Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Expelled uncovers that educators and scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired in some cases for the fact that they believe there is evidence of “design” in nature, challenging the idea that life is a result of random chance. For example, Stein meets Richard Sternberg, a double PhD biologist who allowed a peer-reviewed research paper describing the evidence for intelligence in the universe to be published in the scientific journal Proceedings. Not long after publication officials from the National Center for Science Education and the Smithsonian Institution where Sternberg was a research fellow began a coordinated smear and intimidation campaign to get the promising young scientist expelled from his position. This attack on scientific freedom was so egregious that it prompted a congressional investigation.

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Ape Genius (NOVA - PBS)

At a research site in Fongoli, Senegal, a female chimpanzee breaks off a branch, chews the end to make it sharp, and then uses this rudimentary spear to skewer a tasty bush baby hiding inside a hollow tree. It’s an astonishing breakthrough for primate researchers—the first time anyone has documented a chimpanzee wielding a carefully prepared, preplanned weapon. But it's only the latest in a slew of extraordinary new findings about ape behavior.

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Secrets of the Mind (NOVA - PBS)

In "Secrets of the Mind" we gain insights through various tragedies that have affected others, thanks to the logic and insights of Professor Ramachandran regarding what he calls the most complex organized matter in the universe.

The programme begins with "phantom limb syndrome" - pain and sensation in missing body areas. Ramachandran's reasoning, confirmed through a CAT-scan, is that the brain has a map of various body areas, and that eg. the right arm and right face areas of the brain are adjacent. Thus, missing body areas can lead to interference by those associated brain areas trying to cope with stimulus deprivation - eg. "cross-wiring."

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The Elegant Universe (NOVA - PBS)

One of the most ambitious and exciting theories ever proposed—one that may be the long-sought "theory of everything," which eluded even Einstein—gets a masterful, lavishly computer-animated explanation from bestselling author-physicist Brian Greene. Also known as superstring theory, the startling idea proposes that the fundamental ingredients of nature are inconceivably tiny strings of energy, whose different modes of vibration underlie everything that happens in the universe. The theory successfully unites the laws of the large—general relativity—and the laws of the small—quantum mechanics—breaking a conceptual logjam that has frustrated the world's smartest scientists for nearly a century.

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If We Had No Moon (Discovery Channel)

What would life on earth be like without the moon? Well, chances are, there wouldn't be any life on earth without the moon. Life – if it had started at all – would still be in the earliest stages of evolution.Scientists use the latest computer simulations to show how an ancient rogue planet – Orpheus – collided with the earth millions of years ago, producing a sizable chunk of debris that eventually became our moon. If that collision had never occurred, we would live in a very different place. Imagine a moon-less weather report – blizzards over the Sahara, floodwaters swallowing the Pyramids, 90-degree temperatures in Antarctica. As the earth wobbles on its axis – unsecured by the moon's gravitational pull – the polar caps would grow and recede at frightening rates. And without the moon, our planet would spin much faster – meaning four-hour days and searing temperatures.

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The Lost World of Lake Vostok (Horizon - BBC)

It sometimes seems as if our planet has no secrets left - but deep beneath the great Antarctic ice sheet scientists have made an astonishing discovery. They’ve found one of the largest lakes in the world. It’s very existence defies belief. Scientists are desperate to get into the lake because its extreme environment may be home to unique flora and fauna, never seen before, and NASA are excited by what it could teach us about extraterrestrial life. But 4 kilometres of ice stand between the lake and the surface, and breaking this seal without contaminating the most pristine body of water on the planet is possibly one of the greatest challenges science faces in the 21st century.

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Einstein's Equation of Life and Death (Horizon - BBC)

In the summer of 1939 Albert Einstein was on holiday in a small resort town on the tip of Long Island. His peaceful summer, however, was about to be shattered by a visit from an old friend and colleague from his years in Berlin. The visitor was the physicist Leo Szilard. He had come to tell Einstein that he feared the Nazis could soon be in possession of a terrible new weapon and that something had to be done.

Szilard believed that recent scientific breakthroughs meant it was now possible to convert mass into energy. And that this could be used to make a bomb. If this were to happen, it would be a terrible realisation of the law of nature Einstein had discovered some 34 years earlier.

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The Invisible World (National Geographic)

This classic 1979 National Geographic documentary film brings us unfamiliar landscapes and exotic creatures--this time, however, they are all lurking on the everyday surfaces that surround us. The Invisible World picks up where our eyes leave off, exploring details too small or fast for humans to grasp. Many events take without our human eye cannot perceiving because these occurrences are too small, too large, too fast, too slow, or beyond the spectrum of visible light. Hence, entire worlds might escape our inspection if it were not for some extraordinary photographic techniques, sophisticated cameras, and imaging devices. Much of the film focuses on microscopic events that, magnified thousands of times, eerily replicate occurrences in the larger world.

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A War on Science (BBC - Horizon)

When Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution nearly 150 years ago, he shattered the dominant belief of his day – that humans were the product of divine creation. Through his observations of nature, Darwin proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. This caused uproar. After all, if the story of creation could be doubted, so too could the existence of the creator. Ever since its proposal, this cornerstone of biology has sustained wave after wave of attack. Now some scientists fear it is facing the most formidable challenge yet: a controversial new theory called intelligent design.

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The President's Guide to Science (BBC - Horizon)

This documentary was first aired in September 2008, a few months before Barack Obama succeeded George W. Bush as America's president. The US president, regardless of who he / she is, has the power to save our planet or destroy it with the touch of a button. To become the most powerful man on Earth, no qualification is necessary.

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The Privileged Planet

There is an opinion, common among scientists and intellectuals, that our Earthly existence is not only rather ordinary, but in fact, insignificant and purposeless. The late astronomer Carl Sagan typifies this view in his book "Pale Blue Dot":

But perhaps this melancholy assumption, despite its heroic pretense, is mistaken. Perhaps the unprecedented scientific knowledge acquired in the last century, enabled by equally unprecedented technological achievements, should, when properly interpreted, contribute to a deeper appreciation of our place in the cosmos.

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