Shallow Nation » Science

National Geographic Hunt for the Samurai Subs (Video, Photos)

Shallow Nation — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:29:45 +0000

Here are National Geographic Hunt for the Samurai Subs video and photos. The program airs on NGC on Tues, Nov. 17, 2009 at 9 pm ET/PT as part of Expedition Week.

The program chronicles the recent discovery of two Japanese submarines from World War II which had been designed with advanced technology which would have enabled them to attack the U.S. mainland. The two submarines were the I-14, which carried two aircraft while submerged; and the I-201, which was one of the fastest attack subs of World War II. The U.S. Navy intentionally sunk the two subs at the end of the war to keep the technology from the Soviet Union when scientists from the country demanded access.

Hawaii: At the scene of a I-14 underwater submarine wreck, the Pisces looking at the deck gun of I-14. The I-14 is one of 5 Japanese submarines sunk by the US Navy in 1946. (photo credit © Wild Life Productions)

The program will show footage of the wreckage along with World War II era footage of the U.S. Navy scuttling the vessels, leading to the discovery of the submarines off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. For decades, their exact location had been a mystery until the recent efforts of a team of explorers including deep submergence vehicle pilots Terry Kerby and Max Cramer, diving to depths of nearly 3,000 feet in search of the submarines.

An overview of the program can be seen here: National Geographic Hunt for the Samurai Subs

Top Photo: (Reenactment) Hawaii: A sailor on deck of submarine with U.S. flag flying at sunset during World War II. (photo credit © Wild Life Productions)

See preview video below.

Pictures and video courtesy of National Geographic Channel

Video “Preview: Samurai Subs” – Deep sea explorers hunt for Japanese submarines lost on the ocean floor – once part of a top-secret plan to dominate WWII. Video Link

National Geographic Hunt for the Samurai Subs (Video, Photos)

National Geographic 2012: Countdown to Armageddon (Video, Photos)

Shallow Nation — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:47:56 +0000

Here are National Geographic 2012: Countdown to Armageddon video and photos. The program airs on NGC on Sun., Nov. 8, 2009 at 10 pm ET/PT and will take a look at the Maya calendar prophesies of the world ending in 2012 and evidence which may or may not support them.

The documentary chronicles the investigation of Princeton University scientist Adam Maloof on three continents. Essentially it is a detective tale on a grand timeline of thousands of years, with clues to be found embedded in some of Earth’s oldest rocks.

Questions posed and explored include: Is there evidence of a global upheaval on a massive scale, such as depicted in the forthcoming 2012 movie, directed by Roland Emmerich? What can we learn from the technically advanced celestial orientation of the Maya ruins? What did the Maya hope to record in their extensive astronomy text known as the Dresden Codex? Does a discovery from a melting glacier reveal potential signs of devastating change in ancient Maya times?

An overview of the program can be seen here: National Geographic 2012 Countdown to Armageddon

See preview videos below.

Top Photo: Adam Maloof & Rafael Cobos on top of the Great Pyramid (El Castillo, Temple of K’uk’ulkan) in Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico. (photo credit: © Story House Productions)

Photo: Cameraman Thomas Sassenberg and Director / Executive Producer Andreas Gutzeit atop the Temple of the Warriors (Templo de los Guerreros) in Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico. (photo credit: © Story House Productions)

Pictures and video courtesy of National Geographic Channel

Video “Maya Doomsday Prophecy” – The Maya calendar will end on December 21, 2012. Are we three years from the end of the world? Video Link

“The Maya’s Lost Civilization” – The abrupt abandonment of the Maya’s great cities has stumped scholars for centuries. Video Link

“A Climate Event to End Time” – Could a sudden climate shift that took place 5,200 years ago tell us more about what the Maya predicted for 2012? Video Link

From their vantage on the Yucatán peninsula, Jenkins believes the Maya witnessed a slow movement toward an alignment of the sun and the center of the Milky Way. Could this trigger the end of the world? Video Link

National Geographic 2012: Countdown to Armageddon (Video, Photos)

National Geographic Unlikely Animal Friends (Video, Photos)

Shallow Nation — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:33:37 +0000

Here are National Geographic Unlikely Animal Friends video and photos. The program airs on NGC on Saturday, September 26, 2009 at 8 pm ET.

The title says it all, but what is remarkable is just how unlikely the friends really are. The program examines several unusual pairing, including Internet celebrity Christian the Lion and his trainers John and Ace whose YouTube videos have gone viral.

Other pairings; an elephant and a dog become best friends. A giant tortoise becomes the surrogate parents of a baby hippo. A lioness mothers a baby oryx. As these real life pairings demonstrate, animals do form bonds with other species even those on whom they would normally prey. The results, endearing as they are also reveal that animals must gain something valuable from such seemingly improbable and impossible bonds.

Photo: Suryia the orangutan hugging Roscoe the hound dog. (Photo credit: Stevi Calandra)

An overview is here: National Geographic Unlikely Animal Friends

Videos are below.

Top Photo: Tarra the elephant and Bella the dog. (Photo credit: The Elephant Sanctuary)

Photos and video courtesy of National Geographic Channel

Video “Unlikely Animal Friends: Christian the Lion” – John and Ace raised Christian, the lion, since he was a cub. Will he recognize his old friends after being released into the wild?. Video Link

Video “Unlikely Animal Friends: The Orangutan and the Hound” – When Surya, the orangutan, meets a hound dog by the river, the two carry on like long lost friends. Link: National Geographic Unlikely Animal Friends

Video “Unlikely Animal Friends: The Cat and the Crow” – A stray kitten and a wild crow form a very unusual friendship. Video Link

Video “Unlikely Animal Friends: The Elephant and the Dog” – When a small dog regards himself as the protector of an enormous elephant, the two become inseparable. Video Link

National Geographic Unlikely Animal Friends (Video, Photos)

National Geographic 9-11 Science and Conspiracy (Video, Photos)

Shallow Nation — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 22:52:46 +0000

Here are National Geographic 9-11 Science and Conspiracy video and photos. The documentary, will premiere on NGC on Monday, August 31, 2009 at 9pm ET in advance of the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The documentary, National Geographic 9-11 Science and Conspiracy sets out to conduct a forensic investigation designed to test various tenets of some common 9-11 conspiracy theories. What caused the collapse of the Twin Towers? Was it from the fires, or were explosives placed inside the buildings, causing them to implode? Did a missile, rather than a commercial airline jet strike the Pentagon?

With the use of high-tech forensic experiments, eyewitness footage, CGI re-creations, and an in-depth analysis by experts and theorists on all sides of the story, the documentary attempts to examine both alleged conspiracies and available evidence.

See photos and video below.

Top Photo: Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center and explodes at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Socorro, New Mexico: At the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center in New Mexico, experts use high speed track sled for the testing of war heads, penetrators, and shape changes. (Photo Credit: Peter Hankoff)

Socorro, New Mexico: At the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center in New Mexico, experts conduct a fire test with a steel beam. (Photo Credit: Peter Hankoff)

Video “9-11 Impact Anatomy” – Conspiracy theorists say jet fuel fires couldn’t have brought down the towers — but a simulation of the impact proves otherwise. Link: National Geographic 9-11 Science and Conspiracy Video

Video “Explosive Claims” – Could the towers have been brought down by controlled demolition? Blasting a college dorm helps us answer that question. Video Link

Video “An Elaborate 9-11 Plan” – One theory suggests rogue planes carrying explosives assumed the flight paths of the real ones. Could such a complex plan work? Video Link

Photos and video courtesy of National Geographic

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National Geographic 9-11 Science and Conspiracy (Video, Photos)

National Geographic Human Family Tree (Video, Photos)

Shallow Nation — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:25:31 +0000

Here are National Geographic Human Family Tree video and photos. The documentary, narrated by Kevin Bacon will premiere on NGC on Sunday, August 30, 2009 at 9pm ET.

The program sets out to reveal, in dramatic fashion, that by gathering and studying the DNA of a couple of hundred random people collected in a single day on a single Queens, New York street, scientists are able to prove that we are all related; that we are, as the program title implies members of the same human family tree.

As the National Geographic Human Family Tree program reveals, the DNA so collected was used to trace the ancestry of the entire human race. The experiment showed that race, religion, and nationality aside, everyone’s ancestral origin can be traced back to East Africa, considered the cradle of humanity. Ironically, people who don’t know each other, randomly selected in a single neighborhood, from a diversity of backgrounds all share — as does every human — a common ancestry. See more photos and video below.

Top Photo: Lake Eyasi, Tanzania: Hollowed Baobab tree trunks are traditionally used as places where Hadzabe give birth. The Hadzabe, who live about 15-hundred miles north of the San near Tanzania’s Serengeti, represent one of the first branches in the human family tree. They split from the founding population (the San) around 150,000 years ago. Today the Hadzabe are one of the last groups of hunter-gatherers on Earth. (photo credit: NGT/Chad Cohen)

Reenactment: Modern humans set out to reach new continents around 45,000 years ago by land and by sea. Here, they arrive in Australia on a raft. (photo credit: NGT/Isham Randolph)

Video “Human Family Tree – Preview” – By studying the DNA of random people on a New York street, scientists prove we are all cousins in the family of man. Link: National Geographic Human Family Tree Video

Video “Human Family Tree: Genetic Roadmaps” – Mapping the tiny, random changes in our genetic code unlocks the mystery of who we are and how we got here. Video Link

Video “Human Family Tree: The Longest Human Journey” – If you want to understand how humans first got to the Americas, it’s simple. All you need is a 14,000-year-old excrement sample! Video Link

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National Geographic Human Family Tree (Video, Photos)

National Geographic Alien Earths (Video, Photos)

Shallow Nation — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:51:09 +0000

Here are National Geographic Alien Earths video and photos. The program will air on August 23, 2009 at 9pm ET on NGC. As the title implies, it will chronicle the search for planets beyond the solar system which are like our planet Earth.

The program follows leading astronomers embarking on an exciting visual journey using CGI animation, to explore strange worlds that seem like figments of imagination. Planets with iron rain and hot ice? Planets with diamonds everywhere? Planets with endless oceans of gas?

As the National Geographic Alien Earths video and photos reveal it gets even stranger still. Imagine planets with abnormal orbital patterns and planets with no pattern at all that drift alone in the Milky Way. There are even planets, called planemos, that have, in essence, been kicked out of their solar system. Some are so bizarre scientists could never have predicted their existence nor their characteristics. Naturally it begs the question: could life exist on these planets?

National Geographic Naked Science Hawking’s Universe (Video, Photos)

Shallow Nation — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:59:18 +0000

Here are National Geographic Naked Science Hawking’s Universe video and photos. The program will air on August 23, 2009 at 10pm ET. The program documents renown physicist Stephen Hawking’s quest to discover how the universe came into existence.

Internationally famous for decades, Stephen Hawking, has prevailed in spite of having ALS, (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s disease) which has left him almost completely paralyzed. He has communicated via a remarkable computer program which converts small movements of a finger or the blink of an eye, into words on a vocal synthesizer.

Top photo: A bursting with Stars and Black Holes. (photo credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech)

Undaunted by limitations, Hawking continues to be determined to discover a theory of everything; in other words a complete set of rules for the Universe which would answer fundamental questions such ase: Where did the Universe come from and where is it going? What is the nature of time? Will it ever come to an end?

Photo: NASA and companion Star. Artist’s impression shows a black hole and its yellow companion star being sent out on a out on a long journey through the Milky Way.(photo credit: ESA/NASA, the AVO project)

As the National Geographic Naked Science Hawking’s Universe video and photos reveal, this program will explore Stephen Hawking’s major contributions to the understanding of the Universe, including his revolutionary proof that the Universe originated in a Big Bang as well as ground breaking discovery that Black Holes are not completely black, but; but instead that they emit radiation and eventually they evaporate and disappear. Hawking also has some insights on string theory. The question remains: can he unlock the secret of the origin of the universe before his time runs out?

Video #1 – No one’s found the Theory of Everything yet, but when Hawking discovers that black holes emit radiation, he gets very close. Link: National Geographic Naked Science Hawking’s Universe Video

Video #2 – When Hawking loses his voice to a tracheotomy, new speech software technology keeps his research on track. Video Link

National Geographic Naked Science Hawking’s Universe (Video, Photos) 8-23-09