Latest videos on 2100science.com

Making of Movie Avatar

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Avatar was not an animated film. In animated films, actors record their performance, but do nothing else with the character. In Avatar, the actors did all the actions that people see on the film.
Performance capture is a technique where you try to capture the performance of an actor and translate it to a digital character. You put an actor in a suit with markers and then use a lot of cameras all around to record all the motions of the markers. The computers then create a real time moving skeleton of the character, and from that skeleton you can drive the character.
Tons of high-definition references from all these different angles are taken, so that all the subtle nuances of the faces could be captured.

Megaflora Trees

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Ray Allen is a pioneer in the field of bio-energy. It is his goal to plant the MegaFlora tree worldwide. The MegaFlora tree is also known as the HDSR tree – high density, short rotation. It has high density because it has a high yield of lumber and biomass per acre, for fuel and other energy uses. Short rotation, because developers say it can grow to its full size – 60 feet tall, in just three years.
Unlike a traditional tree, the megaflora tree re-grows from its stump after harvest. It also produces no fruit or fertile seeds, so it is non-invasive. Every other biomass has to be replanted. The megaflora tree only needs to be planted once.

WiTricity - Wireless Electricity

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Trillions of dollars have been spent to create an electricity infrastructure around the world, putting up wires to get power from where it’s created to where it’s used. In addition, there are 40 billion disposable batteries used every year, for power that generally is used within a few inches or a few feet from where there is very inexpensive power.
A few years ago, a group of theoretical physicists at MIT came up with a concept of transferring power over distance. They were able to light a 60 watt light bulb at a distance of about 2 meters. Imagine a coil with a capacitor attached to it. If you can cause that coil to resonate, it will pulse at alternating current frequencies, at a fairly high frequency. If you bring another device close enough to the source, that will only work at that frequency, you will be able to transfer magnetic energy between them. This transferred magnetic energy can be converted back into electricity.

Biggest Telescope Using Interferometry

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

In the northeast of Holland, 14 large antenna dishes have been placed next to each other in a 2.7 kilometer long line. This is the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope, or Westerbork Array. These telescopes have been linked together to act as if they were a single larger instrument. This array has become part of a global radio astronomy network, using a technique known as very long baseline interferometry (vlbi).
Scientists collect the filter signals from multiple radio telescopes, which are then sent to a correlator and an extremely accurate image is generated, as if you were using a single dish that was the size of all the combined radius of the telescopes around the world.
These images are several orders of magnitude more clear than those obtained by even the Hubble space telescope.

Special & General Relativity Made Easy

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Relativity is a method for two people to agree on what they see, if one of them is moving. The theory of relativity is used in everyday life, even though it is not called by that name. The GPS system, for example, depends on relativity. The GPS can pinpoint your location on earth, to within a few yards. It does this by using two dozen satellites 12,000 miles above the earth, and relativity.
The GPS receives a timer signal from three different satellites. Using Einstein’s theory of relativity, it calculates the distance from each satellite. Using triangulation, the GPS then records the user’s location.
Relativity was not a new concept with Einstein. Scientists had been trying to reconcile their observation of the world, if one was moving and the other not, for decades, before Einstein proposed this theory.
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNB7KEg9siM
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6pzEh6pE3A
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAaktsuFNQo

Atom - Illusion of Reality

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

In 1912, Victor Hess made one of the most astonishing discoveries in science – what would come to be known as cosmic rays. At the same time, scientists were studying radioactivity – rays coming out of atoms.
Almost a hundred years later, scientists have come to realize that the world we think we know, the solid, reassuring world of our senses, turns out to be just a tiny sliver of an infinitely weirder, more wonderful universe. Our reality is just an illusion.
In 1905, Albert Einstein conclusively proved the existence and size of an atom. Scientist Rutherford, a few years later, performed an experiment that revealed the shape of the interior of an atom. It is almost entirely empty space. How then could this empty atom make the solid world around us?
Danish theoretical physicists postulated that the world of the atom ran on principles that were completely different from everything we’d known before.
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6_7_EY8_78
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4pkc3MoxE4
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjK3Z_xIuMQ
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JTAyErIFB4

Dealing with Stress

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Stress can kill. It works silently and invisibly, eroding our minds and bodies. This is ironic, since stress evolved to help us survive. Sudden danger triggers the release of hormones that rev the body up for a life or death struggle, or a frantic escape from danger. This adrenalin rush can be addictive. But when this adrenalin is constantly flowing, it actually harms the body.
Today, people no longer need be concerned about predators, but rather about work, their relationships, their money and their health. Over an extended period of time, these stress hormones can cripple the immune system and put harmful pressure on the heart – leading to a heart attack or stroke. In order to deal with stress, a variety of techniques are used, including meditation.
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm9Ge-RXg_U
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiHHRXQ4vm4
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqmbvjGVphQ
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkp-APFAu9k
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLtd3IWyU4U

Drugs Factory

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Modern drug discovery relies more on calculated gamble than on careful design. At GSK, a company in England, they have a library of over 2 million nameless chemical compounds. Scientists know very little about them. They could be highly toxic or they could be harboring a life-saving drug.
A known disease molecule – the target – is introduced to each of the 2 million compounds, one by one, to see if anything happens. With these 2 million or so compounds, they might get a few that are active against that target – as little as one or two. Chemists will then make hundreds or thousands of samples related to that original structure to try to improve that activity.
The samples must be screened over and over again. Just a handful will make it through to be tested on people. The cost in research to find a single drug is over one billion dollars and requires thousands of tests, over a period of fourteen years.

Google TV

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Producers provide TV programs and movies to various networks, which in turn air them on television for people to watch. Prior to the advent of the internet, audiences were at the mercy of the TV schedule. They could watch a program only at the time it aired. When the internet became popular, people could suddenly watch any TV programs they wanted on the internet, at any time they wanted…but the screens were small, not to be compared with big screen TVs.
Then came Google TV. Google TV brings everything you love about the web to your television. Right on your TV screen, you type on what you’re looking for, and Google TV will find it. It is an entertainment hub. Google TV also provides a full web browser. Google TV will make your TV smarter and easier to use.

From Molecule to Medicine

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The human body is extremely vulnerable – many illnesses and disorders are still untreatable. However, science is always evolving in its efforts to find drugs to help patients all over the world.
14 years is the length of time it takes to develop a new drug. Over this time period, 100 research projects lead to one drug being introduced to the market.
In many illnesses, one or more proteins in the body are not working correctly. Scientists are trying to discover which proteins cause an illness, and if any drugs can be developed to correct them. Our bodies, however, contain hundreds of thousands of different proteins. Finding a single protein that isn’t working properly is a long, labor intensive process.
In modern labs, with advanced technology, up to 100,000 substances can be tested a day.

Total Isolation

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Can a human being spend 48 hours in a room, in the dark, with no sensory stimulation whatsoever? Six people undergo a test to find out what happens to their brains when they are kept in solitary confinement. Sensory deprivation has been used as a weapon and an aid in interrogation. The test is to discover whether their brains will still be able to process information when no stimulation reaches the brain – no touch or feel, no sight or sound.
Scientists, and interrogators, have long known of the impact of sensory deprivation on their subjects, but this is the first study to codify that impact.

Seeing the World as Never Before

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Thanks to Swedish photographer Lennart Nielson, it is now possible to take photographs, and film, of the beginning of life in a creature – from the fertilization of the ovum by the sperm. Nielson helped to develop an endoscopic camera in the early 1960s, which could show the journey of the blood through veins and arteries. After 12 years perfecting his photographic technique, Nielson went inside a fetus to take still photos of the first weeks of life. Today, it is possible to see the whole reproductive process in real time, from intercourse to conception to development to birth.
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7OAg432oiE
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DbP2Q2jLSA
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjUKiHkFoWQ

Allen Telescope Array

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The Allen Telescope Array, also called the ATA (and named after Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, who helped fund the project), is a radio telescope built at the Hat Creek Observatory in the California desert, outside of Berkeley. Ultimately it will have 350 antennas (or dishes), but at the moment, only 60 are in operation.
This is a new type of telescope – an array (large number) of small dishes, as opposed to single, very large dish. The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, is the driving force behind the ATA.
The ATA has a very large field of view, and it records data very much faster than the typical telescope. It can see 200 square degrees at any given moment. Indeed, the ATA receives so much data that much of it is still waiting to be processed.

Stephen Hawking's Take on Aliens

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Do aliens exist? If so, where could they be found, what do they look like, what are they made of, are they intelligent, and if we met them, what would it mean for human kind? Wherever Stephen Hawkings goes, he is always asked, “Do aliens exist?” and “Are we alone on this big blue ball.”
Hawking doesn’t think we’re alone in the universe. The simple vastness of the galaxies – billions of galaxies - and the universe makes it probable that life forms have evolved somewhere else in the cosmos.
To Hawkings, the mathematical numbers mean it’s obvious that life on other worlds exist. The only question is what do they look like? It could range from “simple green slime” to more advanced animals. Perhaps there are even intelligent beings, even civilizations.
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X7KyD7l7Po
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4NMfuZcH8o
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb10ZtlWuz0
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGalM4pOUZc

Pushing the Limits of Healing

Mon, 24 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The human body has a remarkable ability to heal itself. However, in some situations, no amount of time or healing can help restore full function. For example, individuals with severed spinal cords can not be helped to walk again, at the present time. However, such individuals find that the body never gives up trying to repair itself. A few muscles will strengthen as time goes on.
Helped by medicine, surgery or biotechnology, people with such injuries might one day be healed totally. The goal is to repair our bodies indefinitely, to prolong life as long as possible.
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kydr1KdgnTg