Science
Special thanks to Vanessa from BrainCraft for help with this video!
Check out her channel: https://www.youtube.com/braincraft
↓↓↓ More info and sources below ↓↓↓
Until the early 20th century, Tasmania was home to a very weird wolf-like creature. Except that it wasn’t a wolf. Even though it looked like a wolf. How did that happen? Here’s the science of convergent evolution!
Want to see more of my interview with Rob? Click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsek8JxUS7M
Special thanks to:
Rob Voss - American Museum of Natural History, New York City
Vanessa Hill from BrainCraft!
References:
Quammen, D. (2012). The song of the dodo: island biogeography in an age of extinctions. Random House.
Feigin, C. Y., Newton, A. H., Doronina, L., Schmitz, J., Hipsley, C. A., Mitchell, K. J., ... & Menzies, B. R. (2018). Genome of the Tasmanian tiger provides insights into the evolution and demography of an extinct marsupial carnivore. Nature ecology & evolution, 2(1), 182.
Newton, A. H., Spoutil, F., Prochazka, J., Black, J. R., Medlock, K., Paddle, R. N., ... & Pask, A. J. (2018). Letting the ‘cat’out of the bag: pouch young development of the extinct Tasmanian tiger revealed by X-ray computed tomography. Royal Society open science, 5(2), 171914.
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It’s Okay To Be Smart is hosted by Joe Hanson, Ph.D.
Director: Joe Nicolosi
Writer: Stephanie Keep
Creative Director: David Schulte
Editor/animator: Karl Boettcher and Derek Borsheim
Producers: Stephanie Noone and Amanda Fox
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Is Earth the only living needle in this haystack of planets?
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Are there exoplanets like Earth? We live in one of a hundred billion of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars. And now, thanks to modern astronomy, we know that the Milky Way is home to perhaps a hundred billion planets! In the past two decades, these exoplanet discoveries have spawned new questions about our universe, and if there might be another Earth, or other life, somewhere out there.
In part 1 of our two-part series on exoplanets, we'll look at how astronomers find exoplanets, and what it means to call them Earth-like. We'll trace the history of planetary science back three thousand years and examine Earth's changing status in the cosmos. We were once the center of the universe, and now Earth is just another rock in the sky. What does that mean for us?
Check out "Five Billion Years of Solitude" by Lee Billings: http://amzn.to/18Tzv59
This week's t-shirt comes from Wowch: http://www.wowch.com/puppyplanet
More reading:
There are five billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11..../05/science/cosmic-c
The exoplanet catalog: http://phl.upr.edu/projects/ha....bitable-exoplanets-c
Methods of detecting exoplanets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M....ethods_of_detecting_
Interactive catalog of Kepler's exoplanet discoveries: http://www.nytimes.com/interac....tive/science/space/k
A philosophical and historical look at the exoplanet revolution: http://www.aeonmagazine.com/na....ture-and-cosmos/the-
The Kepler telescope and the "adjacent possible": http://nautil.us/blog/clever-a....pes-a-busted-telesco
How the Kepler telescope scanned the sky: http://www.itsokaytobesmart.co....m/post/62343351213/k
An ode to the late Kepler telescope: http://www.theatlantic.com/tec....hnology/archive/2013
Joe Hanson - Host and writer
Joe Nicolosi - Director
Amanda Fox - Producer
Katie Graham - Director of Photography
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Kate Eads - Production Manager
Filmed at Onion Creek Productions in Austin, TX
Produced by PBS Digital Studios: http://www.youtube.com/user/pbsdigitalstudios
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Why does fire burn? What's the chemistry and physics of a flame? This week, learn about the beautiful science happening inside a flame!
Michael Faraday's Christmas lectures on candle chemistry:
http://blogs.scientificamerica....n.com/cocktail-party
http://www.bartleby.com/30/7.html
Flames in space:
http://science.nasa.gov/scienc....e-news/science-at-na
Richard Feynman talking about fire:
http://www.itsokaytobesmart.co....m/post/27299255757/f
Have an idea for an episode or an amazing science question you want answered? Leave a comment or check us out at the links below!
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It's Okay To Be Smart is written and hosted by Joe Hanson, Ph.DFollow me on Twitter: @jtotheizzoe
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For more awesome science, check out: http://www.itsokaytobesmart.com
Produced by PBS Digital Studios: http://www.youtube.com/user/pbsdigitalstudios
Joe Hanson - Creator/Host/Writer
Joe Nicolosi - Director
Amanda Fox - Producer, Spotzen IncKate Eads - Producer
Andrew Matthews - Editing/Motion Graphics/Animation
Katie Graham - Camera
John Knudsen - Gaffer
Theme music: "Ouroboros" by Kevin MacLeod
Other music via APM
Stock images from Shutterstock, stock footage from Videoblocks
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More videos:
Why Does February Have 28 Days? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgKaHTh-_Gs
Why Vaccines Work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aNhzLUL2ys
Why Are Some People Left-Handed? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPvMUpcxPSA
Where Does the Smell of Rain Come From? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGcE5x8s0B8
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Think traits like eye color or tongue-rolling are simple genetics? Think again. From Mendel’s peas to modern DNA science, let’s talk about why most human traits aren’t just “dominant” or “recessive.” Eye color, red hair, earlobes, even cilantro—genetics is way messier (and cooler) than you learned in school.
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Why is the Martian sky red by day… but blue at sunset? And how did it used to look more like Earth? The strange story of Mars’ skies can reveal a lot about the Red Planet's past, and the surprising ways it is more like Earth than you may know.
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Why do spiders have 8 eyes? It’s a seemingly simple question with a surprisingly complex answer. We’ll be hanging out with some jumping spiders (the cutest of all spiders) and some jumping spider researchers to investigate how a thumbnail-sized creature with a poppy seed-sized brain ended up evolving some of the most advanced eyes in the animal kingdom, overcoming a few limitations of physics in the process. We’ll watch as scientists study these spiders in a special eye tracking machine and learn how having 8 eyes instead of two gives these elite predators almost 360˚ vision and almost hawk-level depth perception and resolution.
References: https://sites.google.com/view/....how-jumping-spiders-
Big thanks to:
Dr. Beth Jakob and Alex Winsor - UMass Amherst http://ejakob.popslice.com/
Dr. Nathan Morehouse and lab - University of Cincinnati https://homepages.uc.edu/~morehonn/
Additional footage credits:
Spider retinal movements - Daniel Zurek
Spider courtship videos - Daniel Zurek, Sebastian Echeverri, and Nathan Morehouse (Morehouse Lab, University of Cincinnati)
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Another YouTube #shorts from Dr. Joe! Subscribe for more fun science stories.
Some animals' entire life spans flash by in a matter of hours or days. These guys live short but remarkable lives.
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Why does toast always land butter side down? Let's overthink the physics!
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Another YouTube #shorts from Dr. Joe! Subscribe for more fun science stories.
Learn about the cool microscopic nano-structures and melanin pigment granules that make the darkest animals in the world, so dark.
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Students design and build devices to protect and accurately deliver dropped eggs. The devices and their contents represent care packages that must be safely delivered to people in a disaster area with no road access. Similar to engineering design teams, students design their devices using a number of requirements and constraints such as limited supplies and time. The activity emphasizes the change from potential energy to kinetic energy of the devices and their contents and the energy transfer that occurs on impact. Students enjoy this competitive challenge as they attain a deeper understanding of mechanical energy concepts.
View the full activity on TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/d
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit http://www.TeachEngineering.org for more!
Music: Little Idea - Bensound.com
This activity is a teacher-led demonstration of continental drift and includes a math worksheet for students involving the calculation of continental drift over time. Students will understand what continental drift is, why it occurs, and how earthquakes occur because of it.
View the full activity on TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/c
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more
Music - At The Fair
Students learn about the difference between temperature and thermal energy. They create thermometers using simple materials and develop their own scales for measuring temperature. They compare their thermometers to a commercial thermometer, and get a sense for why engineers need to understand the properties of thermal energy.
View the full activity at TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/c
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more!
Music: Ukulele - Bensound.com
Students learn about the variety of materials used by engineers in the design and construction of modern bridges. They also find out about the material properties important to bridge construction and consider the advantages and disadvantages of steel and concrete as common bridge-building materials to handle compressive and tensile forces.
View the full lesson on TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/lessons/view/cub_
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more
Students first explore different materials to see what types reduce the most amount of sound when placed in a box. Each group is assigned a different material and they fill their box with that specific material. Students measure the sound level of a tone playing from inside the box using a decibel reader from outside the box. Students share this data with the class and analyze which types of materials absorb the most sound and which reflect the most sound.
View the full activity on TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/u
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more!
Music: Night at the Dance Hall- Twin Musicom
In this activity, students are challenged to design a contraption using simple machines to move a circus elephant into a rail car. After students consider their audience and constraints, they work in groups to brainstorm ideas and select one concept to communicate to the class.
View the full activity on TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/c
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more
Music: Safety Net
Students are challenged to design their own small-sized prototype light sculptures to light up a hypothetical courtyard. To accomplish this, they use Arduino microcontrollers as the “brains” of the projects and control light displays composed of numerous (3+) light-emitting diodes (LEDs). With this challenge, students further their learning of Arduino fundamentals by exploring one important microcontroller capability—the control of external circuits. The Arduino microcontroller is a powerful yet easy-to-learn platform for learning computer programing and electronics. LEDs provide immediate visual success/failure feedback, and the unlimited variety of possible results are dazzling!
View the full activity on TeachEngineering: https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/makerchallenges/v
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more!
Music: New Tires - Silent Partner
In this lesson, students are introduced to both potential energy and kinetic energy as forms of mechanical energy. A hands-on activity demonstrates how potential energy can change into kinetic energy by swinging a pendulum, illustrating the concept of conservation of energy. Students calculate the potential energy of the pendulum and predict how fast it will travel knowing that the potential energy will convert into kinetic energy. They verify their predictions by measuring the speed of the pendulum.
View the full lesson on TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/lessons/view/cub_
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more
Music - Tyler Kimbell
Students explore how pendulums work and why they are useful in everyday applications. In a hands-on activity, they experiment with string length, pendulum weight and angle of release. In an associated literacy activity, students explore the mechanical concept of rhythm, based on the principle of oscillation, in a broader biological and cultural context — in dance and sports, poetry and other literary forms, and communication in general.
View the full lesson on TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/lessons/view/cub_
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more
Music -Tyler Kimbell
Students examine how different balls react when colliding with different surfaces, giving plenty of opportunity for them to see the difference between elastic and inelastic collisions, learn how to calculate momentum, and understand the principle of conservation of momentum.
View the full lesson on TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/c
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more
Music - Water Please - GrandBankss
Students learn about gear ratios and power by operating toy mechanical cranes of differing gear ratios. They attempt to pick up objects with various masses to witness how much power must be applied to the system to oppose the force of gravity. They learn about the concept of gear ratio and practice calculating gear ratios on worksheets, discovering that smaller gear ratios are best for picking objects up quickly, and larger gear ratios make it easier to lift heavy objects.
View the full activity on TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/n
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more!
Music: Inevitable - Diamond Ortiz
In this hands-on activity, students explore the phenomenon of static electricity by engaging in the science and engineering practices of asking questions and planning and carrying out investigations. Students enact a “human diagram” to model the Bohr model of an atom. Then, in pairs, they charge a comb (on hair) and use it to attract an O-shaped piece of cereal and then watch the cereal jump away when it touches the comb. They do the same with Styrofoam pellets, observing them pulling towards a charged comb, then leaping back to the table. Through these investigations, students explore the disciplinary core ideas of electric and magnetic forces, the crosscutting concept of cause and effect, and they make sense of static electricity and what’s going on at the atomic level.
View the full activity on TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/c
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more
Music - Educated Man
Students dream up and draw their own designs for futuristic and fanciful flying machines. They learn that doodling, sketching and brainstorming are related to the invention process, and about the early inventions that contributed to the history of flight and the state of modern aircraft. For brainstorming practice, they generate ideas for creative alternate uses for every day objects. Then, guided by a worksheet, they use their imaginations and apply their knowledge of aircraft design and the forces acting on them (gained from the previous lessons in the Airplanes unit) to design and create their own innovative flying machine models made from classroom construction and recycled
View the full activity on TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/c
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more
Music: Night at the Dance Hall
Students learn about isometric drawings and practice sketching on triangle-dot paper the shapes they make using multiple simple cubes. They also learn how to use coded plans to envision objects and draw them on triangle-dot paper. A PowerPoint® presentation, worksheet and triangle-dot (isometric) paper printout are provided. This activity is part of a multi-activity series towards improving spatial visualization skills.
View the full activity at TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/c
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit http://www.TeachEngineering.org for more!
Music: Coffee Stains-Riot
Students learn about civil engineers and work through each step of the engineering design process in two mini-activities that prepare them for a culminating challenge to design and build the tallest straw tower possible, given limited time and resources. First they examine the profiles of the tallest 20 towers in the world. Then in the first mini-activity (one-straw tall tower), student pairs each design a way to keep one straw upright with the least amount of tape and fewest additional straws. In the second mini-activity (no "fishing pole"), the pairs determine the most number of straws possible to construct a vertical straw tower before it bends at 45 degrees—resembling a fishing pole shape. Students learn that the taller a structure, the more tendency it has to topple over. In the culminating challenge (tallest straw tower), student pairs apply what they have learned and follow the steps of the engineering design process to create the tallest possible model tower within time, material and building constraints, mirroring the real-world engineering experience of designing solutions within constraints. Three worksheets are provided, for each of two levels, grades K-2 and grades 3-5. The activity scales up to school-wide, district or regional competition scale.
View the full activity on TeachEngineering: https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/u
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit https://www.teachengineering.org/ for more!
Music: Someone Your Own Size - RW Smith
Through multi-trial experiments, students are able to see and measure something that is otherwise invisible to them—seeing plants breathe. Student groups are given two small plants of native species and materials to enclose them after watering with colored water. After being enclosed for 10, 20 and 30 minutes, teams collect and measure the condensed water from the plants' "breathing," and then calculate the rates at which the plants breathe. A plant's breath is known as transpiration, which is the flow of water from the ground where it is taken up by roots (plant uptake) and then lost through the leaves. Students plot volume/time data for three different native plant species, determine and compare their transpiration rates to see which had the highest reaction rate and consider how a plant's unique characteristics (leaf surface area, transpiration rate) might figure into engineers' designs for neighborhood stormwater management plans.
View the full activity at TeachEngineering:
https://www.teachengineering.o....rg/activities/view/u
TeachEngineering has over 1,500 FREE lessons and activities. Visit http://www.TeachEngineering.org for more!
Music: Valerie Plain - Rondo Brothers
