The true, stranger-than-fiction, adventure of eight visionaries who in 1991 spent two years quarantined inside of a self-engineered replica of Earth's ecosystem called Biosphere 2. The experiment was a worldwide phenomenon, chronicling daily existence in the face of life threatening ecological disaster and a growing criticism that it was nothing more than a cult. The bizarre story is both a cautionary tale and a hopeful lesson of how a small group of dreamers can potentially re-imagine a new world.
The film centers on our ongoing mission to explore and come to terms with the Arctic, and the compelling stories of our many forays into this captivating place will be interwoven to create a unifying message about the state of the Arctic today. Underlying all these tales is the crucial role that ice plays in the northern environment and the changes that are quickly overtaking the people and animals who have adapted to this land of ice and snow.
The story of the Viking world's most famous warrior, the legend of Beowulf is the ultimate tale of courage. Pit against thirsty invaders, barbaric monsters and a fire breathing dragon, Beowulf emerges as Norse mythology's greatest hero. But could this warrior have actually been real? Unearthed burial mounds and ancient carvings suggest the myth of Beowulf might have been more than epic legend.
A documentary feature on the explosive narco culture, a phenomenon blurring the lines between war and entertainment. To a growing number of Mexicans and Latinos in the Americas, the Narco Traffickers represent the only models of fame and success, the only way out of the ghetto. This is the untold story behind the drug war, an unstoppable cycle that has created a culture of addiction on both sides of the border — addiction to the vanity of money, drugs and violence. These are the personal stories of those entangled in this war, from the musicians who profit by glorifying violence, to the man who collects the bodies the morning after.
During the chaotic final weeks of the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese Army closes in on Saigon as the panicked South Vietnamese people desperately attempt to escape. On the ground, American soldiers and diplomats confront the same moral quandary: whether to obey White House orders to evacuate U.S. citizens only--or to risk treason and save the lives of as many South Vietnamese citizens as they can.
Dr Hannah Fry explores a paradox at the heart of modern maths, discovered by Bertrand Russell, which undermines the very foundations of logic that all of maths is built on. These flaws suggest that maths isn't a true part of the universe but might just be a human language - fallible and imprecise. However, Hannah argues that Einstein's theoretical equations, such as E=mc2 and his theory of general relativity, are so good at predicting the universe that they must be reflecting some basic structure in it. This idea is supported by Kurt Godel, who proved that there are parts of maths that we have to take on faith. Hannah then explores what maths can reveal about the fundamental building blocks of the universe - the subatomic, quantum world. The maths tells us that particles can exist in two states at once, and yet quantum physics is at the core of photosynthesis and therefore fundamental to most of life on earth - more evidence of discovering mathematical rules in nature. But if we accept that maths is part of the structure of the universe, there are two main problems: firstly, the two main theories that predict and describe the universe - quantum physics and general relativity - are actually incompatible; and secondly, most of the maths behind them suggests the likelihood of something even stranger - multiple universes. We may just have to accept that the world really is weirder than we thought, and Hannah concludes that while we have invented the language of maths, the structure behind it all is something we discover. And beyond that, it is the debate about the origins of maths that has had the most profound consequences: it has truly transformed the human experience, giving us powerful new number systems and an understanding that now underpins the modern world.
The experiment was a worldwide phenomenon, chronicling daily existence in the face of life threatening ecological disaster and a growing criticism that it was nothing more than a cult. The bizarre story is both a cautionary tale and a hopeful lesson of how a small group of dreamers can potentially re-imagine a new world.