David Christian here
teacher here.
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Start with Science.  Science  is done by Humans.  Ted

Intro, Definitions.

1. Black Holes, Dark Energy, DUNNOS (p. 171) Neil deGrasse Tyson on Stephen Colbert here

Tyson:  More on the Universe (***but first, electromagnetic spectrum) and here visuals and here and ** bluetooth and Tyson & Dawkins horizons

Neil deGrasse  Tyson on Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.  here.

CBS News about the Black Hole.

Bryson, story about measuring the distance to the sun, transit of Venus, p. 54. “It was history’s first cooperative international scientific venture . . . Then go back to above news story.

What does Singularity mean?

(Beyond Singularity?

Article and pictures of a M87, a black hole.

(John Wheeler a colleague of Einstein, coined the term Black Hole)

A short video on  Black Holes

List of what we DONT know Top Ten here and here  and here

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Women in Science such as Feryal Ozel and Katie Bouman and Jocelyn  Bell (for pulsars) historically, women in science.

Who should get the credit for this amazing work?

Hubble (p. 129) and Henrietta Swan Leavitt
+++Hidden Figures
10 Famous Women in the History of Science.

Mary Anning here

Ada Lovelace and computers here

Turing Test a

Nova series  narrated by women

**********EVOLUTION. &. TECHNOLOGY. *********************

Chapter 4 in Bryson’s book begins roughly in 1650-1750, the first experiments to measure the world, the distance to the sun, etc. But technologies began with the evolution of Hominids. Technology CO-EVOLVES with hominids.

How We Got to Now: Technological progress extremely slow in developing, and types of technologies or knowledge see article and chart

Remember technological doubling here, Moore’s law and interview, and the evolution of technological futures.

History of early technology here and here and ** here

Images of Technological timelines here.a Interactive timelines

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1. ***********. SPACE EXPLORATION  ****************

Earth Day April 22: History  here

Apollo 15 (1971)  and gravity  hammer and feather

Apollo 8 1968 Earthrise.

Q an d A. Jim Lovell (doc )

Carl Sagan (do 2 videos), Pale Blue Dot

Earthrise, The lack of Atmosphere; The Sheltering Sky

Captain Kirk, aka William Shattner 2021 space flight on Bezos’ spaceship quote on traveling to space

Kirk/Shattner video

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The Sheltering Sky, (Mars atmosphere is only 1% of earth’s)—the view of Universe from Mars at night— also here

Why the Sky is blue (NeilNov

Artemis II  2 launch

Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead:

+++SETI. Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.

Video of the size and dimensions of the Universe here.

The Solar System (Distances, p. 24, vs. any model). Helical Model of Solar System

Passage from Short History about insurmountable distances and times, p. 25.  Bryson  says: “Based on what we know now .  . .  there is absolutely no prospect that any human being will ever visit the edge of our own solar system—ever.  It is just too far.”  p. 25

space travel here  (Dart hits asteroid, October 2022),

also  here

Collision site asteroid Wile E.

Exoplanets description. What are exoplanets–Ted Talk.  Canwe visit exoplanets?

Goldilocks conditions Earth is water.  Bryson says (p. 39) that water came from comets, but the answer is probably more complicated — effect of the moon

To complicate things, Bryson says, p. 215, that the Russian Kola hole found that at a depth of 7 miles into the earth, the rock there was  “saturated with water.”

Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead:   “I have spent my life watching, not to see beyond the world, merely to see, great mystery, what is plainly before my eyes. I think the concept of transcendence is based on a misreading of creation. With all respect to heaven, the scene of the miracle is here, among us.”

Space is empty; space is crowded. (p. 25 ff.) Neil deGrasse Tyson(from Astrophysics for People in a Hurry) here.

Tyson on his program, Startalk.   Here Tyson (Startalk) is interviewing Ethologist Richard Dawkins –Ethology: the study of human behavior, its character and evolution

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Origin of water on Earth. (p.39). Bryson, writing in 2003, says comets, meteorites, and other galactic debris, brought water. National Geographic says water may have formed earlier on earth.

snowball earth

Origins of Oxygen

Kolbert–plant life and origins of oxygen

Geologic Ages (p.73)-Listed and referenced again here

PETM (Paleo-EoceneThermal Maximum). early climate change here

****************. DINOSAURS. **********************

***Video on dinosaurs and Big History/ the long view, TED talk by Ken Lacovara. 15 min

Dinosaurs and Pluvials here

(NOVA program on rocks and origins of life)

Bone Wars, Como Bluff Wyoming (p.92) Wyoming Geological Society + Bone Cabin pictures + Dinosaur National Monument

Everything you wanted to know about the dinosaurs. Steve Brusatte, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

“Consequently, numerous paleontologists have argued that the dinosaurs were on the way to extinction long before the asteroid struck, owing perhaps to the volcanic eruptions and climate change.” April 8, 2019 article in the New Yorker about archeologist DePalma, dinosaurs, Alvarez, and the ongoing debate about the KT extinction

**************. THEORY OF RELATIVITY. ****************

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity — (p. 125) relativity, time, time dilation
++Neil deGrasse Tyson explains Four Dimensions

Einstein:  Spooky Action at a Distance

Gravity and Unified Field Theory here

***String Theory (p.167) Brian Greene on extra dimensions and string theory

You want to know what came  before Big Bang?  Perhaps the notion of multiverses is the answer.  See  Multiverses.

Manson Crater Geology (p.190ff.) here
KT Boundary extinctions (p.195) Boundary illustrated

Also Toba Volcano may have affected migrations/survival of genetically modern humans

Asteroids hitting Earth? DART

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Covid 19 and Spanish Flu Epidemic (p. 317) (infected 1/3rd of world’s population)(connections with Columbian Exchange), details

****Cambrian Explosion (p.323 ff. )  video and ) Burgess Shale
See also very recent discovery in China

Stephen J. Gould (p. 327-28) “The history of life . . . wind back the tape of life . . .
In that connection, see Tree of Life not linear–connects to notions of historical progress–Theories of History NY Times: How Would You Draw History?

Lichens and “moss rock”(p. 335): Various lichens

Linneaeus & Taxonomy (p.357):Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species Identifier— Systems

Plants have chemical defenses (p.366)(c.f. Pine beetle).Plants respond to herbivory through various morphological, biochemicals, and molecular mechanisms to counter/offset the effects of herbivore attack… In addition, plants also release volatile organic compounds that attract the natural enemies of the herbivores. More here

See also, Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees.

The Voyage of the Beagle (p. 383) Image and letter of invitation to Darwin

Darwin and Galapagos. (p. 384). Finches; see The Beak of the Finch in Background Readings

Genetics and Race (p. 398). “We are all uncannily alike.  Compare your genes with any other human being’s and on average they will bet about 99.9 percent the same.  That is what makes us a species.”  Also, in Bryson’s new book, The Body, he describes watching a surgeon peel back a “sliver of skin about a millimeter thick from the arm of a cadaver.  It was so thin as to be translucent.  ‘That,’ he said, ‘is where all your skin color is.  That’s all that race is–a sliver of epidermis.'”    Another of the scientists he quotes says the same thing:  People act as if skin color is a determinant of character when all it is is a reaction to sunlight.  Biologically there is actually no such thing as race–nothing in terms of skin color, facial features, hair type, bone structure, or nothing else . . . .  and yet look how many people have been enslaved or hated or lynched . . . because of the color of their skin (Body 14).

Human DNA  future cancer treatments?

Wilburforce vs. Huxley (p.394) and the 20th century: The Scopes trial

Darwin and Newton, Westminster Abbey (p.395) images

3***The Year Without a Summer. (p.419) Explosion of Sumbawa in Indonesia in 1816. Just 200 years ago. Irish Diary

**I*Natural Catastrophes that changed Civilizations

Glacial Origins of Long Island (p. 429) plus ages (Holocene, Pleistocene) (Holocene Glacials) ==> Anthropocene) Temp Chart! Long Island

1 ***What is the Anthropocene 1 and 2

Energy use impacts; population impacts here and here and here

total number of humans ever lived:117 billion.  8 billion (7%)  alive today projections

2***How the world would look if all the ice melted. + Snowball earth and Bryson, pp. 430-32 on climate change and next ice age prob abilities?

Transition from space to the mind–Immanuel Kant in the Writers Almanac

********. HUM AN  EVOLUTION. ****************

Evolution:  1.). Survival of the fittest.   2). Adaptation

Up to date description of the evolution of Homo sapiens here

Human evolution vs. climate timeline

Mysterious Biped (p. 434) Human Family “Tree” Smithsonian

Walking upright, and then running.  Fast twitch and slow-twitch,  Boston Marathon 22

Modern versions of a visual representations (p. 441) of the interconnections of hominids

Walking upright in Africa.  Famous cartoon sketch of upright walking and evolution here.

compare to evolution of dinosaurs :  T-Rex is at the top.  He is bipedal. (see Brusatte, p. 178)

First Wave Erectus/ Second Wave H. Sapiens (p. 456) Map of Migration

White sands footprints

Evolutionary Bottleneck

DNA studies and the Denisovans (Bryson doesn’t mention Denisovans)
Recent article in Science News about state of Denisovan research.

EVOLUTION

First the eye(Bryson does not directly discuss this) (here and Dawkins here and here and here) and then the brain

Human Brain Size and Shape Time Line

**Harvard center for gene studies, has nice visuals of migration and gene analysis in the evolution of human brains Go to exponential curve for brain size.

Brains and Childhood here

4***why/how hominids brains grew–growth and climate change, adaptation

Human Brains (p.448) Glucose going to the brain 20-25% of body’s energy–More
Revising Neandertals reputation.

Neanderthal brains vs. Sapiens brains

Neuroscience and brains perception of reality

Sapiens brain vs. insect:  thinking vs. instinct

Bipedalism here and here

Bipedalism and the running gene

Synergetics:  Bipedalism, Brain size evolution, =/ Language here

Chomsky evolution of language

Are we still evolving??

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(((Importance of Australia in reconstructing early human evolution
Migration and Modern DNA studies
Orlogesailie Site in Kenya (p. 468) here)))

Early Ancestors came from Asia?

The Hobbits here

DNA from Stonehenge people reveals migration history here.
DNA and recreating ancient species like the woolly Mammoth and this horse

Cave paintings, animals, hereand here

Humans domesticated horses–history Nova

Also domestication of dogs here and wildlife personalities here

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EXTINCTIONS

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(p. 475)the Carolina Parakeet and the Hawaiian greater Koa finch

current extinction rate

Extinctions throughout geologic history.

American horse, American Lion, Wooly Mamoth here

Megafauna  (Bryson says p. 340)  that animals grew large possibly because lots of oxygen and gigantic flora);   megafauna rise and fall

Megafauna extinction here and here

Magnetic field reversal and extinctions.

Helpful to remember that human species became extinct too. (What do we mean by “survival of the fittest?)
But climate evidence, too, is mounting as a primary cause

Early technologies here

Timeline of Scientific Discoveries (Here are the people, dates, and discoveries that Bryson crafts into a story) (Wikipedia)