STEM

Beginning in January 2021, advances in AI research have produced a plethora of deep-learning models capable of generating original images from simple text prompts, effectively extending the human imagination. Researchers at OpenAI, Google, Facebook, and others have developed text-to-image tools that they have not yet released to the public, and similar models have proliferated online in the open-source arena and at smaller companies like Midjourney.

A stunning cinematic meditation on humanity's massive reengineering of the planet, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch is the final film in an award-winning trilogy that includes Manufactured Landscapes and Watermark. (TVO)

• Film website
• Film Twitter
• Big World, Small Planet: The Anthropocene
• The Anthropocene epoch: have we entered a new phase of planetary history? - The Guardian

BBC Earth's short documentary series The Science Of Cute.

From the director of Chasing Ice comes this breathtaking cinematic journey below the world’s oceans to its coral reefs. Spectacular time-lapse footage reveals the devastating impact of climate change, which threatens to eradicate this marvelous ecosystem—within our lifespan.

• Film website
• Explore the Great Barrier Reef with Google Street View
• The Ocean Agency Education Resources

Doctors' appointments, job applications, personal banking, key services, and more are today mostly managed online. While the UK government details its plans for a digital future to transform public services, one in seven Britons are forced to live without the internet. This film is voiced by three individuals experiencing digital exclusion, revealing how varied and complex the repercussions can be. Through enacted scenes from their lives, it makes visible the expanding digital divide—an issue too often unseen or ignored by policy makers, businesses and society at large.

Conservation biologist Tim Shields sees urgency in the field and finds that traditional conservation practices are lacking when it comes to saving desert tortoise populations from ravens. He goes rogue, employing an arsenal of lasers, exploding model turtles, drones and desert rovers as a means of protecting the tortoise's dwindling numbers. - Eileen Arandiga

I sat down with Jad Abumrad and talked about sound, music and the function of music. Then I turned that conversation into a film.

The story of teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg is told through compelling, never-before-seen footage, in this intimate documentary from Swedish director Nathan Grossman.

Two innovative teens set out to rid the world of plastic waste. Along the way, they discover plastic-eating bacteria, unlock breakthroughs in chemistry and journey from Vancouver to Silicon Valley.

In 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell made an astounding discover, of pulsars. But as a young woman in science, her role was overlooked, and although the Nobel prize was given for this discovery, Burnell did not receive.

about a digital redesign of New York City's iconic subway map. Filmmaker Gary Hustwit documents the process as digital agency Work & Co creates a new "live map" — one that updates in real-time — to help New Yorkers and tourists better plan their journeys. The film examines the evolution of wayfinding and user interfaces, and shows how good design and the latest digital technology can simplify one of the world's most complex transit systems.

Andrew McCarthy's (@cosmic_background) inventive and eye-catching images of the cosmos have helped him go from a complete newbie to arguably the internet's most popular astrophotographer in just a few years. The film tells Andrew's inspiring story, and follows along on his excursion to capture an iconic photograph of a rare Blood Moon eclipse. In his words, he wants to show people the moon in a "way they've never seen it before."

The story of the student who became a planet hunter. When Anne Dattilo attended a guest lecture at the University of Texas she had no idea it would be the start of a journey involving complex algorithms, a space telescope breaking down in orbit, a trip to an observatory in the Chihuahuan desert and, finally, the discovery of two new planets.

Did the plastic industry use the lure of recycling to sell even more plastic? A look at the mounting crisis of plastic waste in the environment.

On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits: a true illustration of our place in the universe.

Maps are flat representations of our spherical planet. Johnny Harris cut open a plastic globe to understand just what it takes to turn a sphere into something flat.