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Summary: Long ago, the oceans were home to all living things. Then some creatures moved ashore. But how? This program outlines the stages of natural selection that enabled water-dwelling animals and plants to survive, and then thrive, on land. Key evolutionary innovations such as exoskeletons and endoskeletons, legs and feet, cold blood and warm blood, lungs, hard-shelled eggs, fur, and live young are...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: Underpinning the plant and animal kingdoms is a group of organisms so basic-and alien-as to require three separate kingdoms of its own. This program explores the realms of Monera, Protista, and Fungi, spotlighting representative classes and species along the way. Topics covered include structure, habitat, means of obtaining energy and nutrients, reproduction, movement, behavior, life cycle, and...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

Summary: Marking the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species, this program shows how Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution and explores its ramifications in today's scientific community. Renowned natural history interpreter David Attenborough travels the globe, examining fresh evidence for Darwinian thought and illustrating why it is more relevant than ever. Viewers...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: When On the Origin of Species appeared in 1859, it quickly took hold in the popular imagination-but it also glossed over significant and rather disturbing questions. This program explores Darwin's ideas on human evolution, which he developed and made public toward the end of his life. Science interpreter Jim Doherty reveals how Darwin searched for parallels between humans and animals through a...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

View online at AVOD

Summary: From the sponge to the giraffe, from mosses to redwoods, this program examines the similarities and differences between the denizens of the animal and plant kingdoms. Distinctive characteristics of plants and animals, including physical structure, methods of reproduction, and life cycle, as well as where they find their food and how they interact with other organisms are discussed. Vivid images...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

Summary: This collection of NewsHour segments examines developments in zoology and agriculture that are challenging scientists, business leaders, and government officials alike. With commentary from Lori Williams of the National Invasive Species Council, the program studies a disturbing increase in nonnative and often harmful insect populations on American soil. North Carolina's sprawling hog farms and...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007

View online at AVOD

Summary: Nearly everything we know of dinosaurs comes from bones and teeth-usually the only body parts durable enough to fossilize. This program highlights the scientific rewards resulting from a 1999 discovery of a virtually intact dinosaur mummy. Viewers will learn about the conditions that preserved the 67-million-year-old hadrosaur specimen as well as exciting details of what the creature looked...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010

View online at AVOD

Summary: Is the key theory about how we evolved from apes based on mistaken evidence? Since 1974, the 3.2-million-year-old fossil dubbed "Lucy" has been considered humankind's prime ancestor. Now, a fossil recently unearthed in Kenya by distinguished paleontologist Dr. Meave Leakey is rewriting the theories. This program examines the implications of Flat-Faced Man, a bipedal hominid just as old as Lucy...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

Summary: This program provides arguments in favor of continental drift and the one-time existence of a supercontinent, shows how isolation can give rise to different species and how species develop in response to their environments, and explains clines and suggests the reason for their existence. After viewing the program, students should understand the significance of the continental drift theory, the...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

Summary: 160 million years ago, a massive lava flow in China's Junggar Basin resulted in an eerily preserved "community" akin to the ruins of Pompeii-in this case, not a scene of human domesticity but a spectacular dinosaur graveyard. This program explores the site and evokes one of the most exciting questions in paleontology: how and why did dinosaurs become gigantic? Viewers are shown specimens from...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010

View online at AVOD

Summary: The oceans are life's laboratory, the global test tube where trial and error meet cause and effect. By focusing on pivotal animals-ammonites, flatworms, sea squirts, frog fish, and bottlenose dolphins, to name only five-and anatomical adaptations such as the eye, the brain, the backbone, and fins, this program illustrates how life populated the seas. Evidence of humankind's evolutionary past is...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: Renowned paleontologist Jack Horner has spent his career trying to reconstruct a dinosaur. He's found fossils with extraordinarily well-preserved blood vessels and soft tissue, but never intact DNA. Trying a new approach, Horner has now been taking living descendants of the dinosaur - chickens - and genetically engineering them to reactivate ancestral traits. In this TEDTalk, Horner discusses...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011

View online at AVOD

Summary: 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...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: This episode of the award-winning PBS series NOVA explores an intriguing question: how did warm-blooded dinosaurs survive and even thrive in frigid polar regions? A field expedition seeks the answer at Alaska’s North Slope, tunneling into the permafrost to excavate dinosaur fossils. This documentary shows reconstructions and animations of the fossils and discusses the many questions raised by...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008

View online at AVOD

Summary: All other life forms except humans exist to propagate themselves and pass on their genes; humans alone work to other ends. In this lecture, Richard Dawkins distinguishes between the result of eons of natural selection which has resulted in, say, a bird's tail, whose purpose is to enable the bird to fly-purpose with a survival value-and deliberate design, like an airplane's tail. Dawkins shows...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010

View online at AVOD

Summary: When paleontologist Per Ahlberg discovered a strange fossil overlooked for decades at a museum in Latvia, he knew he was onto something. In this astounding program, Ahlberg and Jenny Clack, of the Cambridge University Museum of Zoology; Ted Daeschler, of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences; and Keith Thomson, of the Oxford University Museum, reexamine the evolution of the first...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

Summary: Across the world, plants and animals are silently finding their way into places where they don't belong. These interlopers, upon which scientists frequently bestow the term invasive species, have been known to display fearsome powers-including uncanny abilities to spread disease, damage soil, even devour buildings. This program examines the dangers posed by invasive species and the roles they...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010

View online at AVOD

Summary: This Science Screen Report explains how biologists help endangered species. It highlights captive breeding techniques that have strengthened populations of Malayan tapirs and southern white rhinos; it also examines the artificial insemination of giant pandas and the teaching of survival skills to orphaned orangutans. Emphasizing that humans can learn and benefit from these experiences-for...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: By turns charming, alarming, and poignant, this program questions the accuracy of the human evolution theory. Chimpanzees show signs of sophisticated language, advanced social behavior, and other traits thought reserved only for humans-even empathy. No one knows this better than the legendary Jane Goodall: her pride and joy, Frodo, grew up in front of film cameras in Gombe in Tanzania for over...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: This program examines how genetic studies are being used divisively by blacks and whites to prove racial superiority. A sociologist uses poor black IQ test performances as a basis for recommending welfare cuts. Controversial New York University professor Leonard Jeffries discusses melanin, the pigment responsible for black skin, as stimulating intellectual and artistic abilities in blacks....

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: This program shows the structure and replicating processes of DNA and the effect of genetic mutation; demonstrates the Lederberg Experiment; and recapitulates the evidence provided by fossils and structural and biological homologies that the process of adaptation and the selection of adaptors rests on a wide range of genetic variability. After viewing the program, students should have a general...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

Summary: In this program, genetic teams in England and Finland study how defective genes can be altered to halt transmission of disease through the generations. In England, geneticist John Burn discovers a woman's lethal cancer gene, inherited from her father. She undergoes early treatment that saves her life. Thirty genetic diseases exist in Finland. Steve Jones traces a defective gene in one family,...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: This program seeks to understand how relationships between living things have promoted the diversity and splendor of life as it exists on Earth today. Predation, competition, and symbiosis are addressed through topics such as the anatomical arms race between predators and prey, the evolutionary benefits of sexual reproduction, and the impact of viruses on creatures ranging from rabbits to human...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: Are some people born evil? Steve Jones addresses this question by examining the genetic and social factors that contribute to crime and antisocial behavior. The work of Dutch geneticist Hans Brunner and his discovery of the "crime gene"-the genetic marker for violence-is examined, as lawyers seize upon the research to defend a murderer. Los Angeles geneticist David Comings, who runs a clinic...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

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