SciTalks

Via A Blog around the Clock, a link to SciTalk.com, a kind of portal page for science videos. There's lots of cool stuff here which I've only become to explore. This site aggregates links to videos on other sites rather than hosting the videos themselves, so you'll encounter items that will require various bits of software to be installed before you can view the videos. You might need Flash or RealPlayer or some such.

Check out their Welcome to SciTalks blog post.

Scitalks is important and needed. In the general trend toward democratizing education, we hope that it can become an important tool for educators, home schoolers and those who are wanting to educate themselves.

In another context, science’s credibility is at the heart of a conflict where the opponent is well funded and well organized. We’re a society trained to sound-bites. Our critical thinking skills are eroding. Scientific thought is by its very nature complex and challenging to communicate to the general public. Most universities aren’t up to the task and the scientists themselves are involved in a system where the public is at the bottom of the list of the masters they must satisfy if they want to remain in research. They must publish or perish, and peer review is where they publish.

Yet there is no one else who can better convey the necessity, drama and passion of their work than the scientists themselves.

*snip*

The task ahead of us is, in one sense, curatorial. We are collecting the pearls of our civilization. We encourage universities and scientists to give us their links and videos to catalog and care for. We have dreams for the site, but also know that your dreams and suggestions will likely shape it more than ours from now on. We want to hear from you. We would love your help.

The videos are at all levels, some highly technical and some of a more popular nature. Some of the subject areas covered include: astronomy, biochemistry, botany, engineering, environment, history of science, information technology, math, medicine, philosophy of science and space science.

Enjoy!