The year 1957, the place the shadowy inner city crime dens of New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. A world of supposedly glamorous gangsters, scallywag hoodlums and femme fatales with hearts of gold. The assignment? A six-week journey to explore crime across America. The photographer chosen? Gordon Parks. A veteran who had worked for the Farm Security Administration and was also the first African-American staff photographer for Life Magazine. The result?  How exactly did Gordon Parks create this photo essay that almost 60 years after its publication still speaks eloquently and continues to challenge our preconceptions about crime? How's it? How's it? Gordon Parks was quite simply put a man of exceptionally broad talent. Not only was he a great photographer with an exceptionally long career but he was also a writer, a poet, a musician and a film director. Throughout his career, Gordon Parks was well known for his humanitarian stance and a deep commitment to the idea of social justice being championed through his photography. When looking at the work of photographers who create images that are also part of an agenda, they form the basis of a picture essay or that they have a message to convey, it could be quite a powerful experience to look upon the photography with the eyes of its intended audience. In the case of the atmosphere of crime, that would be the post-war world of America. The shiny, chrome-detailed land of prosperity, where the idea of criminality was portrayed through a Hollywood-like lens in films such as The Big Heat and on TV in shows like The Untouchables and Mike Hammer. Of course the reality, as you'll discover, was somewhat quite different to what Hollywood would lead us to believe. It was grim and uncompromising. And I saw some of the most outlandish things as a crime photographer for a few months. I think that one, send me back home immediately. I was so afraid of it, what I was seeing, and what it would do to me and do to my personality, do to the rest of my life. Once you learn to see these photographs in a way that goes beyond simply appreciating their aesthetic qualities, you're going to have a key to getting a deeper appreciation for documentary photography. Contained within its pages, the atmosphere of crime has some unique tools that you are going to find exceptionally useful. In 1957, when life asked Gordon Parks to undertake the assignment that would become the atmosphere of crime, you know, he'd already been with the magazine for 10 years and was an experienced photographer whose empathy, his compassion, and his iron conviction that his photography could bring about social change. It was only after I became a life photographer that I knew that I must assume the responsibility that it would take to consider myself an excellent photographer so that I could open the door for other black writers and photographers after me. But my first worry was getting on the staff and that's what I worked at. Gordon Parks makes use of a three-step process to impart such power into his photography. Each one of them is a master's stroke when it comes to shaping the way that you, the viewer, digest and reads these photographs. Like in literature music, which Parks has also equally adept, these visual narrative skills are hidden in plain sight. Cinema was still a major cultural force in the 1950s and Gordon Parks used this to his advantage. Now parents have long known that the best way to get a child to take some medicine is to disguise it, you know, to wrap it in something familiar and sweet. Throughout the images in the atmosphere of crime, there is an exceptionally strong cinematic quality to a great number of the images. You can get a feel for them working his stills from a film or being posters advertising the next crime caper at the local cinema. They connect with the viewer in ways that the viewer can easily digest, almost inviting you in by saying, look, it's okay here, you're familiar with this. This concept of cinematic quality within Gordon Parks' photography, certainly some of the images, is greatly emphasised in these two frames here. This one we have some framing within the frame, so the police officers are surrounded by this windscreen. And here we're looking down onto the scene from, you know, from a window. And in both of these respects, I think what he's trying to say is this is a world that we're okay with being in, you're safe. Here there's a physical barrier between us and what could be conceivably called the real world. And in this image here, you know, we're going to remove because we're looking out from windows so we can feel safe. And it's almost like he's inviting us to spend some time in this world that this is a world that we're kind of familiar with and we're okay being here. And then he gets a chance to work his magic on us. You also see this idea with the photographs being in colour. To have had them in black and white as the majority of Parks' earlier work had been, would have allowed the viewer to simply lump the story in with the rest of the photography in that issue, just to skim over it. It's no surprise we're looking at the photographs with a kick, cursory glance flicking from page to page, as one so often does, that the feeling that springs to mind is that of a crime movie from the period. Parks was a director of a number of films, including Shaft. So he was well aware of the need to create a sense of place, to make the viewer feel part of that space. Even if the viewer isn't American or was born too late to live through the late 1950s or hasn't grown up on a diet of gangster films, there is still throughout these photographs an odd sense of familiarity that seems to reach out. That's a testament to the skills with which Gordon Parks wielded his camera, that he invites what we can only presume to be a predominantly middle white class audience into a world that they think they know, but he's about to totally destroy their preconceptions. Sitting down in the den, possibly with an old fashioned to hand and dreaming of buying a new Edsel leaping through the pages of Life magazine, there is an article on crime in the US. The photography is interesting. It's reminiscent of that film that was at the movie house last week. But something in them sits uneasy inside us. On closer inspection, the people in those photographs aren't who we expect to see. For one thing, the majority of them look sort of familiar. Like somebody we would see at the local Chamber of Commerce or a Rotary Club meeting. That penny dropping is the second step in Gordon Parks, gently introducing the idea of change into the viewer's mind. Given Parks' first hand experiences, he wants to make a difference to share the story of these people, not to reinforce but to challenge stereotypes. Their overall feeling that comes through these photographs when going beyond their aesthetic is that Parks is trying to shine light on how threatening and violent the police can appear to the people on the fringes of society in the urban poor. It's such a far cry from the sheltered suburban world of the Life magazine reader. The scene of officers kicking down a door, guns in hand, creates a feeling or an idea that this behavior wasn't the last resort but it was the first step taken. That such action should be visited on you just because of where you live. Invite ideas that are comfortable, especially in today's world. When looking at these photographs, especially when compared to some others in Parks' career, it's not the photography itself that draws us in. A great number of the images of their blurry, their out of focus and their blinded with flash but in a way, their very rawness leads them an impact that would be diminished by having technical perfection. The world and this world of night and shadow, violence and crime is far from perfect. There are photographers whose images feed our eyes and then there are photographers like Gordon Parks whose photography is used as a tool for change both morally and socially. The greatest of tools in Parks is Arsenal and the third step in drawing you in is empathy. It'll be too easy to fall into gross generalizations and caricature when photographing crime with a capital C. When you look at the photography parks created in his career, there is always empathy. It's quiet and it's unassuming. His own upbringing in Kansas where he experienced first hand suffering, racial injustice and the struggles of those marginalized bred in him both a clarity of message and an empathy for whom he sought to champion and share their stories. Because pictures that I made that I have become the most important pictures were pictures that I wish that I never had to take with people who impoverished people in need and I suppose that I pointed my camera at people mostly who needed someone to say something for them and who couldn't speak for themselves.  It may have been turned out to be the best picture but it wasn't a picture that I really or considered something that I would like to have taken. I hated taking it but I had to do it. By photographing his subjects with empathy he makes them human. He makes them people. People who had circumstances just been a little bit different would have been just like us. It's a great skill to be able to go on one hand to create a powerful social message and yet still never forget to have respect and empathy for those whom you're photographing. Having a better understanding of these three aspects of Gordon Parks's photography will now give you a better appreciation of his work and every other documentary photography whom you see. Not every photograph is laced through with meaning. Some of the chorus while others are the solo. But when you put a number of Gordon Parks's images together much like a piece of music the song that they create is rich and vibrant. The great number of people who view his photography today could never conceive the experiences he and those whom he photographed went through.  Thank you ever so much for joining me today.


Rising, nearly 400 feet above the desert floor in a remote section of New Mexico within ancient Anasazi territory is a place named Chaco Canyon and within stands an imposing natural structure called Fajada Butte. Hidden from the world for over 700 years along a precarious narrow ledge there lay a secret ancient astronomical observatory. Subsequently given the name Sundagger, and the reason why is nothing less than remarkable, it has been revealed that for more than a thousand years the Sundagger has been revealing to all aware of its creation the subtle changing of the seasons. In 1977 it was thankfully rediscovered when rock art and petroglyphs were spotted nearby. Anna Sofaire who was cataloging the rock art was one morning greeted by the Sundagger slowly traveling across the wall traversing the strange spiral patterns which were etched upon them. The intelligent Anna realized that the Sundagger could have been connected to the petroglyphs so along with her colleagues she came back at various dates throughout the year eventually establishing the following information. On the summer solstice the Sundagger appears near the top of the largest spiral and over a period of 18 minutes it slices through the very center cutting the spiral in half before leaving it in shadow for another year. On the winter solstice two daggers of light appear lasting for 49 minutes during which they frame the large spiral. Finally an equally fascinating and more complex light show occurs on the spring and autumn equinoxes. The large spiral is carved in such a way that counting from the center outward to the right there are nine grooves. On each equinox a dagger of light appears that cuts through the spiral on different angles. Meanwhile a second dagger slices through the center of the smaller spiral. These light shows which had been going on for centuries continued for several years after their rediscovery. However in 1989 it was found that the granite slabs had shifted. The alignments that had been arranged so carefully were no more. It also seems impossible for us modern people to realign them as all attempts have failed. Was this sundagger really made by the Anasasi Indians or was it a far older surviving relic? One that they were merely aware of. A relic which has unfortunately eroded away. Similar ancient light displays marking the solstices and equinoxes can be found at other locations as well such as in the southwestern United States and Mexico. In a ruin in Hovenweep National Monument near the borders of Utah and Colorado, light beams also illuminate spiral petroglyphs on the summer solstice. At Burl Flats in Southern California, a winter solstice sun points a finger of light to the center of five concentric rings in an early Chumash rock art display. Were these monuments once used by a lost ancient advanced group of marauders as calendar sites while traveling America? Perhaps one day we will know for sure. Thanks for watching guys and until next time take care. Becherim is an ancient cemetery located within Galilee. Very close by is a natural cave. It had apparently fallen into disuse at the end of the fourth century and filled up partially with four or five feet of clay-like silt. In 1956 a bulldozer was taken in to clear the rubble, but what it would uncover can be seen as an enormous upart, an out-of-place artifact. It turned out to be a large ancient rectangular slab made from an unknown material. Because of its size, measuring six and a half by eleven feet long, eighteen inches thick and weighing in at over nine tons, it was not surprisingly left where it lay. With a perfectly level surface, its origins were a mystery, yet alas, at the time, not a pressing one. However, in 1963, members of a joint expedition of the Corning Museum of Glass and the University of Missouri would bring to light a curious reality. While surveying the region for possible remains of ancient glass factories, someone suggested that the Betcherim slab might have been made of glass. A suggestion initially perceived as a joke. Amazingly, chemical analysis was indeed carried out, confirming that this enormous and extremely ancient slab was indeed made of glass. It is therefore believed that the Betcherim slab is a huge piece of first-stage glass, meant to have been broken up and fashioned into objects somewhere else, that for some reason was abandoned right where it was made. In conclusion, several factors surrounding the existence of the slab are currently unexplainable. According to mainstream views surrounding the evolution of glassmaking, the production of such an enormous base material would have been simply impossible, requiring over 12 tons of raw materials, over 20 tons of furnace fuel, the maintaining of a temperature of over 1100 degrees centigrade for no less than five continuous days. Finally producing a 9 tons slab of perfectly level, perfectly rectangular glass clearly demonstrates the requirement of a highly advanced refinery, with highly advanced technologies harnessed by a past civilization.  Both rest within the enormous telescopic mirrors of machines developed within the past century. It seems clear to us that the Betcherim slab is one of those rare gems that clearly demonstrates the past existence of a highly advanced, highly capable ancient civilization that once lived and was unfortunately lost here on earth. Cave paintings and petroglyphs are undoubtedly some of the oldest and most interesting artworks found anywhere on earth. Some of these artworks found within the unforgiving terrain of the Great Outback within Australia, for example, have been dated at well over 10,000 years old. Illustrations in ochre that show many of the animals are distant ancestors loved or hunted along with many other forms of artistic recreation, like a time capsule allowing us to travel back to peek into the minds of ancient man. Although these ancient artworks are undoubtedly important to our understanding of ancient man, there exists a number of other petroglyphs that are considerably different to these primitive achievements.  These deep-set handprints were somehow left within solid sandstone, as if created by softening the rocks with their minds, hands, or perhaps voices alone. How did an ancient people manage to create these mocks? Did our ancient ancestors somehow figure out how to soften stone? There are many sites all around the world which possess similarly enigmatic marks. Were they left by individuals capable of softening stone, or perhaps left upon the stones while not fully formed? To melt or soften stone requires immense heat, that which is usually only found within the center of the earth, or indeed the lava flows which spew forth from its core. One interesting theory regarding the possible softening of stones created far back within antiquity was initially discovered, still been surviving within the minds of locals who surround the ancient sites of Peru. Most notably, Saxe Huaman. A theory put forth to explain the shaping of stones within the fortress, regarded as a local legend by the first explorers of these sites. Percy Fawcett, as well as Hiram Bingham, who actually rediscovered Machu Picchu, noted that it was a liquid derived from plants, which was apparently known to the ancients to turn stone soft. In fact, in 1983, a Catholic priest attested to using the technique, actually achieving the softening of solid stones, although he was apparently unable to return the resulting flurry back to solid stone. Furthermore, according to other researchers, Jan Peter de Jong, Christopher Jordan, and Jesus Gamera, among others, ancient walls within Cusco show evidence that ancient cultures used very high temperatures to shape them. This unknown process vitrified the surface of the blocks, turning them to glass. Based on these observations, Jong, Jordan, and Gamera speculated that ancient man possessed an advanced device, which somehow allowed them to melt stone blocks. And although the petroglyphs of the white mountains are yet to be fully studied by anyone, we feel they are probably the strongest piece of evidence of this lost process. They are undoubtedly highly compelling. Modern technologies have enabled man to peek into the past like never before. Numerous discoveries have thus far been made, many of which, as we predicted, continue to reinforce our posit of past civilizations being once far older, greater in occurrence, and some in size and indeed technological prowess, than currently academically stated. Notably, expanding recognized scales of many of these ancient cities. We believe these often remarkably ingeniously laid out settlements, now buried under millennia of strata, were sometimes either partly re-inhabited leaving later relics, or simply have surviving sections piercing the ground strata, foliage, and tree levels. Guatemala, a perfect example of this. Submerged beneath impenetrable forest, yet dotted with towers, once argued as separate ruins, built in honor of various things. Now realized thanks to Lidar as one once enormous mega metropolis. Furthermore, this ancient claimed Mayan site, amazingly, does not hold the title for possessing the largest single ancient structure, possibly on earth. Although buried under several meters of earth, Lidar has revealed the site as Eguadar Phoenix, a structure of astonishing proportions, has been found, scanned, and measured. Discovered to be over 4,500 feet long and 50 feet in height. The platform of its roof alone would have taken a stunning expanse of space, and the research being undertaken to understand yet another mega metropolis which surrounded the structure, are finally forcing an overdue change in long-held, stubborn, ignorant, and to us, long opposed paradigms regarding who, when, and indeed how, ancient people accomplished such achievements. Researchers stated, quote, Eguadar Phoenix is by far the most sprawling ruin, end quote. They continued, in fact, after three years of study, we have determined that it's by far the largest and very probably the oldest Maya structure ever found in Mexico. These quotes, however, raise some curious questions, although the research thankfully transparent in nature, sharing the incredible discovery with the world, if indeed the oldest structure ever found, one has to remember it is also one of the most incredibly massive and clearly one of the most complex architecturally constructed structure as well. The question, how is this logical? We feel a contradictory statement, unless one perceives the past as our channel argues it once was. We will keep you posted on the discovery. We find it highly compelling.


How y'all doing? You doing good? I can see it, and I can hear it. I am so happy to be here. I get to be up here and open up the show for you. After me, you're going to hear from amazing poets. I think I'm going to stand, because it hurts to sit when I'm tucked, so I'm just going to stand. I get to be up here with amazing people who have podcasts and who write poetry and have books. And I'm going to read you a children's book because that's what I do, but it's by Bell Hooks, bitches. So get yourselves together and get ready for adult drag queen story hour. The book I'm going to read is called Skin Again by Bell Hooks, and it's illustrated by Chris Roshka. The skin I'm in is just a covering. It cannot tell my story. The skin I'm in is just a covering. If you want to know who I am, you have got to come inside and open your heart way wide. The skin I'm in looks good to me. It will let you know one small way to trace my identity. But then again, the skin I'm in will always be just a covering. It cannot tell my story. If you want to know who I am, you have got to come inside. Be with me inside the me of me, all made up of stories present, past, future. Some true to life and others all fun and fantasy, all the way I imagine me. You can find all about me coming close and letting go of who you might think I am before you come inside and let me be real and you become real to me. All real then in that place where skin again is one small way to see me, but not real enough to be all the me of me or the you of you. For we are all inside made up of real history, real dreams, and the stuff of all we hope for when we can be all real together on the inside. Thank you.


Wouldn't it be lovely if that was it? We were done. And now we know everything that we would ever want to know about genetics and molecular biology. And we're done. Not even close. Like when I say that this process of protein synthesis is that easy? Like you totally just did it. Isn't it awesome? You made a protein, good job. There are so many things that are complicating in so many ways that DNA functions that don't have to do with protein synthesis but play a huge role in critter function. I've made a list of organisms and I've put them in order of like kind of perceived complexity. Like humans, of course, the most complex and amazing critter of all. Mouse, yes, also a mammal, complex and cool. Fruit fly, what? It's just a bug. Mustard plant, just a plant. Roundworm, another animal like a fruit fly but like just a tube, like cool. And a yeast single celled fungus and a bacterium like prokaryote, very primitive. Oh, yes. So you could look at this list and be like very human centric and think like we've put them in order of complexity. I then took some numbers of like what are some facts about their DNA? And this is really interesting. They do, their genomes become smaller. So you'll notice that as we move down this list the number of bases in their genomes, their whole genomes, all their total bases becomes smaller as we go. I just noticed that this is three billion so these must be haploid. This must be their haploid, like just one copy of all of their chromosomes. I was about to say all these critters are diploid but I don't know. I definitely know humans are diploid and mice are but all the animals are but I don't know about the plants and okay but anyway, we'll talk about that later I'm sure. If you notice the number of chromosomes that doesn't correlate with complexity. Like we have the most chromosomes but remember I told you about was it a lungfish that had 133? Oh no, I don't think I gave you those facts. I don't know where those facts are but there's wide ranging diversity in the number of chromosomes that a critter has and remember chromosomes are just complete molecules of DNA. Here's where it gets really interesting. The number of genes and again, what is a gene? It's a piece of DNA that codes for a protein or a messenger RNA. We have, look, this guy, who is that? The plant has 25,000 genes just like us and the mouse. The roundworm has 19,000 genes. It isn't that much less than the rest of us. Here's the key friends, non-coding DNA. Look how much non-coding DNA we have. I remember being in high school and hearing folks talk about, oh my God, we've discovered this junk DNA and it does nothing. We just have all this junk DNA hanging around. That's not a junk folks. That non-coding DNA is somehow correlated to vastly complex possibilities. Our non-coding DNA is between one, I mean, our coding DNA is between one and 2% of our entire genome and every single critter goes down from there in the ordering of complexity. It's weird to me that we have so much non-coding DNA until you start thinking about, well, what is that non-coding DNA actually doing? It regulates everybody else. So non-coding DNA regulates stuff. And I'm gonna tell you, for example, non-coding DNA can regulate a process called alternative splicing. Alternative splicing is where you take one messenger RNA and you mix and match what become introns and what become exons and you can produce different proteins from one DNA. Who tells you which messenger RNA to produce? Look, I've got three different messenger RNAs. In this case, we included all five exons. Here we left out one of the exons and here we left out a different exon. That is the same DNA gene regulating DNA told it which one to make? Regulating DNA doesn't code for proteins. So it used to be considered junk DNA, no longer. We do not call it that for sure. The other thing that is interesting is there are regions of DNA, again, non-coding. I'm gonna write it down here so I don't have to go to a new page called enhancers. Enhancers can increase or decrease the production of protein synthesis and in that way can cause different outcomes with the proteins that are produced. The take home message is that this is far more complex than we will ever get into and that's okay. In the next lecture, we're gonna look at some applications of these molecular processes. We're gonna look at how are we using them and how do we mess around with them and how do they help us? Oh my gosh, they help us. Okay, see you later.


Imagine a service where you can check many aspects of your website's activity in Google Search for free. You could find out how many users visit your site from Google Search, which carries bring people to your websites, or how your website appears on Google Search. Well, there's good news. This service already exists, and it's called Google Search Console. If you're a business owner and you have a website, Google Search Console is for you. Even if someone else is in charge of the technical maintenance of your website, your site is still part of your business. Make sure that you have access to Search Console and that you're familiar with what it can do. Learning about how your website is performing in search results will help you make informed business decisions, and will help you become more aware of how to use Search as a channel for connecting with your potential and actual customers. So what can Search Console do for your online business? It helps you understand whether your site is on Google, and how Google Search, and the world, sees it. Search Console includes a wealth of information. There are a few metrics you can review every week to make sure your website is getting visitors. How do your potential customers usually find you on Google Search? What queries bring you the most traffic? What other sites mention and link to your website? How well does your mobile site display information? Search Console allows you to submit new content to Google and to remove content that you don't want to show in search results. You can also monitor the health of your website. Search Console will warn you if we detect that your website has been infected by malware, or if it has any spam issues. So remember, if you have an online business, it is important to monitor your website's activity in the same way you might monitor your inventory levels or your weekly operational costs. This is to make informed business decisions and maintain a positive online presence. Get familiar with Search Console as one of the ways to monitor your website's activity and health. In the next episode, we'll offer five essential tips on how to make sure your website appears on Search. If you liked this video, like it, share it, and comment. And we'll see you soon.