Gregory Heyworth is a textual scientist; he and his lab work on new ways to read ancient manuscripts and maps using spectral imaging technology. In this fascinating talk, watch as Heyworth shines a light on lost history, deciphering texts that haven’t been read in thousands of years. How could these lost classics rewrite what we know about the past? Source: Gregory Heyworth: How I’m discovering the secrets of ancient texts | TED.com
Tag Archives: science
Is This The Most Technologically Advanced Book Ever Published? | FastCompany #books #publishing #science #interactive #personalization #startups #tech
It began as an audacious side project. Three dads and an uncle got together to make a personalized book for children. The Little Boy/Girl Who Lost His/Her Name, in which any child’s name, thanks to some nifty algorithms, dictates the plot turns, became a surprise hit. It was the bestselling picture book in the U.K. last year. This week, it topped a million copies sold worldwide (to actual customers, mind you, not retailers).
How do you follow up that sort of debut? Lost My Name, the London startup that grew out of the project—part tech company, part book publisher, and backed by Google Ventures and others—just launched its second personalized tale, The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home. READ MORE: Is This The Most Technologically Advanced Book Ever Published? | FastCompany
GE And Wattpad Combine Modern #Science With Old School #SciFi #Comics | FastCompany #STEM #reading #students #historical #digital #storytelling
Back in the 1950s and 60s, General Electric created a comic book series to help spark interest and excitement in science and engineering. Now the brand has teamed up with Wattpad to bring “Adventures in Science” back to life for a new generation, but with a bit of a twist.
The comic covers still look straight out of the ’60s, but the brand invited six of the writing social app’s most popular writers to create new science-fiction inspired by the old school comic series. The new fiction…is based on the real work of GE scientists and tackles topics from GE’s digital industrial portfolio like transportation, power and water, health care, and energy. READ MORE: General Electric And Wattpad Combine Modern Science With Old School Sci-Fi Comics | FastCompany
What You Need to Know to Be Culturally Literate in 2016 | WIRED #science #culture #security #business #design #knowledge #literacy
THERE ARE LOTS of things they don’t teach you in school. How to mesh music with technology, the way Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have managed to do. How to navigate a post-Snowden security landscape. Why Ebola can help us fight other diseases. When it comes to living in the here and now, your education is incomplete. Good news: We’re about to school you. We’ve assembled the ultimate cheat sheet for the worlds of security and government, business, science, design, and culture. You’ll learn about the core people and concepts, as well as the go-to Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr feeds that you absolutely must follow. Welcome to your crash seminar in the present. Feel free to take notes. READ MORE: What You Need to Know to Be Culturally Literate in 2016 | WIRED
‘Dune’ at 50: Why the Groundbreaking Eco-Conscious Novel Is More Relevant Than Ever | Flavorwire #Dune #books #SciFi #environment
“Men and their works have been a disease on the surface of their plane… you cannot go on forever stealing what you need without regard to those who come after.” READ MORE: Dune at 50: Frank Herbert’s Environmentalist Legacy | Flavorwire
This Girls’ Summer Camp Could Help Change the World of #AI | WIRED #women #tech #genderequality #STEM
IN A SPARSE lecture room at Stanford University, six students are rehearsing a presentation they’ll later give to a roomful of VIPs from the university’s artificial intelligence lab…It’s presentation day at SAILORS, the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory’s Outreach Summer program, the country’s first AI summer camp for girls. Backed by more than forty university professors, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate students from the lab, as well as big-name corporate sponsors like Google, the camp aims to remove the Achilles heel of AI research and, indeed, computer science as a whole: there aren’t enough women. READ MORE: This Girls’ Summer Camp Could Help Change the World of AI | WIRED
Why #NASA Helped Ridley Scott Create ‘The Martian’ #Film | Popular Science #science #books #adaptations
The day Ridley Scott called NASA was a great day for NASA. Scott, or Sir Ridley, or the dude who has directed several of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, plus Thelma and Louise, was in the early stages of his newest movie, The Martian, based on the mega-popular novel by Andy Weir.
The Martian is a deadly simple tale of an astronaut named Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) trying to survive and eventually escape from Mars after being stranded there. But the most important fact about The Martian is not all of the extreme close ups on Matt Damon’s handsome astronaut mug (there are many!). It’s that The Martian is extremely recent science fiction. Its set in a version of the future that is not distant or fantastic, but familiar and possible. And the premise of the story is based on just the type of mission that NASA is planning. READ MORE: Why NASA Helped Ridley Scott Create ‘The Martian’ Film | Popular Science
Smithsonian’s @Kickstarter to Show Neil Armstrong’s Spacesuit Blasts Past Goal | Mashable #libraries #museums
May inspire other museums, libraries and archives to launch Kickstarter campaigns!
When the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum launched Reboot the Suit, a Kickstarter campaign to preserve and display Neil Armstrong’s iconic Apollo 11 spacesuit, they set a goal of $500,000. With two hours left of the campaign, they’ve raised over $715,000 from more than 9,400 backers. READ MORE: Smithsonian’s Kickstarter to show Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit blasts past goal | Mashable.
6 Best #Tools For Creative Work, According To Science | Fast Company #creativity #ideas #productivity
I’d love to have a toolkit that promised me great, creative ideas every time I sat down to work. Obviously that’s not going to happen—creativity doesn’t come from tools. But luckily there are some tools that can improve our chances of working creatively. According to research, these six tools can help inspire your next big idea. READ MORE: The 6 Best Tools For Creative Work, According To Science | Fast Company | Business + Innovation.
Here Are 5 Contenders For A New, #Female #MacGyver – Will One Help Drive #Girls To Engineering? | Co.Create #STEM
Awesome on so many levels!!
Could television be the secret weapon that gets more girls into science There is no shortage of initiatives that aim to get girls interested in STEM careers from an early age. From GoldieBlox’s building kits and storybooks to the 8-week summer camp Girls Who Code teaching teens the fundamentals of robotics and web development. That’s because in order to right the lopsided gender balance in science, engineering, and math, research indicates that it’s important to engage girls while they are young and encourage them to continue to pursue STEM careers. And we all know how important diversity is to business, particularly as it becomes more globally connected.
Yet engineering toys and school programs can’t necessarily stem the tide of media images that continue to push the idea the typical scientist, programmer, or engineer is a white guy working alone. That’s why the USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering and the National Academy of Engineering pooled their resources in partnership with the MacGyver Foundation and together they’re crowdsourcing a concept for a new television show starring a strong female scientist —the next MacGyver. READ MORE: Here Are 5 Contenders For A New, Female MacGyver–Will One Help Drive Girls To Engineering? | Co.Create | creativity + culture + commerce.
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