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Cave of Forgotten Dreams – Werner Herzog (2010)

November 23, 2017 at 8:02 pm / Human Nature, Video

Since its discovery in 1994 it was quickly realized that the Chauvet Cave of France harbors one of the most impressive art ever been studied belonging to Aurignacian. The Werner Herzog documentary articulates the findings in his characteristic story telling style. Archeologists had a bitter experience in opening such caves to public. The Lascaux cave paintings have been sadly damaged beyond repair due to increased humidity from visitors breath. Happily we can take a virtual tour of the Chauvet cave […]

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Ice Age Art – Arrival of the Modern Mind

November 23, 2017 at 4:28 pm / Evolution, Human Nature, Video

Starting from the middle paleolithic going back to 100 thousand years Human intellect shows strong signs of complex behavior. Cognitive capacity were in place to track seasons, animal movements and resources spatially distributed over large areas. Here you will find a concatenation of short clips compiled from scholarly resources such as the Nature Magazine, the British Museum, the Khan Academy, the Economist and the National Geographic all featuring great examples of art within the last 40,000 years. These include the […]

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48 Cantones: The Mayan Forest – Thomas & Julian Moll-Rocek (2014)

November 10, 2017 at 8:11 pm / Human Nature, Video

In their documentary, Thomas & Julian Moll-Rocek explore the Mayan Cosmovision. For Meso-Americans this is a worldview that integrates the structure of space and rhythms of time into a unified whole. In Guatemala’s western mountains, in the state of Totonicapán, a large community forest has prospered for centuries adjacent to densely populated valleys. The Mayan forest cover the hills and the mountain ridge. The management of local resources by the Mayan community provides a counter-argument for the ‘tragedy of the […]

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The Man Who Planted Trees – CBS – (1987)

May 24, 2017 at 8:15 am / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Video

Forests are under intense pressure. The story by the French author Jean Giono published in 1953 is one of the most poetic depiction of landscape restoration that has touched feelings of so many people. The story inspired many restoration projects around the world. When read it for the first time many thought it was real. In fact, there are genuine independent reforestation projects impressively achieved by determined individuals and NGOs such as Plant a Billion and People and Reforestation in […]

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Protecting Forests – Equator Initiative (2015)

May 23, 2017 at 8:52 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Video

Under the umbrella of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Equator Initiative supports the work of local and indigenous communities worldwide in creating sustainable development solutions. In 2015, the Equator Prize was awarded to 20 communities in recognition of their efforts. This short film highlights the work of five of the recipients of the Equator Initiative Prize protecting forests around the world. These include Wanang Conservation Area in Papua New Guinea, Prey Lang Community Network in Cambodia, Mtandao wa […]

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Forest Man – William D. McMaster (2013)

May 23, 2017 at 8:39 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Video

Since 1979, Jadav Payeng has been planting hundreds of trees on an Indian river island threatened by erosion. Payeng is truly the embodiment of the protagonist in the famous story “The Man Who Planted Trees” published in 1953 by the French author Jean Giono. The photographer Jitu Kalita guides us through Payeng’s home the Majuli Island. This is the largest river island in the world located on Brahmaputra River. Floods generated by monsoon season threatens the Majuli Island by rapid […]

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Origins of Human Cumulative Culture – UCL (2017)

February 27, 2017 at 10:43 am / Evolution, Human Nature, Video

Captain James Cook was fascinated by Polynesians’ ability to converse with each other. In Tahiti a high priest named Tupaia got on board and accompanied him along their voyage to Hawaii. Despite the fact that the two islands were separated by more than 2500 miles Tupaia was able to converse perfectly with Hawaiians. In order to maintain a common language these seemingly isolated islands must have been connected by frequent trans-oceanic voyages. Genetical and ecological theory dictates that connectivity is […]

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At an Mbendjele Camp in Congo – Gül Deniz Salalı (2015)

February 26, 2017 at 8:48 am / Human Nature, Video

These footage were recorded in an Mbendjele BaYaka Pygmies camp of northern Congo-Brazzaville during a year long field study on Human behavior by a UCL researcher Gül Deniz Salalı. The Mbendjele camp filmed here is called Masia. The videos highlighted here are a part of a much larger project aiming to understand the origins of the human cumulative culture. The main video shows how a woman named Semoi (wearing red African fabric) harvests tubers of wild yam (Dioscorea) locally called […]

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The Navigators / Pathfinders of the Pacific – Sanford Low and Boyd Estus (1983)

January 25, 2017 at 9:05 am / Human Nature, Video

Navigation on the open ocean has been a grand challenge for Humanity. Vikings used Icelandic feldspar chrystals called sunstones enabling detection of the direction of the sun through polarizing light. Chinese used magnetic compass. Calculation of the longitude was an immense problem. Celestial objects have been used by almost all seafarers globally. Polinesians mastered the star compass technique and carried it to a new level in Human history. “The Navigators” was co-directed by Sam Low and Boyd Estus covering the […]

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Great Moments in Science with Dr Karl – Karl Kruszelnicki – Royal Institution (2015)

August 26, 2016 at 9:21 pm / Human Nature, Molecular Nature, Natural history, Video

Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki is an Australian science communicator with an amazing talent for concatenating subjects with a free-associative style. Just watch his whirlwind lecture full of interesting and eccentric facts and learn…

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Kon-Tiki Expedition – A Test of a Hypothesis for Human Gene Flow (1950)

June 22, 2016 at 2:46 pm / Evolution, Human Nature, Video

Kon-Tiki was a legendary expedition that was carried out in 1947 by Norvegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl. The expedition tested a hypothesis whether Pacific Islands could have been colonized from Americas and thus wanted to demonstrate that waterways were not barriers but means of transportation and gene flow for human populations. Peopling of the Pacific is a fascinating story. The Polynesians were without question the greatest open ocean voyagers in the human history. They built double-hulled canoes and traveled over the […]

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Learning to Live on the Moon – PBS

May 17, 2016 at 2:04 pm / Ecological Documentaries, Human Nature, Nova Documentaries, PBS Nature, Video

Energy flows, nutrients cycle. This is how we can define working principles of an ecosystem in a nutshell. Our planet has a very complex land-air-water interaction and we are only beginning to understand the behavior of these systems by simplifying them in enclosed systems such as Landscape Evolution Laboratory (LEO). Due to its proximity, the Moon appears to be the most convenient celestial body to colonize. The Moon is so close that it can even occasionally get shielded by the […]

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City Farms – KQED/QUEST (2013)

May 16, 2016 at 11:42 am / Human Nature, Video

On the forefront of Good Food Revolution Will Allen of Milwaukee demonstrates a working Urban Farm. He defines his effort as establishing oasis in a “food desert”. The program prepared by QUEST gives a brief biographical sketch and highlights from the project. Following a significant career in basketball, Allen decided to go back to farming. In 2008 he was granted a prestigious MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant for his influential contributions to the urban agricultural practices. “The Great Migration transformed the […]

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Kars Ardahan Documentary – Alkım Ün (2007)

May 4, 2016 at 5:50 pm / Human Nature, Natural history, Video, Wildlife Documentaries

Director of the KarsArdahan documentary is an emerging Turkish documentarist Alkım Ün. In 2009 he received an award in Boston Turkish Film Festival with this production. Alkım Ün has a degree in biology education and has a particular talent in “reading the landscape” with the eyes of a biologist. Just before the project he had made lengthy observations on wildlife of the region. Kars – Ardahan Plateau is a biologically and geologically distinct region of Turkey. It sits between two […]

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What’s Really Warming Up Our Planet? NASA – SVS (2015)

April 1, 2016 at 2:09 pm / Global Patterns, Human Nature, Video

NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) produced yet another visual to show how industrial and natural factors have been contributing to the global warming. These factors are wobbling of Earth’s axis, solar activity, volcanoes, land use, ozone pollution, aerosol pollution, greenhouse gases and their combined effects. The case is rather clear. Combined effects of man made factors follow the trajectory of warming closely. Since 1880 our planet warmed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit and continues to increase. The atmospheric carbon concentration has passed […]

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