Four lectures that describe how infectious agents are detected, how epidemics of infectious disease arise and bacterial disease, antibiotic resistance and the role of molecular biology in providing solutions.
Our civilization's addiction to oil puts it on a collision course with disaster. Compelling, intelligent, and highly disturbing, the film visits with the world's top experts and comes to a startling but logical conclusion our industrial society, built on cheap and readily available oil, must be completely re-imagined and overhauled. The world's oil supplies are peaking and the crisis of global shortage looms; we are running out of oil and we don't have a plan.
Frogs. Toads. Salamanders. Around the world, they're dying off at alarming rates under the triple threat of habitat loss, pollution and a deadly fungus called chytrid. Canadian researchers are racing to save numerous species and the secrets they hold. The Toronto Zoo is working to preserve a precious population of Panamanian golden frogs, survivors of a recent catastrophic fungus outbreak. In Langley, BC, rescue efforts are underway for the most endangered amphibian in Canada, the Oregon spotted frog. But these are not the only amphibians teetering on the edge of extinction. Scientists say we're witnessing what could be the largest mass extinction since the dinosaurs. Our only hope is a handful of initiatives trying to preserve the delicate balance of nature in captivity.
Former Vice President Al Gore explains the facts of global warming, presents arguments that the dangers of global warning have reached the level of crisis, and addresses the efforts of certain interests to discredit the anti-global warming cause. Between lecture segments, Gore discusses his personal commitment to the environment, sharing anecdotes from his experiences.
A factual account of the ill-fated Apollo 13 space mission to the moon. Replete with moving interviews with the astronauts, their families and the scientists who worked on the mission. Shows how the ground controllers who had to solve the impossible problem of how to get the men back with limited air, water and electricity. The explanations are technical, but still quite understandable.
Three years in the filming, this documentary was created by animal rights lawyer, Shannon Keith who owns Uncaged Films and ARME (Animal Rescue, Media & Education) and was produced in response to a perceived bias in the mainstream media against the animal rights movement. The film explores the history and current activities of the Animal Liberation Front, and associated illegal animal liberation activities. Includes interviews with animal rights activists discussing why they believe that breaking the law is the best way to challenge corporations that harm animals.
Journey back 15,000 years to trace humankind's incredible journey through time. Beginning with humanity's exodus from the Ice Age and chronicling milestones such as hunter-gatherer, farmer, builder, and city organizer. Reveals how humankind managed to survive and conquer the world. Explores the motivation of early humankind and its epic transformation to reveal the inspiring story of he invention of civilization.
A documentary from Blind Spot about the current oil and energy crisis. It explores the subject of Peak Oil and its implications for the future of civilization. Includes interviews with sociologist William R. Catton, evolutionary biologist Jason Bradford, environmental analyst Lester Brown, NASA's James Hansen, author Bill McKibben, and others.
Wars of the future will be fought over water, not oil, as the source of all life enters center stage on the global political arena. Corporate giants, private investors, and corrupt governments all vie for control of our dwindling fresh water supply. Is there enough water for everyone?
Filmed in Italy, India, Sweden, the United States and Canada, this bold documentary questions whether the sewer is actually compounding our waste problems.
Documentary film that exposes the poverty and misery of the people living on the shores on Lake Victoria in Tanzania who are dependent upon fishing the Nile perch from the lake for their meager earnings. The fish are exported by air to Europe to be sold cheaply and the planes that arrive to transport the fish at first seem to arrive empty, but turn out to carry weapons to Africa and fish away.
Dramatization ... of the diligent research, creative analysis, and perseverance of James Watson and Francis Crick that led to the discovery (structure of DNA). With the help of their colleague, Maurice Wilkins, they also earned the 1962 Nobel Prize.
"Evolution" offers a groundbreaking and definitive view of the extraordinary impact the evolutionary process has had on our understanding of the world around us. Beginning with Darwin's revolutionary theory, this seven-part series explores all facets of evolution--the changes that spawned the tree of life, the power of sex, how evolution continues to affect us every day, and the perceived conflict between science and religion.
Leading evolution educator Ken Miller discusses the controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution, presents compelling evidence for evolution and reasons why "intelligent design" is not scientific. The presentation features Dr. Miller's responses to questions from a live audience of high school students.
As communication and business cross national boundaries as never before, global politics are increasingly driven by global economics, and the power of free markets and new technologies are transforming people's lives the world over.
Investigates the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply from the perspective of politics, economics, pollution and environmental issues, human rights, public health, and the effects of corporate greed and apathetic governments. Features interviews with scientists and activists, who discuss the water crisis at both the global and human scale. Also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies to address the problem.
Interviews with Eric Schlosser, Michael Pollen, Gary Hirschberg, Joe Salatin. Lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing how our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profits ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Reveals surprising and often shocking trueths about what we eat, how it's produced and who we have become as a nation.
Garbage Warrior is a feature-length documentary film telling the epic story of maverick US architect Michael Reynolds and his fight to introduce radicallly sustainable housing. An extraordinary tale of triumph over bureaucracy, Garbage Warrior is above all an intimate portrait of an extraordinary individual and his dream of changing the world.
Mixes fast paced comedy with hard hitting facts to help make complex environmental issues both understandable and more engaging. Features Jon Cooksey, who is a guy worried about his daughter's future. He recounts his own wake up moment on the subject of climate change, and his subsequent discovery that global warming is part of a bigger problem: "global overshoot" - humans putting too much demand on our limited natural world. Provides a clever review of the five major problems that are connected to overshoot: overpopulation, the war on nature, income inequality, peak oil and finally global warming.
The film follows Sandra during one pivotal year as she travels across North America, working to break the silence about cancer and its environmental links. But Sandra is not the only one who is on a journey - the chemicals against which she is fighting are also on the move. We follow these invisible toxins as they migrate to some of the most beautiful places in North America. We see how these chemicals enter our bodies and how, once inside, scientists believe they may be working to cause cancer. At once Sandra's personal journey and her scientific exploration, Living Downstream is a powerful reminder of the intimate connection between the health of our bodies and the health of our air, land , and water.
Manufactured Landscapes is a feature documentary on the work of internationally renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. The film follows him as he travels through China photographing the evidence and effects of that country's massive industrial revolution. The Three Gorges Dam, factory floors a kilometre long and the breathtaking scale of Shanghai's urban renewal are subjects for his lens. Shot in Super-16mm film, the documentary extends the narratives of Burtynsky's photographs, meditating on the human impact on the planet without trying to reach simplistic judgements or reductive resolutions. In the process, it shifts our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it.
In the Antarctic, every March since the beginning of time, the quest begins to find the perfect mate and start a family. This courtship will begin with a long journey-- a journey that will take them hundreds of miles across the continent by foot, one by one in a single file. They will endure freezing temperatures, in brittle, icy winds and through deep, treacherous waters. They will risk starvation and attack by dangerous predators, under the harshest conditions on earth, all to find true love.
Colin Beavan is a New York City writer and self-proclaimed liberal. He has big plans for his new book. He decides on a grand experiment: to live one year with as little impact on the environment as possible. The problem is, the project requires his wife Michelle, an espresso-guzzling, Prada-worshipping business writer, and their young daughter to be fully on board. The family embarks on a year of no electricity, television, cars, toilet paper, elevators, or newspapers.
Stem cells are fundamental to biology. In the course of embryonic development, stem cells generate all the specialized cells that populate body tissues like muscle, the nervous system, and blood. In adults, reserves of stem cells repair and regenerate tissues damaged by disease and wounding. Because of the potential of stem cells to generate fresh, healthy cells, there is a huge interest in cultivating them to treat various diseases. This year's Holiday Lectures will explore exciting progress toward the goal of harnessing stem cells to treat diabetes, nerve damage, and heart disease.
Four lectures on genomic science and chemical genetics, with emphasis on how molecular biology, robotics, and advanced computation are combining to characterize a new generation of biomedical research.
Driven by a passion fed from a life-long fascination with sharks, filmmaker Rob Stewart debunks historical stereotypes and media depictions of sharks as bloodthirsty monsters and reveals the reality of sharks as pillars in the evolution of the seas.
Maya of the municipality of Sipakapa, San Marcos Dept., Guatemala protest the exploitation of their mineral resources and the environmental damage done by Glamis Gold, Ltd., and its subsidiary company Montana Exploradora de Guatemala, S.A. in the form of a large open-pit mine for the extraction of gold and silver.
Discusses why many scientists believe that the Earth's average temperature could rise by as much as six degrees Celsius by 2100. Explores what each rising degree could mean for the future of humanity and our planet. Illustrates how global warming has already affected the reefs of Australia, the ice fields of Greenland, and the Amazonian rain forest. Explains what's real, what's still controversial, and how existing technologies and remedies could help dial back the global thermometer.
On October 4, 1957, the space age dawned with the red hue of the Communist flag when the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite. Sputnik stunned the world and spurred the U.S. into massive spending on science education and innovation. But was Sputnik really a shock to America's leaders, and how close was the U.S. to getting into space first? In fact, fierce political and personal rivalries collided over how and when the U.S. should enter space. President Eisenhower wanted a satellite to spy on the Russians but feared their response to an overtly military program. That led him to sideline the plans of Wernher von Braun, charismatic leader of the U.S. Army's pioneering rocket team. Von Braun had tested all the technology required to launch a satellite over a year before Sputnik. Then came the shocking news of Sputnik and, soon after, the catastrophic failure of the first U.S. satellite built by von Braun's rivals. This double disaster paved the way for von Braun's meteoric rise, the founding of NASA, and ultimately, Apollo's triumphant journey to the moon. Drawing on fresh interviews and newly discovered sources, Sputnik declassified is a story of the rivalries and missteps in the first crucial chapter of the space race.
Is access to clean drinking water a basic human right, or a commodity that should be bought and sold like any other article of commerce? Stephanie Soechtig exams the big business of bottled water. Viewers get a behind-the-scenes look into the unregulated and unseen world of an industry that aims to privatize and sell back the one resource that ought never to become a commodity: our water. Here is a powerful portrait of the lives affected by the bottled water industry.
Explores the indelible footprint that humans have left on this planet, and the catastrophic effects of environmental neglect and abuse, and calls for restorative action through a reshaping of human activity.
"In an unspoiled corner of southern Belize, cacao farmer Eladio Pop manually works his plantation in the tradition of his Mayan ancestors: as a steward of the land. But as the Pop family struggles to preserve their values, the world around them suddenly and dramatically changes. A tender portrait of a culture being faced with an 'adapt or die' ultimatum by the world around them"
In a sleepy lagoon off the coast of Japan is a highly guarded secret. During the night, Taiji fishermen engage in an unseen hunt for thousands of dolphins. The work is so horrifying, the fishermen will stop at nothing to keep it hidden from the outside world. When a team of elite activists, filmmakers, and free-divers embark on a secret mission to penetrate their cover, the shocking discoveries they find there are just the tip of the iceberg. Includes commentary, deleted scenes, and more.
In this documentary, crop and animal farmers in Quebec, the Canadian West, the US Northeast and France offer solutions to the social and environmental scourges of factory farming. Driven by the forces of globalization, rampant agribusiness is harming the environment and threatening the survival of farms. In Europe as well as North America, a current of resistance bringing together farmers and consumers insists that it is possible--indeed imperative--to grow food differently.
Alan Alda takes a look at how humans first appeared on Earth millions of years ago, and how our species not only survived, but thrived, through some unimaginable conditions. Alda visits with dozens of scientists on three continents, and participates directly in many experiments - including the detailed examination of his own brain.
A visually spectacular documentary series that uses aerial and time-lapse videography, cinematic historical re-enactments, animation, an original musical score, and rare historical photographs and films to introduce you to The Land Between.
Why does sex exist, and what is its purpose and function? What decides whether an individual will be male of female? How are chromosomes, genes, and molecules involved in determining sex? In four lectures, two leading scientists in the field of sex-determination research answer these questions.
For three thousand years, we have struggled to answer the great questions: the what, the where, the how and the why of mankind and our planet ... An insightful and entertaining series, the Story of Science reveals how the political upheavals of history combine with iconic inventions and discoveries, along with the ideas of great thinkers, to create the advances that have transformed our lives
Filmed over 211 shoot days in nine countries and five continents over four years, This Changes Everything is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change. Inspired by Naomi Klein's international non-fiction bestseller This Changes Everything, the film presents seven powerful portraits of communities on the front lines, from Montana's Powder River Basin to the Alberta Tar Sands, from the coast of South India to Beijing and beyond. Interwoven with these stories of struggle is Klein's narration, connecting the carbon in the air with the economic system that put it there. Throughout the film, Klein builds to her most controversial and exciting idea: that we can seize the existential crisis of climate change to transform our failed economic system into something radically better. The extraordinary detail and richness of the cinematography in This Changes Everything provides an epic canvas for this exploration of the greatest challenge of our time. Unlike many films about the climate crisis, this is not a film that tries to scare the audience into action: it aims to empower. Provocative, compelling, and accessible to even the most climate-fatigued viewers, This Changes Everything will leave you refreshed and inspired, reflecting on the ties between us, the kind of lives we really want, and why the climate crisis is at the centre of it all. Will this film change everything? Absolutely not. But you could, by answering its call to action.
A public relations battle rages over the impact of oil sands production on the environment and the people living downstream. This is thanks in part to a steady campaign by the residents of Fort Chipewyan in northern Alberta. They believe oil sands toxins are destroying their territory and their culture, and they've attracted some powerful voices to their cause. Chief among them is Avatar director James Cameron. At the same time, new scientific research could trigger a tipping point in the PR battle.
Follows bird migrations flying over the seven continents: from one pole to the other, from the seas to snowcapped mountains, from the canopy of heaven to mangroves and swamps.