You are browsing ‘life’ tagged videos
The Cove
In a sleepy lagoon off the coast of Japan lies a shocking secret that a few desperate men will stop at nothing to keep hidden from the world. In Taiji, Japan, former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O’Barry who captured and trained the 5 dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation “Flipper.” One fateful day, a heartbroken Barry came to realize that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures must never be subjected to human captivity again. This mission has brought him to Taiji, a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders and mysteries of the sleek, playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast. But in a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and “Keep Out” signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt. The nature of what they do is so chilling and the consequences are so dangerous to human health that they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Time – Daytime
We humans seem to run to the beat of time, often without being aware of how this is the case or how our perception of it may differ from another person’s, from nature’s rhythms or from our own internal clock. In the first episode of the series, string theory pioneer Michio Kaku witnesses one of the most extraordinary feats of timing in nature on a remote Californian beach.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Private Life of Plants – Growing
This programme is about how plants gain their sustenance. Sunlight is one of the essential requirements if a seed is to germinate, and Attenborough highlights the cheese plant as an example whose young shoots head for the nearest tree trunk and then climb to the top of the forest canopy, developing its leaves en route. Using sunshine, air, water and a few minerals, the leaves are, in effect, the “factories” that produce food. However, some, such as the begonia, can thrive without much light.
To gain moisture, plants typically use their roots to probe underground. Trees pump water up pipes that run inside their trunks, and Attenborough observes that a sycamore can do this at the rate of 450 litres an hour — in total silence. Too much rainfall can clog up a leaf’s pores, and many have specially designed ‘gutters’ to cope with it. However, their biggest threat is from animals, and some require extreme methods of defence, such as spines, camouflage, or poison.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Private Life of Plants – Travelling
The first episode looks at how plants are able to move. The bramble is an aggressive example: it advances forcefully from side to side and, once settled on its course, there is little that can stand in its way. An altogether faster species is the birdcage plant, which inhabits Californian sand dunes. When its location becomes exposed, it shifts at great speed to another one with the assistance of wind — and it is this that allows many forms of vegetation to distribute their seeds. While not strictly a plant, the spores of fungi are also spread in a similar fashion. One of the most successful (and intricate) flowers to use the wind is the dandelion, whose seeds travel with the aid of ‘parachutes’. They are needed to travel miles away from their parents, who are too densely packed to allow any new arrivals. Trees have the advantage of height to send their seeds further, and the cottonwood is shown as a specialist in this regard. The humidity of the tropical rainforest creates transportation problems, and the liana is one plant whose seeds are aerodynamic ‘gliders’. Some, such as those of the sycamore, take the form of ‘helicopters’, while others, such as the squirting cucumber release their seeds by ‘exploding’. Water is also a widely used method of propulsion. However, most plants use living couriers, whether they be dogs, humans and other primates, ants or birds, etc., and to that end, they use colour and smell to signify when they are ripe for picking.
Read the rest of this entry »
Look at the Life Through My Eyes
This is the story about very closed, very sole world located in one village in Macedonia. In this village, life is like a fairy-tale, almost as if it is lived in another time and space. People there look at life through their own eyes, very slowly accepting changes from the outside world, but not wanting to be part of it. They like to keep quiet about anything that does not fit into their fairy tale. The wishes, the fears, the fights, the secrets stay hidden behind the closed and high gates of the houses.
Read the rest of this entry »
A People of Preservation
The Amish keep surprising their technology-programmed neighbors by keeping alive ways and beliefs that many modern Americans wish they could recapture. Mennonite historian John Ruth takes us sympathetically into the Amish mindset.
Dr. John A. Hostetler, author of The Amish Society, comments on the survival of an alternative to the kind of world we have made. As the Amish increase in numbers, some of them migrate from homesteads in Pennsylvania toward more open farmland. Those staying where the land is too crowded to farm have developed an amazing variety of cottage industries. But all such changes are made very carefully, in order not to sacrifice spiritual covenant and community for the sake of convenience.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Secret Beyond Matter
Human beings are in contact with the universe only through their five senses. No one can reach the real “external world” by going beyond these senses. So, how can we know that this world is not different from what we perceive it to be? This film invites you to ponder on this important question. When you watch this film, you will see how mistaken the materialist philosophy is when it denies God by assuming that matter is absolute. This film is based on the book “Timelessness and the Reality of Fate
Shifting Sands
The Mojave- a landscape of extreme and fragile beauty- will encounter new challenges with the coming climate change. Desert field researchers tell the story in their words and share their experiences with us. Joshua trees, Bighorn sheep, pupfish, desert springs, and even the soil crust itself face new problems.
Read the rest of this entry »