Welcome to the World Mind. We use the metaphor of the Earth as a giant unitary brain to explore new ways in which we can deeply experience and learn about other people and phenomena in our Universe as they are existing right this minute.

Our goal is to show that not only are we all part of a huge living 'Gaia', but that Internet technology can bring attention to exotic corners of the globe in a way that seems to shrink time and space, and allow each of us to feel intimately connected with the planet, just as if we were all part of one big Being. In so doing, we'll showcase both the connectedness and the stunning diversity that characterize our Globe.

Most of the thngs that have ever happened are still happening NOW. The Big Bang is still going on. Bacteria are dividing and growing as they have for billions of years. Lifestyles which appeared in and are associated with certain historical epochs are still going on today. We intend to show all this via live streaming video, using a chronological approach. As you work your way from top to bottom visiting webcams on this site, you are symbolically going forward through time, re-tracing the journey that the molecules which make up your body have already traversed. It's quite likely that you will encounter some event, process, living being, or lifestyle that you've never seen before.

At the top of the page you can sample some live evidence of the Big Bang, as it is happening now. Then you can find out what our Sun is doing right this minute. Then you can see bacteria growing. Then we'll move up the biological scale, to fish, mammals, primates, and then human beings. You will get a rare glimpse into the lives of people who rarely gain the attention of the industrialized world.

Then we'll visit peasants, monks, potters, and others whose occupations seem stuck in a time warp.

Then we'll come to people in the Developing World who are facing poverty, famine, and disease, and are bettering their lot through Fair Trade Artisanry, 'green' sustainable agriculture, microcredit enterprises, and literacy and technical education. We seek to allow them to be seen as distinct personalities, rather than merely 'victims'. When possible we link to their websites so they can share their culture and sell their products.

The webcams you see now are a fraction of the hundreds we eventually will show. We expect to add many more in coming months- especially Schools and Fair Trade enterprises.

We aim to educate, inspire, inform, and spur creativity. We'd also like to create AWE at the amazingly immense diversity of Nature and Human achievement. If you have suggestions or questions, write us at webmaster@worldmindnetwork.net

Unless directed otherwise, click on each photo for the webcam and site.

Welcome to the World Mind Network

The most fascinating people and phenomena in the universe.....via LIVE video!

Click on the image to hear the

actual sound of the Big Bang.

Click on the Sun to see what

it's doing right now.

See the monks of Clonard Monastery in Ireland

chanting and praying.

Click the bacteria to see live

Streptococcus cultures growing.

Watch traditional Raku pottery being

made in the ancient way, right now.

Track global

climate change

with this live view of an Antarctic

research station.

Coming soon-- the women of Hebron

make their traditional embroidery.

Watch children learn LIVE in

these 3 classrooms in Macedonia.

Fair Trade Artisans

These are craftspeople, usually in the developing world, who create hand-made products for export. It's hard to keep webcams online in many of these countries, due to inconsistent electricity and telephone service, war, and various political reasons. When the cameras are offline, clicking on the photo links to the site where the products can be bought.

Schools

Students can learn a lot by seeing what's going on in other classrooms around the world, right now.

Renewable Energy, Conservation, and Sustainable Agriculture

Malaria is a huge problem in the tropics, killing a million people a year in Africa alone. With this project, sponsored by Africa@home, you can help improve stochastic modelling of the clinical epidemiology and natural history of Plasmodium Falciparum Malaria.

Now you can help build more accurate models of global climate change. In the largest experiment of its kind ever attempted, Oxford and other UK universities are employing the vast power of distributed computing to improve the approximations that have to be made in state-of-the-art climate models.

Help scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique in France address the inverse protein folding problem. By learning to predict protein structure and function, they can make great advances in understanding many pathologies.

Since 1999, the SETI program at the University of California at Berkeley (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has been using networks of personal computers to monitor thousands of radio frequencies in an attempt to see if anyone else is out there. You can help by lending them your excess computer power.

Professors Thomas Hilbig and Christian Schrader of the University of Applied Sciences at Bielefeld, Germany, are investigating the properties of nano-magnetic molecules which will eventually be used for local tumor treatment and to develop tiny memory-modules.

These Bolivian farmers, with the help of The Hunger Project and the World Health Organization, are learning to grow crops in an ecologically balanced way, while preserving topsoils, saving water, and preventing chemical contamination.

Einstein at home is a program which enlists the aid of home computers to analyze data from the LIGO and GEO gravitational wave detectors to look for spinning neutron stars (pulsars).

This Dutch home is a world leader in using home automation technology to track and minimize energy and water usage, reduce costs, and improve security.

You can watch this Finnish wind farm in operation 24 hours a day, and also calculate its changing power output.

Monitor the live video of honeybees entering and leaving this Belgian hive.

Note what characteristics you share with fellow Primates as you watch these gorillas in the Barcelona zoo.

Do you want to help solve some of Earth's most interesting scientific problems? There are many ways interested amateurs can help with legitimate scientific research. You can lend your time, your skill, or even your computer's excess CPU capacity to link to networks which help scientists addressing real-world problems right now. Here are some worthy projects that need your help.

See what the Engineer sees with this live video streaming from a Swiss train.

When this webcam is online, you will virtually 'ride along' with an Indian taxi powered by a radical new compressed air engine, which delivers power and performance comparable to a gasoline powered car, but whose exhaust is just cold air.

These Pandas at the San Diego Zoo spend almost all their time in the trees.

At Joetsu Aquarium in Japan, you can see live Sting-rays and other salt water fish.

The James Reserve of the University of California is an ecological observatory which is in the forefront of Embedded Network Sensing of natural phenomena. They also have a lot of webcams..

Live view of the Aurora Borealis

Aso volcano in Japan (with sound)

Live 24 hour view of the Pyramids

Hungarian Secondary School

Three classrooms in a Japanese kindergarten

The women of the Godavari Delta Cooperative in India are famous for their hand-made lace products.

International Buddhist Academy in Kathmandu, Nepal

This microcredit enterprise in Bangla Desh makes traditional shawls, beadwork, and handbags.

These children in Rwanda are orphans of AIDS and genocide. They use recycled scraps to make handmade greeting cards for export.

One webcam shows this long-haul trucker's face, the other shows what he sees on the road.

Mobile Loaves and Fishes is a program started in Austin, Texas to help the poor and homeless. This webcam takes you on the driver's rounds as he helps clients find food, shelter, and medical care.

Hear LIVE audio from the International Space Station.

NASA in conjunction with the Erma Ora Byrd Center for Educational Technologies has created the I.S.S. Challenge, which allows students to conduct research paralleling experiments performed on the Space Station. These include farming in space, propulsion systems, plasma rockets, solar sails, and even creating a full-scale layout of the Station.

Watch and listen to BRFM in Kent England, live 24 hours

Watch experts make unique arrangements in this Swiss Florist's shop.

Live view of the operating room in this Polish Veterinary hospital

Justin has a forward-pointing head-mounted webcam with him all day. Thus you see and hear exactly what he does. His friends and colleagues use more traditional camera angles.

The HappyWash laundromat in Strasbourg, France

If you watch long enough you'll see a ceremony in this Scottish wedding chapel; otherwise you'll see the empty church.

This is a live view of the Kotel, or Wailing Wall, in Jerusalem, the last remnant of Solomon's great temple.

Visit this popular hair salon in Japan

Contact us at webmaster@worldmindnetwork.net

The Oxford Internet Institute provides webcasts of prominent speakers, events, and conferences

The Stanford Humanities Center provides an audio/video archive of distinguished lectures.

You won't see famous alums William and Henry James, but Harvard@home takes you inside Harvard classrooms to hear real-life professors and multimedia presentations.

75 university courses you can download for free on your iphone or ipod, from places like Berkeley, MIT, and Johns Hopkins

Open Source Science is a public space for managing controversial scientific experiments in a way that provides open access to all phases of the research. You can assist with their review of experiments concerning canine cognition.

Biologist Rupert Sheldrake is most famous for his theory of Morphic Resonance.

You can participate in ongoing efforts to test its implications, including the Staring

Experiment, by visiting his website.

Oxford astrophysicists need your help in classifying galaxies. The Galaxy Zoo program allows you, after a short online training, to classify newly seen galaxies as either spiral or elliptical, and to determine their direction of rotation. It turns out that the human brain is better at this type of pattern recognition than any computer. Since the photos you will examine, from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, are taken by a robotically controlled camera, the probability is that the galaxies you are seeing have never been viewed before by anyone. You will be contributing to research that can help reveal whether existing models of the Universe need correction.