Social & External
Five times, Earth has faced apocalyptic events that swept nearly all life from the face of the planet. What did these prehistoric creatures look like? What catastrophes caused their disappearance? And how did our distant ancestors survive and give rise to the world we know today?
On the same day that Stalin was buried, Sergei Prokofiev's funeral took place completely unnoticed. And if the farewell to the composer quietly went against the backdrop of the farewell to the dictator that swept the whole country, then in the play everything is the opposite - Prokofiev's music is in the center, and it is interrupted by the stories of those people who would probably ignore Stalin's funeral and went to say goodbye to the great composer.
Although a real awareness of the populations is underway - the multiplication of natural disasters and heat records helping - the human activities responsible for global warming remain unchanged, as if the threat was unreal. This collective immobility could have its origin in the brain. A number of cognitive biases impede judgment.
In Iasi, Romania, from June 28 to July 6, 1941, nearly 15 000 Jews were murdered in the course of a horrifying pogrom. At the time, the programmed extermination of European Jews had not yet began. After the war, the successive communist governments did all they could to ensure the Iasi pogrom would be forgotten. It was not until November of 2004 that Romania recognized for the first time its direct responsibility in the pogrom. All that remains of this massacre are about a hundred photographs taken as souvenirs by german and romanian soldiers, and a few remaining survivors.
You find fungi in Antarctica and in nuclear reactors. They live inside your lungs and your skin is covered with them. Fungi are the most under appreciated and unexplained organisms, yet they could cure you from smallpox and turn cardboard boxes into forests. They could even transform Mars into Eden. There are vastly more fungi species than plants and each and every one of them play a crucial role in life’s support systems. Join us on a journey into the mysterious world of Fungi to witness their beauty, unravel their mysteries and discover how this secret kingdom is essential to life on Earth, and may in fact hold the key to our future.
Thanks to new excavations in Mauritius and Madagascar, as well as archival and museum research in France, Spain, England and Canada, a group of international scholars paint a new portrait of the world of piracy in the Indian Ocean.
The Sacred City of Caral or Caral-Supe is the capital of the Norte Chico Civilization of Supe located in the Supe Valley, 200 km (124 miles) north of Lima. The Sacred City of Caral is the earliest known civilization in the Americas, it dates to the Late Archaic period. Radiocarbon analysis performed by the Caral-Supe Special Archaeological Project (PEACS) dates its development between 3000 to 1800 B.C.. It is believed that this civilization started by the merging of small villages based on trade of agricultural and fishing products. Its importance rests on the success of techniques of domestication of cotton, beans, potatoes, chilis, squash among other products. Success in agriculture was due to the development of water canals, reservoirs and terraces. They used guano, bird excrement, and anchovies as fertilizer.
In the first decades of the 20th century, when life was being transformed by scientific innovations, researchers made a thrilling new claim: they could tell whether someone was lying by using a machine. Popularly known as the “lie detector,” the device transformed police work, seized headlines and was extolled in movies, TV and comics as an infallible crime-fighting tool. Husbands and wives tested each other’s fidelity. Corporations routinely tested employees’ honesty and government workers were tested for loyalty and “morals.” But the promise of the polygraph turned dark, and the lie detector too often became an apparatus of fear and intimidation. Written and directed by Rob Rapley and executive produced by Cameo George, The Lie Detector is a tale of good intentions, twisted morals and unintended consequences.
As the muse of Hal Hartley’s indie classics and as writer/director of the critically acclaimed Waitress, Adrienne Shelly was a shining star in the indie film firmament. A devoted young mother, her life was right on track until her husband found her dead. Filmmaker Andy Ostroy has been fighting to discover the truth about his wife’s death ever since.
In northern Peru, the unprecedented archaeological discovery of the largest known mass child sacrifice in the world opens the doors to the kingdom of Chimor. This international archaeological investigation carried out like a criminal investigation reveals the mysteries of the last civilization of the Andes before the arrival of the Incas.
Banksy is a household name, but behind this name hides a multitude of stories, artworks, stunts, political statements and identities, leading to one of the art world's biggest unanswered questions- who is Banksy?
From the far north of Canada to the southern tip of Chile, through the southern United States, central Mexico and the Brazilian Mato Grosso, new concordant but still controversial archaeological discoveries have brought a new paradigm to the archaeology of American prehistory: the appearance of the first humans on the continent could date back to nearly 30,000 years before our era, that is to say, about 15,000 years earlier than the commonly accepted and taught thesis. Although there were a few mavericks in the past who disputed the scenario according to which the first ancestors of Americans arrived on foot through the Bering Strait 16,000 years ago, they were long kept out of the scientific community.
Our planet is running out of drinking water. Only a vanishingly small proportion of the world's water is available as usable fresh water. This precious resource is beginning to shrink at an alarming rate, as natural water reservoirs are out of balance due to climate change. The documentary accompanies research projects that offer hope.
Smartphones, computers, gaming consoles or digital tablets are now givens in our daily lives. The electronic intrusion is causing controversy and collective hysteria. Are we damaging our brains with all these screens? How will unprecedented exposure to screens impact humanity? To find out, the filmmakers examine how science has been applied to distinguish between truth and falsehoods, and explore the suspected side-effects of screen exposure. The documentary travels through the US and Europe to meet and speak to researchers who are leaders in this field.
Sparked by the true story of Aya, a four-year-old Jordanian girl killed by her father because he believed her to be possessed, filmmaker Dalia Al Kury launches a fascinating investigation into a controversial and little-known aspect of Islamic culture: belief in djinn. The djinn are believed to be supernatural creatures that occupy a parallel world to ours and their emergence is associated with sexuality, political unrest, poverty and mental illness. The taboo subject of demonic possession remains broadly unresolved in the hearts and minds of some Muslims due to its complex and uncomfortable nature. Using a subjective, “undercover” style, Al Kury journeys into the obscure world of exorcists and the possessed, confronting their traditions and rituals. It makes for a telling ghost story that bares the filmmaker’s and her society’s subconscious underbelly.
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