The 21 best science documentaries you should watch right now

My Octopus Teacher, Feels Good Man, Spaceship Earth, and Icarus are all great science documentaries available to stream at the moment Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2241718-the-21-best-science-documentaries-you-should-watch-right-now/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

Our interview with 5-time NBA All-Star Chris Webber about his Sports Activism online course, new on Coursera

By Shantelle Williams-Valadié, BOLD ERG Chair and Associate Director, University Partnerships, Coursera In the 1968 Olympics, medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos punched defiant fists into the summer air, decrying oppression of Black communities in the country whose colors they wore on their tracksuits. The act seized the world of sports and was widely condemned […]
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‘I Should Have Loved Biology’

James Somers, in a long essay: I should have loved biology but I found it to be a lifeless recitation of names: the Golgi apparatus and the Krebs cycle; mitosis, meiosis; DNA, RNA, mRNA, tRNA. In the textbooks, astonishing facts were presented without astonishment. Someone probably told me that every cell in my body has the same DNA. But no one…

Cheating-Detection Software Provokes ‘School-Surveillance Revolt’

New webcam-based anti-cheating monitoring is so stressful, it’s made some students cry, the Washington Post reports: “Online proctoring” companies saw in coronavirus shutdowns a chance to capitalize on a major reshaping of education, selling schools a high-tech blend of webcam-watching workers and eye-tracking software designed to catch students cheating on their exams. They’ve taken in millions of dollars, some of it…

Pakistan’s PM Asks Facebook To Ban Islamophobic Content

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan called on Facebook to ban Islamophobic content on its platform, warning of a spike in radicalization amongst Muslims, hours after he hit out at the French president for “attacking Islam.” Reuters reports: Pakistan summoned the French ambassador in Islamabad as anger spread on Monday over President Emmanuel Macron’s reaction to the murder last week of a…

92-Year-Old Songwriter Tom Lehrer Releases All His Lyrics Into the Public Domain

Marketplace reports: Songwriter Tom Lehrer became a star in the 1950s and ’60s writing and performing satirical songs that skewered just about everything… Lehrer, 92, announced Tuesday via his website that he’s effectively putting everything he ever wrote into the public domain. That means his lyrics and sheet music are available for anyone to use or perform, without having to pay…

Facebook Touts Free Speech. In Vietnam, It’s Aiding in Censorship

An anonymous reader shares a report: For months, Bui Van Thuan, a chemistry teacher turned crusading blogger in Vietnam, published one scathing Facebook post after another on a land dispute between villagers and the communist government. In a country with no independent media, Facebook provides the only platform where Vietnamese can read about contentious topics such as Dong Tam, a village…

My Octopus Teacher review: The strange lives of cephalopods up close

We understand so little about octopuses that whenever we look we seem to find out more about them. Netflix documentary, My Octopus Teacher, follows filmmaker and naturalist Craig Foster’s attempts to understand them further Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2253789-my-octopus-teacher-review-the-strange-lives-of-cephalopods-up-close/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…