Radio National Breakfast

Was it James Dean who was the world's first cool dude?
Was it the leather jacket or the brooding countenance of his character in "Rebel Without a Cause" that made him stand out from the rest?
Even before that 1950's film about troubled youth, young people and older people who should know better, have been trying to be hip and cool.
It's not just attitude, though plenty of it can help.
And it's not just fashion or the number of body adornments or piercings.
Once upon a time, 'hip' was reserved for the icons of popular culture like singers, musicians and actors.
Now everyone wants to be cool and hip and it's become a commodity with fashion labels, hairstyles, and music genres defining what's cool, uncool and stuff that's so uncool that its cool.
But what exactly is the essence of cool? Why is it so pervasive? And what does it say about us?
To discuss this I'm joined from Washington by Thomas Frank, the editor of "The Baffler" a journal of cultural criticism and the author of "The Conquest of Cool" and "One Market Under God".
and from Toronto is Mark Kingwell, professor of Philosophy from the University of Toronto, who is the author of "Better Living: In Pursuit of Happiness from Plato to Prozac".

Richard Badham

Richard Badham
Professor of Management (Human Resources & Organisational Behaviour)
Richard Badham currently a Professor of Entrepreneurialism and Technology Management at the MGSM, and the David Goldmann Visiting Professor in Business Innovation at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK). His current research interests are in the areas of managing change, organizational politics and leadership, innovation and organizational redesign, and irony and organizational culture. He has currently working on a book on Managing Change: A Critical Introduction to Change Management (Macmillan, UK) and a book and series of articles on In Defense of Irony: Change, Commitment and Culture in Late Modern Organizations.

Molecules of Life

Molecules of Life Page
www.nyu.edu/pages/mathmol/library/life
NOVA | Secret of Photo 51 | Picturing the Molecules of Life | PBS
www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51/picturing.html

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol305/issue5690/index.shtml
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/305/5690/1558b

No need for a vital force?

One of the essential roles of science is demystification, replacing, where possible, vague and unverifiable concepts, like vital force by precise, rational and demonstrable explanations or theories. One of the extraordinary contributions of the chemical sciences to mankind's knowledge has been the demystification of the behavior and nature of living matter. As we shall see, living matter can be understood in terms of the same chemical principles as inorganic matter. Living matter is composed of atoms, in fact a rather restricted range of atoms, and these atoms are bound together to form molecules. Life is undoubtedly complex and diverse, but its molecules, its matter, do not require any new or different fundamental theories. There is no need for a vital force to understand the molecules of life.