Dara Ó Briain's Science Club: The Story of Exploration
"Science journalist Alok Jha asks whether it is a good idea for humans to reach out to extra-terrestrials and oceanographer Helen Czerski comes face to face with extreme radiation, energy so deadly it could seriously curtail humans travelling further than the solar system. Plus special guest Josh Widdecombe visits NASA in Houston to find out the challenges we face to get humans to Mars and materials scientist Mark Miodownik takes apart a space suit."
(BBC Two, UK)
Fig.1 this animation is from Episode 4 of 6 of Dara Ó Briain's Science Club, Tuesday 27 November at 9pm on BBC Two, voiced by Dara Ó Briain, animated by 12Foot6, Published on YouTube on 27 Nov 2012 by BBC.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Dara Ó Briain's Science Club: A Dodo's Guide to Extinction
"A few hundred years ago, extinction as a concept made no sense to anyone. But then fossil finds and advances in geology showed that it's part of life, and a statistical certainty - even for human beings."
(BBC Two, UK)
Fig.1 this animation is from Episode 3 of 6 of Dara Ó Briain's Science Club, Tuesday 20 November at 9pm on BBC Two, voiced by Helen McCrory, animated by 12Foot6, Published on YouTube on 19 Nov 2012 by BBC.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
What is the Liverpool Care Pathway?
"The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) is a scheme that is intended to improve the quality of care in the final hours or days of a patient's life, and to ensure a peaceful and comfortable death. It aims to guide doctors, nurses and other health workers looking after someone who is dying on issues such as the appropriate time to remove tubes providing food and fluid, or when to stop medication.
However, its use for some has become controversial, with relatives reportedly claiming it has been used without consent, and some saying it is used inappropriately.
This criticism and the media emphasis on the supposed controversy is puzzling, as the LCP has been standard practice in most hospitals for a number of years. The LCP has also received recognition on both a national and international level as an example of good practice.
As a GP put it in the British Medical Journal, the LCP 'has transformed end of life care from an undignified, painful experience into a peaceful, dignified death at home'"
(NHS Choices, UK)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
What Dreams May Come: imagining a painted world through vfx
"Ward's 'What Dreams May Come,' starring Robin Williams was nominated for production design in addition to winning an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. The film, tells an epic love story of soul mates separated by death. The story would inspire Ward to envision the afterlife as a painted world, incorporating state-of-the-art, adapted, and entirely new visual effects technologies in an original, fully articulated, filmic view of imagined realms that may await us after death."
(Saville Productions)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Un Chien andalou: a masterpiece of surrealist cinema
"Acclaimed as a surrealist masterpiece, Un Chien andalou aggressively disconnects itself from narrative flow. The creators of this short film. Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, fully intended there to be no links between successive scenes. Fortunately this didn't inhibit their dreaming up of some of the most striking moments ever to be projected upon the silver screen. The opening focuses on a man (Luis Buñuel) stropping his cut-throat razor, honing it to a perfect edge. Stepping onto the balcony, he gazes at the moon. This celestial orb is instantly replaced with a woman and, enlarging rapidly, her left eye. The bare blade then descends on her unprotected pupil, a graphic incident.
Designed to shock, which it still does almost 70 years later, quick editing removes the image before it has time to fully sink in. Suddenly the viewer is faced with a nun-like figure weaving uncertainly down the road on a bicycle. There is no bridge to the previous horror, although this mysterious person does provide a number of objects which resurface at odd intervals. Later there is the unusual sight of a man (Robert Hommet) hauling two grand pianos, each stuffed with the putrefying remains of a donkey, as he trudges towards a cowering woman (Simone Mareuil). He is also unfortunate enough to have a hole in his hand, where the ants live. None of this is significant.
A marvellous aspect of something as wilfully bizarre as Un Chien andalou is that almost any interpretation can be drawn from the images shown. Perhaps every single scene is random and unconcerned with any other, although Buñuel certainly seems to have included items which are present throughout the film. In some ways the repeated glimpses of these things in situations where they shouldn't be adds to the confused feel, enhanced by the off-putting and nonsensical time-markers deployed.
The eternal themes of life, death, lust and love are thrown up at various points, although there is no framework on which to attach these emotions. This is of no consequence though as Buñuel has already hurried onto the next sequence, violently cutting so that the desired woman becomes naked in a flash - a picture of what are ardent suitor really sees. Un Chien andalou does not require such deep analysis though, being much more a film which should be purely experienced. It achieves that which Buñuel and Dalí aimed for and, with a live music accompaniment, is unstoppable."
(Damian Cannon, 1997)
Fig.1 Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí (1929). 'Un Chien andalou'
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
