"In an effort to outwit raccoons, are we pushing their brain development and perhaps even sending them down a new evolutionary path? Using high-definition, infrared cameras that turn pitch dark into daylight ...
Raccoon Nation [
alt link] achieves something that has never been done before: it intimately follows a family of urban raccoons over the course of six months as the young – under the watchful eye of their mother – grow, develop, and begin to find their way in the complex world of a big city." "Raccoon populations have grown twenty-fold in North American cities over the last seventy years. And as this documentary will show, city life is changing raccoons in remarkable ways." (45:08 min. video)
posted by Jasper Friendly Bear
on Oct 13, 2012 -
42 comments
In 2005, the Discovery Channel aired
Alien Worlds, a fictional documentary based on Wayne Douglas Barlowe's graphic novel,
Expedition: Being an Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV." Depicting mankind's first robotic mission to an extrasolar planet that could support life, the show drew from NASA's
Origins Program, the NASA/JPL
PlanetQuest Mission, and ESA's
Darwin Project. It was primarily presented through CGI, but included interviews from a variety of NASA scientists and other experts, including Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, John Craig Venter and Jack Horner. Oh, and George Lucas, too.
Official site.
Previously on MeFi. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Sep 21, 2012 -
12 comments
In the late 1970s the UK's Anglia Television ran a respected weekly documentary series:
Science Report. But when the show was cancelled in 1977, the producers decided to channel Orson Welles in their final episode. The result was
Alternative 3. Over the course of the hour, the audience would learn that a
Science Report investigation into the UK "brain drain" had uncovered shocking revelations: man-made pollution had resulted in catastrophic climate change, the Earth would soon be rendered uninhabitable, and a secret American / Soviet joint plan was in place to establish colonies on the Moon and Mars. The show ended with footage of a US/Soviet Mars landing from May 22, 1962. After Alternative 3 aired,
thousands of panicked viewers phoned the production company and demanded to know how long they had left to change planets. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jun 20, 2012 -
22 comments
In 1973 and 1975, two one-hour television documentaries aired in the US:
In Search of Ancient Astronauts (Parts:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6) and
In Search of Ancient Mysteries (Parts:
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6). The same producers also put out
The Outer Space Connection (Parts
1 and
2) in 1975. All were narrated by Twilight Zone's
Rod Serling. In 1976 a series was developed. Since Serling had passed away in 1975, popular actor Leonard Nimoy was chosen as host.
In Search of... ran for six seasons, from 1976 - 1982, and was devoted to discussing unusual mysteries and phenomena. All 144 episodes can be seen on YouTube. Playlists:
Seasons 1 and 2.
Seasons 3 and 4.
Seasons 5 and 6.
posted by zarq
on Apr 23, 2012 -
51 comments
In 1984,
The Voyage of the Mimi set sail on PBS, exploring the ocean off the coast of Massachusetts to study humpback whales. The educational series was made up of thirteen episodes intended to teach middle schoolers about science and math. The first fifteen minutes of each episode were a fictional adventure starring a young Ben Affleck. The second 15 minutes were an "expedition documentary" that would explore the scientific concepts behind the show's plot points. A sequel with the same format,
The Second Voyage of the Mimi aired in 1988, and featured the crew of the Mimi exploring Mayan ruins in Mexico.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Apr 9, 2012 -
36 comments
Five years ago this week, the BBC started broadcasting one of the most extraordinary documentaries ever to grace television:
Planet Earth. The culmination of
five years of field work, it employed
the most cutting-edge of techniques in order to capture life in all its forms, from
sweeping spaceborne vistas to shockingly intimate close-ups -- including
many sights rarely glimpsed by human eyes.
Visually spectacular, it showcased footage shot in
204 locations in 62 countries, thoroughly documenting every biome from the snowy peaks of the Himalayas to
the lifegiving waters of the Okavango Delta, a rich narrative tapestry backed by
a stirring orchestral score from the BBC Concert Orchestra. Unfortunately, the series underwent
some editorial changes for rebroadcast overseas. But now fans outside the UK can rejoice -- all eleven chapters of this epic story are available on YouTube in their original form: uncut, in glorious 1080p HD, and with the original narration by renowned naturalist
Sir David Attenborough. Click inside for the full listing (and kiss the rest of your week goodbye).
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Mar 7, 2011 -
69 comments
Flow of Time is a BBC documentary that "tries to explain time and covers the different ways we have used to understand Time, religion, mathematics, relativity, and quantum mechanics." Part
1,
2,
3,
4
posted by nola
on Oct 21, 2008 -
10 comments
Japanese professor Kenji Sugimoto has a long-standing fascination with the brain of Albert Einstein. In the early nineties he travelled to the United States in search of it.
This bizarre 1994 documentary (
YouTube, multiple parts) by Kevin Hull (UK) chronicles his quest. Fake or real?
[more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane
on Sep 1, 2006 -
12 comments
The pleasure of finding things out. If you only watch one documentary on the subject of science this year, let is be this one. The brilliant physicist Richard Feynman is interviewed about a host of issues, such as [more inside].
posted by koenie
on Apr 17, 2006 -
46 comments
