The Thread of Life

L'ADN, nos ancêtres et nous

What's the point of music? You might be tempted to answer that it's an enjoyable pastime or an art form, but nothing really essential. For the first time, a documentary shows the opposite. Music is a biological necessity for human beings: it helps build our brains. In recent years, the discoveries of international neuroscience researchers have revolutionized our understanding of the impact of music on our brains. This film is a behavioral and neurological investigation whose ambition is to unveil the mystery of music's powers in our lives.

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.

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?

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.

Eugenika. W Imię Postępu

Can science help us understand these crimes?

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.

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.

The film tells a very personal story from two perspectives: our protagonist is both doctor and patient. As a patient, he has struggled with recurring depression for years, and as a doctor he wants to find out why. The search for the origins of his illness leads him into the realm of his own genes and casts light on the fundamental changes facing modern society as a result of the tremendous progress being made in the field of genetic sequencing. Along the way, he meets a host of people – researchers, artists, visionaries – who have developed their own very individual approach to genetic coding and are drawing attention to the social significance of genetic technology. The film does not restrict itself to a scientific view of the subject but also makes use of artistic visions and more playful approaches to genetic blueprints.

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.

Directed by Pernille Rose Grønkjær.

Through our subject Adam, we reveal the incredible changes and forces that take all humankind from Cradle to Grave.

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.

And Man Created the Cow

What if science could reverse the aging process? Follow the researchers as they decipher these mechanisms, with the promise of finding the elixir of youth so you can live longer, healthier lives!

This educational film from 1970 traces the inheritance of traits such as sex, eye color, height, and weight, showing the role of chromosomes and genes in determining their development.

L'oreille décollée

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.

Gregor Mendel