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The natural world tells unseen stories through sound. All are fascinating but also disturbing. This new science of soundscape ecology is tracking environmental change with small audio recorders and powerful computer processing. Catalyst discovers what we can learn from listening to nature. It's a perilous journey for the NASA spacecraft, Juno. Jupiter has the harshest radiation of any planet in the solar system and the strongest magnetic field. It...
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Nature or Nurture?" is a long-running debate in the social sciences, one heavily-influenced in the popular imagination by the idea "DNA is destiny" - the belief human behavior is broadly determined by a "good" or a "bad" roll of the genetic dice. While human genetics is an important part of our story, recent developments in the field of epigenetics suggest that the way our genes actually work can be critically shaped by the environment in which we...
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This film examines escalating threats to shark population including habitat destruction of reef ecosystems and over fishing that are causing Pacific reef shark populations to plummet. It examines the most brutal assault threatening shark abundance: that of finning sharks for shark fin soup. Compelling interviews with leading marine biologists and conservationists reveal these driving forces behind the drastic reduction of many shark populations.
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From the first agricultural settlements, to the industrial revolution, to agribusiness and widespread urbanization, humans have been transforming the environment for thousands of years. But now, with rain forests disappearing at an appalling rate, pollution on the rise, and the world's population reaching truly astronomical proportions, how will the Earth survive? In this program, Lester Brown, president of Worldwatch Institute; academic experts;...
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Changing climate probably played the decisive role in drawing hominids out of the trees, up on their hind legs, and off in search of food whose supply had been dispersed by the replacement of rainforests by grasslands. Migrations were motivated by the search for food; during ice ages, when sea levels dropped, new areas became accessible and populations spread. Links between climatic changes and emerging civilizations have also been postulated; the...
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This documentary tells the story of how Jim Brandenburg, one of the world's greatest nature photographers, immersed himself in a Zen-like exploration of his craft and the untamed landscape of the rugged Minnesota North Woods. A National Geographic cover story and book ensued.
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Aldabra is a World Heritage Site situated in the extreme south-west of the Seychelles archipelago. It represents one of the most pristine environments of the entire world and is the biggest raised atoll on Earth. This film documents the activities of the rangers and researchers involved in the conservation efforts of Aldabra's numerous species and its environment.
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In this fascinating program, experts on the cutting edge of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine present the astounding results of their research. Academic experts from MIT, Johns Hopkins Medical Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Duke University, and the University of Toronto-plus representatives of Osiris Therapeutics and Geron, leading industry pioneers-explain how new organs, arteries, ligaments, tendons, and skin are being grown...
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Fast-tracked by the FDA, GMOs-genetically modified organisms-have already deeply penetrated America's food supply. Are they safe? In this program, NewsHour correspondent Paul Solman looks at both sides of the GMO controversy. Agricultural law professor Neil Hamilton, a nutrition consultant, and an independent corn farmer counsel a conservative approach, while economist Dermot Hayes, of Iowa State University, reacts to the unfairness of anti-GMO rhetoric,...
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This ABC News program begins with an overview of the controversial new type of crop hybridization known as genetic modification, exploring why the technology has panicked European consumers and has left many American farmers with mixed feelings. Then, correspondent John Donvan moderates a vigorous discussion between Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman; Val Giddings, Vice President of Food and Agriculture at the Biotechnology Industry Organization;...
11) Extinction
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Combining in-depth studio discussion with exploratory films and on-the-spot reports, Dara O Briain's Science Club takes a single subject each week and examines it from unexpected angles. In the third episode, comedian Mark Steel learns how to deflect an incoming asteroid, neuroscientist Tali Sharot tastes beef grown in the lab, Alok Jha examines whether it makes sense to conserve pandas, and Dr. Helen Czerski reports on experiments to bring back species...
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The film addresses the impacts of the modern ski resort industry on mountain communities and environments. Including footage and interviews from dozens of ski areas, experts and concerned community members throughout North America, Resorting to Madness reveals the negative side of an otherwise glamorous sport and offers up suggestions to protect and maintain mountains and mountain communities.
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Beginning with Dolly, this program explores the successes of cloning animals and specialized cells, the use of cultured neurons to combat degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's, and the future of tissue engineering, as well as the ethical dilemmas attending the science of genetics. Researchers from Roslin Institute, including Ian Wilmut; Robert Winston, professor of fertility studies at the University of London; and biologist/author Colin Tudge...
14) Flood control
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The lowland basis around Los Angeles contains the most extensive water conservation and flood control system in the world. In 1917, work began on a system of dams and improved channels to control the floodwaters entering the basin. This program looks at the way this system was built and the problems entailed in its design and construction.
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The technology of cloning has raised a host of moral, ethical, and religious questions, and this program examines many of them. The "dangers" of cloning, from shrinking gene pools, to the development of a "super race," to fears that cloned DNA could introduce genetic flaws into the population, are examined. A theologian discusses how cloning changes our notion of soul. Harold Shapiro, chairman of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, comments...
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In the 1600s, New York City's Bronx River was a drinking water source and a sylvan haven for beaver, oysters, and herring. It became blighted as urbanization progressed, transforming into an industrial power source, an open sewer, and a garbage dump. Today, landscape ecologists are reconstructing the waterway's ecological history as a reference point for its restoration effort. In this science bulletin, conservation teams coax new life into the Bronx...
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Now that we know that genes from different species are interchangeable, biotechnology is beginning to engineer superanimals-and patenting them. Behold the geep, part goat, part sheep, engineered to take advantage of the best traits of each. What are the scientific goals? And the social controls? This program looks at how some women are selecting the genetic profiles of the children they choose to bear, and at the ethical and economic dilemmas intrinsic...
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Millions of fish died. People experienced memory loss, confusion, and respiratory, gastrointestinal, and skin problems. And the press had a field day. This program provides an in-depth retrospective on the Pfiesteria hysteria that engulfed much of the mid-Atlantic region in 1997. Interviews with a wide range of concerned parties-aquatic botanists, an ecologist, an epidemiologist, a neuropsychologist, a government official, journalists, local fishermen,...
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The five extinctions that have impacted the Earth over the past 400 million years-the Ordovician-Silurian, Late Devonian, Permian-Triassic, End Triassic, and Cretaceous-Tertiary-may be set to include another one on a massive scale. This alarming program assesses the extent to which Homo sapiens is provoking the planet's sixth extinction. According to scientists, wholesale destruction of habitats by humans contributes to the disappearance of 27,000...
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This episode of The Green Interview features author Farley Mowat. Through all his books, Mowat has celebrated the non-human world, and dissected the nobility and savagery he finds blended into human nature. Mowat struggles to resist despair as he contemplates the murderous conduct of human beings towards the natural world and each other. In this interview, Silver Donald Cameron concentrated on Mowat's masterpiece, Sea of Slaughter . Farley Mowat passed...