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Welcome to “Secret Life,” NOVA’s Emmy-nominated web series. Watch videos and get to know dozens of scientists and engineers with surprising secret lives. We’ve already done 32 profiles and we’ll be doing many more in the seasons to come. So we would love to hear all your ideas for new people to profile. And you can follow us on Facebook so you’ll always know when new videos premiere.

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Seandor Szeles

Staff Picks

Posted by Seandor Szeles | 14 June 2013

Krulwich Wonders: Why Dolphins Make Us Nervous

Do you consider a dolphin to be a “non-human person”? Well, The Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests does, so there’s that.

Talk of the Nation: What Bird Flocks And Fish Schools Can Teach Us About The Future

Have you ever seen a flock of birds shift instantaneously in the same direction at the same time? It’s not magic, it’s “collective behavior,” and it’s crazy interesting.

Radio Lab: Animal Minds

When your dog gives you that guilty face, is he genuinely remorseful, or just toying with your emotions? Radio Lab pokes around the animal mind for answers.

PRI: Technology Delivers Brain Controlled Flying Robots Image: Robert Krulwich/NPR

All you’ll need is your “thinking cap.” That’s right, they’re real now.

Science Friday: How to Survive A Mass Extinction

A scientific alternative to the Michael Bay perspective.

Ted Radio Hour: How Does Beauty Feel

We’re guessing it feels good, but it’s just a theory. Writer and product designer Richard Seymour has some more complicated - and insightful - thoughts on the matter.

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Seandor Szeles

Scientist Obituary: Dr. Dean Brooks, Real Life “Cuckoo’s Nest” Doctor

Posted by Seandor Szeles | 13 June 2013

Remember Dr. Spivey, the director of the mental hospital in the classic, Oscar-winning One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? That was no actor. That was Dr. Dean Brooks, the real life superintendent of Oregon State Hospital in Salem, who passed away on May 30th, 2013 at the age of 96.

Dr. Dean Brooks shoots a scene with “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” star Jack Nicholson.

Dr. Brooks was the only superintendent of a psychiatric hospital that would open its doors for the film’s director, Milos Forman. He even let Mr. Forman and one of the film’s screenwriters live in his hospital for weeks to gain an understanding of life in a mental institution.

Dr. Brooks is remembered as an innovator with an unusual approach, who let his patients wear their own clothes rather than hospital uniforms and took them on therapeutic trips into the wilderness.

Read more about Dr. Dean Brooks in his New York Times obituary.

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Mariana Cook

Faces of Science: Susan Lindquist

Posted by Mariana Cook | 12 June 2013

Mariana Cook’s book, “Faces of Science,” portrays 77 scientists who have made many of the most important discoveries of our time. Each photograph is accompanied by a personal essay written by the scientists. The portraits in this online series are accompanied by excerpts from those essays. For more information, please visit Mariana Cook’s website: www.cookstudio.com.

Susan Lindquist - Photos and Text ©Mariana Cook “Faces of Science”

My fifth-grade teacher walked in to the classroom one day and said, “Close your books. Today we’re going to try to answer the question ‘What is life?’” We started listing things on the board. Something is alive if it moves, eats food, uses oxygen. She said, “What about a car? Doesn’t it do those things? Is a car alive?” We spent maybe an hour on it. But I continued to think about that question as the years went by. And I continue to think it is the most compelling intellectual question there is. I’ve been asking that question—on a variety of different levels and from many different angles—throughout my career.

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Seandor Szeles

Secret Life Season 4: Let The Casting Countdown Begin

Posted by Seandor Szeles | 12 June 2013

This season, we at “Secret Life” have profiled 16 scientists who are shaping our world. Some fight deadly viruses. Others battle stereotypes, urging more women to get involved in STEM careers. One scientist happens to be a Hollywood actress. Another is a climbing prodigy and amputee who creates his own “smart” bionic limbs. Each scientist has provided a window into cutting edge topics like perceptual psychology and fashionable technology, while also tackling deeper issues like God and death, laughter and acceptance, and how to say “big blue backside” in Na’vi. We hope you’ve enjoyed learning about these characters and their work as much as we have enjoyed telling their stories.

Fill in the blank: who will be our next scientist profile?

We’re happy to announce that “Secret Life” has been renewed for a fourth season, giving us the opportunity to profile 16 more scientists with fascinating lives both inside and outside of the lab. To pull it off, we need your help. We’re looking for scientists who are pushing boundaries, changing the world and helping people to improve their lives. We want every fourth season profile to leave our viewers thinking that they can actually apply our scientists’ work in their everyday lives. We also want our “Secret Life” scientists to have really cool lives outside the lab - the crazier and less expected, the better. If you know a scientist who fits the bill, (or you happen to be such a scientist yourself), we want to hear from you. Leave us a note in the comment section below with a name and preferably a link, and we promise to take all of your suggestions into consideration.

There’s only one catch. The door is only open until June 26th. You’ve got two weeks to get back to us.

Let the casting countdown begin.

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Annie Murphy Paul

The Science of Smart: Eight Ways Of Looking At Intelligence

Posted by Annie Murphy Paul | 11 June 2013

In “Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird,” poet Wallace Stevens takes something familiar—an ordinary black bird—and by looking at it from many different perspectives, makes us think about it in new ways.

With apologies to Stevens, I’d like to present eight ways of looking at intelligence—eight perspectives provided by the science of learning. A few words, first, about that term: The science of learning is a relatively new discipline born of an agglomeration of fields: cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience. Its project is to apply the methods of science to human endeavors—teaching and learning—that have for centuries been mostly treated as an art. Different perspectives on intelligence may inspire us to rethink our learning process. As with anything to do with our idiosyncratic and unpredictable species, there is still a lot of art involved in teaching and learning. But the science of learning can offer some surprising and useful perspectives on how we educate young people and how we guide our own learning. And so: Eight Ways Of Looking At Intelligence.

The first way of looking at intelligence: Situations can make us smarter. The science of learning has demonstrated that we are powerfully shaped by the situations that we find ourselves in: situations that can either evoke or suppress our intelligence.

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