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As a companion to the Sagan Series, this video starts off a tribute to quantum physicist Richard Feynman. Beautiful footage from BBC and NASA give added poetry to some of Feynman’s most memorable discourse.
I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose which is the way it really is. It doesn’t frighten me.
-via Open Culture
If you were disappointed by the lack of explanation in the last episode of Lost, then this deleted scene from the end of season one will probably leave a bad taste in your mouth. Is this clip for real, or just a clever way for the show’s producers to get revenge for the backlash they received at the end of the show? Makes you wonder what else ended up on the cutting room floor.
Slate is starting a series of posts on the periodic table of elements, with author Sam Kean writing a separate post about each of about two dozen of the most interesting elements. The first entry is for antimony, which I believe, is the sexiest of the elements. It was widely used in alchemy, but had better results elsewhere.
Egyptian women used one form of antimony, stibium, as eyeliner (hence the symbol for antimony, Sb, even though neither letter appears in the element’s name). Pills of the element became popular as a medicine in the 1700s, especially as a laxative, able to blast through the most compacted bowels. It was so good the chronically constipated would root through their excrement to retrieve the pill and reuse it later. Some lucky families passed down antimony laxatives from generation to generation.
Unfortunately, antimony purges the bowels so well partly because it’s poison—the body wants to get rid of it. But these were the days in medicine of fighting fire with fire: Doctors believed the only way to cure a violent illness was with an equally violent reaction to medicine, and antimony’s popularity grew.
Other elements will be posted through the month of July. Link to introduction. Link to antimony.
The Remnants is a proposed series from screenwriter John August starring Justine Bateman, Michael Cassidy, Ben Falcone, Ze Frank, Ernie Hudson, and Amanda Walsh. The pilot episode was shot during the writer’s strike a year ago, and is now in development with 60frames.
For the past few months, the pilot has been shopped around to advertisers and other possible sponsors, but given the economy and my schedule, it’s looking unlikely that a confluence of money and time will lead us to shoot more. So I wanted to let people see it, particularly because it features some actors who should be on more lists. Including Ze Frank, who is now an Angeleno.
See the 11-minute pilot at August’s website. Link -Thanks, Ben!
Update: There is a drive to gather support for making The Remnants into a continuing series. Link -Thanks, Periodical Boy!
