Inheriting Your Physical Traits

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.

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.

Can science help us understand these crimes?

Earth teems with a staggering variety of animals, including 9,000 kinds of birds, 28,000 types of fish, and more than 350,000 species of beetles. What explains this explosion of living creatures—1.4 million different species discovered so far, with perhaps another 50 million to go? The source of life's endless forms was a profound mystery until Charles Darwin brought forth his revolutionary idea of natural selection. But Darwin's radical insights raised as many questions as they answered. What actually drives evolution and turns one species into another? To what degree do different animals rely on the same genetic toolkit? And how did we evolve?

Le virus qui soigne

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.

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.

Is our life predetermined from birth? Does our genes determine our personality and behavior? Is there a criminal gene? This documentary follows the well-known Danish journalist, author, and neurobiologist Lone Frank, who explores her own self with the help of her genetic map and her family history.

Gregor Mendel

After a woman's at-home DNA test reveals multiple half-siblings, she discovers a shocking scheme involving donor sperm and a popular fertility doctor.

This animated film was made by RIKEN Omics Science Center for the "Beyond DNA" exhibition at the National Science Museum of Japan. The filmmakers attempt to illustrate how molecular machines interact with each other according to the central dogma, with an anime look. This approach helps people (especially kids) to identify these molecules more easily, and to understand how they function in the body. There are two versions of the film: one with English narration and text, and another in Japanese.

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.

The made-for-cable documentary film The Real Eve is predicated on the theory that the human race can be traced to a common ancestor. The mitochondrial DNA of one prehistoric woman, who lived in Africa, has according to this theory been passed down from generation to generation over a span of 150,000 years, supplying the "chemical energy" to all humankind.

Introduction to DNA by Frank Baxter and Bell Labs.

A dangerous idea has threatened the American Dream from the beginning - the belief that some groups and individuals are inherently superior to others and more deserving of fundamental rights. Such biological determinism provided an excuse for some of America's most shameful history. And now it's back. This documentary reveals how biologically determined politics has disenfranchised women and people of color, provided a rationale for state sanctioned crimes committed against America's most vulnerable citizens, and now gains new traction under the Trump administration.

Lucie was born with a protruding ear that she got from her mother. In this documentary she tries to find answers in her fathers' features.

In a television first, Fat Family Tree sets out to prove that unlocking the secrets of a fat family’s genes can help provide the answer to their lifelong weight problems. Presented by Dr Dawn Harper (Embarrassing Bodies), Fat Family Tree uses cutting edge genetics to decode the genes of an overweight family for whom all other attempts to shed the pounds have not worked. Discovering how the family’s genes have put them at risk of excessive weight gain is the first step to devising a diet to help them beat their genes. Based on the latest science, the programme’s “gene-busting” diet also promises fail safe diet tips that could help all of us lose weight.

Documentary accompanies scientists in their search for the common ancestors of all humans.

The documentary depicts the birth of eugenics - a pseudo-science created in the 19th century that propounded the theory of perfecting the human race. According to the views of eugenicists, only healthy and creative individuals should reproduce. The film shows how these controversial ideas influenced the intellectual and political elite of the West in the 20th century, including the dictator of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler. Eugenics is a pseudoscience created in the 19th century and treating the improvement of the human race. According to eugenicists, only healthy and creative individuals could procreate, and the procreation of the sick or disabled and racially unworthy (prostitutes, the poor, beggars) should be forbidden. The author of the film posits that modern genetics, the killing of unborn children and euthanasia have their roots in this infamous pseudoscience.

If we compare ourselves with our genetically closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, we have few physical advantages. We are far weaker, cannot move nearly as fast, and do not have the same climbing capabilities. Instead, humans excel in areas such as architecture, religion, science, language, writing, art, culture, and ideas. These achievements are due to our larger brain that contain billions of neurons. It was the rapid growth of our brain, originating about 2 million years ago, that allowed us to be the predominant species of the world. What caused this rapid growth of our cerebral cortex? Researchers worldwide have asked this question for many years, but now there finally seems to be an answer.