Playlist
In PICTURE A SCIENTIST, three leading women scientists overcome brutal harassment, institutional discrimination, and years of subtle slights to revolutionize the culture of science.
2020 Nobel Prize laureate Emmnauelle Charpentier discusses her hybrid identity, nomadic life and career, jumping off CRISPR-Cas9 to discuss broader elements around mobile elements and migration around the science.
Directed by Alexis Gambis / Cinematography by Yosuke Eddie Hosoi / Editing & Animation by Gergo Vargo / Music by Garreth Chan
LABOCINE ORIGINAL
Gustavo Londoño hunts birds' nests in the Manú National Park in Peru. He rigs them with cameras to identify what predators eat eggs and chicks. His research results suggest surprising challenges that some birds will face as the region warms further.
Director | Daniel Grossman
Editor | Simon Werdmuller von Elgg
Music | Cedric Conti
Daniel Grossman has been a print journalist and radio and web producer for 30 years. He has reported from all seven continents including from near both the south and north poles. He holds a Ph.D. in political science and a B.S. in physics, both from MIT. He was has been awarded a Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism and an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship. He is author of Deep Water: As Polar Ice Melts, Scientists Debate How High Our Oceans Will Rise, and coauthor of A Scientist's Guide to Talking with the Media: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The tragic 2013-2015 Ebola outbreak in west Africa shocked the world. In this episode of Think Like a Scientist, computational genetiicist Pardis Sabeti and disease ecologist Lina Moses bring us to the front line of the epidemic and explain the science behind how this event became the largest ebola outbreak in history. This film was produced by Day's Edge Productions for HHMI BioInteractive and Nautilus Magazine. Check out the full story here: autil.us/issue/41/selection/natural-selection-in-an-outbreak
Scientists Under The Microscope looks more closely at what is going on under the surface, allowing another element of the unseen to emerge.
Five of the most brilliant scientists of our time, gathered at the famous Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, take us on their search for a groundbreaking discovery. They face an enormous challenge. Because how do you go beyond the existing frontiers of human knowledge? By becoming part of their world, we experience that a scientific breakthrough is not merely a light bulb-moment. It is a demanding process with emotional setbacks, anxiety and insecurities. But it is also driven by boundless ambition, truthfulness and unimaginable perseverance.
Ten thousand years ago, corn didn't exist anywhere in the world, and until recently scientists argued vehemently about its origins. Today the crop is consumed voraciously by us, by our livestock, and as a major part of processed foods. So where did it come from? Popped Secret: The Mysterious Origin of Corn tells the story of the genetic changes involved in the transformation of a wild grass called teosinte into corn. Evidence from genetics supports archaeological findings pinpointing corn's origins to a very particular time and place in Mexico. Produced for Day's Edge Productions & Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Biointeractive
Three individuals live clockwork existences, dictated by a strict regime of medication and the challenging physical reality of living with Parkinson's. Meanwhile, a team of dedicated scientists in Galway are developing a new medical device, which could potentially halt or even cure the devastating disease. Woven together with observation and animation, the film invites us to witness the story of groundbreaking medical science taking place in Galway and the profound impact this will have on people with Parkinson's Disease both nationally and worldwide.
This project is part of the Science on Screen 2016 initiative, commissioned by the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research in Medical Devices (CÚRAM) and Science Foundation Ireland in association with Galway UNESCO City of Film and Galway Film Centre.
"It's like having thousands of pets!" Dish Life compares the task of raising stem cells in the lab to the challenge of looking after a gang of unruly kids. In conversation with real-life children, scientists show how tricky it is to work with these 'super cells'.
Dish Life is the result of a collaboration between filmmaker Chloe Thomas (director), and stem cell researcher Loriana Vitillo & sociologist Karen Jent (executive producers). The film was realised with funding from the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust and is part of the Life in Glass initiative.
Director / Writer | Chloe Thomas
Producers | Loriana Vitillo, Karen Jent
DoP | Gabi Norland
Sound | Bridget Bradshaw
Editor | Michael Johnson
Music | Jim Meacock
In the sixth film of this series, a response to the 200th anniversary Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, historian and philosopher of science Margaret Wertheim, neuroscientist and AI researcher Daniel Baer, and engineer and ethicist Branden Allenby reflect on our perpetually evolving definition of and ethical parameters around intelligence and artificiality. Animated by Joe Bichard and produced by Massive Science.
Episode 6 Words by
Daniel Bear, neuroscientist and AI researcher massivesci.com/people/daniel-bear/
Margaret Wertheim, science writer and curator margaretwertheim.com/
Braden Allenby, environmental ethicist and environmental attorney sustainability.asu.edu/person/braden-allenby/
Direction and Animation by Joe Bichard joebichard.com/
Sound + Music by Skillbard skillbard.com/
A Co-Production of Massive + Plympton massivesci.com/ + plympton.com/
Producer Harriet Bailey harriet-bailey.com/
Senior Producer Nadja Oertelt nadjaoertelt.com/
Executive Producers Ed Finn + Bob Beard edfinn.net/ + csi.asu.edu/people/bob-beard/
Produced for the Frankenstein Bicentennial Project at Arizona State University frankenstein.asu.edu/
In partnership with the MIT Press and the MIT Media Lab media.mit.edu/
Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation sloan.org/
Subscribe to Massive massivesci.com/newsletters/massive/
Amber is renowned for its beautiful preservation and arguably the most valuable scientific collection lives in the American Natural History Museum. Dr David Grimaldi and Paul Nascimbene share their passion for amber in this film, which looks at the millions of years old specimens inside as well as the need to preserve them for future generations.
A busy drop of water showing some of the stunning diversity of the microbial world. Here there are many different types of ciliates, bacteria, flagellates and microscopic animals, all coexisting in a few microliters of water.
Steve believes that everything is Science, and that lines drawn between disciplines are man-made. He studied biology and psychology at the University of Virginia before pursuing graduate studies in photojournalism at the University of the Arts London. Steve's film "Pyongyang Style" was broadcast around the world as undercover photojournalism of North Korea under Kim Jong-il, featuring a civilian hairdresser giving Steve a Pyongyang-style haircut.
Zephyr Penoyre is doing a PhD in astrophysics at Columbia University. He grew up in London and previously studied in Cambridge, neither of which you can see the night's sky from. Instead he became fascinated with crashing galaxies into each other but polite society dictated he keep such activities confined to simulations. When he's not building universes and exercising his god complex he's often found talking and writing about popular science, encouraging kids to think about higher education or at one of the other corners of the globe.
When a wide-eyed 10-year-old girl visits her fathers insect laboratory, she receives an unorthodox education in genetics.
Every summer Ashlee Rowe of Michigan State University spends a few weeks catching bark scorpions by the light of the moon. These stinging critters carry venom that is severely painful to humans but certain animals, like the grasshopper mouse, seem to have no reaction. Rowe's team is looking into why some animals feel no pain when stung and how this resistance can aid the development of treatments for pain in people. Part of the XX Files series on extraordinary science by extraordinary women from Science/AAAS.
For more visit: http://specialprojects.sciencemag.org/xxfiles/
In their new documentary, National Geographic Explorers Clare Fieseler and Gabby Salazar investigate the lives of women following careers in science despite intense cultural and social barriers.
1% Human is about coming to terms biologically and psychologically with what it means to be human. Filmmaker and subject Sasha Doppelt searches for solutions to her long-term depression in a human microbiome study. We learn about the bacteria that live on us, and impact our lives in huge ways. We witness a poignant yearning for straightforward answers and solutions to complicated conditions. The incomprehensible vastness of stars and galaxies mirror the incomprehensible complexity of the universe within, all spiraling together in hope and wonder.
Zhenan Bao and her team at Stanford University are one of many teams around the world harnessing Polymers to help us develop a near perfect replcation of human skin.
A team of mathematicians is working together on a big project. Excitement of discovery, hope and disappointment, competition and recognition are shown from an infinitely close distance. Scientists united by the idea of discretization, which, in short, means: constructing continuous objects from basic building blocks. Akin to the scientists' search for the right discretization of continuum, this film itself is composed of fragments - individual characters of different ages, temperaments and scientific approaches - which form a single continuous melody. The question of where the boundaries lie between mathematics and the lives of those who are involved in it and how much they are willing to sacrifice is as important as the search for precise scientific answers. A unique and unprecedented dive into the unknown world of mathematicians.
Symbiotic Earth explores the life and ideas of Lynn Margulis, a brilliant and radical scientist, whose unconventional theories challenged the male-dominated scientific community and are today fundamentally changing how we look at our selves, evolution, and the environment.
As a young scientist in the 1960s, Margulis was ridiculed when she first proposed that symbiosis was a key driver of evolution, but she persisted. Instead of the mechanistic view that life evolved through random genetic mutations and competition, she presented a symbiotic narrative in which bacteria joined together to create the complex cells that formed animals, plants and all other organisms — which together form a multi-dimensional living entity that covers the Earth. Humans are not the pinnacle of life with the right to exploit nature, but part of this complex cognitive system in which each of our actions has repercussions.
Filmmaker John Feldman traveled globally to meet Margulis' cutting-edge colleagues and continually asked: What happens when the truth changes? Symbiotic Earth examines the worldview that has led to climate change and extreme capitalism and offers a new approach to understanding life that encourages a sustainable and symbiotic lifestyle.
ONCE YOU KNOW is the intimate journey of director Emmanuel Cappellin across the abyss of a world at the edge of climate-induced collapse. His voyage into this uncharted territory is that of a whole generation turning to climate scientists, local democracy, grassroots initiatives, and mass rebellion in a courageous search for an exit.
Think this film matters? Please, consider supporting Once You Know's crowdfunding campaign. Only with your help will the film reach more people: https://chuffed.org/project/extinctionrebellion-onceyouknow
For all educational, institutional, and community screening licenses, please contact arlin@videoproject.com
Available only in the United States
In the city water pump there are 8 clams. The lives of millions of people depend on them. In case of contamination of water supply, the clams will close and automatically shut off the water for the city. The main scientist-malacologist watches over the system's operation.
The film is a philosophical essay on dependence people from nature and the world around them.
The experimental film explores the concept of the future of ageing, increasing life expectancy and life extension. Visually juxtaposing architecture and physical space against interviews with a diverse range of people; from biomedical scientists and evolutionary anthropologists, to the director's family and friends.
Commissioned by Channel 4 Random Acts, and produced with the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and Dazed & Confused.
A real life science fiction movie exploring a world creeping right beneath our feet, where time and space are magnified and intelligence redefined. The Creeping Garden is a feature length creative documentary exploring the work of fringe scientists, mycologists and artists, and their relationship with the extraordinary plasmodial slime mold. This is a unique exploration into a hitherto untapped subject matter, observing and immersing the audience into the worlds of the observers and the observed.
We all grow old eventually. But do we really have to? Could humans be immortal one day? Through the work of global leading scientists on three incredible kinds of animal that don't really age like we do, Lifespan reveals some of the surprising causes of human aging, and what we could do about it. This short documentary takes a personal approach, blending science interviews, laboratory footage and macro photography to get up close with hydras, fruit flies and naked mole rats.
Available only in the United States
This stunning otherworldly short film takes a deep dive into lichen, a species that confounds scientists to this day. Shot in macro 3D, Lichen offers us a look at this remarkable life form and asks what we might learn from it. Ancient and diverse, both an individual and a community, lichens can live in the most extreme environments, including outer space. This meditative film bridges science and philosophy, and the words of lichenologist Trevor Goward illuminate the terrain in poetic and thought-provoking ways.
How do we breathe? How do we smell?
Using supercomputer simulations, scientists can recreate a rapid and short inhalation, a 'sniff'.
Using pure data visualizations, this short documentary allows us to see the stunning beauty of this process.
Credits:
Directors: Guillermo Marin & Fernando Cucchietti
Narrator: Claudia Sanchiz Garin
Music: Benjamin Boysen
Mama Qota is a seventeen minute documentary interviewing Aymaran men (native Peruvians) in thier own language (subtitles in English). These community representatives (the women wouldn't speak on camera) illuminate our understanding of how this culture relates to the lakes in thier home land as an extension of thier own bodies, and as a spiritual source as well as ending ground. Marina Morikawa is a modern day environmental scientist who has been miraculously successful cleaning the pollution of these water bodies using natural methods. He is also interviewed, revealing a similar understanding of how we are mirrors of our Earth.
Every life form originated from the same cells billions of years ago. First there was one cell that formed colonies, which became group of colonies that evolved into all kinds of species like trees, insects, giraffes and humans. All is connected, moves together and reacts to each other. There is no individual; we are groups of groups that form groups. One cannot be seen without the acknowledgement and existence of the other.
As a filmmaker and scientist we have so many questions about what we come from, what it means to exist, how do we form a being and what becomes of us? All these questions will mean a lifelong quest and journey, but it all starts with the fact that we as humans are 99,99999999% the same, that everything on our planet has originated from the same singular cell. Which means there is no I, but only we and we are all connected.
For as long as humans lived around malus species, they've been eating apples. The apple tree has been domesticated, diversified - it has evolved in new ways via natural and artificial selection. But what is the perfect apple?
Evolution of crop species: genetics of domestication and diversification.
Imagine Science Film Festival 2014, 48hr Competition
Scientist: Rachel Mayer, Filmmaker: Maria Juranic
Prop: Time Piece
Line of Dialogue: "They said it would be ready at noon."
Character: Eleanor Drew, Principal Investigator
India's Sunderbans islands, on the rim of the Bay of Bengal, are threatened by sea level rise caused by global warming. Scientists say the rising water is causing a variety of impacts, including greater erosion—and thus loss of land—and changes in salinity. Among the unexpected impacts of these changes, Royal Bengal tigers appear to be changing their habitats; moving from uninhabited regions designated as a nature reserve to places where they encounter more people. Meet the Indian humanitarian Tushar Kanjilal, tiger expert Pranabes Sanyal and island dweller Anjuman Bibi. Bibi's house and 7 acres of farmland were carried away in a recent flood. Standing amidst the wreckage of her house, she says her family is now landless. By one estimate the Sunderbans islands will lose 15% of their area by 2020, about 40 square kilometers. Tushar Kanjilal says many people will become landless environmental refugees. He calls on the Indian government and other countries to help save these people. "The problem has not been created locally and it cant be addressed locally," says Kanjilal.
Allison Okamura and the CHARM lab at Stanford University focus on what the sense of touch can bring to robot-human interactions.
Learn more : http://specialprojects.sciencemag.org/xxfiles/