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Who Will We Be

   2015    Medicine
In ‘Who will we be?’ Dr. David Eagleman journeys into the future, and asks what’s next for the human brain, and for our species. We stand at a major turning point, one where we might take control of our own development. We face a future of uncharted possibilities in which our relationship with our own body, our relationship with the world, the very basic nature of who we are is set to be transformed. For thousands of generations, humans have lived the same life cycle over and over. We are born, we control a fragile body, we experience a limited reality, and we die. But science and technology are giving us tools to transcend that evolutionary story. Our brains don't have to remain as we have inherited them. We are capable of extending our reality, of inhabiting new bodies, and possibly shedding our physical forms altogether. And we are discovering the tools to shape our own destiny. Who we become is up to us.
Series: The Brain with David Eagleman

Earth 2100

   2009    Nature
Hosted by ABC journalist Bob Woodruff, this two-hour special explores what a worst-case future might look like if humans do not take action on current or impending problems that could threaten civilization. The problems addressed in the program include climate change, overpopulation, and misuse of energy resources. The events parallel the life of a fictitious storyteller, 'Lucy' as she describes how the events affect her life. The program included predictions of a dystopian Earth in the years 2030, 2050, 2085, and 2100 by scientists, historians, social anthropologists, and economists, including Jared Diamond, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Peter Gleick, James Howard Kunstler, Heidi Cullen, and Joseph Tainter. According to Executive Producer Michael Bicks, "this program was developed to show the worst-case scenario for human civilization. Again, we are not saying that these events will happen — rather, that if we fail to seriously address the complex problems of climate change, resource depletion and overpopulation, they are much more likely to happen.

The Last Empire

   2016    History
China's last empire, the Qing, lasted from 1644 to 1912. It began in violence and war as the Manchus swept down from the north, but invaders became emperors, with three generations of one family ruling the country. Among them, Michael Wood argues, was China's greatest emperor - Kangxi. Under the Qing, China doubled in size to include Xinjiang in the far west, as well as Mongolia and Tibet, creating the essential shape of China today. The new dynasty tolerated a diversity of cultures and religions, including Islam. In Kaifeng, Michael visits a women's mosque with a female imam, a delightful scene that ends with laughter and selfies! The Qing also undertook huge cultural enterprises. At a traditional printing house where the wood blocks are hand-carved, we see how the Complete Tang Poems were reproduced - all 48,000 of them. We travel through the wintry countryside to a remote village where a hardy audience watch open-air opera in the snow and visit a painter's studio, and 'storytelling' houses in Yangzhou. In the 18th century, China was arguably the greatest economy in the world, and we get a fabulous sense of the rich culture that came with prosperity. But then came the clash with the British, in the first Opium War, when a British expedition destroyed the Qing navy and extracted territory and trading rights. We leave with a glimpse of the future. 'Every dynasty has risen and declined,' says Michael, 'and has needed new life to regenerate, and this time the catalyst was the British.' Among the ports China ceded was an almost uninhabited island, Hong Kong, one of today's greatest financial centres, and Shanghai, a small town then but now one of the greatest cities in world.
Series: The Story of China

Life After People

   2008    Nature
Visit the ghostly villages surrounding Chernobyl (abandoned by humans after the 1986 nuclear disaster), travel to remote islands off the coast of Maine to search for abandoned towns that have vanished from view in only a few decades, then head beneath the streets of New York to see how subway tunnels may become watery canals. A visual journey, LIFE AFTER PEOPLE is a thought provoking adventure that combines movie-quality visual effects with insights from experts in the fields of engineering, botany, ecology, biology, geology, climatology, and archaeology to demonstrate how the very landscape of our planet will change in our absence.

Human

   2015    Culture
Filmmaker and artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand spent 3 years collecting real-life emotional stories from more than 2,000 women and men in 60 countries. Those emotions, those tears and smiles, those struggles and those laughs are the ones uniting us all. A combination of testimonies and exclusive aerial images, HUMAN is a unique documentary. This sensitive experience is an introspection into whom we are today as a community but also and most importantly as an individual. Through wars, inequalities, discriminations, HUMAN confronts us with the realities and the diversity of our human conditions. Beyond this darker side, testimonies show the empathy and the solidarities which we are capable of. All these contradictions are ours and HUMAN leads us to reflect about the future we wish to give to people and the planet today.

Upgrade

   2016    Technology
Technology is evolving from an external tool we wield when needed to an always-there presence that is with us, on us, even inside of us. As we become more and more wired, are we becoming digital devices ourselves? In this episode meet a Swedish mom who implanted an RFID chip as a lifestyle choice; a filmmaker who lost his eye in a gun accident and replaced it with a camera; and the so-called "world most connected man," who uses between 300-700 tracking and life logging systems to monitor every aspect of his life.
Series: Dark Net
Order and Disorder

Order and Disorder

2012  Science
Clash of the Gods

Clash of the Gods

2009  History
The Germanic Tribes

The Germanic Tribes

2007  History
Clarkson Farm

Clarkson Farm

2021  Nature
The Normans

The Normans

2010  History
The Art of Germany

The Art of Germany

2010  Art