The Theoretical Minimum is a series of Stanford Continuing Studies courses taught by world renowned physicist Leonard Susskind. These courses collectively teach everything required to gain a basic understanding of each area of modern physics including all of the fundamental mathematics. The sequence begins with the modern formulations of classical mechanics discovered by Lagrange and Hamilton in the late 18th and 19th centuries, and then moves on to the radical new theories of relativity and quantum mechanics discovered by Albert Einstein and others in the early 20th century. The sequence concludes with a study of modern cosmology including the physics of black holes.

Programmer and CMU PhD Tom Murphy created a function to “beat” NES games by watching the score. When the computer did things that raised the score it would learn how to reproduce them again and again, resulting, ultimately, in what amounts to a Super Mario Brothers-playing robot. The program, called a “technique for automating NES games,” can take on nearly every NES game, but it doesn’t always win. [Pretty cool. Reminds me of when I hex-edited saved games in Snake in the 1980s to simulate playing the game "perfectly".]

We live on a finite planet and sometimes our impact on it is greater than we realize. The seemingly isolated actions we take every day—from our choice of morning beverage to our choice of business practices—are often links in a chain of unusual connections we would never have imagined.

Explore analyses of popular songs, or contribute an analysis of your own.

Eighteen months after the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, children who were not evacuated are found to have thyroid cysts and nodules. What will this mean for their future?

This African gray parrot named Pepper can not fly, since his wings are clipped. But he can drive a little buggy designed by his owner, Andrew Gray, an electrical and computer engineering graduate student at the University of Florida. So that pretty much makes Pepper the Mario Andretti of birds.

Here's a video showing how the buggy works. Looks like fun! And the song is fun until (spoiler alert) the robot gains sentience. Anyway, enjoy!

Kim Han-sol interviewed by Elisabeth Rehn for Finnish television.

Kim Han-sol is the grandson of Kim Jong-il. He never met his grandfather. At the time of this interview in 2012, he was studying at United World College in Mostar, Bosnia and Hertzegovina.

MediaGoblin is a free software media publishing platform that anyone can run. You can think of it as a decentralized alternative to Flickr, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. It's also:

* The perfect tool to show and share your media! * Building tools to empower the world through decentralization! * Built for extensibility. Multiple media types, including video support! * Part of the GNU project and devoted to user freedom. * Powered by a community of people like you.

Enter a YouTube URL, wait a little while, download an MP3. Convenient.

In this webinar you will learn the key differences between Zimbra Collaboration Server and Microsoft Exchange. Discover how next-generation products like Zimbra are dramatically lowering TCO and improving user productivity.