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The Roof of the World

2004 Culture

Leaving Everest base camp to take the high road to Lhasa to see what the Chinese have done to Tibet. He sees that religion is once again tolerated, while the old Tibetan centre of the city is being replaced with modern Chinese shopping malls and nightclubs. Following the pilgrims to the holy Namtso Lake, he gets warm in a hot spring before le ...arning how to milk a yak with a nomad family. Show More

Series: Himalaya with Michael Palin

The Stilwell Brain

2019 Medicine

A single microscopic brain cell cannot think, is not conscious, but if you bring in a few more brain cells, and a few more, and connect them all, at a certain point, the group itself will be able to think and experience emotions and have opinions and a personality and know that it exists. How can such astonishing things be made from such sim ...ple ingredients? Well, answering that question means learning not only who we are but, more importantly, how we are.
Today, using what neuroscientists know so far, we are going to make a town function like a brain, using people as neurons. Show More

Series: Mind Field

The Surveillance Capitalists

2019 Technology

Everywhere you go, you generate a cloud of data. You're trailing data, everything that you do is producing data. And then there are computers looking at that data that are learning, and these computers are essentially trying to serve you better. They're trying to personalize things to you. They're trying to adapt the world to you. So on the o ...ne hand, this is great, because the world will get adapted to you without you even having to explicitly adapt it. There's also a danger, because the entities in the companies that are in control of those algorithms don't necessarily have the same goals as you, and this is where I think people need to be aware that, what's going on, so they can have more control over it.
We came into this new world thinking that we were users of social media and search engines. It didn't occur to us that social media and search engines were actually using us. Show More

Series: In the Age of AI

When NASA Met Jupiter

2019 Science

NASA's revolutionary Juno Probe had a goal visiting Jupiter -- to reveal the deepest mysteries of the Solar System. Everything we see in the our planetary system today is affected by Jupiter somehow in the past or now. So in many ways, Juno is actually giving us a view into the history of the Solar System.
But there are many other quest ...ions. Does Jupiter have a core? Why it has a surprisingly warm atmosphere? What's driving Jupiter's storms? What is going on its weird cyclones, its gigantic swirls? The auroras of Jupiter are tremendously large, bigger than the planet itself. where are they coming from? What we're learning, what we're unlocking, it's mind-blowing. Show More

Series: How the Universe Works Series 8

Why Do We Dream

2009 Medicine

Horizon uncovers the secret world of our dreams. In a series of cutting-edge experiments and personal stories, we go in search of the science behind this most enduring mystery and ask: where do dreams come from? Do they have meaning? And ultimately, why do we dream? What the film reveals is that much of what we thought we knew no longer stand ...s true. Dreams are not simply wild imaginings but play a significant part in all our lives as they have an impact on our memories, the ability to learn, and our mental health. Most surprisingly, we find nightmares, too, are beneficial and may even explain the survival of our species. Show More

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