The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (founded by that howard hughes) has a small catalogue of educational DVDs, CD-Roms and print material that they will mail to any individual in North America absolutely free of charge - no shipping charges.

The catalogue is in the link below. You just have to register with the site and give them your mailing address. They do not ask for a credit card or any other information from you.

http://www.hhmi.org/catal...earch.y=14

There are no strings attached or chicanery of any sort at work - no requests for donations or offers of money sitting in a Nigerian bank account if you hand over your social security number. The materials are not advocating for any view other than empirical scientific research. I ordered three of the DVDs about two weeks ago, and they appeared in my mailbox Thursday with no invoice, just a letter from the institute's director of communication advising that the HHMI distributes these materials free of charge as part of its philanthropic mandate of of supporting science education.

The DVDs I ordered are:

Evolution - fossils, genes and mousetraps - a lecture by esteemed cell biologist & textbook author Ken Miller
Evolution - constant change and common threads - two discs containing four lectures, an interactive feature visualizing gene activity and a panel discussion with the lecturers and two theologians on reconciling evolution and religion.
The Meaning of Sex - Genes and Gender - four lectures exploring why genders & sex exist, & how chromosomes & genes determine gender.

I've only watched the Ken Miller lecture so far. He covered fairly basic material - not much that wouldn't be known to a person with a good base of knowledge in biology - but it was still interesting. The DVD menu & overall presentation aren't very flashy, but it's a professional, competent disc and the sound & picture are clear & crisp.

Now that I've received the three sets I've ordered & confirmed there were no hidden charges, I'm ordering the entire catalogue.

It's a free offer made seemingly with completely altruistic intent. I'm not sure if anyone will be as impressed by this as I am, but I thought it couldn't hurt bringing it to the attention of other folks.

[Edited 6/12/10 12:39pm]