http://www.sciencefriday.com
Can you roll a ball without touching it? Mold an object simply by waving your hands? MIT's Tangible Media Group can. They demo two innovative projects as part their vision to make user interfaces more physical. Entitled "InFORM," this interactive shape-changing display boasts a myriad of functions and a mind-bending design. "jamSheets" combines pneumatic pumps and thin sheets of paper and fabric to enable users to mold surfaces, clothing or even furniture without the aid of a computer.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional video by MIT's Tangible Media Group

"I have always emphasized the willingness to discard," says psychologist and Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, professor emeritus at Princeton University. That philosophy works on two levels -- forget desk trinkets, Kahneman doesn't have a desk -- and he doesn't hoard ideas either, he says. If an idea doesn't work, he lets it go. Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences for his research with Amos Tversky on how people make decisions, is retired and works from his New York City apartment.

The La Brea Tar Pits represent much more than world-renowned fossil sites - they're the mass graves of thousands of ice age creatures, each with a story to tell. Researchers at the nearby Page Museum clean the asphalt from the fossil remains, and using paleoforensics, recount the grim details of their deaths. In the process, clues emerge about what life was like in prehistoric Los Angeles.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Filmed by Luke Groskin and Christian Baker
Animation by Joshua Krause
Narrated by Shane Morris
Additonal Footage and Stills provided by The Page Museum, Shutterstock
Pond5, Getty Images, Miles Roberts/John Ososky, Smithsonian Institution
Kathleen Cantner, AGI, created for EARTH Magazine

http://www.sciencefriday.com
By looking at a face for less than a second, we can judge someone’s age, gender, race, emotional state and even their trustworthiness. High-speed scanning and perception experiments by social neurologist Dr. Jon Freeman have revealed our brain’s ability to generate character assessments in less than blink of an eye. These first impressions can linger in our brains and influence our real-world interactions.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
MRI Stand-in by Sarah Lewin
Footage ands Stills Provided by Dr. Jon Freeman, Shutterstock, Warren Goldswain, Glasgow Unfamiliar Face Database, Bruce Gionet (C.C. 3.0), Nina Paley (C.C. 3.0), Kim Cramer (C.C. 3.0), “Brain Optic Nerve Impulses,” Produced by Purdue University Calumet senior engineering students supervised by Professors Bin Chen, Ph.D, and Ge Jin Ph.D, with support of the university’s Center for Innovation through Visualization and Simulation. Full video is available at: http://webs.purduecal.edu/civs/brain-visualization

Michael Musnick is a citizen scientist who studies wood turtles in the Great Swamp -- a stretch of wetland about 60 miles north of New York City. He found turtles dying in the railroad tracks and proposed a solution to New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority: tiny turtle bridges.

http://www.sciencefriday.com
Have you ever noticed that it's easier to walk without spilling a foamy beer versus walking around with regular cup of coffee? Have you ever wondered why? To solve this everyday physics phenomenon, a team of fluid mechanics researchers at Princeton University's Complex Fluids Lab investigate the anti-sloshing abilities of foam.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Footage Provided by Alban Sauret, Emilie Dressaire, Francois Boulogne, Howard Stone, Jean Cappello
Dusty Wobbls (C.C. 3.0), and Jake Millie (C.C. 3.0)

http://www.sciencefriday.com
For over 70 years, no one had seen the oblong rocksnail. Declared extinct in 2000, the species was considered to be another native Alabaman mollusk gone and forgotten. But one day in the spring of 2011, biology grad student Nathan Whelan picked up a tiny rock and got a big surprise.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Stills and Photos by Shutterstock, Thomas Tarpley, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Alabama Aquatic Biodiversity Center, Nathan Whelan, Boris Datnow, Alabama Power, Annals of Lyceum, Wild Side TV, Paul Johnson, Masood Lohar, Bermuda Conservation Services, Jefferson County Environmental Services

Brenda Tan and Matthew Cost, high school seniors from Trinity School in New York City, used a technique called DNA barcoding to find out what species were present in over 200 animal products. Their extracurricular experiment, which they completed with the help of Mark Stoeckle, of The Rockefeller University, suggests that buyers should beware!

Composer and instrument builder Paul Rudolph makes music from garbage. He combs recycling centers and scrap yards for what he calls "found object instruments"--propane tanks, film reels, artillery shells and other items that he likes the sound of. Rudolph sometimes modifies the objects and then uses the newly-minted percussive instruments in his music performance group GLANK, which has appeared at the Eagle Rock Music Festival in Los Angeles and Maker Faire in New York City. John Powell, physicist and author of How Music Works, chimes in on the physics of making music.

http://www.patreon.com/scifri - Please Help Support Our Video Productions!
Meet the farmers who want to make cheap, environmentally friendly kelp America's next favorite vegetable.

Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Additional Footage Provided by Kurt Mann /NOAA

These aren't your ordinary garden snails. Tiny cone snails may boast delicate and gorgeous shells, but they pack a powerful—and lethal—punch. The snails' venom can be fatal to various fish and even humans.


But it could also offer a potential cure.

Mandë Holford, a biochemist at Hunter College and the American Museum of Natural History, works with a team to investigate the snails' venom and look for compounds that could be used to treat pain and cancer. Ancient cultures have traditionally used their natural environment to look for cures for the things that ail them, she explains. Now, researchers are investigating how "nature's deadliest cocktail" could create new pathways for treating old problems.

A film by Science Friday

Produced in collaboration with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Produced by Emily V. Driscoll and Luke Groskin

Directed and Edited by  Emily V. Driscoll 

Filmed by  Christian Baker and Dusty Hulet 

Animations by M. Gail Rudakewich and Luke Groskin

Music by Audio Network

Additional Photos and Video by
Olivera Lab, Shutterstock, Pond5, NatureFootage, BioPixel, iBiology, Mandë Holford, Gregory S. Herbert
Guillaume van den Bossche, The National Library of Medicine
 
Project Advisors:
Laura A. Helft, Laura Bonetta, Dennis W.C. Liu and Sean B. Carroll - Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Special Thanks to
American Museum of Natural History, Hunter College, Olivera Lab at the University of Utah
Baldomero "Toto" Olivera, Talia Amador, Devin Callahan, Sean Christensen, Mandë Holford
Gregory S. Herbert, My Huynh, Terry Merritt, Aubrey Miller, Kendra Snyder, Danielle Dana, 
Chistian Skotte, Ariel Zych and Jennifer Fenwick

Science Friday/HHMI © 2017

http://www.sciencefriday.com
In the third episode of our wine science series, Out of the Bottle, Dr. Brian Wansink, Director of Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab, explains how expectations, environment, and social cues can fool us into believing that our wine tastes better or worse than it is.
Featuring Dr. Brian Wansink, Director of the Cornell University Food and Brand lab
And author of Mindless Eating (mindlesseating.org), and Slim by Design
Produced by Luke Groskin
Music by Audio Network
Location provided by Corkbuzz
Prop Master: Phyllis Shalant
Wine Wrangler: Sam Flatow
Additional Stills: Shutterstock, Proxy Design, Derek Skey

http://www.sciencefriday.com
Did you know that most mammals, from a house cat to an elephant, take roughly the same amount of time to urinate? Researchers at Georgia Tech collected data, streamed via online video and in real life, and discovered that a combination of physiology and gravity enable this feat of fluid dynamics.

By studying tiger and cat tongues, Alexis Noel of Georgia Institute of Technology has discovered some surprising uses for their infamously raspy licking apparatuses. Noel research has demonstrated that not only do their tongues tenderize meat, but the conical and scoop-like form of their papillae are optimized for depositing allergen infused saliva baths. So basically every time you pet your cat you are just rubbing your hand over their evenly-distributed saliva.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Filmed by Brandon Swanson
Music by Audio Network
Live Cats filmed at Happy Tabby Cat Cafe
Additional Footage ands Stills by Alexis Noel, Candler Hobbs, David Hu, Joseph Cebak,
Pond5, Youtube User Commissarius, Emmanuel Keller (C.C. BY 2.0), Shutterstock
Special Thanks to David Hu Lab and the Happy Tabby Cat Cafe
All tongues were donated post-mortem. No cats were harmed in the making of this video.
Although some were given a ton of catnip.

What can't 3D printers do? We've all heard news stories about 3D-printed food and medical prostheses—even cars and entire houses. But how does additive manufacturing, as it's also known, really work? And how can an at-home hobbyist get started? Ira teams up with Makerbot's Bre Pettis to present the ultimate beginner's guide to 3D printing.
Produced by Annie Minoff
Video by Luke Groskin

http://www.patreon.com/scifri - Please Help Support Our Video Productions!
Produced by Luke Groskin
By shrinking an entire museum into a 6 foot tall modular design, MICRO hopes that these tiny exhibits can go in all sorts of public areas, like shopping malls, waiting rooms, airports, and parks where they can integrate science and learning into people's day-to-day lives.

Edited by Sarah Galloway

Music by Audio Network

Additional Footage Provided by People’s Television and Science Sandbox, an initiative of the Simons Foundation

Special Thanks to Charles Philipp, Ruby Murray, and Amanda Schochet

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Brian Haus watches as the still air stirs into over 150 mph winds. The flat turquoise water suddenly churns a series of endless crashing waves of white frothy foam. Thankfully, Haus does not have to actually weather these powerful storms. Instead, he gets a close view from a safe distance at the Surge Structure Atmosphere Interaction Facility (or SUSTAIN Laboratory, for short). With a flip of a switch and a large diesel generator, the lab can concoct hurricanes on command in a box—a very large box stretching 75 feet long and 6.5 feet high—mimicking some of the most intense hurricanes that have ever been observed. By brewing these contained storms, Haus and his team can study the complex interactions between the air and the surface of the sea under extreme conditions, and use the information to improve intensity forecasting.
Produced by Luke Groskin
Edited by Sarah Galloway
Music by Audio Network.com
Additional Footage and Stills Provided by
SUSTAIN LAB, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
University of Miami, POND 5, NASA GOES Project, NASA ISS,
Lt. Rob Mitchell/NOAA

Lightning -- one of the great unsolved mysteries.

A new study in Science investigates the wisdom of crowds... well, schools. Andrew Berdahl, graduate student at Princeton University, explains that Golden shiner minnows prefer shady habitat. And he and his co-authors found that large groups of fish are better at tracking shady habitats than smaller groups or individuals--a demonstration of collective sensing.How do fish pool their senses? The researchers filmed fish and digitized their movement to try to answer the question.

In 2011, comet Lovejoy traveled through the sun's corona and lived to tell the tale. But its tail was the most telling. Reporting in the journal Science, Cooper Downs, an astrophysicist at Predictive Science Inc. in San Diego, Calif., says that the wiggly path of the comet's tail helps explain the sun's magnetic field.