What forms might life take in the Solar System and beyond? In the Academy's newest original planetarium show, see how a deeper understanding of Earth might help us locate other living worlds, light years away.
They have no roots, no seeds, no flowers, but mosses show immense survival capacities and can suspend their biological activity for long periods. Today, researchers are exploring the exceptional resistance of these archaic organisms. British ecologists have even resurrected a "zombie" moss that has been trapped in the permafrost for 1,500 years. Associated with decay and disliked in Europe, mosses are deified in Japan. With 25,000 species worldwide, bryophytes - their scientific name - are the seat of real ecosystems, and can develop in inhospitable landscapes, through an extravagant reproduction cycle.
The search for planets beyond our solar system has brought an historic discovery: a planet slightly larger than Earth orbiting a star called Proxima Centauri. At just over 40 trillion kilometers from the Sun, Proxima Centauri is our closest stellar neighbor. Does its planet have a climate, or even life?
This 1971 color anti-drug use and abuse film was produced by Concept Films and directed by Brian Kellman for Encyclopedia Britannica. “Weed: The Story of Marijuana” combines time-lapse, montage, illustrations, animation (by Paul Fierlinger and emigre Pavel Vošický) and dramatized, documentary-style interviews to survey the evolving role of cannabis in U.S. society, with emphasis on the legal risks faced by young people. A unique score of experimental synthesizer music is provided by Tony Luisi on an EMS VCS 3 “Putney”
In this educational film, laboratory demonstrations show the effects of moisture and temperature on the growth of molds. Photomicrography reveals the structure of molds: hyphae, mycelium, spore balls, spores. Beginning with spores on a rice culture, time-lapse photography shows the formation of a new colony.
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.
Christo Roppolo claims to have been videotaping and communicating with UFOs around Monterey, California, for several years. He contacted filmmaker, Justin Gaar, in 2013 to begin creating a film about his sightings. Skeptical of the footage but intrigued by Christo's eccentricities and wild stories, Justin begins spending time with Christo hunting UFOs along California's beautiful central coast. When a crop circle appears in Monterey County and becomes international news, Christo is validated in his belief of alien contact and Justin, shocked, begins investigating the source of the crop circle and how Christo knows beyond a doubt that he's being contacted by his "brothers from space."
This documentary examines theories behind the creation of gamma ray bursts, destructive explosions in space that can wipe out entire star systems.
A short documentary about an engineer in a Chilean observatory.
A short documentary interviewing a renown astronomer and astrophysicist.
A short documentary interviewing an astronomer.
A short documentary of filmmaker Patricio Guzmán interviewing local astronomers.
At the edge of our solar system supposedly lies an immense planet. Five to ten times the size of the Earth. Several international teams of scientists have been competing in a frantic race to detect it, in uncharted territories, far beyond Neptune. The recent discovery of several dwarf planets, with intriguing trajectories, have put astronomers on the trail of this mysterious planet. Why is this enigmatic planet so difficult to detect? What would a ninth planet teach us about our corner of the universe? Could it help us unlock some of the mysteries of our solar system?
An illuminating look inside the lives of the Grucci family, whose Long Island-based fireworks business has been lighting up night skies around the world with spectacular displays since the 1800s.
At Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, "Anne Virkki: Near Earth Asteroids" tells the story of Research Scientist Anne Virkki and her ongoing studies on asteroids and their threat to humanity. Originally from Finland, Anne Virkki shares her educational experience and the study of radio signals of asteroids, their shape, size, and surface.
Through interspersed conversation and prose, this experimental documentary follows a poet and a neuroscientist as they explore the definition of love, what it means, and why it matters.
A documentary telling the remarkable human story of Stephen Hawking. For the first time, the personal archives and the testimonies of his closest family reveal both the scale of Hawking's triumphs and the real cost of his disability and success.
Infinitude is a meditation on the cosmic evolution of matter and energy over time. Experimental filmmaking techniques such as time-lapse, high-speed, and stop-motion photography were used to photograph handmade props, fluid dynamics, and angular momentum. Infinitude is a handmade representation of the exponential growth of complexity in the cosmos.
The biggest tech revolution of the 21st century isn’t digital, it’s biological. A breakthrough called CRISPR gives us unprecedented control over the basic building blocks of life. It opens the door to curing disease, reshaping the biosphere, and designing our own children. This documentary is a provocative exploration of CRISPR’s far-reaching implications, through the eyes of the scientists who discovered it, the families it’s affecting, and the genetic engineers who are testing its limits.