Category: Oceans

I love TED Talks and we’ve featured a bunch of them here on the Sea-Fever blog. Next Saturday, October 16, 2010 is TEDx Woods Hole: xPlorations so Luke and I are planning to head over and check it out. Check out their website and Facebook page. It’s a free event open to the public so if you’re floating around Cape Cod, you might want to check it out. Here’s the awesome line up:

MBL Director and CEO Gary Borisy will host the afternoon event, which will feature the following speakers and performers:

• • Dan Ariely – New York Times bestselling author and professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University will speak on “Temptations and Self-Control.”
  • David Bolinsky – The founder of XVIVO Scientific Animation will show some of his cinematic-quality visualizations of topics on the edge of medical and scientific discovery.
  • Amy Bower –Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) senior scientist who, despite being legally blind, has traveled the world to study ocean currents and their interaction with climate, will discuss “Science Without Sight.”
  • Tamara Clark – Designer and illustrator who, with her collaborators, will present a visual and musical tour focusing on “Patterns in Nature.”
  • A.M. Dolan – Falmouth-based actor and playwright will perform selections from the writings of visionary designer, architect, poet, and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller, whose Woods Hole geodesic dome is one of the oldest remaining.
  • Glenway Fripp – Jazz virtuoso, composer, and accompanist on piano.
  • Roy Gould – Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics education researcher will explore “Other Worlds: Searching for Earthlike Planets from the Classroom.”
  • Adam Lazarus –Ant expert Lazarus will share some of his colorful adventures in species collection—and what he’s learned about people along the way.
  • Bill Mebane – The MBL’s superintendent of aquaculture engineering and director of the Sustainable Aquaculture Initiative in Haiti will discuss the challenging choreography of “A Dance of Two Cultures: Science in Rural Haiti.”
  • Beth Murphy – Documentary filmmaker will reflect on making her new film “The Promise of Freedom,” which focuses on Iraqis who risked everything to work for U.S. soldiers and diplomats as translators, drivers, civil engineers and cultural liaisons.
  • Christopher Neill – MBL senior scientist will introduce “Arctic Thrills”—a rare display of polar dancing.
  • Arthur Newhall – This WHOI ocean acoustics engineer (by day) and musician and composer (by night) will perform island-rhythm-inspired “Rhythms of the Ocean”.
  • Hanumant Singh – WHOI Deep Submergence Laboratory chief engineer will reveal “A Robot’s Vision of the Ocean Depths.”
  • Jonathan Todd –President of the pioneering John Todd Ecological Design company in Woods Hole will address sustainable design.

TEDx is a new program that enables local communities such as schools, businesses, libraries, neighborhoods or just groups of friends to organize, design and host their own independent, TED-like events.