Science-Videos

Instructor: Herbert Gross

By Nick Parlante

Support materials and exercises:
http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-class

Life is extreme chemical complexity, and knowing that life-forming chemicals are widespread in the universe, it may be posited that the universe, if the conditions are right, is poised for life.

"The Components of the Immune System." Harris Goldstein, M.D., director, Einstein-Montefiore Center for AIDS Research, professor of pediatrics and microbiology & immunology and the Charles Michael Chair in Autoimmune Diseases, delivers a mini-course that provides a comprehensive overview in basic immunology for graduate and medical students and for anyone interested in understanding how the immune system works. This mini-course was organized by the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH) at the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa to provide Sub-Saharan students, research trainees and HIV and TB investigators with a comprehensive course in immunology.

Virology - Biology W3310 and W4310

The basic thesis of the course is that all viruses adopt a common strategy. The strategy is simple:

1. Viral genomes are contained in metastable particles.

2. Genomes encode gene products that promote an infectious cycle (mechanisms for genomes to enter cells, replicate, and exit in particles).

3. Infection patterns range from benign to lethal; infections can overcome or co-exist with host defenses.

The course will emphasize the common reactions that must be completed by all viruses for successful reproduction within a host cell and survival and spread within a host population. The molecular basis of alternative reproductive cycles, the interactions of viruses with host organisms, and how these lead to disease are presented with examples drawn from a set of representative animal and human viruses, although selected bacterial viruses will be discussed.

Noted scientist Stephen Wolfram shares his perspective of how the unexpected results of simple computer experiments have forced him to consider a whole new way of looking at processes in our universe. Series: "Frontiers of Knowledge"

The idea of creating a faithful, one-to-one computer copy of a human brain has been a popular philosophical thought experiment and science fiction plot for decades. While computational neuroscience and systems biology are currently very far away from this goal, the trends towards large-scale simulation, industrialized neuroinformatics, new forms of microscopy and powerful computing clusters point in this direction and are enabling new forms of simulations of unprecendented scope. In this talk I will discuss current estimates of how close we are to achieving emulated brains, technological requirements, research challenges and some of the possible consequences.

Get ready to re-think your ideas of reality. Join UCSD physicist Kim Griest as he takes you on a fascinating excursion, addressing some of the massive efforts and tantalizing bits of evidence which suggest that what goes on in empty space determines the properties of the three-dimensional existence we know and love, and discusses how that reality may be but the wiggling of strings from other dimensions

This course provides an introduction to optical science with elementary engineering applications. Topics covered in geometrical optics include: ray-tracing, aberrations, lens design, apertures and stops, radiometry and photometry. Topics covered in wave optics include: basic electrodynamics, polarization, interference, wave-guiding, Fresnel and Fraunhofer diffraction, image formation, resolution, space-bandwidth product. Analytical and numerical tools used in optical design are emphasized. Graduate students are required to complete assignments with stronger analytical content, and an advanced design project.

"Light will be thrown..." With these modest words, Charles Darwin launched a sweeping new theory of life in his epic book, On the Origin of Species (1859). The theory opened eyes and minds around the world to a radical new understanding of the flora and fauna of the planet. Here, Darwin showed for the first time that no supernatural processes are necessary to explain the profusion of living beings on earth, that all organisms past and present are related in a historical branching pattern of descent, and that human beings fall into place quite naturally in the web of all life.

Now, 150 years later and 200 years after Darwins birth, we celebrate the amazingly productive vision and reach of his theory. In this Fall Quarter course, we will meet weekly with leading Darwin scholars from around the country to learn about Darwins far-reaching legacy in fields as diverse as anthropology, religion, medicine, psychology, philosophy, literature, and biology. With such a broad reach across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, no wonder the theory of evolution by natural selection has been called the single best idea, ever.

Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky is giving a complete lecture on Human Behavioral Biology and explains the basic premise of the course and how he aims to avoid categorical thinking.

The Hertog Global Strategy Initiative, The Department of History, The Center for the History & Ethics of Public Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, and the Columbia University are presenting this lecture series on Pandemic Threats.

7th Annual DOE JGI Genomics of Energy & Environment Meeting on March 20, 2012 in Walnut Creek, California.

Richard Feynman once famously quipped that no one understands quantum mechanics, and popular accounts continue to promulgate the view that QM is an intractable mystery (probably because that helps to sell books). QM is certainly unintuitive, but the idea that no one understands it is far from the truth. In fact, QM is no more difficult to understand than relativity. The problem is that the vast majority of popular accounts of QM are simply flat-out wrong. They are based on the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of QM, which has been thoroughly discredited for decades. It turns out that if Copenhagen were true then it would be possible to communicate faster than light, and hence send signals backwards in time. This talk describes an alternative interpretation based on quantum information theory (QIT) which is consistent with current scientific knowledge. It turns out that there is a simple intuition that makes almost all quantum mysteries simply evaporate, and replaces them with an easily understood (albeit strange) insight: measurement and entanglement are the same physical phenomenon, and you don't really exist.

1. Understanding Embryonic Stem Cells

2. Adult Stem Cells and Regeneration

3. Coaxing Embryonic Stem Cells

4. Stem Cells and the End of Aging

The revolutionary discovery that the expansion of the universe is speeding up, not slowing down from gravity, means that 75 percent of our universe consists of mysterious dark energy. Berkeley Lab theoretical physicist Eric Linder delves into the mystery of dark energy.