The gripping story of how researchers at the Ragon Institute raced to create a COVID vaccine.
For more than a decade, the Ragon Institute has advanced the fight against the toughest diseases, from HIV to tuberculosis. In 2020, the team faced a new foe—and triumphed. Discover the never-before-seen story behind the development of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine.
How researchers at Sony AI created an AI racer capable of defeating the best esports players in the world.
The first installment of the video series “The Team Behind GT Sophy” traces the project from its humble beginnings, when a Sony intern ran racing simulations on nine PlayStations 24 hours a day in his Tokyo apartment—and racked up an enormous electricity bill. That test run eventually led to a global team of researchers collaborating to overcome the technical challenges of training an AI to outrace the best human “Gran Turismo” players in the world.
In this episode the team at Sony AI take the racing agent they have trained to play “Gran Turismo” and put it through the ultimate test. At the April 2021 Race Together event, GT Sophy would face off against some of the finest human “Gran Turismo” players in the world. Had the team taught their AI racer to master the skills required to hold their own against the champions of e-sports?
All of the training and preparation comes to a head in the third and final installment of “The Team Behind GT Sophy” video series. In this episode, the AI racing agent GT Sophy gets a rematch against the world’s best e-sports champions after falling short in its initial face off. Did the Sony AI team succeed in refining the training of their agent so that it could outpace its human opponents? Watch the thrilling conclusion!
Meet the experts at IBM Research working on advanced technology to accelerate the pace of science.
What if we could radically expedite the discovery of solutions to science’s toughest problems—not just for disease, but for climate change, poverty, hunger, new materials, innovative products, supply chains, and more? Not merely double or triple the pace of innovation, but increase it by a factor of ten?
“The Fastest Path to Progress” is a warm and optimistic 16-minute documentary film that celebrates the fusion of humanity, ingenuity, and technology. It served as a defining document--not just to tell the story of IBM Research to the world but crystallize it for themselves.
Writer Ekow Eshun, artist Hew Locke, curator Elvira Dyangani Ose and other black diaspora thinkers provide a communal narrative for this fascinating BBC film that explores how black artists use the sci-fi genre to examine black history and imagine new, alternative futures.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000wfcj/dark-matter-a-history-of-the-afrofuture
Director & Producer: James van del Pool
US Segments Producer: Zuberoa Marcos
How can we all be a part of climate solutions? Singer-songwriter Billie Eilish talks with marine biologist and climate expert Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson about speaking up, taking action and shifting the culture.
Billie Eilish is not just a 19-year-old wunderkind who puts out music we play on repeat. She has also done an amazing job using her massive global platform for the greater good, especially as a climate champion. In this film Billie Eilish talks with marine biologist Dr. Ayana Johnson about what actions we all can take to reduce climate change.
Dr. Johnson is not only a marine biologist, she’s a climate policy expert, co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab, co-host of the podcast 'How to Save a Planet,' and co-editor of the book 'All We Can Save.' We were as floored by her knowledge and insights as she is by the youth climate movement, which, as she puts it, is “being ferociously, passionately, brilliantly led by teenage girls.” Her conversation with Billie was not only informative, it was optimistic. The key: Do something. "Somebody's gotta go first," as Billie says. "The trick is to find ways to be useful," Dr. Johnson adds.
Pulling off a video like this amid pandemic-era restrictions was definitely a group effort, so a big thank you to everyone who made it happen. And the biggest thanks of all to Billie and Dr. Johnson for their candor, their honesty, and their passion to make the world a better place.
ROMAN ENGINEERING is a transmedia series consisting of eight documentaries for TV, an interactive website with 360, VR and AR videos and a complementary educational App for tablets. The series explains the rich legacy of innovation and invention of the Roman civilization and its role in building the vast Roman Empire.
The Romans were not only aware that water meant power, they also knew that health and well-being depended on it. That is why they were obsessed with finding the purest and most abundant water supplies possible, collecting it from wherever they found it and taking it to where it was needed. This obstinacy, combined with Roman ingenuity, could only give rise to prodigious constructions. These were unique structures, as the challenges of the terrain were different in each circumstance. This episode travels back in time to the historical moment when the Romans decided where to locate some of the empire’s most important cities. It stops at the city of Nîmes, ancient Nemausus, and explains the magnificent challenge that involved building one of the most spectacular water supplies of antiquity.
Rome was a city that became the seed of an empire. The city itself as a seed of civilization and coexistence was probably the most effective of all the weapons in Romanization arsenal. Its irresistible attraction and ability to convince were greater than any military campaign. What caused the typical citizen of Rome to possess this incredible power? This episode explains how Rome served as a model for the foundation of all the other cities in the empire.
A demo video that explains how the VR App complementing ROMAN ENGINEERING documentary series works. IMAGEEN VR: RELIVING HISTORY is a real door to the past. It allows you to travel to the second century AD to the ancient city of Tarraco (Hispania) and be surrounded by chariot races, gladiator fights and the architecture of the forum or the temple.
ROMAN ENGINEERING: AQUEDUCTS is an engaging and elegant application for the iPad that will allow its users to see and understand how these audacious engineering projects worked and the techniques the Roman engineers used to build them. This sister application to the documentary series of the same name uses much of the visual and educational material created for this super-production and presents it in a different way, with the aim of offering a complementary package in which the contents are arranged so that they can be consulted interactively.
QUANTUM IS CALLING is a short film produced in collaboration with the California Institute of Technology, the Kavli Nanoscience Institute and Cinestar Pictures with contributions from the universes of Star Trek, The Matrix, and Marvel. The goal is to stimulate interest and promote education in the emerging scientific field of quantum information theory and quantum computing, especially amongst women and the Hispanics.
Zoe Saldana enlists the help of Prof. Stephen Hawking to desperately solve the puzzle to retrieve Simon Pegg’s cat after it falls into a box and is zapped into another dimension. The mission will reveal a newly discovered property of quantum entanglement and it will become an opportunity to boldly go where no man or woman has gone before.
An insight of what happened during the shoot of "Quantum is Calling" with Stephen Hawking, Zoe Saldana, Keanu Reeves, Simon Pegg, John Cho and Paul Rudd.
THE FUTURE IS EXCITING is a branded content initiative for Vodafone in collaboration with EL PAIS, the most influential Spanish-language newspaper. It’s a video platform with +700 stories that feature pioneers in the history of science and technology as well as the people and the organizations that are currently using science and technology in creative and innovative ways to expand our knowledge and build a better world. Since its launch in 2015, the series has clocked up 420M views and in October 2017 it became the core of Vodafone’s biggest global branding revamp in its history, rolled out in 36 countries.
A behind-the-scenes view of the technology world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking uses to communicate explained by Lama Nachman, the principal engineer at Intel leading the team that helps improve Hawking’s computer interface.
In March 2017 Elon Musk's SpaceX made aerospace history with the successful launch and landing of the first used rocket. The launch was the culmination of 15 years of work and $1 billion of investment in rocket reusability. This short-documentary explains the feat from the inside.
Vint Cerf is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-inventor Bob Kahn. In this interview Vint talks about the direction of online connectivity and communication, how will the Internet will look like 1000 years from now and where the Internet will take us.
Burlington, Vermont, the state's largest city, recently became the first in the country to use 100% renewable energy for its residents' electricity needs. In a state known for socially conscious policies, the feat represents a milestone in the growing green energy movement.
Could tiny, translucent chips that mimic human organs replace animal testing for drug development? That reality may be coming, according to researchers led by Prof. Donald E. Ingber at the Wyss Institute at Harvard who have developed organs-on-chips: flexible polymer microchips (about the size of a computer flash drive) that mimic the mechanical and biochemical behaviors of the human organ provide a window into the tissue structures, functions, and motions of lungs, intestines, kidneys, hearts, and other organs.
Ralph Gilles lives in the future. As the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Global Head of Design, he has one of the coolest and most challenging jobs: to develop entirely new cars for scratch that people want to drive and buy. This process can cost a billion dollars and take five years and once the car is rolling it must continue to look cool throughout, at least, the first three to six years of its service life. The only way for designers and carmakers to succeed is paying attention to what 12-year-olds are doing now, how they spend their money and how they use technology, because they will be the target consumers in 2030 of the future electric, self-driving cars. NOTE: This video is only available in Spanish.
LEARNING TOGETHER is a branded content initiative for BBVA in collaboration with EL PAIS, the most influential Spanish-language newspaper. It’s a platform that includes +140 stories in video format featuring influential scientists, psychologists, elite athletes, artists, astronauts, communicators, architects and educators sharing how a successful Education system for the 21st Century should look like. The platform also includes a set of free, online, courses for schools/parents to help them teach young people basic skills such as conflict resolution, public speaking and emotional intelligence. Since its launch in 2018, the series has clocked up over 600M views.
Jane Goodall is considered one of the most important women in science in the 21st century. Her eyes shine when she shares the stories of her life as a primatologist, now converted into great life lessons about science and education: "Be curious and make mistakes, be patient and do not give up," says, again and again, this extraordinary woman.
Anything worth doing in life has risks. Rockets and spaceflight are dangerous by definition. Former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield explains how he manages fears and turns them into motivation and how he kept the passion for becoming an astronaut and explore the universe.
Michio Kaku is one of recent history’s greatest minds. He co-founded String Field Theory, which aims to complete the work started by Einstein and attempts to unite the forces of nature. Outside of higher education, Kaku has had a profound impact on science in the media. In this conversation he explains how his time at the army around the time of the Vietnam War influenced his mission to spread scientific knowledge in a way that is accessible to all.
As a child he never thought about devoting his life to Education: "Our lives are a constant process of creative decisions and improvisation. So when I went to school, I had no idea what I wanted to do. " Today, this educator, writer and communicator, is a world leader in Education. Robinson thinks that our current educational system needs a radical transformation and considers the role of teachers decisive. "It is difficult to overestimate the importance of teachers in your life" he says, "it is a profession with many dimensions, one of the most demanding jobs that a person can have." Against exams and the hierarchy of subjects, he defends that creativity is one of the most important skills schools should teach to children: "is the essence of what it means to be human".
