Tag: talks

How trees talk to each other | Suzanne Simard

“A forest is much more than what you see,” says ecologist Suzanne Simard. Her 30 years of research in Canadian forests have led to an astounding discovery — trees talk, often and over vast distances. Learn more about the harmonious yet complicated social lives of trees and prepare to see the natural world with new eyes.

The World According to Physics with Jim Al Khalili

Jim Al-Khalili is an Iraqi-born theoretical physicist at the University of Surrey, where he holds a Distinguished Chair in physics as well as a university chair in the public engagement in science. He is also a prominent author and broadcaster. He has written 14 books on popular science and the history of science, between them translated into twenty-six languages. The book on which this lecture was based, The World According to Physics, was shortlisted for the Royal Society Book Prize. He is a regular presenter of TV science documentaries, such as the Bafta nominated Chemistry: a volatile history, and he hosts the long-running weekly BBC Radio 4 program, The Life Scientific. He tweets at @jimalkhalili. Despite his profile as a public scientist, Jim has continued to teach undergraduate physics students in an unbroken run of 29 years. He is a past president of the British Science Association and a recipient of the Royal Society’s Michael Faraday medal and the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal, the Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal and the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication. He is a Patron and Vice-President of Humanists UK. He received an OBE in 2007 for ‘services to science’.

How much of an understanding do we currently have about the physical world and where does theoretical physics research stand in the third decade of the twenty-first century? Are we finally approaching the end of physics when the rich tapestry of the universe will be revealed to us and we will finally understand the true nature of reality? If we are honest then we must admit that while what we do know is dazzlingly impressive there is still much we have yet to grasp, all the way down to the fundamental nature of space and time to the meaning quantum mechanics, let alone mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. This episode starring world-famous physicist Jim Al-Khalili will shine a light onto the most profound insights revealed by modern physics, to reveal what this crucially important science tells us about the universe and the nature of reality itself. Al-Khalili begins by introducing the fundamental concepts of space, time, energy, and matter, and then describes the three pillars of modern physics—quantum theory, relativity, and thermodynamics—showing how all three must come together if we are ever to have a full understanding of reality. Using wonderful examples and thought-provoking analogies, Al-Khalili illuminates the physics of the extreme cosmic and quantum scales, the speculative frontiers of the field, and the physics that underpins our everyday experiences and technologies, bringing the reader up to speed with the biggest ideas in physics in just a few sittings. Physics is revealed as an intrepid human quest for ever more foundational principles that accurately explain the natural world we see around us, an undertaking guided by core values such as honesty and doubt. The knowledge discovered by physics both empowers and humbles us, and still, physics continues to delve valiantly into the unknown.

Paul Hawken Pt 1 | Social Dynamics Of Food, Farming and Climate Change | 098

098: Climate activist and author Paul Hawken joins us for his fifth interview, focused on food, agriculture, climate change, and greenwashing. In this episode, the first half of Dave Chapman’s conversation with Paul, they discuss whether regenerative agriculture is organic and vice verse.

Paul Hawken is a climate activist, entrepreneur, and the author of nine books including Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, and his most-recent, 2022’s best-selling Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation. He serves on Real Organic Project’s Advisory Board.

#35 Johnjoe McFadden PHD – QUANTUM BIOLOGY

What evidence is there for quantum effects in biological systems? What are the implications for life in general?

In this episode we’ve got the relatively new field of quantum biology to assess. For years the idea of quantum effects in biological cells was dismissed because live cells were ‘too warm and wet’ to host these sensitive quantum coherences. But new research into quantum coherence in avian navigation, quantum tunnelling in DNA mutations, in enzymes, even in smell – has brought new interest and study to the field of Quantum Biology.

One biochemist, saw all this coming and wrote a book about it 20 years ago called, ‘Quantum evolution’. He is none other that than Professor of Molecular Genetics at Surrey university, JohnJoe McFadden.

His mainstream research is in microbial genetics, particularly in developing new systems biology approaches to infectious diseases. He is a keen promoter of public understanding of science and has given many popular science talks on subjects as varied as evolution and GM food. He also writes popular science articles, particularly for the Guardian newspaper. His specialties are broad including: systems biology, microbiology, evolutionary genetics, infectious diseases, tuberculosis, meningitis, and bionanotechnology.

He’s written many books but in this episiode we’ll be focussing on material from his newer books, ‘Life on the Edge, the coming age of Quantum Biology’ with physicist Jim Al-Khalili, and ‘Life is Simple: How Occams Razor Set Science Free and Unlocked the Universe’.

Sorry for the occasional connection lagtime on this video, the audio is fine though.

Exploring Liminal Spaces: A Workshop with Andrew Holecek

In life and in spiritual practice, we will encounter many in-between spaces: times of transition from one stage of life to the next, from one state of consciousness to another, and even from death to rebirth.

How can we navigate these liminal spaces—and unearth the riches contained within them?

Join Tibetan Buddhist teacher and author Andrew Holecek for an hour-long virtual workshop looking to ancient Tibetan wisdom for insights on how to work consciously with the transitory places and processes in our lives. Looking specifically to two realms of the liminal—dreaming states of consciousness as encountered in Tibetan dream yoga, and the bardo teachings, which explore the realms between death and rebirth—he will suggest how we can approach uncertainty and impermanence as opportunities for awakening.

Holecek is the author of numerous books on Buddhist teachings and the teacher of Tricycle’s online courses, Dream Yoga, Living and Dying: Navigating the Bardos, and Transforming Obstacle into Opportunity.

#27 Thomas Campbell – TESTING OUT OF BODY EXPERIENCES

How can out of body experiences be explained? What theory of reality could accomodate such a phenomenon? Today we have the extraordinary topic of the science and physics of Out of Body Experiences to get our head around! Many brain scientists have reduced this common experience to a mix of physiological and brain chemical effects, maintaining that no perceiving consciousness actually leaves the body, rather it is a form of hallucination and distortion of body schema. Not knowing when these experiences will spontaneously occur has made them hard to study in the lab. However, certain researchers have developed a method for inducing the experience, allowing for deeper study. Following that study some new theories of reality have developed that could include such an experience and even others like Near Death Experience or NDE, and Controlled Remote Viewing which we’re evaluating in this second series. One such scientist is our guest today physicist Dr. Tom Campbell! He’s an experimental physicist who’s worked for over 20 years developing US missile systems for the Department of Defence, specialising in developing cutting edge technology, large-system simulation, technology development and integration, and complex system vulnerability and risk analysis. He began researching altered states of consciousness with Bob Monroe at Monroe Laboratories in the early 1970s. He helped design experiments and develop the Binaural Beats technology for creating specific altered states, and became an experienced test subject and trainer too. After many years studying consciousness, and out of body experiences he wrote the book ‘My Big TOE’, as in ‘Theory of Everything’, which describes his model of existence and reality from both the physical and metaphysical points of view.

Ray Kurzweil Wants To Put Nanobots In Our Bloodstream

Would you want to live forever? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and author, inventor, and futurist Ray Kurzweil discuss immortality, longevity escape velocity, the singularity, and the future of technology. What will life be like in 10 years?

Could we upload our brain to the cloud? We explore the merger of humans with machines and how we are already doing it. Could nanobots someday flow through our bloodstreams? Learn about the exponential growth of computation and what future computing power will look like.

When will computers pass the Turing test? Learn why the singularity is nearer and how to think exponentially about the world. Are things getting worse? We go through why things might not be as bad as they seem. What are the consequences of having a longer lifetime? Will we deplete resources?

Will there be a class divide between people able to access longer lifespans? What sort of jobs would people have in the future? Explore what artificial intelligence has in store for us. What happens if AI achieves consciousness? We discuss the definition of intelligence and whether there will be a day when there is nothing left for humans to do. Will we ever see this advancement ending?

Jim Tucker || The Science of Reincarnation

Today we welcome Dr. Jim Tucker who is a child psychiatrist and the Bonner-Lowry Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia. He is Director of the UVA Division of Perceptual Studies, where he is continuing the work of Dr. Ian Stevenson on reincarnation. He has been invited to speak about his research on Good Morning America, Larry King Live, and CBS Sunday Morning. He recently published BEFORE: Children’s Memories of Previous Lives, a 2-in-1 edition of his previous books.

In this episode, I talk to Dr. Jim Tucker about the science of reincarnation. We delve into his research findings and methodology on children who claim to remember their previous lives. Dr. Tucker notes that these children don’t just recall biographical details of their past, but they also retain feelings and emotions. His findings have important implications for how we understand consciousness. We also touch on the topics of mortality, trauma, quantum physics, and panpsychism.