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Videos

A Day With NYC's Pothole Crew

The Daily Pothole is a blog tracking the number of potholes filled each day in New York City. It's published by NYC DOT workers who call themselves the "pothole gang": this is the core group who track the potholes on a mega-spreadsheet and dispatch workers to fix them. And there's a lot to be done; on January 7 alone the site reported that 1,325 potholes were repaired. Last year, more than 200,000 potholes were repaired. This is a busy, tough job. Here's a short film following six members of a... READ ON

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5 Fictional Ways to Go Very Fast in Space

Space operas would be pretty boring without some way to go very far, very fast. Traveling at 40,000 miles per hour—the speed at which Voyager is zipping along—it would take around 17,000 years for the Vulcans to fly to Earth and make first contact. Chances are, by the time they got here we would have already bombed ourselves to extinction and been replaced by evolved apes. Nobody would pay to see a movie like that. To keep things interesting, here are a few fictional ways to go very fast in science... READ ON

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The First-Ever Footage of a Giant Squid in its Natural Habitat

Image credit: Discovery Channel After centuries of hearing sailors’ sea monster tales and finding tentacle-y masses of flesh washed up on shores, scientists have finally managed to capture video of Architeuthis, the elusive giant... READ ON

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Check Out Video of a Spectacular Solar Eruption

On December 31, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite captured this stunning solar eruption, which occurred over the course of four hours. According to NASA, "Magnetic forces drove the flow of plasma, but without sufficient force to overcome the sun’s gravity much of the plasma fell back into the sun." SDO captured the video—shown at a high cadence of an image every 36 seconds—in extreme ultra violet light. The satellite's main mission is to keep an eye on space weather,... READ ON

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Richard Feynman's "Ode to the Flower"

In 1981, physicist Richard Feynman was interviewed by the BBC. He told the story of his disagreement with an artist about who can better appreciate the beauty of a flower: artists or scientists. To hear Feynman tell it, the artist believed that a deep scientific understanding actually removed some appreciation of the flower as simply a beautiful thing. In other words, knowing the processes that created a thing could detract from appreciation of that thing. In this one-minute video by Fraser... READ ON

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Napoleon Wasn't Short, Vikings Didn't Wear Horned Helmets, and 3 More Historical Misconceptions

There's nothing a history geek likes more than saying, "Actually, everything you think you know about [insert historical event here] is wrong. And here's why." In this four-minute video, C.G.P. Grey tackles five historical misconceptions, contrasting the commonly accepted stories with what the historical record actually shows. My favorite is his explanation of Napoleon Bonaparte's height. To ruin the story ever so slightly, it turns out that France has a history of special measurements, so the... READ ON

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Watch the Skull-Cutting Instructional Video Made for a Django Unchained Actor

Quentin Tarantino often takes liberties with history in his films, and his latest, Django Unchained, is no exception. But some aspects of the flick called for a bit of realism: For a scene where Leonardo DiCaptrio's character, Calvin Candie, saws off the top of a skull, the production turned to the Mütter Museum for help. Curator Anna Dhody sent the actor an instructional video, which you can watch below. Dhody uses a saw from the 1850s and describes the proper technique, starting from the... READ ON

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A Guided Tour of Space Station Alpha

Working on the International Space Station means three things: it's crowded, you have to exercise to combat the effects of zero gravity, and your hair goes nuts. In this half-hour tour, Commander Sunita Williams shows us around the place during her final day onboard (back in November). It's utterly surreal -- it looks exactly what you'd expect a space station to look like, and Williams floats from section to section showing off the various areas, including the space toilet (just after the 9-minute... READ ON

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The Late Movies: Best Timelapses of 2012

On December 31, 2012, timelapse.org chose its top timelapse videos of the year. Below, I bring you their picks -- plus a few of my own. The Lion City Creator Keith Loutit explains: For 'The Lion City', the idea behind the extension of the tilt shift technique is for focus and distance to be something the viewer can experience. It also doubles to communicate the constant heat and humidity that hits you whenever you leave the comfort of air conditioning in Singapore. If you've never heard... READ ON

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How to Sing Like The Beatles

Galeazzo Frudua is a fantastic Italian singer who specializes in deconstructing the complex harmonies of The Beatles. In a series of videos, Frudua breaks down tons of Beatles songs in great detail, so you can understand how to sing each part. These videos are most remarkable to me because the harmony lines by themselves often sound odd, but in context sound just perfect. I also love his accent -- it adds a little flavor to these classic songs. My favorite is his breakdown of "In My Life": Also... READ ON