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Robert Langdon, Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconology, arrives at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend the unveiling of a discovery that "will change the face of science forever". The evening's host is his friend and former student, Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old tech magnate whose dazzling inventions and audacious predictions have made him a controversial figure around the world. This evening is to be no exception: he claims he...
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In this book Bill Bryson explores the most intriguing and consequential questions that science seeks to answer and attempts to understand everything that has transpired from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. To that end, Bill Bryson apprenticed himself to a host of the world's most profound scientific minds, living and dead. His challenge is to take subjects like geology, chemistry, paleontology, astronomy, and particle physics and see if...
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A dark mystery has been buried beneath the sands of the Sahara for eons. In a basement in New Mexico, four poker buddies find reason to believe that a startling secret is out there, and these four amateur adventurers are about to uncover it.
Curiosity propels mild-mannered professor Will and his three friends to the Sahara to excavate a site where radar has detected trilithic stones hidden beneath the sand. There they stumble upon an ancient
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When Arnold wishes he had more information for his family tree, Ms. Frizzle revs up the Magic School Bus and the class zooms back to prehistoric times. First stop: 3.5 billion years ago! There aren't any people around to ask for directions. Luckily Ms. Frizzle has a plan, and the class is right there to watch simple cells become sponges and then fish and dinosaurs, then mammals and early primates and, eventually, modern humans. It's the longest class...
9) Origins
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"Describes the search for the earliest human ancestors, from ancient apes to the australopiths"--Provided by publisher.
10) First humans
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"Describes the search for early branches of the human family tree, including the first true humans, members of the genus Homo"--Provided by publisher.
11) Modern humans
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"Describes the rise of modern humans, Homo sapiens, including the theories about our origins and how we spread throughout the world, with information based on the latest fossil and DNA studies"--Provided by publisher.
13) Missing Links
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Since Darwin's time, there's been a landslide of fossil evidence for evolution from all over the world. This video takes a look at how the discoveries of "missing links" are integrated into the constantly changing understanding of how life evolved. Missing links are evidence fossils that show how major groups of animals are related, like dinosaurs and birds, for example.
14) Human Origins
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Where on Earth do we all come from? Hear archeologists detail the fierce and long-standing debate concerning human origins in this video clip. One view is that all humans are descended from Homo sapiens that emerged from Africa about 50 thousand years ago, but thanks to new DNA techniques, scientists in England are putting the "Out of Africa" hypothesis to the test.
15) Water babies
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Did the ancestors of the human race go through a crucial semi-aquatic phase? This balanced program examines the latest evidence that water played a major role in human evolution and assesses how it stands up to the traditional Savanna Theory proposed by Darwin. Preeminent critics and adherents of the Aquatic Ape Theory discuss such key points as humans' unique diving reflex and voluntary breath control; the connection between brain development and...
16) Cousin bonobo
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This program launches an investigation into the identity of the bonobo, formerly known as the pygmy chimpanzee. To what extent is this remarkable African ape closer to humans than all the other animals on the planet? Scientists from around the world, including Yves Coppens, paleoanthropologist at the College de France, and Paula Cavalieri, philosopher and founder of the Great Ape Project, discuss their findings on the genetics, biology, intelligence,...
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The evolution of the brain is a story of adaptation, consciousness, and responsiveness that begins with single celled organisms and continues through the vertebrates. In this film, Terry Deacon, Anthropology Department, University of California, Berkeley compares the adaptive brains of humans, chimpanzees, and our many evolutionary ancestors. The film also features footage from "Journey of the Universe," which covers the idea that the earth and life...
18) Almost human: the astonishing tale of Homo naledi and the discovery that changed our human story
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"This first-person narrative about an archaeological discovery is rewriting the story of human evolution. A story of defiance and determination by a controversial scientist, this is Lee Berger's own take on finding Homo naledi, an all-new species on the human family tree and one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century. In 2013, Berger, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, caught wind of a cache of bones in a hard-to-reach underground...
19) Brains
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Drawing on research into social politics among chimpanzees, the cognitive development of children, and the ancient tools that have been found littered across the Rift Valley, in this program Dr. Alice Roberts explores how Homo sapiens developed such large brains - and asks why we are the only species of our kind left on the planet today. She also discusses how caring for large-brained offspring has shaped civilization, and the evolutionary adaptation...
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Anthropologists once emphasized "man the hunter" as the driving force in human evolution, but now they believe it's the gathering of vegetables by women that enabled our greatest leaps. In this program, Dr. Alice Roberts explains how our ancestors' search for food has driven the way we look and behave today, from the shape of our face to relationships and gender roles. Visiting hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, she also investigates what type of diet...