Summary: Nanotechnology will likely transform the security and surveillance industries in the near future. Governments, corporations, and even individuals may have highly sophisticated sensors and tracking apparatus at their disposal—keeping tabs on everyone from customers to potential terrorists to aging parents. In this Fred Friendly Seminar moderated by Peabody award-winning correspondent John...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: With nano-enabled drugs that destroy diseased cells and enable tissue repair, doctors may one day extend life expectancy far beyond our current capabilities—at least in countries wealthy enough to afford the technology. But the medicine that so radically redefines our standards of health and mortality will also profoundly challenge our social support systems and cultural values. In this Fred...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: The town of Sunnyville is thrilled with the jobs and development promised by a new factory, which will make efficient, inexpensive solar cells. However, nanomaterials used in the manufacturing process pose an unknown level of risk to city residents and the environment. In this Fred Friendly Seminar, Peabody award-winning correspondent John Hockenberry leads expert panelists through a series of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The ongoing bloodshed in the Democratic Republic of Congo is of such enormity that within the region it is sometimes referred to as the First African World War. In this ABC News program, Ted Koppel presents two successive stories about the struggle going on in Congo. First, he uses a wide-angle lens to capture a decade of crises: the Tutsi genocide in neighboring Rwanda, the resulting flood of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: In segment one of this program, ABC News anchor Ted Koppel and correspondent John Donvan investigate the endemic nature of corruption in Russia, where bribery is commonplace and paying protection money is considered a business expense. In segment two, Koppel and billionaire Boris Berezovsky, identified as the unseen force behind Vladimir Putin's rise to power, discuss Berezovsky's recent foray...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: In segment one of this program, ABC News anchor Ted Koppel reports on issues related to the new openness in Russia surrounding sexuality, including the growth of prostitution, resistance to contraception, and the spread of AIDS. In segment two, Koppel and correspondent John Donvan examine the ongoing controversy revolving around the political sellout of the independent Russian media. And in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: The Koran strictly forbids charging, earning, or incurring interest-a tenet that has kept the Islamic world from fully participating in global financial systems. But, thanks to a range of innovations, the ban is now seen as a building block in many of Asia's emerging economies. Visiting bustling commerce centers in Malaysia and Bangladesh, this program reports on the growing significance of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: How well do we understand the neurology of learning? Why does the brain's ability to learn diminish as we age? Can science find a way to extend brain "fitness," even for the very old? This program addresses those questions as it describes important medical experiments and studies. Topics include the central role of nerve cell connections in learning and cognitive development; cerebral...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Before detectives set foot on a crime scene, forensic scientists must first painstakingly glean every bit of evidence. In this program, Professor Margot of the Forensic Science Institute of Lausanne describes advances in criminal science. New technology has made it possible to capture footprints with Mylar and static electricity rather than plaster; to cause fingerprints on a shell casing to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Once a case goes to trial, evidence is put to its greatest test as it undergoes the scrutiny of cross-examination. In this program, Professors Leriche and Cassiman, genetics experts, examine the ability of lucomalakite green to obtain DNA samples from minute quantities of bodily fluids and discuss the RFLP and PCR tests used to analyze them. In addition, the value of serology-forerunner of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Are exercise and smart eating the best tools for staying youthful and attractive? Or is there a third ingredient in the fountain of youth-namely, clinical adjustments to the body's chemistry, perhaps with drugs derived from other creatures' hormones? This program examines the subject of hormone therapy and its link to longevity studies. Outlining the role hormones play in sexual attraction, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Based on recent statistics, 90 percent of the world's orphans live in sub-Saharan Africa; 40 percent of African children work seven days a week; and many support themselves by prostitution or are subjected to enslavement. This program highlights the work of the Terre des Hommes Oasis Center, in Benin, which rescues, rehabilitates, and returns exploited children to their families; the Jinja...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: In Africa, views on sex vary widely from conservative to liberal and from traditional to progressive. Topics covered in this program include gay rights, protected under the law only in post-apartheid South Africa; the practices of female genital excision and "dry sexual intercourse"-each described in detail-as they relate to severe female health issues and the violation of a woman's right to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: As Africa continues to modernize, the influence of the media in daily life is growing ever larger. This program examines the importance of the press, radio, the Internet, and TV via segments involving the Sowetan, a widely circulated South African newspaper that has its roots in the anti-apartheid struggle; KKC Kagadi, a rural community radio station in Uganda; Kenya-based Africa Online, an...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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: By refining and expanding on the work of the founders of criminology, today's forensic scientists link crime victims to perpetrators in ways that almost defy belief. In this program, Professor Matile of France's Museum of Natural History; Professor Evenot, expert in odontology; and noted anthropologist Professor Perrot discuss the ways in which microscopy, entomology, dental records, and facial...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Women form the backbone of sub-Saharan Africa and consistently exert some measure of control alongside men, whether it is as a local ruler, a witch, an activist, a wage earner, a laborer, or a caregiver. This program examines female, male, and mixed power structures, with a focus on the Bijagos Islands, where three queens and a king still rule autonomously even as the state government in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Even today, the majority of African women in both city and country still aspire to get a good husband and have many children. This program sheds light on the pros and cons of marriage customs in sub-Saharan Africa as it relates the story of an Ethiopian woman who fled her home in Harar as a teen to avoid an arranged marriage to an uncle; two happily wedded women of Mali who are wives in a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: In sub-Saharan Africa, water is the focus of daily life. This program seeks to understand its centrality by investigating the situation at Lake Ganvie, Benin, an "African Venice" where survival is threatened by environmental changes, improper sanitation, and water-related illnesses; a perceived correlation among Dogon elders between their people's shift away from the worship of Nommo and an...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: In sub-Saharan Africa, traditionally minded people view everything as being touched by the supernatural-including what might seem, to Western eyes, to be simply athletic or recreational activities. This program explains the deeper meaning of the donga, ritualized stick-fighting bouts of the Surma culture; sacred Senegalese wrestling, an ancient village tradition that has met with immense...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Mental images of storybook adventures and stereotyped people, on the one hand, and genocides and pandemics, on the other, make it practically impossible for Westerners to see Africa as it really is: a place with generational conflicts, cultural misunderstandings, and power struggles-just like anywhere else-plus the added dilemma of how to deal with the tension between tradition and modernity as...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Christianity, Islam, and a broad range of indigenous religions coexist side by side in Africa, in many cases blending into unique hybrids. This program-an inquiry into the nature of the continent's spiritual practices-spotlights the Reverend Pastor Benoit D. Agbaossi, supreme head of the Celestial Church of Christ, in Benin, and footage of an exorcism and The Ceremony of the Infertile Woman;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Taking a grassroots approach to dealing with the physical and societal ills plaguing their countries, individuals and small groups in sub-Saharan Africa are creating success amidst widespread civil and economic instability. This program illustrates five empowering instances of solidarity and self-help: the Yeredeme project, run by single mothers in Mali; the Janjigui So association, for Malian...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Historically, the arts in Africa were largely communal and unrecorded. But much has changed over the past century, and this program takes a look at art in sub-Saharan Africa as it exists today through profiles of Senegalese rap groups Alif and Wageble and the rap collective Fight and Forget, who use their music as a form of political activism; Senegalese sculptor Babacar Niang, whose workshop...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009