Summary: Why are girls entering puberty at progressively younger ages? Why are the rates of heart attack, cancer, and adult-onset diabetes rising? This program examines growing indications that food affects our genes-a concept vitally important to the science of epigenetics. Viewers encounter a wide range of experiments, case studies, and historical evidence, including Dutch birth records and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: One of the most important stories in genetics is the race to understand DNA. This intro-level program guides viewers through that story, focusing on the biological and chemical processes central to the transfer of genetic material. Beginning in the middle of the 19th century, the program describes how competing scientists in Europe and America zeroed in on the DNA molecule and determined its...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Mapping the human genome is one achievement in a long line of scientific milestones. This intro-level program explores discoveries in the 18th and 19th centuries that gave birth to the science of genetics. Focusing on the work of Carl Linnaeus, Gregor Mendel, and Josef Kolreuter, the program shows how the basic laws of inheritance were established, highlighting the importance of Linnaean...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Expanding on the subject of DNA, this intro-level program explores the central processes that govern the continuation of all life. Beginning with a discussion of Watson and Crick's pivotal 1953 paper describing the structure of DNA and its possible role in heredity, the program describes Crick's collaboration with Sydney Brenner in solving the DNA-to-protein puzzle and the role of RNA in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, genetics came into its own as a science. This intro-level program shows how the development of the microscope pushed genetic studies forward, and includes in-depth discussion of early cell theory, particularly the first observations of meiosis and mitosis. Exploring Thomas Morgan Hunt's findings involving Drosophila mutation, the program covers...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: One of Australia's most distinguished scientists, Dr. Alan Trounson administered early IVF fertility treatments and is now an internationally recognized leader in stem cell research. In this extended interview, he reflects on a range of research techniques and genetics issues-including gene expression and epigenetics; real-world applications for genetics and epigenetics; triggering...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: From hydras to humans, every organism on Earth can trace its ancestry back to the first primitive cell. Will biotechnology one day create a cell outside of that family tree? This program looks at 21st-century genetic science and its search for the secret of life's creation. Background information highlights the Oparin-Haldane Hypothesis and its vision of a prebiotic soup as well as Stanley...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Although the impact of genetic research on human life is an ever-changing and often theoretical prospect, our current knowledge of the human genome already has direct, real-world applications. This program looks at several ways in which genetic breakthroughs have improved health care technology and enriched the study of human physiology. Case studies focus on DNA screening and its benefits-for...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Due to ignorance, politics, and misused technologies, childbirth until very recently was often deadly to mother and child. This program presents a medical history of childbirth from ancient times to the present, contrasting methods and beliefs of the past with today's obstetrics. Along with commentary from obstetricians, medical historians, and evolutionary biologists, the program highlights...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: The search for a magic bullet against cancer and AIDS is leading to recombinant technology-to explain the nature of the disease problem, help the body's immune system destroy the invader, and accelerate recovery from treatment. As more diseases are being nearly wiped out, more disease-resistant bacteria and viruses are turning up. Vaccine developers are using genetically-engineered vaccines to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Genetic science holds the keys to life itself. How should this knowledge be used? Enhanced by outstanding 3-D computer animations and microscopic imaging, this engaging program featuring Dr. Cary Fowler, author of Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity, takes a balanced look at the biotechnological revolution. Among the numerous topics surveyed are genetic engineering,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: The prospects of benefits from biotechnology are daunting-an end to disease, and to malnutrition and starvation-but equally daunting are the destructive ends to which biotechnology can be turned. More and better vaccines. An end to cancer, AIDS, and heart attacks. Cleaning up toxic wastes. These are the up side of biotechnology. The downside is the creation of dangerous and irreversible...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: 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...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: With a 90 percent match between the mouse and human genomes, mice are helping researchers to better understand the human brain. In this NewsHour program, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen-founder of the Allen Institute for Brain Science-and the Institute's chief scientific officer talk about the Allen Brain Atlas, an interactive 3-D map of gene expression in the mouse brain. Together with...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the era of Big Pharma, why are researchers looking more and more to nature-and the human body itself-to provide tomorrow's medical cures? This program illustrates how scientists are growing and harvesting pharmaceuticals from common plants and farm animals, attempting to replicate organs, and transferring much-needed islet cells to patients with diabetes. The next big breakthrough in medical...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Shedding light on today's biotech revolution, this intro-level program examines the controversies surrounding genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, specifically in agriculture. The program explains the process of modification using crown gall disease and Agrobacterium tumefaciens as models to demonstrate how genetic engineering works in plants. Marker genes, DNA constructs, promoters,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Biogeneticists are engineering new yeasts and fungi as well as entirely new growing methods, and in the process are giving a new definition to the word "natural." If yeasts and fungi can turn decaying wood into sugar, why should humans not be able to grow ethanol cheaply and efficiently? This program follows the course of the research into the artificial culture of natural trees, as well as new...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Longevity may or may not come from one's family tree-but with the help of science, could it one day be "inserted" into our genes? This program looks at research in genetic modification that might help extend human life spans. Spotlighting recent DNA experiments on the C. elegans worm, the program also describes longevity studies in mice, mollusks, and fungi-all of which shed light on...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Mapping the human genome was only the first step in the process of decoding our DNA-and that process is far from over. This film follows the work of genetic researchers as they press forward, slowly but surely, in the task of interpreting and understanding life's greatest enigma. Highlighting the surprising finding that the human genome contains only about 32,000 genes (pre-map predictions were...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Researchers have found a genetic mutation that doubles the lifespan of roundworms; what may be even more important is that the elderly worms have as much vigor and reproductive potency as when they were younger, and are more resistant to age-related disease than are normally-aging worms. In this TEDTalk biochemist Cynthia Kenyon explains how the daf-2 mutation works to increase longevity in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the not-so-distant future, athletes and other physically active people won't use needles, pills, or stick-ons for extra strength and endurance-those traits will be cultivated genetically. But one person's athletic utopia is another's sci-fi nightmare, and the World Anti-Doping Agency is already raising the alarm. This program examines the controversy in the wider context of biomedical...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011