This is a conversation about science, philosophy, the meaning of life, and the unfathomable size of the universe.
Professor Brian Cox is a physicist, known for his astronomy and cosmology series’, including The Universe and Stargazing Live. He has performed on several sell-out arena tours, setting the Guinness World Record for the biggest selling science tour. Before his career in science, at age 18 Brian embarked on a musical career, forming a band with the ex-keyboarder from Thin Lizzy. Brian shares stories of his 5 years as a professional musician; as a keyboard player in the bands Dare and D:Ream. Having achieved in D in Maths A-level, Brian discusses with Jake and Damain how this experience taught him his greatest lesson: the importance of practice.
In this episode, Brian imparts invaluable wisdom on the pursuit of greatness and knowledge, and his belief that “very few people are naturally great”. He shares his secrets on summoning the courage to ask difficult questions and the importance of saying “I don’t know”. They discuss the greatest threat to humanity: human stupidity, and Brian offers insights on creating global cooperation in a world with the power to destroy itself.
Jake, Damian and Brian tackle life’s biggest questions, whilst exploring life’s more personal subjects: self-doubt, fear and finding confidence.
See Brian on his live tour ‘Horizons’: https://briancoxlive.co.uk/
0:00 Starting out
9:19 Asking stupid questions
15:18 Brian’s passion
20:08 Communication
26:43 Learning to experiment
31:55 Aliens
39:00 Brexit
41:28 Brian’s personal life
46:48 Selling out arenas
51:24 Self-doubt
57:31 Quickfire questions
[…]
In this episode Rupert Sheldrake, biologist and author, debunks the standard view that the mind is nothing but brain activity and argues that our mind is extended in every act of visual perception.
Rupert has designed an app to enable you to test your sensitivity to being looked at from behind, and to find out if you can improve with practice. The test takes just a few minutes to complete. https://www.sheldrake.org/participate . If you find you or your partner can indeed improve with practice, scoring repeatedly and fairly reliably above 75%, please let us know by email at sheldrake@sheldrake.org
For more information about Rupert Sheldrake’s research, visit https://www.sheldrake.org/
This talk was part of the 2023 Holberg Debate at the University of Bergen with the neuroscientist Anil Seth and the anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann. The full debate can be seen here: • Does Consciousness Extend Beyond Brai…
Thank you!
[…]
Record rains in southern Brazil have displaced almost 600,000 people. A month later and roads remain blocked, the airport is closed and many people will never return home.
Click here to subscribe to our channel 👉🏽 https://bbc.in/3VyyriM
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has declared it a “climate catastrophe”. Officials are writing off whole neighbourhoods – telling residents these places can never be made safe. Caitríona Perry speaks with BBC Brasil reporters Daniel Gallas and Leandro Prazeres, who have been finding out what this means for people in the flood zone, and asks if there are lessons for all of us in a warming world.
00:00 Introduction
01:07 Shock at scale of flooding
01:49 Fleeing houses overnight
02:37 ‘Like an area that had been bombed’
03:09 What is Rio Grande do Sul like?
04:08 Three months of rain in two weeks
05:13 Reactions from around Brazil
05:57 Footballers and Olympians help out
07:36 Logistical difficulties after the flood
08:07 The people ‘felt lost’
09:14 What people have lost
09:47 Abandoned neighbourhoods
10:38 Promise of new homes
11:37 Impact of climate change
12:42 How Brazilians think and talk about climate change
14:19 Why is the water not going away?
15:19 Plans for helping displaced people
16:12 Political importance of the floods
16:39 ‘Depressed’ outlook of people in Porto Alegre
Watch more episodes of The Global Story here 👉🏽 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
[…]
Germany is losing its forests, FAST. In the central Harz region, over 90 percent of spruce trees are dead or dying because of climate change and insect damage. But this isn’t necessarily bad news. Instead of the former monoculture forest, a more resilient, wild forest is springing up, with a more abundant ecosystem.
#climatechange #barkbeetle #PlanetA
We’re destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn’t need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we’ll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
Follow Planet A on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dw_planeta?la…
Credits:
Reporter: Kiyo Dörrer Video Editor: Frederik Willmann Camera: Marco Borowski
Supervising Editors: Michael Trobridge, Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann Fact-Check: Alexander Paquet Thumbnail: Em Chabridon
Read more:
Background information on Harz National Park (in English):
https://en.harzinfo.de/pure-nature/th…
https://www.nationalpark-harz.de/en/p…
Managing bark beetle outbreaks, Policy Brief by Forest Europe:
https://foresteurope.org/wp-content/u…
Study on Bark Beetle Outbreaks in Europe: State of Knowledge and Ways Forward for Management https://www.researchgate.net/publicat…
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:38 History of the forests
1:25 Why spruces are everywhere
3:30 Enter: The bark beetle
5:19 Bark beetle central
8:31 The forestry’s approach
12:12 Conclusion
[…]
“I owe it to my foster parents because prior to them, I had no one there who believed I would be capable of doing such a thing as playing piano.”
Over the last couple of years, a British TV show called The Piano has set its sights on finding the next greatest musician by placing pianos in public spaces for anyone to play. Last year, they shared the story of Lucy, a blind and neurodivergent teen who was a proficient player despite her severe autism. Now, they’ve crowned a new promising pianist. Twenty-two-year-old Brad Kella won the 2024 competition by displaying his extraordinary skills, using the opportunity to also honor those who made it all possible for him.
Kella, who is from a suburb of north Liverpool, was placed in foster care at the age of 7. “I was so confused, I remember hanging on to the railings outside my foster parents, and just didn’t want to go in,” the young musician explained during his first audition performance at Liverpool Lime Street station. He expected to spend only a night with Ev and Frank, but they went on to become his foster parents for over 12 years.
“When I told them about wanting a piano, they were immediately like, ‘yes,’” Kella recalled. “There was a budget for kids in the care system, and Ev put some money in and got me a piano–and from that moment, my whole life changed.” While Kella couldn’t read music, and still can’t to this day, he taught himself to play the piano. “I used to just sit there for hours and hours, and figured out how different chords made me feel. I don’t read music at all, but each individual piano key just takes me somewhere.”
On top of becoming an extraordinary pianist, he learned a lot about himself and the places he could go through the instrument. “Once I started playing piano, I started feeling this unique feeling about myself,” Kella said. “That I was my own person. I owe it to my foster parents because prior to them, I had no one there who believed I would be capable of doing such a thing as playing piano.”
Source: Pianist Dedicates Original Composition to Foster Parents & Wins Contest
