What are fossil fuels? What is the greenhouse effect? How are the two related? Can we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and lower the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? Wind and solar power can help lead the way. Learn how state-of-the-art science and engineering can be used to utilize more clean, green energy from both the wind and the sun, right out of thin air. Recorded on 2/14/2015.

Proteins are nature's machines, performing tasks from transforming sunlight into useable energy to binding oxygen for transport through the body. These functions depend on structural arrangement of atoms within the protein, which was, until recently, only possible to measure statistically, in easily crystallized samples via conventional X-ray diffraction. In the past decade, X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFELs), a new type of X-ray source, have begun to come online. Using ultra-bright, ultrafast X-ray pulses of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, this technology allows us to measure not only static pictures of protein structure but to record "molecular movies" of proteins in action.

The Scripps Oceanographic Collections are world-renowned repositories supporting scientific research and education. They provide the basis for understanding the ocean's biodiversity, the evolutionary history of life on Earth, and the rates and characteristics of climate change. Get an insider's view into fascinating creatures in these irreplaceable scientific collections.

This symposium explores the evolutionary origins of human imagination, its impact on the sciences and arts, the consequences of imagination impairment, and the fundamental genetic and neurological basis of human imagination. Recorded on 06/01/2018.

How it is possible for imagination to have practical social effects? The great potential size of human societies, in contrast to those of other primates, is due to a kind of shared imagination of which kinship and religion are important examples, says Maurice Bloch, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. Bloch says that the shared imaginary emerges in normal life at certain moments yet is still governed by the potential of imagination. The lecture is illustrated by Bloch's experience of an isolated village in Madagascar. Recorded on 06/04/2018.

Scripps Research's Stefano Forli shares about his work using computational tools to screen large libraries of compounds using methods such as high throughput virtual screening (HTVS) or designing focused virtual libraries based on specific synthetic pathways to identify molecules that can act as biological probes and novel therapeutic agents. Recorded on 01/26/2019.

A gene drive is a targeted contagion intended to spread within species, forever altering the offspring. Gene drive enthusiasts say they could wipe out malaria, saving more than half a million lives each year. As yet, no CRISPR gene drive has been released in the wild few have even been built. Laurie Zoloth of the University of Chicago explores the ethical questions about genes designed to spread through populations and alter ecosystems, and their unforeseen consequences. Recorded on 11/15/2018.

In 2006, Helen Amanda Fricker was sitting at her desk studying new satellite data when she made a starting discovery a set of active lakes that exist underneath the ice in Antarctica. Join Helen, a 25-year veteran of Antarctic ice sheet research, and learn about the discovery, exploration and drilling of these mysterious phenomena at the southern reaches of our planet. Recorded on 01/14/2019.