communication

Physicist Angela Collier's roughly hour-long video on how string theory was hyped to the public and what that did to science communication. She traces the history of the theory as a narrative and argues it is interesting but was oversold.

A documentary on how Cornwall became a hub for the world's communications, from the first transatlantic radio signal to modern undersea fibre cables. It describes how cable landing stations and the systems are put together.

An MTA video on communications-based train control, the system meant to replace the New York City subway's century-old signaling. It also shows the mechanical interlocks and signals in use today.

Seven-minute footage of Fred Rogers testifying before a US Senate subcommittee in 1969 to defend federal funding for the new Corporation for Public Broadcasting. A skeptical Senator Pastore starts out abrasive and is won over during Rogers' brief, calm testimony.

The fail0verflow 27C3 talk on breaking PS3 security, covering how Sony's implementation failed, including its ECDSA mistakes.

Tom Scott's Royal Institution discourse on science communication in the age of social media, how recommendation algorithms shape popularity, and why view counts can matter more than truth. It includes a segment on parasocial relationships.

Atrocity Guide covers the 1965 dolphin experiments of Dr. John C. Lilly and Margaret Howe, who tried to teach dolphins English. It traces the bizarre methods and Lilly's later drug-fueled beliefs.

A restored HD upload of the 1983 BBC series Fun to Imagine, in which Richard Feynman talks informally about everyday science. Topics include jiggling atoms, fire, rubber bands, magnets, electricity, mirrors, seeing, big numbers and ways of thinking.

Veritasium debunks common climate change myths in under seven minutes, with references to NASA and published research. Topics include CO2 sources, sea ice and 1970s predictions of cooling.

Physicist Angela Collier uses Gell-Mann amnesia to critique pop-science figures, especially Michio Kaku, and works through an eigenvalue problem along the way. It is a long, rambling commentary on how experts see simplified explanations of their own field.

Sabine Hossenfelder explains what flat earthers believe and why, arguing that their reasoning is wrong but not stupid. She suggests scientists should take such believers more seriously.

Professor Dave critiques science communicator Sabine Hossenfelder, arguing that her content has drifted toward anti-establishment rhetoric. He frames it as commentary rather than a hit piece.

Kurzgesagt addresses whether viewers can trust its videos, describing its research process and how it handles older videos with errors or overstated claims.

Rebecca Watson's video critiquing physicist Sabine Hossenfelder's earlier video on gender care for transgender minors, arguing it mishandled the evidence.

A roughly three-hour San Francisco workshop by Marshall Rosenberg on Nonviolent Communication, with full English subtitles added by a fan. He teaches the model with his jackal and giraffe language examples.

A 1983 BBC interview in which Richard Feynman is asked how magnets work and explains why 'why' questions are hard to answer in everyday terms. He reflects on what counts as an explanation and the limits of analogy.

A long video essay arguing that Koko the gorilla probably could not actually use sign language. It examines the cherry-picked data and the lack of transparency behind the claims, drawing on published critiques.

Veritasium explores why energy is not conserved in general relativity, using Emmy Noether's theorem linking symmetries to conservation laws. Physicists interviewed explain energy loss in an expanding universe.

Part two of EEVblog's visit to the NASA/CSIRO Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, showing the control room and how operators contact Voyager 2. It includes live data and spectrum displays.

Ron Garret's Google Tech Talk argues that quantum mechanics is no harder to understand than relativity and that popular accounts wrongly rely on the Copenhagen interpretation. He presents measurement as entanglement and explains phenomena like the quantum eraser.

The first episode of James Burke's 1978 BBC series Connections traces modern dependence on complex technological networks, starting with the 1965 New York blackout, and moves through ancient agriculture to Kuwait's oil-driven leap.

Richard Hamming's 1995 recording of his talk 'You and Your Research', drawn from his graduate engineering course. He discusses how great scientists pick important problems and build careers, drawing on his years at Bell Labs.

Veritasium examines the role of luck in success, with simulations and examples showing how small advantages and chance can compound. It argues that top outcomes are disproportionately luck-driven while still crediting effort.

Veritasium explains why a large share of published research findings may be false, covering p-values, p-hacking, publication bias and low replication rates. It draws on John Ioannidis's well-known paper and describes reforms such as preregistration.

A short clip from a Richard Feynman interview in which he explains fire, describing how burning wood releases sunlight stored by the tree, which built itself mostly from air. It showcases his curiosity and plain-spoken explanations.

The Eames Office's 1977 film Powers of Ten starts at a picnic in Chicago and zooms out by a factor of ten every ten seconds to the edge of the universe. It then zooms inward to a proton in a carbon atom.

A short clip of Richard Feynman explaining the scientific method: guess, compute consequences, compare to experiment, and why vague theories like astrology cannot be proven wrong.

Veritasium tells the story of how Shuji Nakamura and others made the blue LED, long thought nearly impossible. It covers the materials challenge of gallium nitride and the persistence it took.

A DEF CON 26 talk by investigative journalists and hackers on the fake science industry, with bogus conferences and predatory journals that give studies false credibility. It draws on a large investigation into the money behind them.

Tom Scott investigates the claim that the microwave was invented to heat hamsters, and interviews James Lovelock about freezing and microwave-thawing hamsters in the 1950s. It traces early magnetron uses beyond radar.

Technology Connections explains how LED traffic lights, which do not melt snow, drew complaints and were blamed for accidents. He uses it to illustrate the 'but sometimes' fallacy against new technology.

Doug Zongker's deadpan conference presentation of his famously chicken-filled paper, given at the 2007 AAAS humor session. It satirizes academic talks while showing the pitfalls of bad presentation.

A Medlife Crisis video by cardiologist Rohin Francis on overdiagnosis and over-screening. It explains how detecting more disease does not necessarily mean saving more lives, and covers harms such as unnecessary treatment.

Veritasium's Derek Muller gives a Perimeter Institute livestream on how AI might change teaching and learning. He draws on past technology shifts and cognitive science to argue that learning requires effortful repetition.

Sean Carroll introduces his video series on the biggest ideas in physics, such as symmetry, space and matter, as informal discussions with follow-up Q&A videos. This is the short opening video of the series.

Veritasium debunks the idea of learning styles, such as being a visual learner, with an interview with Daniel Willingham and a memory experiment. It argues that a multimodal approach helps everyone.

A long Portal podcast episode in which Bret Weinstein tells Eric Weinstein the story of his lab mice telomere work, the prediction behind it, and what it means for science and aging.

Mick West explains the three Navy UFO videos (FLIR, GIMBAL and GOFAST) released in 2020, giving mundane explanations such as a distant plane and camera artifacts. He notes the videos were not new and had been circulating since 2017.

Bill Hammack of engineerguy explains how medieval engineers designed stone cathedrals using rules of thumb, with no science, mathematics or literacy. He uses it to define the engineering method.

A long Machine Learning Street Talk interview with Kenneth Stanley, creator of NEAT and novelty search, about his book on why greatness cannot be planned. They discuss open-endedness, the tyranny of objectives, serendipity and the evolution of ideas.