Summary: This fascinating documentary offers a behind-the-scenes look at the secret and secretive world of forensic science. Visiting Scotland Yard's laboratories-reputedly the finest such laboratories in the world-the program shows how modern technology can turn a particle of sand or a piece of thread into a clue that leads to solving a crime.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: This program looks at the careers and manifold influence of The Los Angeles Science-Fiction League's most famous members: Forrest J. Ackerman, the mainspring of the group, who coined the term "Sci-Fi"; Ray Bradbury, renowned author of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451; and Ray Harryhausen, master of stop-motion animation. Extended interviews with all three men and the numerous...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: It has been written that "science fiction is the true literature of the 20th century, showing us the present through an image of the future. This documentary looks at classic films and novels, pulp fiction, B movies, and the special-effects wizardry of science fiction adventure epics. Interviews with key writers and filmmakers of the genre, such as Arthur C. Clarke and Paul Verhoeven, map out...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Unlike what's seen on TV crime shows, forensic science often requires weeks or months to produce results, and-although it's far from boring-it rarely involves confronting a suspect. This program debunks pop-culture stereotypes and illuminates the real-world chemistry, biology, and physics of criminology. Exploring three main forensic science disciplines-field work, lab analysis, and medical...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: What happens when a deadly crime takes place and law enforcement puts all of its scientific resources into action? Can forensic science really solve a murder? This program follows scientists through a dramatized investigation, from the discovery of the crime scene through various stages of evidence analysis to the presentation of findings in court. Instead of Hollywood hype, viewers are given a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Public controversy surrounding cloning and genetic modification increases with each new development in the field. Illustrating concepts at the heart of the debate, this program shows how biotechnology now drives large-scale agriculture through genetic engineering and sophisticated selective breeding. Outlining ways in which humans have indirectly modified plants and animals since the dawn of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Fingerprint analysis, crime scene photography, the fine art of grave digging-these are only a few of the highlights on the path to mastering forensic science. This program follows the progress of students in the respected Forensic Science department at the University of Central Lancashire. As part of the Forensic Anthropology course, a third-year student has to put himself in the mind-set of a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: From the physics of bullet trajectories to the grim details of human decay, forensic science is a challenging discipline for any student to enter. This program ushers viewers into the prestigious Forensic Science department at the University of Central Lancashire in Great Britain. Tests and coursework involve ballistics experiments used to solve a shotgun shooting case; an introduction to blood...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: In 1992, the market value of Microsoft-the tiny startup founded by Harvard dropout Bill Gates-exceeded the value of General Motors. Since then, Gates, the high-tech wunderkind, has amassed a huge personal fortune and become one of America's most influential and controversial corporate players. This program examines Gates's forceful management style against the backdrop of allegations that...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Ex-Monty Python member Terry Jones writes a weekly piece for the "Input" column of the Young Guardian, in which he argues a case for something he feels strongly about. Terry describes how he gets ideas and goes about the process of research and writing. Terry illustrates how he tries to find an unusual angle to writing an argument and compares different approaches.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Two intruders are surprised by a homeowner while committing a B&E-and when they stab him during the getaway, the heavy charge of aggravated burglary is what awaits them if they are identified. This program follows a team of forensic specialists from the crime scene to the laboratory and Scotland Yard as they locate, collect, and examine the evidence that places the perpetrators at the scene of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Photographs have the potential to present powerful truths-or to create convincing fictions. This program uses case studies involving Iwo Jima, Elian Gonzalez, and O. J. Simpson to show how images can be manipulated to influence the way viewers perceive events. The ethics of photography and the positive and negative impacts of digital technology, which is steadily eroding the border between...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: There's nothing boring about stopping a speeding bullet, especially when it's accomplished with liquid. How about designing robots based on insect anatomy.or using computers to figure out what George Washington really looked like? This video shows students the thrills and rewards of working in the physical sciences, demonstrating that becoming a chemist, physicist, or engineer involves fun,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: In this program, world-renowned author and professor Bryan Magee and Hilary Putnam of Harvard examine current philosophical thought that dismisses the primacy and infallibility of mathematical logic and the scientific method. Modern thinkers, such as Einstein, are credited with introducing interpretive logic into their scientific theories.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Jaci Stephen is the television reviewer of the Evening Standard. She moves through the world of television in numerous ways-at launches and previews, inside television companies, and sitting at home watching programs. She describes how she goes about writing, the problems posed by different genres, and the restrictions placed upon her writing by the nature of her audience-the readers of a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: In order for both science and spirituality to coexist in the world, must an individual necessarily place one above the other? Or, if treated as coequals, must the empirical and the intangible always be kept separate, never to intersect? In bringing together proponents of science and spirituality, this program proposes a third course: to encourage the overlapping of these contrasting worldviews...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: Two groups of instruments use strings as the primary source of sound: those in which plucking sets the strings in vibration, and the bowed strings. This program shows how the demand for more powerful sounds was met, and examines the instruments of Stradivari to determine what science can and cannot reveal about their magic. It also examines the ways in which scientific methods complement the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Rome was once the center of Christian persecution, but the martyrdom there of Paul and Peter began the unfolding of a historical epic that ended with the seat of empire becoming the spiritual capital of the Western Latin church. This program charts the development of Roman Catholicism, traveling to the ancient Port of Ostia, churches in Ravenna, and a remote Celtic monastery to show how...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: Mary Peplow and Debra Shipley write guidebooks. In this program, they describe different ways in which they accumulate information for their projects and how they select from their research, edit, and shape it. The program is based on their writing for London: The Good Tour Guide, and focuses in detail on the research, collection, and writing up of information for a tour around a Ford...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: How did a language originally spoken in just a small part of the British Isles come to dominate the communication of so many different countries? From its start as a diverse group of Anglo-Saxon dialects and all the way onward to adoption on a global scale, this program tracks the establishment of English as the world’s common tongue. English crossed the sea by means of settlement, trade, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: Due to a traditional preference for male offspring, rural China now suffers from a shortage of women - and, in turn, an increase in kidnapping and human trafficking. This documentary follows a determined Chinese investigator as he attempts to locate and free a young trafficking victim. In the process, viewers learn about the problem of human trafficking and its mechanisms, which feed brothels...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
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Summary: How important is the opening line of a book? Does a writer always have to know what is going to happen next? Where should the line be drawn between historic fact and historical fiction? And what are the particular challenges of writing a biography? Drawing on the expertise of Edvard Radzinsky, Fay Weldon, Anson Cameron, John Lanchester, Nicholas Shakespeare, and other respected authors, this...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: Whether they arise from human causes or forces within planet Earth itself, natural disasters threaten life and civilization with what seems to be growing frequency. This album of NewsHour segments studies troubling developments in marine, arctic, wetland, and urban environments—highlighting research opportunities that may help prevent future catastrophes. Coral reef decay, Everglades habitat...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: In today’s judicial system, guilt or innocence can often be proven by science. DNA is a witness that can send a criminal to the death chamber or exonerate an innocent man. However, this increasing reliance on science may not always make the system more just. This episode of Investigative Reports examines several cases of crime lab fraud in Chicago, where some forensic scientists have...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2002