I lost a lot of time yesterday morning, getting sucked in to Robert Sapolsky's fanastic talk on the Uniqueness of Humans. The talk actually begins at the 5:00 mark, so you may want to skip ahead a bit.
Sapolsky is a terrific speaker, to say nothing of his ideas and observations. What I loved most about this talk was all the various examples and stories he'd throw in. This was an absolute delight to listen to, and though it's a lengthy talk... well worth the time.
To top things off, Sapolsky just strikes me as a natural presenter. You never hear him say "uh" or "uhm," and his talks just seem like an effortless flow of anecdotes and information. And his anecdotes are as eye-opening as they are funny.
I first came across Sapolsky on his fantastic lectures about stress. If you do nothing else today, I cannot recommend Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers and Stress and Coping: What Baboons Can Teach Us enough. Quite simply: his talks profoundly changed the way that I view the world.
You can find both talks available for download, free: Stanford area on iTunes (link launches iTunes).
[via BoingBoing]
Related:
Robert Sapolsky: The Physiology of Stress
Robert Sapolsky - Documentary on Stress
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