Sir John Gurdon

How can I put it? I have been hearing some interviews of Sir John Gurdon which are quite educational at this very age of mine (32 years old and 10 months).

The astonishing thing about Sir John Gurdon is that he had been told to quit science (Figure 1) when he was in highschool then some years later, after following his own ideas he won the Nobel Price in Psychology and Medicine.

Figure 1. Science Report for Gurdon from his days studying Biology at Eton College in 1949 [source]

An interview of Sir John Gurdon the Cambridge biologist talking about his life and work, interviewed by Alan Macfarlane.

http://youtu.be/QaVTpG_5bUc (Part 1)
http://youtu.be/Ox5_EAz-UFY (Part 2)

The Machines of Leonardo da Vinci and Franz Reuleaux

The Machines of Leonardo da Vinci and Franz Reuleaux
Kinematics of Machines from the Renaissance to the 20th Century
By
Francis C. Moon

http://books.google.com.mx/books/about/The_Machines_of_Leonardo_Da_Vinci_and_Fr.html?id=H1UPPfn2w6oC&redir_esc=y

Human Brain Project

The goal of the Human Brain Project is to pull together the highly fragmented knowledge in the neurosciences and to reconstruct the brain, piece by piece, in supercomputer-based models and simulations. It should lay the technical foundations for a new model of brain research that is based on Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), driving integration between data and knowledge from different disciplines, and catalyzing a community effort to achieve a new understanding of the brain, new treatments for brain disease and new brain-like computing technologies.

The Human Brain Project will pursue four goals, each building on existing work, and acting as a catalyst for new research:

1. Data: generate strategically selected data essential to seed brain atlases, build brain models and catalyze contributions from other groups.
2. Theory: identify mathematical principles underlying the relationships between different levels of brain organization and their role in the brain’s ability to acquire, represent and store information.
3. ICT platforms: provide an integrated system of ICT platforms providing services to neuroscientists, clinical researchers and technology developers that accelerate the pace of their research.
4. Applications: develop first draft models and prototype technologies that demonstrate how the platforms can be used to produce results with immediate value for basic neuroscience, medicine and computing technology.

http://www.humanbrainproject.eu/

The Great Debate: THE STORYTELLING OF SCIENCE

The Origins Project at ASU presents the final night in the Origins Stories weekend, focusing on the science of storytelling and the storytelling of science. The Storytelling of Science features a panel of esteemed scientists, public intellectuals, and award-winning writers including well-known science educator Bill Nye, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, theoretical physicist Brian Greene, Science Friday's Ira Flatow, popular science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, executive director of the World Science Festival Tracy Day, and Origins Project director Lawrence Krauss as they discuss the stories behind cutting edge science from the origin of the universe to a discussion of exciting technologies that will change our future. They demonstrate how to convey the excitement of science and the importance helping promote a public understanding of science.

Harald Haas: Wireless data from every light bulb

Why you should listen to him:

Imagine using your car headlights to transmit data ... or surfing the web safely on a plane, tethered only by a line of sight. Harald Haas is working on it. A professor of engineering at Edinburgh University, Haas has long been studying ways to communicate electronic data signals, designing modulation techniques that pack more data onto existing networks. But his latest work leaps beyond wires and radio waves to transmit data via an LED bulb that glows and darkens faster than the human eye can see.

The system, which he's calling D-Light, uses a mathematical trick called OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing), which allows it to vary the intensity of the LED's output at a very fast rate, invisible to the human eye (for the eye, the bulb would simply be on and providing light). The signal can be picked up by simple receivers. As of now, Haas is reporting data rates of up to 10 MBit/s per second
(faster than a typical broadband connection), and 100 MBit/s by the end of this year and possibly up to 1 GB in the future.

He says: "It should be so cheap that it’s everywhere. Using the visible light spectrum, which comes for free, you can piggy-back existing wireless services on the back of lighting equipment."

"As well as revolutionising internet reception, it would put an end to the potentially harmful electromagnetic pollution emitted by wireless internet routers and has raised the prospect of ubiquitous wireless access, transmitted through streetlights."
Herald Scotland

REFERENCE
http://www.ted.com/talks/harald_haas_wireless_data_from_every_light_bulb.html

The New Enlightenment

 Sir Paul Nurse delivered this, the 36th lecture, exploring the wonder of science and how it enhances our culture and civilisation. Sir Paul also discussed how science can not only help solve the world’s big problems, but also be harnessed to improve health, quality of life and the strength of the UK’s economy.

Introducing the lecture at the beginning of the evening, David Dimbleby referrenced the work that has been done by Dimbleby Cancer Care, set up in his father’s name after his death at 52 to research cancer issues including the setting up of the Richard Dimbleby labaratory at Kings College. Sir Paul’s work in the field of cell division won him his Nobel Prize in 2001, a subject very pertinent to cancer treatment and research.

Sir Paul summed up his belief in the vital importance that science must play in all our lives.

“I am passionate about science because it has shaped the world and made it a better place, and I want to see science placed more centre stage in our culture and economy.  Our present economic troubles have promoted a debate about the future of our economy, and that future must include a major role for science.  We need a new Enlightenment, an Enlightenment for the 21st century, and Britain is the place to do it with its history of freedom, rationality, and scientific achievement.”

For a full transcript of the lecture, please go to 2012 Richard Dimbleby Lecture

Reference:http://www.dimblebycancercare.org/news/the-2012-richard-dimbleby-lecture-the-new-enlightenment-by-paul-nurse

Reason #17483028 to be a scientist.

Niels Henrik David Bohr (7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist, philosopher and footballer, who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922.

Miguel Nicolelis explores the limits of the brain-machine interface.

Can we use our brains to directly control machines -- without requiring a body as the middleman? Miguel Nicolelis talks through an astonishing experiment, in which a clever monkey in the US learns to control a monkey avatar, and then a robot arm in Japan, purely with its thoughts. The research has big implications for quadraplegic people -- and maybe for all of us [1].

“ The impossible is just the possible that someone has not put enough effort to make it come true. ”  
― Miguel Nicolelis

Reference:
[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/miguel_nicolelis_a_monkey_that_controls_a_robot_with_its_thoughts_no_really.html

Charles Darwin

In 1859 Charles Darwin proposed the theory of natural selection.

At his important magnum opus On the Origin of Species, the main arguments are:

1. Species are not fixed or static existence but are in constant change.
2. Life appears as a constant struggle for existence and survival.
3. The struggle for survival lead to the best adapted to reproduce, this process is called "natural selection"
4. Natural selection and evolution process requires an enormous amount of time so long that a briefly of the human life span.

Reference: http://darwincharlesrobert.wordpress.com/11/