Scientists have struggled for centuries to pinpoint the qualities that distinguish humans from the millions of other animal species with which we share the vast majority of our DNA. Now we explore those traits once thought to be uniquely human to discover their evolutionary roots.
Scientists have struggled for centuries to pinpoint the qualities that distinguish humans from the millions of other animal species with which we share the vast majority of our DNA. Now we explore those traits once thought to be uniquely human to discover their evolutionary roots.
2012-12-11
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The Human Condition is an experimental short looking at the beauty of the world and the ingenuity of the human race through the medium of time. This pieces purpose was to uplift and inspire.
A small group of cosmic explorers, including a woman, leaves Earth to start a new civilization. They do not realize that within themselves they carry the end of their own dream. They die one by one, while their children revert to a primitive native culture, creating new myths and a new god.
Computer animation and footage from NASA space missions explain how our solar system evolved and the place Earth has within the system.
For more than 50 years, we’ve been unsuccessfully searching for any evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. But, the discovery of thousands of exoplanets has meant the hope of finding them is higher than ever. If any messages could eventually be decoded and answered in any far, far away star, it could radically transform our consciousness as species and our place in the universe. A message from the stars changes life on Earth… forever.
Cormac McCarthy has spent the last 25 years writing his novels at the mountain top retreat of the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico. An institute dedicated to the formal analysis of complex systems. In this documentary filmed at the library at SFI (and in the desert), Cormac in conversation with his colleague David Krakauer, reflects on isolation, mathematics, character, and the nature of the unconscious
How did humanity's earliest ancestors evolve into one of the most successful species on Earth? An extraordinary journey tracing the footsteps of early hominids. Using the latest paleoanthropological findings mixed with the latest CGI from Square Enix, this story is finally told.
Astronaut Taylor crash lands on a distant planet ruled by apes who use a primitive race of humans for experimentation and sport. Soon Taylor finds himself among the hunted, his life in the hands of a benevolent chimpanzee scientist.
With the impending ice age almost upon them, a mismatched trio of prehistoric critters – Manny the woolly mammoth, Diego the saber-toothed tiger and Sid the giant sloth – find an orphaned infant and decide to return it to its human parents. Along the way, the unlikely allies become friends but, when enemies attack, their quest takes on far nobler aims.
Obsessive scientist Nathan and his lover, the naturalist Lila, discover Puff: a man born and raised in the wild. As Nathan trains the wild man in the civilized ways of the world, Lila fights to preserve the man’s natural state. In the power struggle that ensues, an unusual love triangle emerges.
One entry in a series of films produced to make science accessible to the masses—especially children—this film describes the sun in scientific but entertaining terms.
Before the internet. Before social media. Before breaking news. The victims of Thalidomide had to rely on something even more extraordinary to fight their corner: Investigative journalism. This is the story of how Harold Evans fought and won the battle of his and many other lives.
The recent discovery by the Kepler satellite of thousands of Earth-like planets where life could be possible, has given a big boost to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). In 2011, for the first time ever, Kepler provided us with a census of the Milky Way. We can now calculate how many stars in the Milky Way could have a planet like ours: around a billion.
The events and coincidences that led to rapid advances in human intelligence 50,000 years ago.
The realm of magic is being threatened by the realm of logic, so Carolinus, the green wizard decides to shield it for all time. Ommadon, the evil red wizard, stands in his way. Carolinus then calls for a quest that is to be led by a man named Peter Dickinson, who is the first man of both the realms of science and magic. It is Peter's job to defeat Ommadon.
Forest Mind is a video work that emerges from the artist’s longstanding interest in the human interaction with the natural world. Forest Mind tackles the underlying concepts that distinguish the Indigenous knowledge systems from that of modern science, gaging the limits of rationalism which has dominated Western thinking for the last 200 years. Located in the tropical forests of southern Colombia and told from a personal perspective, the narrative takes up diverse strands of research from the intelligence of plants to the importance of the territory as a sentient and cognitive entity. Drawing on scientific as well as shamanic perspectives of engaging with the world, the project takes an ecocentric worldview. (Video Data Bank)