The Thread of Life
★ 6.3 · 1960 · 53m · Documentary
Introduction to DNA by Frank Baxter and Bell Labs.
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The Scientist, The Imposter and Stalin: How to Feed the People
2018 · ★ 7.3
The documentary tells two very different human fates in the 1920s Soviet Union. Nikolai Vavilov was a botanical genius, Trofim Lyssenko was an agronomist who made great promises and fake inventions. Each of them tried to solve the country's nutritional problem, but only one succeeded.
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The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey
2003 · ★ 7.2
Many geneticists and archaeologists have long surmised that human life began in Africa. Dr. Spencer Wells, one of a group of scientists studying the origin of human life, offers evidence and theories to support such a thesis in this PBS special. He claims that Africa was populated by only a few thousand people that some deserted their homeland in a conquest that has resulted in global domination.
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Life Before Birth
2005 · ★ 7.5
With cinematic storytelling, a moving musical score, computer animation, and 4D ultrasound images, this documentary accompanies a new human life from conception to birth, poetically describing developmental milestones and the human experience of living in a womb.
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Hunt for the Oldest DNA
2024 · ★ 6
Three million years ago, camels roamed through Greenland’s endless forests and our ancestors lived in the trees. It all came to an end with the Ice Ages. What died and what survived, as natural selection shaped the evolutionary tree during this epochal shift from hot to cold? Until now, scientists have known less about the natural world before the Ice Age than they did about the age of dinosaurs, which ended 64 million years ago. A new discovery is set to reveal this lost world, species by species. Led by Danish gene-hunter Eske Willerslev, a team of scientists for the first time in history is sequencing DNA from before the Ice Age. The picture that emerges is of a hot planet, when forests blanketed the Arctic and carbon levels matched those in our atmosphere today. Is this a portrait of our own climate future?
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Genesis 2.0
2018 · ★ 6.4
A well-preserved mammoth carcass is found in the remote New Siberian Islands in the Arctic Ocean, opening up the possibility of a world-changing “Jurassic Park” moment in genetics.
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Cracking the Code: Phil Sharp and the Biotech Revolution
2025 · ★ 7.5
The 1977 discovery of RNA splicing by Dr. Phillip A. Sharp, Kentucky farm boy turned Nobel-prize winning scientist, set the stage for a revolution in molecular biology, enabling research into a new class of medicines predicated on recombinant DNA techniques ranging from the development of synthetic insulin and human growth hormone to the COVID-19 vaccine.
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And Man Created the Cow
2016 · ★ 6.5
10,000 years ago, the European forests were inhabited by huge cattle with protruding horns: the aurochs. Then man began to domesticate them and created the cow. By crossing species, he adapted the animals over time so that they increasingly met his needs and desires. Industrial livestock farming was born. From then on, beef cattle and dairy cows such as the Holstein cow were bred. Milk production tripled within a few decades. Today, the cow of the future is produced by artificial insemination. By selecting a few breeding bulls that are considered to be top bulls, rapid genetic progress is ensured.
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Lieven Scheire: DNA
2019
Human genetics is one of the most exciting fields in science at the moment. Not only does it advance exponentially fast, it is also a field of study that will very soon affect our daily lives. We will all have to deal with the possibilities and technologies that human genetics have to offer, today and in the coming years. Quite a few questions and dilemmas still have to be answered by us. Do I want to know everything that can be found out from my DNA? And who is allowed to use and read my genetic code? My doctor? The police? The chef of my favourite restaurant? Also, what genetic technologies do I want to use? Do I want to clone my dog, choose my children’s eye colour, or genetically modify them to give them extra talents? Do I want others in society to be allowed to do that? The current and future possibilities of human genetics are simply overwhelming. They are both promising and frightening, chilling and delightful.
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2022
Documentary about living with an addict and grappling with the genetic propensity of becoming one.
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À la recherche de la jeunesse perdue
2022 · ★ 7
What if science could reverse the aging process? Follow the researchers as they decipher these mechanisms, with the promise of finding the elixir of youth so you can live longer, healthier lives!
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Cradle to Grave
2017 · ★ 9
Through our subject Adam, we reveal the incredible changes and forces that take all humankind from Cradle to Grave.
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Your Inner Fish
2014 · ★ 7.9
How did your body become the complicated, quirky, amazing machine it is today? Anatomist Neil Shubin uncovers the answers in this 3-part science series that looks at human evolution. Using fossils, embryos and genes, he reveals how our bodies are the legacy of ancient fish, reptiles and primates — the ancestors you never knew were in your family tree.
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