More Symphony of Science videos here.

The clips of Michio Kaku are taken from his video for The Floating University, which offers free online lectures by leading scholars and thinkers on a wide range of subjects — from astrophysics to political philosophy, from finance to population studies, from linguistics to the psychology of sex. It’s a wonderful online resource and I highly recommend checking it out.

Here’s Kaku’s full lecture:

More Floating University videos on YouTube (via BigThink) here.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar recently turned cultural critic by reviewing the HBO show Girls for the Huffington Post. In a follow-up article titled “Coming Out of the Locker Room Ghetto,” he addresses the naysayers who question his qualifications to do so:

There was much reaction. Some questioned why a man my age would watch a show about girls in their twenties, as if they’d just discovered me hanging around a school playground with a shopping bag full of candy in one hand a fluffy puppy in the other. Of course, these critics are right. When I read Moby Dick I first had to convince the bookseller that I was a former whaler named Queequeg. When I read the poetry of Sylvia Plath, I had to pretend I was a depressed white woman with daddy issues. Don’t worry, I used a fake ID. […]

But even among some of the positive response was an underlying head-scratching theme: isn’t it amazing that a former jock can have opinions on pop culture and articulate it with words and references to books and movies? Some mentioned my height, as if I was so tall that the air up here could not support intellectual development. […]

Maybe this will help: I have a degree from UCLA. I’m an amateur historian who has written books about World War II, the Harlem Renaissance, and African-American inventors. I read a lot of fiction as well as non-fiction. I watch TV and movies. I have acted in both. I have been a political activist and an advocate for children’s education. How should an aging, black jock like myself know anything about pop culture? Man, I am a living part of pop culture and have been for nearly 50 years. Beyond that, I think pop culture expresses our needs, fears, hopes and whole zeitgeist better than some of the more esoteric and obscure forms of art.

Be sure to read the rest. It’s smart, funny — and, I’m ashamed to admit, surprisingly so, to me. Apart from his cameo in Airplane!, I was mostly unaware of Abdul-Jabbar’s accomplishments off the basketball court — and had mentally relegated him to the “amazing jock” category without giving any thought to whether the man had any interests, abilities, or other fascinating facets as a human being outside the narrow field for which he’s recognized (and pigeonholed).

Mea culpa. As I’ve argued myself, it’s always unwise to put people into boxes of any kind. Once you get past your easy assumptions and really get to know them, people will endlessly surprise you. I suppose, at this point, we really shouldn’t be surprised at all.

(h/t Alyssa Rosenberg, whose take on Abdul-Jabbar is also worth a read. Image via The Muslim Observer.)

With bare-bones guitarwork and that demolishing voice (erupting into full force at 2:54), “Need Your Love” is like… what?…like a winter tree bursting into flame:

And if “Strong Blood” doesn’t slowly and relentlessly destroy you, I doubt you have a soul worth moving:

Thank you, NPR.

More Kid President here.

(via TED)

Astrophotographer Mark Gee explains:

Full Moon Silhouettes is a real time video of the moon rising over the Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand. People had gathered up there this night to get the best view possible of the moon rising. I captured the video from 2.1km away on the other side of the city. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to photograph for a long time now, and a lot of planning and failed attempts had taken place. Finally, during moon rise on the 28th January 2013, everything fell into place and I got my footage.

NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day emphasizes that the moonrise was filmed in real time, not as a time-lapse. And io9 offers an explanation of the “enormous moon” illusion here. (Update: Phil Plait says it’s not the moon illusion, but simply an effect of the magnification of the lens.)

Sometimes, to be blown away by the sheer astonishing richness of reality, all you have to do is look up.

(h/t io9)

Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy offers lots more debunkery here and here.

(h/t Bob Cesca)

(via TED)

I’ve wanted, but failed, to write about so much over the past few weeks — including about the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, where so many of the family gatherings that Minchin celebrates will be terribly incomplete this year. And there has been a death in my own extended family as well. But we keep gathering, and consoling, and loving, because we are human, and that’s what humans do.

Merry Christmas. See you in the new year.

I love this town.

(via The New York Times)

A previous remix (and my thoughts on it) here.