Saturday, June 14, 2014
* The Gabby Douglas Story (2014)
The story of the international gymnastics phenomenon who overcame overwhelming odds to become the first African American ever to be named Individual All-Around Champion in artistic gymnastics at the Olympic Games.
* The Numbers Game (2013)
Money. Sex. Marriage. Mortality. In each episode, data scientist Jake Porway tackles one of life’s most daunting topics revealing the surprising science behind them. From mind-bending stats, hilarious man on the street experiments, and interactive game play, this show delivers the answers to life’s mysteries and gives you the tools to help take charge of your destiny and change your life forever.
Season 2
Part 1: When Will You Die
Scientists now believe that your genetic makeup accounts for only about 25 percent of your potential life expectancy and that means 75 percent of the rest of your life is up to you! Host Jake Porway helps you figure out when you're going to die – or, at least, find out more about your life expectancy! See how the hand you're dealt at birth can affect how long you can live and what you can do to change your odds. Want to know how? You'll just have to play The Numbers Game to find out.
Part 2: Will You Make a Million
What would you do for a million dollars? Find out the stats that affect your odds for getting rich. Data scientist and host Jake Porway explores how you can grow your bank account through entertaining experiments, cutting edge facts and real-life scenarios. Think that failure, procrastination and napping will stop you from becoming a millionaire? Think again. We'll give you the numbers and clues to your odds of making a million.
Part 3: What Drives You Crazy
From your co-workers to grating sounds to the obnoxious guy texting in his car ahead of you, we all have our list of what drives us mad. The world around us may be crazy, but do we have to be? Fasten your seatbelts as host, and data scientist Jake Porway explores the science and numbers behind daily stresses, everyday annoyances and pet peeves that can drive us crazy. We'll help you see how to read the signs of whether you are losing it and give clues, news and the answers on how to deal.
Season 2
Part 1: When Will You Die
Scientists now believe that your genetic makeup accounts for only about 25 percent of your potential life expectancy and that means 75 percent of the rest of your life is up to you! Host Jake Porway helps you figure out when you're going to die – or, at least, find out more about your life expectancy! See how the hand you're dealt at birth can affect how long you can live and what you can do to change your odds. Want to know how? You'll just have to play The Numbers Game to find out.
Part 2: Will You Make a Million
What would you do for a million dollars? Find out the stats that affect your odds for getting rich. Data scientist and host Jake Porway explores how you can grow your bank account through entertaining experiments, cutting edge facts and real-life scenarios. Think that failure, procrastination and napping will stop you from becoming a millionaire? Think again. We'll give you the numbers and clues to your odds of making a million.
Part 3: What Drives You Crazy
From your co-workers to grating sounds to the obnoxious guy texting in his car ahead of you, we all have our list of what drives us mad. The world around us may be crazy, but do we have to be? Fasten your seatbelts as host, and data scientist Jake Porway explores the science and numbers behind daily stresses, everyday annoyances and pet peeves that can drive us crazy. We'll help you see how to read the signs of whether you are losing it and give clues, news and the answers on how to deal.
Friday, June 13, 2014
* Royal Institution Christmas Lectures - Size Matters (2010)
Material scientist Dr Mark Miodownik gives a series of lectures on how size influences everything in science and nature, including the shape of the universe.
Why Elephants Can't Dance
How can a hamster survive falling from the top of a skyscraper, ants carry over 100 times their own body weight and geckos climb across the ceiling? In the first of this year's Christmas lectures, material scientist and engineer Dr Mark Miodownik investigates why size matters in animal behaviour. He reveals how the science of materials - the stuff from which everything is made - can explain some of the most extraordinary and surprising feats in the animal kingdom.
Why Chocolate Melts and Jet Engines Don't
Dr Mark Miodownik zooms into the microscopic world beneath our fingertips, where strange forces dominate the world and common sense goes out of the window. He reveals how this world can make objects behave like magic and discovers the secrets of the extraordinary metals that make jet engines possible. Mark reveals why chocolate is one of the most sophisticated and highly engineered materials on the planet, using special crystals designed to melt in the mouth, and he looks forward to new era of self-healing materials.
Why Mountains are So Small
Why is the tallest building on earth less than half a mile high? Why don't we have mountains as tall as those on Mars? Dr Mark Miodownik investigates the world of the very big and very tall. He reveals that, at this scale, everything is governed by a battle with one of the strangest forces in the universe - gravity. With help from acrobats, levitation devices, spiders and sticky goo, Mark discovers how gravity can make solid rock behave like a liquid and investigates whether it might be possible to build a structure from Earth into space.
Why Elephants Can't Dance
How can a hamster survive falling from the top of a skyscraper, ants carry over 100 times their own body weight and geckos climb across the ceiling? In the first of this year's Christmas lectures, material scientist and engineer Dr Mark Miodownik investigates why size matters in animal behaviour. He reveals how the science of materials - the stuff from which everything is made - can explain some of the most extraordinary and surprising feats in the animal kingdom.
Why Chocolate Melts and Jet Engines Don't
Dr Mark Miodownik zooms into the microscopic world beneath our fingertips, where strange forces dominate the world and common sense goes out of the window. He reveals how this world can make objects behave like magic and discovers the secrets of the extraordinary metals that make jet engines possible. Mark reveals why chocolate is one of the most sophisticated and highly engineered materials on the planet, using special crystals designed to melt in the mouth, and he looks forward to new era of self-healing materials.
Why Mountains are So Small
Why is the tallest building on earth less than half a mile high? Why don't we have mountains as tall as those on Mars? Dr Mark Miodownik investigates the world of the very big and very tall. He reveals that, at this scale, everything is governed by a battle with one of the strangest forces in the universe - gravity. With help from acrobats, levitation devices, spiders and sticky goo, Mark discovers how gravity can make solid rock behave like a liquid and investigates whether it might be possible to build a structure from Earth into space.
* Faster Than the Speed of Light (2011)
In September 2011, an international group of scientists has made an astonishing claim - they have detected particles that seemed to travel faster than the speed of light. It was a claim that contradicted more than a hundred years of scientific orthodoxy. Suddenly there was talk of all kinds of bizarre concepts, from time travel to parallel universes. So what is going on? Has Einstein's famous theory of relativity finally met its match? Will we one day be able to travel into the past or even into another universe? In this film, Professor Marcus du Sautoy explores one of the most dramatic scientific announcements for a generation. In clear, simple language he tells the story of the science we thought we knew, how it is being challenged, and why it matters.
Come Worry With Us! (2013)
Violinist Jessica Moss and singer/guitarist Efrim Menuck are struggling to balance parenthood with making music in their internationally acclaimed Montreal-based band Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra. They are one of a growing number of bands to have accepted an infant (Efrim and Jessica's son, Ezra) into their touring life. Making a living has never been more difficult for musicians: a downloading generation has shattered the economics of the music industry, and constant touring has become synonymous with economic survival. Touring with children is both costly and complicated, yet Jessica and Efrim, and fellow band mates Sophie Trudeau, Thierry Amar and Dave Payant, are determined to combine family life and being on the road with the band's deep political commitment.
* Ape Man: The Story of Human Evolution (1994)
Based on interviews with leading scientists working all over the world, Ape Man explores the story of our evolution, and of the people who have devoted their lives to discovering the truth about our origins. There have been many species of human-like creatures in the past. Now, all but Homo sapiens are extinct. If we can understand the past, we may be able to understand why we are the way we are today. And perhaps we can find clues to our future.
The incredible story of human evolution comes to life through the latest breakthroughs, interviews with scientists and anthropologists, and computer simulations. Hosted by Walter Cronkite, and filmed on location in Africa, APE MAN is the definitive account of how humans evolved from primates to become the dominant species on earth. From the extinction of the dinosaurs to the invention of fire, from the development of language to the link between furry ancestors and modern man, this vivid journey tells a towering story.
Part 1: The Human Puzzle
Compared to other species, human beings have been on earth for a very short time. For millions of years, dinosaurs dominated. Then came an evolutionary upheaval-- the continents shifted, the climate changed, and the ape emerged. In Africa, our primal ancestors began to make huge biological leaps forward. But what mysterious phenomenon allowed humans to branch off from the ape?
Part 2: Giant Strides
Once humans learned to walk upright, they began to take giant developmental strides away from their animal relatives. They invented tools, which provided the edge in the search for food. The awesome power of fire came next, then the evolutionary grand prize-- the human brain.
Part 3: All in the Mind
As the human brain evolved, early man gained an incredible evolutionary advantage-- the power of language. It brought humans closer together and led to a higher form of creativity. Cave paintings, sculpture, and decorative tools sprung from man's hand. Today, the human mind still drives the species-- but is that enough to guarantee survival on the evolutionary tree?
Part 4: Science and Fiction
While evolutionists and creationists debate the origin of the species, an intense controversy rages within the scientific community itself. Why is science so obsessed with the purity of our origins? Can it affect the fate of our species? In a sobering look at our place in the natural order, leading evolutionists risk a glimpse into the future of the human being.
The incredible story of human evolution comes to life through the latest breakthroughs, interviews with scientists and anthropologists, and computer simulations. Hosted by Walter Cronkite, and filmed on location in Africa, APE MAN is the definitive account of how humans evolved from primates to become the dominant species on earth. From the extinction of the dinosaurs to the invention of fire, from the development of language to the link between furry ancestors and modern man, this vivid journey tells a towering story.
Part 1: The Human Puzzle
Compared to other species, human beings have been on earth for a very short time. For millions of years, dinosaurs dominated. Then came an evolutionary upheaval-- the continents shifted, the climate changed, and the ape emerged. In Africa, our primal ancestors began to make huge biological leaps forward. But what mysterious phenomenon allowed humans to branch off from the ape?
Part 2: Giant Strides
Once humans learned to walk upright, they began to take giant developmental strides away from their animal relatives. They invented tools, which provided the edge in the search for food. The awesome power of fire came next, then the evolutionary grand prize-- the human brain.
Part 3: All in the Mind
As the human brain evolved, early man gained an incredible evolutionary advantage-- the power of language. It brought humans closer together and led to a higher form of creativity. Cave paintings, sculpture, and decorative tools sprung from man's hand. Today, the human mind still drives the species-- but is that enough to guarantee survival on the evolutionary tree?
Part 4: Science and Fiction
While evolutionists and creationists debate the origin of the species, an intense controversy rages within the scientific community itself. Why is science so obsessed with the purity of our origins? Can it affect the fate of our species? In a sobering look at our place in the natural order, leading evolutionists risk a glimpse into the future of the human being.
* The Last Trapper (2004)
Globe-trotting filmmaker Nicolas Vanier profiles 50-year-old trapper Norman Winther, who lives in the Rocky Mountains with his Nahanni wife, Nebraska, and their beloved dogs, and who stands as a robust living testament to self-sufficiency. Norman and Nebraska live off the land: their house is made of wood from the forest trees, and by hunting and fishing, Norman is capable of providing more than enough food to feed himself, his wife, and their dogs. It's all part of the careful balance between man and nature that has become an intimate part of Norman's and Nebraska's lives.
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