PBS Digital Studios Adds It’s Okay To Be Smart Video Series To YouTube
This article is more than 2 years old
We do a lot of reading and picture-ogling here at GFR, and the videos we watch are often theatrical trailer mash-ups, NASA flight videos, or repetitive marathons of Warrant’s “Cherry Pie.” So we love it when someone credible puts out something interesting, and intends to continue doing so.
Biologist and all around smart guy Joe Hanson is bringing the varied layers of intelligence from his info-blog, It’s Okay to Be Smart, to the video haven that is YouTube, as part of PBS Digital Studios. PBS wins again! “I feel like me and Big Bird are basically coworkers now,” Hanson writes. This is a definite win for anyone interested in learning a few handfuls of facts delivered in a light, humorous, and memorable way, and it’s great to see the video series carries on in the same manner. The first episode is called “Life by the Numbers,” and is essentially a series of numerical comparisons that places humans within the context of all other living creatures on earth. In less than five minutes, you will become that much more knowledgeable about everything from aspen trees to the bacteria in a cow’s stomach.
Hanson will be hosting a new episode every other week, and will include bonus materials on the blog. I’ll be honest here. I only started reading Hanson’s stuff about two weeks ago, thanks to fellow GFR-er David, and immediately latched on. So this is almost like the instant, unearned glee one gets from reading a book and then immediately watching the movie based on that book, only a classier version of it. And for long-time fans, there are probably celebrations going on.
As Hanson himself said, “If you could get Neil deGrasse Tyson to watch, that would be great.” Share it with your friends. Let them know there’s a world out there they’ve been missing.
