4 Learning (Firm).
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This program concentrates on the nervous and endocrine systems. A soccer match offers an opportunity to investigate how neurons work and how a simple reflex arc functions. Footage of infants illustrates the processes of neural network growth and coordination acquisition. A Penfield map opens the door to a study of the senses, with an emphasis on vision. The links between chemical activity in the brain and behavior are examined. And an analysis of...
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Presenting archival footage from the anti-communist turmoil of the 1950s, this program takes viewers back to an America turning against itself, an America pushed into a state of paranoia by one man-Senator Joseph McCarthy. Historian Ben Walsh serves as a helpful guide to these newsreel materials while also making use of insightful excerpts on the topic from the 1984 Bill Moyers series A Walk Through the 20th Century (item 42066, Post-War Hopes, Cold...
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Heart of the Wood, by composer Howard Goodall and lyricist Charles Hart, is a song from a musical based on A Midsummer Night's Dream. "Medieval March," by Debbie Wiseman, is the theme from a TV movie about Hans Christian Andersen. By deconstructing these two pieces, this program analyzes how music composed for the stage and screen performs its dramatic functions. Sound bites and video clips reveal how music can define the mood and the period of a...
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This program examines how oxygen and carbon dioxide are transported throughout the body, guided by the brain as it reacts to internal and external stimuli. The process of breathing is modeled by a swimmer, the control of breathing by the brain is analyzed, and oxygen intake by the lungs and transport by red blood cells are discussed. The complementary actions of the circulatory and respiratory systems to meet the body's energy needs are identified,...
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What's the worst sound in the entire world? It's a question that's certain to produce more than one opinion. To get as many answers as possible, acoustic engineer Trevor Cox created an Internet experiment that generated millions of responses to the query. Cox also developed a system of compiling, organizing, and interpreting the results, and he describes his investigation in this fascinating video. Viewers will gain insight into the collection and...
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Hydrovision specializes in the design and manufacture of remotely operated vehicles, or ROV, for use underwater. The company has decided that it is time to come up with a new and improved version of their long-standing, highly successful model. This program looks specifically at how electronics and software engineers at Hydrovision use block diagrams to organize the onboard component systems of the ROV. The designers also get a chance to test and...
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We can scarcely imagine a world devoid of electricity, but today's power grids and high-tech home appliances would never have come to pass without the bold experiments of one ambitious Englishman. This program illustrates the life and accomplishments of Michael Faraday, a self-educated member of the Georgian-era working class who made groundbreaking discoveries about electromagnetism and became a world-famous scientist. Beginning with his birth in...
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The Baha'i Faith is one of the most diverse and widespread religions on the planet, with temples on every inhabited continent. This program tells the story of how its founders struggled to establish the Baha'i Faith and explores the message of unity set forth by Bauhallah in the Kitab-i-Aqdas. The video also explains how the Faith's clergy-less community is structured, and goes to Israel to visit the Shrine of Bauhallah and the Baha'i World Centre....
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From the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact to the launch of Operation Barbarossa, this program explores in detail the efforts of Hitler and Stalin to outwit each other during the so-called period of cooperation lasting from August 1939 to June 1941-and how their mutual distrust wrong-footed them both, with disastrous results for their countries. Numerous quotations from the dictators are included, as well as readings from the diaries of Joseph Goebbels,...
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The decision to develop a new squeezable Marmite bottle means altering a container style that had gone unchanged for 103 years. This program follows the process from prototype to final design and the emergence of a brand-new product which the design team hopes will revitalize the Marmite business. Confronting the technical challenges arising from Marmite's thick consistency, the team enlists the help of a renowned package-design guru and, after a...
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As technology progresses, printed circuit boards or PCBs are becoming ever more central to daily life. As such, an understanding of basic circuitry and how to apply it to PCB assembly is vital to almost any engineer or technical designer. This program highlights the importance of PCBs and follows their industrial manufacture from design brief to completion. It illustrates the benefits of new technologies such as prism component placing machines, minute...
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I get bored easily, Danielle admits. If something's hard, I just don't do it. Torn between a career in interior design or one as a police officer, Danielle must first work on her lack of motivation and identifying her skills and interests is a start. In this program a career specialist and a life coach help the teen find what draws her to two such different professions, what each actually entails, and whether she has the aptitude to succeed in either....
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Taking viewers deep inside a devastated landscape, this program examines physical forces directly tied to flooding in Bangladesh as well as the broader causes of such disasters, including climate change. It also explores the social, economic, and environmental impact of intense flooding through the personal accounts of people living by major rivers and on Bangladesh's char lands, areas built up from river sediment. Examples of flood management strategies...
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In this program, "Prayer Before Birth" by Louis MacNiece, "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost, "How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear" by Edward Lear, and "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "To a Poor Old Woman" by William Carlos Williams are read by a group of contemporary poets. Kate Clanchy, Jamie McKendrick, Tom Paulin, Jean Binta Breeze, Jerome Rothenberg, Sophie Hannah, Matthew Sweeney, and Kenneth Koch offer commentary on the themes and images of the selected...
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Gambians are among the poorest people in the world, and until recently cultural and economic imperatives combined to give them one of the highest birth rates as well. This program uses Gambia to study the impact of a large youthful population on a country's resources. With almost half its citizens under the age of 15 and the population growing, the Gambian government has been hard-pressed to maintain an infrastructure and provide for basic needs....
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What is the universe made of? It took humankind thousands of years just to formulate a way to ask the question-with the first rigorous study of matter's "ingredients" appearing in czarist Russia. This program tells the story of Dmitri Mendeleev, the chemist and inventor who devised the periodic table of the elements-vastly improving our understanding of the building blocks of the cosmos. Presented by British author Adam-Hart Davis, the film explores...
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From prenatal Mozart to hothousing, the debate surrounding intelligence and how it is best cultivated is a controversial one. But is there really an optimal window of opportunity for neural development? This program invites John T. Bruer, author of The Myth of the First Three Years; Colin Blakemore, of Oxford University; UCLA's Paul Thompson; Bill Greenough, of the University of Illinois; and David Elkind, professor of child development at Tufts University,...
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Few online startups make it-and of those, even fewer make it big. But the odds don't scare the founders of Boso, an online marketplace for Oxford University students to buy and sell secondhand stuff. In this program, mentor John Boyle counsels Harjeet and Kulveer Taggar-cousins who have staked everything on success-to market aggressively to increase users in order to attract investment that would enable them to take Boso national before a rival can...
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India is the planet's biggest producer of over 22 different cash crops, making its agricultural economy the second largest in the world. Why then does most of its rural population live below subsistence level, relying on foreign NGOs for aid? This program looks at reasons why working villagers remain in poverty, including government policies that direct funding away from development and towards the urban business boom. Viewers meet several struggling...