Short Attention Span Science Theater

Short Attention Span Science Theater is a new Stanford University site that features "microdocs," two to four minute videos explaining scientific topics in a simple and engaging way. Groups of microdocs are packaged into "notebooks" on particular topics. From Stanford News Service:

The first Short Attention Span Science notebook demystifies ecological sustainability–the basis for the green movement around the world, (Marine Science professor Steve Palumbi) said: "What is sustainability? What promotes it? What threatens it? What are the tipping points that push an ecosystem into ruin or keep it functioning forever? The ecological sustainability notebook shows the elements of sustainability and explains how they apply to one of the most important and beautiful ecosystems on earth–coral reefs."

Palumbi serves as narrator and on-camera host of many of the microdocs, which were shot at research sites in Fiji, Samoa, the Caribbean, Micronesia and other coral reefs. "Navigating around the site is like a fast trip to the coral reefs of the world, with you in control of the journey," he said. "We present the problems facing reefs, and how they can recover and grow. We show the kinds of reefs, the species that live on them and efforts by local people all over the world to preserve them."

Short Attention Span Science Theater (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

• [Phikus]

  I would have checked this out, but I couldn’t be bothered to look at it for very long.

  /joke

• [Antinous]

  If they’re two to four minutes, they don’t really understand the power of that shiny thing on the other side of the room.

• [Cool Products]

  I checked out the site and it seems pretty interesting. I’ll have to give it a better look when I get home.

• [Alan]

  Man, if they had this when I was in High School back in the pre-computer days, I’d've done a whole lot better.

• [FreakCitySF]

  good stuff, but if you could apply this to more complex/difficult topics it would better serve us can’t go wrong with marine biology shows?

• [romulusnr]

  Hey, I miss the original SAST.

  The era of SAST on (The) Comedy Channel/Network/Central is like the era of music videos on MTV, except shorter and more recent.

• [A New Challenger]

  Nice Boat.