take a look at this exquisitely detailed lesson on life of a typical Roman teenager two thousand years ago. Freeborn women in ancient Rome were citizens (cives) but could not vote or hold political office. Because of their limited public role, women are named less frequently than men by Roman historians. Porticus of Livia: Begun by Augustus on the site of the house of Vedius Pollio (q.v.) in 15 B.C., and finished and dedicated to Livia in 7 B.C. The Colosseum is an elliptical amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy. A gladiator was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals.
The Science of Our Optimism Bias and the Life-Cycle of Happiness by Maria Popova “To make progress, we need to be able to imagine alternative realities, and not just any old reality but a better one.” “If I expect as little as possible, I won’t be hurt,” Susan Sontag famously wrote in her diary. And yet we’re wired to expect a lot — and to expect great things. So argues neuroscientist Tali Sharot in The Science of Optimism: Why We’re Hard-Wired for Hope — a short, absorbing TED Book summarizing Sharot’s own research, as well as that of others in the field, using a combination of neuroimaging and behavioral science to explore why we’re “more optimistic than realistic,” what this might mean for our everyday well-being, and whether it’s due to the specific architecture of our brains. The root of optimism, Sharot suggests, isn’t far from what Montaigne argued five centuries ago. Optimism starts with what may be the most extraordinary of human talents: mental time travel. She traces the intersection of memory and optimism to a neural framework:
HISTOIRE • De l'Antiquité au XIXe siècle, ces femmes qui ont fait l’Afrique Toutes ces reines antiques ou ces égéries contemporaines se sont fait valoir grâce à leur personnalité, leur beauté, mais pour beaucoup par leurs actes. Toutes différentes, mais portées par le même désir : contribuer à un avenir commun pour leur peuple. Cléopâtre Egypte, 69-30 av. J.-C. Cléopâtre est un personnage phare dont la légende s’est emparée de son vivant. Aminatu Gambie, XVIe siècle La reine Aminatu de Zaria est surnommée “la reine guerrière”. Anna Zingha Angola, XVIIe siècle Anna Zingha est reine du royaume d’Angola pendant plus d’un demi-siècle. Kimpa Vita-Nsimba Congo, XVIIeXVIIIe siècle Kimpa Vita est une prophétesse congolaise. Abla Pokou Côte d’Ivoire, XVIIIe siècle Abla Pokou est une reine d’Afrique de l’Ouest qui mène le peuple baoulé du Ghana vers la Côte d’Ivoire pour le libérer d’une guerre fratricide pour le contrôle du royaume d’Ashanti, au Ghana. Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh Bénin, XIXe siècle Son nom se traduit par “Dieu dit la vérité”. —Grâce Loubassou
How to understand power - Eric Liu Watch Eric Liu talk more about these ideas in his TED talk, “Why ordinary people need to understand power.” Interested in what power really is, who has it and why? Take a look at Citizen University, watch some great presentations about various topics at Citizens University on YouTube, and consider attending the next conference. What would a citizenship agenda look like? Is being a good citizen important to you? What is patriotism? Who Will “Us” Be?
Sleep and the Teenage Brain by Maria Popova How a seemingly simple change can have a profound effect on everything from academic performance to bullying. “Sleep is the greatest creative aphrodisiac,” Debbie Millman asserted in her advice on breaking through your creative block. In Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep (public library) — the fascinating exploration of what happens while you sleep and how it affects your every waking moment, and also among the best science books of 2012 — David K. Biology’s cruel joke goes something like this: As a teenage body goes through puberty, its circadian rhythm essentially shifts three hours backward. Randall points out that those early school start times originated in an era when youths either had a job after school or had to complete chores on the farm, so the schedule was designed to fit everything in; thus, the teenage circadian rhythm has only become problematic in the past century or so. The school, however, stuck with the plan for the academic year.
Interpreting the Data: 10 Ways to Teach Math and More Using Infographics From stock prices and unemployment rates to trends in tuition and quality of life, the ability to understand and interpret quantitative data is more important than ever in understanding the world. Over the years we’ve written many posts about teaching with Times infographics, including a 2010 series about using them across the curriculum, and a 2011 lesson called “Data Visualized: More on Teaching With Infographics.” If you like, you can scroll through our entire collection of posts that highlight Times interactives and graphics here. Below, we offer a math-focused list of 10 ways students can learn from and tell stories with the numbers in some recent charts, tables and interactives found in The Times. 1. Pick a graph from The Times that plots some quantity over time and use it to tell a story. For example, the first graph in “The War on Poverty Turns 50″ shows several different poverty rates in the United States over the past 50 years. 2. 3. Browse The Times with a critical eye. 4. 5.
189, Stephen King Stephen King began this interview in the summer of 2001, two years after he was struck by a minivan while walking near his home in Center Lovell, Maine. He was lucky to have survived the accident, in which he suffered scalp lacerations, a collapsed right lung, and multiple fractures of his right hip and leg. Six pounds of metal that had been implanted in King’s body during the initial surgery were removed shortly before the author spoke to The Paris Review, and he was still in constant pain. “The orthopedist found all this infected tissue and outraged flesh,” said King. A second interview session with King was conducted early this year at his winter home in Florida, which happens to be within easy driving distance of the Red Sox’s spring training compound in Fort Myers. King was born on September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine. In person, King has a gracious, funny, sincere manner and speaks with great enthusiasm and candor. How old were you when you started writing? It might.
Salman Khan doubles down on building the school of the future When Salman Khan shared his vision for “a free world-class education for anyone anywhere” at TED2011, he turned the education world on its head. As he introduced Khan Academy — a virtual classroom that uses video lessons to create an individualized, self-paced learning experience — his alternative model fueled the nascent dialogue about online education. The conversation only exploded from there. In the three years since his talk, Khan has doubled down on his efforts to cultivate Khan Academy into the education model of the future. Khan himself has been busy reimagining the education experience. Khan recently spoke with the TED Blog about Khan Academy’s incredible growth, and what’s on the horizon for classrooms both physical and virtual. Khan Academy has seen incredible growth since you spoke in 2011. Content coverage is a big thing. The other big thing that’s happening is internationalization. How have you seen the thinking about education shift since you gave your TED Talk?
DON’T PANIC — The Facts About Population The world might not be as bad as you might believe! Don’t Panic – is a one-hour long documentary produced by Wingspan Productions and broadcasted on BBC on the 7th of November 2013. The visualizations are based on original graphics and stories by Gapminder and the underlaying data-sources are listed here. Hans’s — “All time favorite graph”, is an animating bubble chart which you can interact with online here and download offline here. Hans presents some results from our UK Ignorance Survey described here. Director & Producer; Dan Hillman, Executive Producer: Archie Baron. More videos Hans Rosling explains a very common misunderstanding about the world: That saving the poor children leads to overpopulation. The world might not be as bad as you might believe! Hans Rosling is debunking the River of Myths about the developing world. Instead of studying history one year at the university, you can watch this video for less than five minutes. TED-talk at the US State Department.