Scientists have long puzzled over the different fates of identical twins: both have the same genes, yet only one may develop a serious disease like cancer or autism. What's going on? Does something else besides genes determine who we are? NOVA explores this startling possibility in this program.
Scientists have long puzzled over the different fates of identical twins: both have the same genes, yet only one may develop a serious disease like cancer or autism. What's going on? Does something else besides genes determine who we are? NOVA explores this startling possibility in this program.
2007-10-16
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In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.
Vincent is an all-too-human man who dares to defy a system obsessed with genetic perfection. He is an "In-Valid" who assumes the identity of a member of the genetic elite to pursue his goal of traveling into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation.
In 2019, Lincoln Six-Echo is a resident of a seemingly "Utopian" but contained facility. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully-controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to The Island — reportedly the last uncontaminated location on the planet. But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie.
The starship Enterprise and its crew is pulled back into action when old nemesis, Khan, steals a top secret device called Project Genesis.
A shipwrecked sailor stumbles upon a mysterious island and is shocked to discover that a brilliant scientist and his lab assistant have found a way to combine human and animal DNA—with horrific results.
In 1993, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence Project receives a transmission detailing an alien DNA structure, along with instructions on how to splice it with human DNA. The result is Sil, a sensual but deadly creature who can change from a beautiful woman to an armour-plated killing machine in the blink of an eye.
Jack Powell suffers from an affliction that makes him grow four times faster than normal, so the 10 year old boy looks like a 40 year old man. After years of being tutored at home, Jack convinces his overprotective parents to send him to public school. The children don't know what to make of Jack, but with the help of his fifth-grade teacher, he makes an effort to win them over.
World-famous geneticist Professor Hülsenbeck is a man of integrity who refuses to mix science and political gain. When his findings are being used to harm humanity, he immigrates to the USA in 1933 in protest against Nazi racial politics.
After a woman's at-home DNA test reveals multiple half-siblings, she discovers a shocking scheme involving donor sperm and a popular fertility doctor.
If we compare ourselves with our genetically closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, we have few physical advantages. We are far weaker, cannot move nearly as fast, and do not have the same climbing capabilities. Instead, humans excel in areas such as architecture, religion, science, language, writing, art, culture, and ideas. These achievements are due to our larger brain that contain billions of neurons. It was the rapid growth of our brain, originating about 2 million years ago, that allowed us to be the predominant species of the world. What caused this rapid growth of our cerebral cortex? Researchers worldwide have asked this question for many years, but now there finally seems to be an answer.
Thirty years ago, aliens arrive on Earth. Not to conquer or give aid, but to find refuge from their dying planet. Separated from humans in a South African area called District 9, the aliens are managed by Multi-National United, which is unconcerned with the aliens' welfare but will do anything to master their advanced technology. When a company field agent contracts a mysterious virus that begins to alter his DNA, there is only one place he can hide: District 9.
Many geneticists and archaeologists have long surmised that human life began in Africa. Dr. Spencer Wells, one of a group of scientists studying the origin of human life, offers evidence and theories to support such a thesis in this PBS special. He claims that Africa was populated by only a few thousand people that some deserted their homeland in a conquest that has resulted in global domination.
A ship-wrecked man floats ashore on an island in the Pacific Ocean. The island is inhabited by a scientist, Dr. Moreau, who in an experiment has turned beasts into human beings.
The documentary tells two very different human fates in the 1920s Soviet Union. Nikolai Vavilov was a botanical genius, Trofim Lyssenko was an agronomist who made great promises and fake inventions. Each of them tried to solve the country's nutritional problem, but only one succeeded.
Elsa and Clive, two young rebellious scientists, defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. Named "Dren", the creature rapidly develops from a deformed female infant into a beautiful but dangerous winged human-chimera, who forges a bond with both of her creators - only to have that bond turn deadly.
Earth teems with a staggering variety of animals, including 9,000 kinds of birds, 28,000 types of fish, and more than 350,000 species of beetles. What explains this explosion of living creatures—1.4 million different species discovered so far, with perhaps another 50 million to go? The source of life's endless forms was a profound mystery until Charles Darwin brought forth his revolutionary idea of natural selection. But Darwin's radical insights raised as many questions as they answered. What actually drives evolution and turns one species into another? To what degree do different animals rely on the same genetic toolkit? And how did we evolve?
A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from native American shamans, he explores these altered states of consciousness and finds that memory, time, and perhaps reality itself are states of mind.
A geneticist wakes up from an accident with only fragments of his memory intact and is forced to relearn who he is via his twin brother. But as he digs deeper, he discovers he might not be who he thought at all.