Khan Academy on a Stick
Life on earth and in the universe
When and how did life emerge on Earth? How did humanity develop a civilization? Is there other intelligent life out there?
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Earth formation
How the Earth is a the byproduct of a local supernova
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Beginnings of life
Life and photosynthesis start to thrive in the Archean Eon
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Ozone layer and eukaryotes show up in the Proterozoic eon
Ozone Layer and Eukaryotes Show Up in the Proterozoic Eon. Great Oxygenation Event (Oxygen Catastrophe)
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Biodiversity flourishes in Phanerozoic eon
Cambrian explosion and biodiversity in the Phanerozoic Eon
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First living things on land clarification
First living things on land clarification (This video copyrighted under Create Commons Attribution and Share-Alike CC-BY-SA license)
History of life on earth
Earth is over 4.5 billion years old. How do we know this? When did life first emerge? From the dawn of Earth as a planet to the first primitive life forms to our "modern" species, this tutorial is an epic journey of the history of life on Earth.
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Human evolution overview
From the extinction of the dinosaurs to humanity
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Understanding calendar notation
Difference between BC, BCE, AD and CE. A little bit about the birth of Jesus as well.
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Correction calendar notation
Correcting the time difference calculation by taking into account that there is no year 0
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Development of agriculture and writing
The Paleolithic and Neolithic eras of the Stone Age.
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Firestick farming
How the indigenous Australians used fire to change their environment
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Collective learning
How symbolic language drives collective learning and how this is one of the truly differentiating aspects of human beings relative to the rest of the animal kingdom
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Thomas malthus and population growth
Thomas Malthus's views on population. Malthusian limits.
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Land productivity limiting human population
Thinking about how we get Calories from the land limits human population densities
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Energy inputs for tilling a hectare of land
Thinking about energy consumption for tilling land
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Random predictions for 2060
Sal's random predictions for the year 2060
Humanity on earth
Where do we think humans come from? How and why have we developed as a species. This tutorial attempts to give an overview of these truly fundamental questions. From human evolution (which is covered in more depth in the biology playlist) to the development of agriculture, this tutorial will give you an appreciation of where we've been (and maybe where we're going).
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Chronometric revolution
Discussion of the relatively recent changes in our ability as a species to shine light on our deep past
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Carbon 14 dating 1
Carbon 14 Dating 1
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Carbon 14 dating 2
Carbon 14 Dating 2
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Potassium-argon (K-Ar) dating
How K-Ar dating can be used to date very old volcanic rock and the things that might be buried in between
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K-Ar dating calculation
Working through a calculation for K-Ar dating (good to have some prior experience with e and logarithms)
Measuring age on earth
Geologists and archaeologists will tell you how old things are or when they happened, but how do they know? This tutorial answers this question by covering some of the primary techniques of "dating" (not in the romantic sense).
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Detectable civilizations in our galaxy 1
A framework for thinking about how many detectable civilizations are out there.
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Detectable civilizations in our galaxy 2
Why do we even care about the Drake Equation. Thinking about the fraction of a planet's life when a civilization might be detectable.
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Detectable civilizations in our galaxy 3
Reconciling with the traditional Drake Equation
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Detectable civilizations in our galaxy 4
Taking a shot at estimating the number of detectable civilizations
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Detectable civilizations in our galaxy 5
More reasons why we haven't detected anything yet.
Life in the universe
Are dolphins the only intelligent life in the universe? We don't know for sure, but this tutorial gives a framework for thinking about the problem.