Video/Audio: "The Elephant Listening Project" + "Secret Language of Elephants" by Cornell University and "Magical Sound of Elephants" by Explore + "The Elephant Peace Treaty" by Elizabeth Watson

Watch the video "The Elephant Listening Project" , a 7 minute short docu-chat by Cornell University plus listen to the Audio Recording of Elephants. In the dense forests of Africa, there is a species of forest elephant that has proved very difficult to study. Automatic recording units make it possible to monitor the elephants' communication signals and researchers use this information to begin to understand something of the forest elephant's biology. Peter Wrege, director of the Elephant Listening Project, describes the techniques and what has been learned about the biology of these wild, elusive animals.

Watch the video "Secret Language of Elephants", a 14 minute documnetary by "60 Minutes". Researchers listening to elephant sounds and observing their behavior are compiling an elephant dictionary. Bob Simon listens to the language of the forest elephants first hand.

Watch the video "Elephant Zen Den" ~ "Magical Sound of Elephants" a 3 minute audio and visual step into the wild with gentle giants. Relax with elephants both young and old, and join the herd.

Watch "Sujata and the Elephant Peace Treaty" by Elizabeth Watson , a 12 minute animated short film as described by the filmmaker, "In India elephants raid the crops, and the farmers do what they can to save their fields. It's war! While I was visiting India in 2012, we spent the first nights by a wheat field. Every night there was a war between the elephants and people. Eventually the farmers gave up ... it would be a year without wheat.In this film Sujata and the elephant Bandhu have an idea to save their families from hunger. But will the grown-ups listen?"

More links:
"The Elephant Whisperer"

"The Interspecies Internet"

"LIVE Elephant Cam"

"Ashes and Snow": "Flying Elephants"

"Elefante" directed by Pablo Larcuen (9 min short film)

"Interspecies Internet" Diana Reiss, Peter Gabriel, Neil Gershenfeld and Vint Cerf

Photography Video: A Day of Glass and A Day Made of Glass by Corning (glass based display LCD technology innovation)

Video One A Day of Glass  and Video Two: A Day Made of Glass
History of glass liquid crystal display technology (LCD-tech) and Corning YouTube Channel

Technical history of LCD and below image credit

Video: TED Talk and MIT Demo: Ramesh Raskar and MIT Media Lab Camera Imaging at a Trillion Frames per Second

Watch MIT video: "Femto-Photography: Visualizing Photons in Motion at a Trillion Frames Per Second"
In 1964 MIT professor Harold Edgerton, pioneer of stop-action photography, famously took a photo of a bullet piercing an apple using exposures as short as a few nanoseconds.

Watch TED Talk by Ramesh Raskar on creating a camera that can capture not just a bullet, traveling at 850 meters per second, but light itself travelling at nearly 300 million meters per second.


Watch Video: "How To See Around Corners"  Photographing light as it moves, to see that a camera and software was built that can visualize pictures as if they are recorded at 1 trillion frames per second. The same photon-imaging technology can also be used to create a camera that can peer "around" corners by exploiting specific properties of the photons when they bounce off surfaces and objects.



Among the other projects that Raskar is leading, with the MIT Media Lab's Camera Culture research group, are low-cost eye care devices, a next generation CAT-Scan machine and human-computer interaction systems.

"Though photographs in the near future will still be composed by people holding cameras, it will gradually become more accurate to say pictures were computed rather than 'taken' or 'captured." Popular Photography magazine.

Space Photography : NASA Earth Observatory ~ Evolving Views of Clouds (Patterns in Nature)

Image Credit and more

Top image photographed  in 2012 

Bottom image photographed in 1962

Earth Observatory full text/story (click here)

Although people have observed clouds for tens of thousands of years, one group of clouds long escaped human detection. Not because those clouds were too small to see, but because they were too big. The dawn of the satellite era changed that, revealing a type of cloud that scientists named “actinoform.” The name of these radial, or leaf-shaped, clouds is based on the Greek term for “ray.”

ASTER Photo by NASA Earth Observatory Terra Satellite: Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut Territory Canada Land of Lakes

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

NASA Earth Observatory, Nunavut Territory Canada Land of Lakes Story

During the last Ice Age, nearly all of Canada was covered by massive ice sheets. Thousands of years later, the landscape of Nunavut Territory—“our land” in the Inuktitut language—still shows the scars of that icy earth mover. Surfaces that were scoured by retreating ice and then flooded by Arctic seas are now dotted with millions of lakes, ponds, and streams.

The image above shows wetlands in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut Territory, just east of the Queen Maud Gulf Bird Sanctuary and southwest of the village of Gjoa Haven. The image was acquired by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite on July 18, 2001. ASTER combines 14 spectral bands in infrared, red, and green wavelengths of light to make false-color images. Water is various shades of blue, green, tan, and black, depending on the amount of suspended sediment (silt and clay) and phytoplankton. Vegetated land is red.

Click here for more of this story and images

Space Photography Video : Animation and Photos of 2012 Solar Flares as The Sun Erupts

Watch "Low Resolution Animation of the Sun Erupting July 2012"

Watch "High Resolution Animation of Sun Erupting"

Twelve years after the Earth was buffeted by one of the more potent Sun storms in modern history, our nearest star crackled with activity again. A solar flare erupted on July 12, 2012, followed closely by a companion coronal mass ejection (CME)—a cloud of magnetically charged particles and energy that can disturb Earth’s magnetic field, disrupt satellites and ground-based electronics, and provoke auroras.

The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured these views of the flare in the Sun’s southern hemisphere on July 12, 2012. The top, global image shows the Sun as viewed at 131 Angstroms; the lower, close-up view is 171 Angstroms. Both ultraviolet wavelengths help solar physicists study the fine magnetic structures in the Sun’s super-heated atmosphere, or corona. The yellow and teal are false colors chosen by the science team to distinguish between the spectral bands. Download the movies linked beneath each image to see the active region develop and erupt.  Watch more video and read more story

NASA Image Credit

ART "DataIsNature ~ Earth Processes" ... process to form ... artworks using computational techniques, strategies, human computation, metamorphic algorithms, aeolian protocols and hydro-dynamic computations

Dataisnature came into being in October 2004 initially collecting together artworks using computational techniques and algorithmic strategies. It was particularly interested in works that borrowed algorithms from the scientific community – re-appropriating code systems that modeled nature to create generative artworks. Along the way it realised that what it was really interested in was PROCESS. And more importantly the relationship between process to form – how rules generate structure.

It then began to gather artworks using ‘human computation’ and procedural creativity. In more recent years, its direction has shifted towards Earth Processes – metamorphic algorithms, aeolian protocols and hydro-dynamic computations – a systematic way of seeing the Earth as a generative spatio-temporal pattern making machine.

Dataisnature’s interest in process is far and wide reaching – it may also include posts on visual music, parametric architecture, computational archaeology, psychogeography and cartography, experimental musical notational, utopian constructs, visionary divination systems and counter cultural systems.

Image Credit: Paul Prudence performing at Plums Festival, Moscow, 2012

Photography: Liquid Art of Markus Reugels

Gallery Photographs of Liquid as Art and his Flickr Gallery

"My pictures are not manipulated with photoshop! I only sensor spots and small splashes remove the disturbing, the tones and contrasts are naturally processed. I can see but as digital darkroom. This allows you to amplify existing in the image again and soften the visual impact.” - Markus Reugels

Image Credit: All Rights Reserved by Markus Reugels

Photography Video High Speed Imaging Animation of Explosions: Cordin Company

Watch "Photography Video High Speed Imaging Animation of Explosions" by Cordin Company

Image Credit: Dr. Joseph Shephard and Scott Jackson, Explosion Dynamics Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA

Video and Photography: In Memory of Tim Samaras ~ Capturing Thunder Storms with World's Fastest High Resolution Camera

Tim Samaras passed away in 2013 while chasing a storm, videos of his work. He and his son Paul were killed in the El Reno, Oklahoma tornado along with frequent partner on storm chasing adventures, photographer Carl Young. Condolences to his family, friends and colleagues at National Geographic.

National Geographic wrote, "A week before he died, he submitted what may have been the best, most complete video of a tornado being ‘born,’ in which he describes the formation as it’s happening."

Tim Samaras photographer and videographer capturing Thunder Storms with the world's fastest high resolution camera ~ Ultra High Speed Photography Images with Beckman and Whitley 192 framing camera, 1,440,000 frames per second, 6,000 revolutions per second which weighs 1,600 pounds and has a three-sided rotating mirror mounted on a rapidly spinning turbine driven by compressed air or helium.

Slide show about Tim Samaras' work by Carsten Peter

Talk: Extremwetterkongress 2012 - Tim Samaras über: Inside The Tornado

Video: Probes Capture Inside of Tornado

Unpublished Photos of Tim Samaras



Below images by Carsten Peter (click here for his Photo Gallery)

Chasing Lightening photography by Carsten Peter

Film Trailer: Patagonia Rising

Watch film trailer for "Patagonia Rising"
Patagonia Rising website

Deep in the heart of Patagonia, Chile flow two of the world's purest rivers, the Baker and Pascua. Fed by vast glacial systems, these free-flowing watersheds drive biodiversity in temperate rainforests, estuaries and marine ecosystems. They are also the life source for Patagonia's most tenacious residents, the Gauchos, the iconic South American cowboys who endure relentless winds and long winters on remote ranches in these river valleys.

Isolated and largely undeveloped Patagonia and its people are caught in a heated conflict surrounding a proposal to build five large hydroelectric dams on the Baker and Pascua Rivers. Promoted as "clean" energy, the project's cultural and environmental impacts would forever alter the region. Alternatives exist. Clean energy experts are proving the viability of solar, wind and geothermal resources developed much closer to demand and infrastructure.

Over the past century more than 45,000 large dams have redefined the course and health of the planet's rivers with disastrous impacts that continue to unfold. Tracing the hydrologic cycle of the Baker from ice to ocean, Patagonia Rising brings voice to the frontier people caught in the crossfire of Chile's energy demands. Juxtaposing the pro-dam business sector with renewable energy experts, the documentary brings awareness and solutions to this global conflict over water and power.

"Intelligent. Weighs the environmental and cultural impact of five massive hydroelectric dams proposed for Chile's Patagonia region....Awe-inspiring footage of spectacular lands at South America's southernmost tip introduce the gauchos, loggers and other residents whose ways of life have barely changed over centuries, particularly since no roads or power lines connect many ranches." - Dennis Harvey, Variety

Multi-Dimensional Photography: Bioelectrography Photography

International Union of Medical and Applied Bioelectrography and all photo credits

Video short film "Passing Through" time-lapse photography by Kristian Ulrich Larsen and Olafur Haraldsson, Nikola Tesla Narration, made at Kolding School of Design in connection with the Danish iPower-project

Watch the short film "Passing Through" This video was made at Kolding School of Design in connection to the Danish iPower-project. Shot with a Canon 5D Mark II with various lenses. Narration text: Nikola Tesla "The Electrical Review, 1893"

"Like a wave in the physical world, in the infinite ocean of the medium which pervades all, so in the world of organisms, in life, an impulse started proceeds onward, at times, may be, with the speed of light, at times, again, so slowly that for ages and ages it seems to stay, passing through processes of a complexity inconceivable to men, but in all its forms, in all its stages, its energy ever and ever integrally present.

A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature. In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature than when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the Infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a universe.”

"Passing Through" by Kristian Ulrich Larsen and Olafur Haraldsson

For full credits, additional links and ABOUT “Passing Through”

Video by Sierra Club - Its Time to Move America Beyond Oil

Watch Sierra Club videos Its Time To Move American Beyond Oil
"Imagine a world with clean, abundant, affordable energy. One where climate disruption is a fading threat and American soldiers are never again deployed to defend oil fields. One where innovative green industries provide good jobs and supply 100 percent of our energy needs. Imagine a healthier America, with clean air and water, with pristine coasts and protected natural areas. A wealthier, more productive nation, whose leaders answer only to the citizens who elect them. This is America beyond oil." 

Video/Photos Venus Transit by 2012 NASA/SDO/AIA plus Captain Cook's Drawing of 1769 Venus Transit from Tahiti

Video of 2012 Venus Transit
Launched on Feb. 11, 2010, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the sun. During its five-year mission, it will examine the sun's atmosphere, magnetic field and also provide a better understanding of the role the sun plays in Earth's atmospheric chemistry and climate. SDO provides images with resolution 8 times better than high-definition television and returns more than a terabyte of data each day.

On June 5 2012, SDO collected images of the rarest predictable solar event--the transit of Venus across the face of the sun.  This event happens in pairs eight years apart that are separated from each other by 105 or 121 years. The last transit was in 2004 and the next will not happen until 2117.

The videos and images displayed here are constructed from several wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light and a portion of the visible spectrum.  The red colored sun is the 304 angstrom ultraviolet, the golden colored sun is 171 angstrom, the magenta sun is 1700 angstrom, and the orange sun is filtered visible light.  304 and 171 show the atmosphere of the sun, which does not appear in the visible part of the spectrum.

Image Credit: NASA/SDO, AIA

Captain Cook's drawing of Transit of Venus on June 3, 1769, from Tahiti.

Image source and credit

Video: "Conception To Birth: Visualized Animation" by Alexander Tsiaras (of Anatomical Travelogue, and the visual MD) + Video "Mother-Baby Bond: The Biology of Love"

Imagine that you are the baby forming the vessel for their soul. From sperm marriage with egg into first cell of your body, you grow - from sound and vibration producing colour and light. As you witness each part of you form, an aspect of your Being, light and breath moves into each natural formation. See your Self re-forming, even now - an accelerated creative dance with breath and light, that supports the journey of creating an unique person ~ you.

Watch video "Conception To Birth" by Alexander Tsiaras

Watch video "Mother-Baby Bond: The Biology of Love" by the Visual MD

Anatomical Travelogue is an award-winning producer of visually rich health content. Their compelling, human stories are brought to life using high-end 3D visualizations based on actual human data. They are able to take viewers on incredible journeys through the body. From the molecular level and up through cells, tissues, organs, and systems, our proprietary scientific visualizations deliver images that are unrivaled in accuracy and artistry. AT specializes in developing integrated media asset packages around a central medical theme. Books, magazine articles, websites, and full hour TV specials are produced and financed by their studio. They manage the entire process from initial concept to turn-key delivery and worldwide distribution.

Alexander Tsiaras is an internationally renowned journalist and author. After his first book, Death Rituals of Rural Greece (Princeton University Press), he went on to write Body Voyage (Warner Books) and co-author Information Architects (Graphis). As an artist and technologist, Tsiaras participated in developing scientific visualization software to enable him to "paint" the human anatomy using volume data. The recipient of numerous awards, including the World Press Award and several Art Directors Awards, Tsiaras and his work have been featured on over 85 covers of magazines such as Life (including an entire edition of Life devoted to his anatomical computer renderings), TIME, New York Times Magazine, Times, Discover, Smithsonian, GEO, and the London Sunday Times Magazine. Most recently, he is the author of From Conception to Birth: a Life Unfolds, The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed. Tsiaras has given the keynote speeches at many conferences including the TEDMED, Medicine Meets Virtual Reality (MMVR) and has lectured with Stephen Hawking at the MIT Media Lab, National Library of Medicine (NLM/NIH) Visible Human Conference. 

More about Alexander Tsiaras

More about The Visual MD

Video + Photography "Aurora Borealis" by Olafur Haraldsson and short film "Passing Through"

Video: "Aurora 14/12/2013"

Aurora Borealis Iceland photography 

website of Olafur Haraldsson

Short film:"Passing Through"

Video: "Aurora Collection from 15th March 2012"

Video: "Aurora - Kleifarvatn 17th March 2013"

Video: 2012_10_14_002623 (Aurora shot using Magic Lantern)

Video: 2012_09_19_2332 (Aurora shot using Magic Lantern)


Video "Straumur"

All Images and Video Credits: Olafur Haraldsson