Summary: Drawing on documentary and archival footage, 3-D and 2-D animations, and high-tech imaging, this program investigates a variety of virological topics: the nature of pandemics as illustrated by the SARS outbreak in China; genetic sequencing of Spanish influenza from exhumed tissue of a century-old corpse; how animal viruses jump the species barrier; the dissection of live viruses in a biosafety...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: From SARS to the swine flu, viruses that threaten the developed world seem to be growing in ranks. Even as medical science rises to the challenge, our knowledge of viruses is filled with troubling gaps and bewildering realities. Starting on the virus front lines-the rainforests of central Africa-this program unlocks the truth about nature's greatest terror weapons. Viewers learn why HIV is such...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: In an escalating war between humans and microbes, catastrophic disease may have the edge. This program studies the ubiquitous threat posed by super viruses and describes scientific efforts to prepare for viral disease epidemics. Documenting the World Health Organization's response to the 2005 Angolan Marburg virus outbreak, the program examines strengths and weaknesses in the WHO...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This engaging program delves into the microscopic milieu that overlays life as human beings know it, illustrating the complex relationship between the microscopic and macroscopic worlds as the human host, with its billions of microbial allies and antagonists, journeys from the birth canal to the decomposition that follows death. Spectacular 3-D computer animation, case study footage, and expert...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: With millions dead of AIDS and millions more infected with HIV, Africa is in danger of becoming little more than a graveyard. In this program, ABC News anchor Ted Koppel and correspondent Dave Marash deliver three successive reports on the AIDS epidemic currently spinning out of control in Zimbabwe. Together they address the hardships of a society composed of mostly the very old and the very...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: When a crypt containing 200 extraordinarily preserved bodies was discovered in 1994 in the Hungarian town of Vac, it caught the interest of a scientist fighting tuberculosis on the other side of the globe. This program presents the fascinating story of Professor Mark Spigelman, an Australian surgeon turned archaeologist who is using ancient DNA to contend with the biggest bacterial killer in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Free radicals are an important weapon in the immune system, but they can also cause chemical reactions that lead to damage of fatty acids, DNA mutation, and protein destruction. This program examines how the most important radicals are created, and how they work. The relationship between chain reactions of radicals within the body and conditions such as arteriosclerosis is examined. How the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: What did the 2009 swine-origin H1N1 outbreak teach us about how to prepare for future pandemics? This program addresses the issue by traveling to viral hot spots around the world and interviewing high-ranking disease-prevention experts. Viewers learn about the basics of influenza microbiology, the factors that distinguish swine-origin H1N1 from a seasonal virus, its mechanisms for spreading,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: This ABC News program focuses on the good works being done by two remarkable AIDS crusaders who have taken the AIDS pandemic in Africa to heart: singer/songwriter Alicia Keyes and human rights maverick Stephen Lewis. Keyes' position as spokesperson for Keep a Child Alive, a nonprofit organization providing life-saving medicines directly to African children and families with HIV/AIDS, is...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: As a history of infection and contagion, this program tells a story of clever science and dumb luck, horror and hope. Filmed at locations worldwide, the video traces the battles fought against humanity's oldest foes: diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, syphilis, cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, polio, and perhaps the deadliest pandemic of all, AIDS. Health workers and epidemiologists on the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: If influenza were an animal, it would be a chameleon. This program sheds light on the constantly changing virus, exploring medical efforts to track its adaptations, improve flu treatments, and develop a reliable vaccine. Explaining the differences between influenza types A, B, and C, the video describes how the body's immune system reacts to an influenza attack, highlights the importance of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Smallpox has officially been eradicated worldwide—but the destruction of lab cultures in government-sponsored biowar facilities was never monitored. A blend of dramatization and documentary, this program considers the weaponization and deployment of smallpox—or, by extension, any lethal virus—from preexisting stockpiles and by laboratory manufacture from mail order genetic material and online...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Of the more than 400,000 Americans living with Crohn's disease, as many as 20 percent were diagnosed as children or teens. Several case studies of young female patients provide a forum for medical experts from the Mayo Clinic and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to share their knowledge of risk factors, symptoms, screening methods, complications, and treatment options, including anti-inflammatory...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Many people in Britain now fear hospitalization almost as much as injury or illness, due to a rising rate of hospital-related staph infections. This program examines the threat posed by MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and assesses the medical establishment's ability to fight it. Two divergent perspectives are featured: from doctors who perform every anti-MRSA procedure...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: New and lethal strains of TB are emerging worldwide which cannot be treated by conventional drugs. One estimate puts the number of new MDR TB cases per year as high as 400,000. After 40 years without any research into new drugs, the race is on to find a cure for MDR TB. This program travels between Peru and South Korea as it examines both the current impact of TB super strains in the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program discusses how the chemical alteration of oncogenes in human cells causes the growth of cancerous tumors. Toxic substances, radiation, viruses, and inherited genetic defects are examined as factors causing such alteration. The mechanisms by which the altered forms overrule normal cell regulation are illustrated through microscope views and computer animation. Specific information is...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: With the final investigative work of journalist Peter Jennings as its cornerstone, this program studies the frightening rise of AIDS among African-Americans-a trend that has been developing for several years, but which has gone largely unnoticed outside the black community. Jennings' contribution to the program is a candid group discussion he conducted with HIV-positive African-American men in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program contrasts pernicious and benign parasites through four case studies: a flesh-eating organism that nearly causes the facial disfigurement of a young woman; a mysterious malaria attack contracted by an American man who has never traveled to an at-risk locale; a vacationing child who returns home with a boil on her neck containing a very large Tumbu fly maggot; and a woman who...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: For decades, the medical establishment has focused on producing pharmaceutical weapons to fight cancer-but some scientists are disillusioned with that approach. This program looks at developments in late-20th-century cancer research, showing how environmental and dietary studies have become marginalized. Biostatistician John Bailar laments conventional wisdom, calling for more preventive...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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: This excellent brief on variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is set in the place where this horrifying illness first came to light: the U.K. Experts representing both the scientific community and the government debate the link between vCJD and bovine spongiform encephalopathy-mad cow disease-as they review the histories of BSE and vCJD, describe the prion hypothesis and the metal-balance mechanism...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Although it's the least menacing type of hepatitis, the virus strain known as HAV should not be underestimated. This program focuses on the causes and typical treatments for Hepatitis A and guides viewers through the different levels of danger that the virus poses to victims. Medical experts-including Dr. Harold Margolis, Former Chief of the CDC Hepatitis Branch, Dr. Jay Keystone of the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Despite the development of vaccines, polio still finds opportunities to thrive. This program outlines the history of humanity's battle with the virus-including its appearance in ancient Egypt and the 20th-century struggle against it championed by FDR. The video also highlights the present-day efforts of health organizations and charitable groups to globally eradicate the disease. Interviews...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program discusses the nature of the HIV virus and shows how it propagates by utilizing living cells. Its organization is examined, along with its most prominent genes-gag, pol, and env. Reverse transcription-the process by which the virus enters the DNA-is examined. Prevention of the reverse transcription process, along with the development of protease inhibitors and genetically engineered...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005