Sean Carroll talks with biologist Michael Levin about how a combination of genetic information and physical constraints shape an organism.

Listen at: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2021/02/01/132-michael-levin-on-growth-form-information-and-the-self/

62 videos total are included:

* Plenary talks are recordings as individual  videos (8).
* Lightning talks are recordings of the 2 separate days (2).
* Invited and contributed talks are 6 parallel, x 2 per day, x 4 days (48).
* Special sessions (4).
You can use the search feature to look for an author by name, keyword in the title of the presentation, etc. These are all listed at the bottom of each video.

Watch at: www.youtube.com

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There is a lot of worry these days about misinformation that’s being shared on social media.
The success of this kind of content is both surprising and concerning, and has led to new fields of research exploring how much misinformation is out there, and what leads people to believe and share it. But much less attention has been paid to the more important question: What can actually be DONE about the problem? This is what I have been focusing on, and in this talk, I am going to tell you about one such possible solution and show how it could translate directly into an intervention that social media companies could deploy to fight misinformation online.
Mohsen Mosleh is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the Science, Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship Department, University of Exeter Business School and an affiliate researcher at MIT. Mohsen’s research interests lie at the intersection of data science and cognitive science. In particular, he studies how information and misinformation spread on social media, collective decision-making, and cooperation This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Read the full article at: www.youtube.com

Last April, states began to sporadically reopen after weeks of being shut down. Georgia was among the first to begin the process, while some states didn’t start lifting restrictions until June. 

The uncoordinated reopening caused chaos, according to Sinan Aral, director of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy. Why? Because Georgia pulled in hundreds of thousands of visitors from neighboring states – folks hoping to get a haircut or go bowling.

Aral was tracking Americans on social media, and it became clear to him that having uncoordinated coronavirus policies doesn’t make sense. As people watched their social feeds fill with images of people heading back outside, they stepped out too — even if their state wasn’t at the same phase.

Source: blogs.wgbh.org

Source: vermontcomplexsystems.org