Is Time Travel Possible ?

Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the need for the traveler to experience the intervening period (at least not at the normal rate).  


Is Time Travel Possible ?  - PART 1

 
Through the warmholes - Science - Is time travel possible : Part 1 by Avinstuff

 Is Time Travel Possible ? PART2 


Is Time Travel Possible ? - Part 2 by Avinstuff 

  Is Time Travel Possible ? PART 3

 
Is Time Travel Possible ? Part 3 by Avinstuff

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The War of 1812

For two and a half years, Americans fought Against the British, Canadian colonists, and native nations.  In the years to come, the War of 1812 would be celebrated in some places and essentially forgotten in others.  But it is a war worth remembering—a struggle that threatened the existence of Canada, then divided the United States so deeply that the nation almost broke apart.  Some of its battles and heroes became legendary, yet its blunders and cowards were just as prominent.  The film shows how the glories of war became enshrined in history – how failures are quickly forgotten – how inconvenient truths are ignored forever.
 



With stunning re-enactments, evocative animation and the incisive commentary of key experts, The War of 1812 presents the conflict that forged the destiny of a continent.


The War of 1812 premiered Monday, October 10, 2011.

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The History Of Swords

Watch through this documentary from History Channel on the complete history of Swords.  

 

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Mutation: The Science of Survival

Monster mutants lurk in the myths of many cultures, and we're fascinated yet fearful of nature's mutants. But mutants are closer to home than we think. Often invisible, mutations are happening all around us, in every living thing. They're crucial part of evolution. Now researchers are uncovering how mutations actually work and that may help us find cures for life threatening diseases. As we understand more about mutation we may discover more secrets of the history and future of life on this planet. 



In 19th century America, people flocked to dime museums to view the odd and the unexplained. Dime museums were full of anything the American public would pay 10 cents to see. People were always been interested in the weird, the strange, the bizarre, the exotic and the unusual. For just 10 cents they came to see the worst that nature had on offer. Some creatures were fake products of an entrepreneur's imagination, but others brought us face to face with real mutations.

In Great Britain there was a celebrated sideshow freak Joseph Merrick, the famed elephant man. A tragic mutation within his genes gave rise to a disease called Proteus Syndrome. Large bony growths covered the right side of his entire body. A mutation is a change in our genes. Deep within every cell, our chromosomes hold the instructions for life and the genes are held on long and delicate strands of DNA.
They're like a recipe book, but sometimes there's an unexpected change in part of the recipe. The result is an altered or damaged gene that we call a mutation. For Joseph Merrick the mutation was so severe, he could never lead a normal life. He spent his adult years as a sideshow freak until he was rescued and offered shelter at the Royal London Hospital. His short life ended at the age of 28.

Toady such human tragedies are no longer a source of entertainment, but many of us are still fascinated by creatures that are one in a million. In West Fork, Arkansas, Fred Lally has spent 50 years collecting some of the most unusual reptiles. Fred has been fascinated by reptilian oddities all his life, and he now makes a living by taking his mutant pets on tour to summer county fairs. But of all the animal anomalies he encountered in his long career one stands hand a shoulders above the rest. Fred paid $20,000 for one of the rarest reptiles in the world - the snake named "Golden Girls."

In nature conjoined twins are rare, but they nearly always make the slot at the end of the evening news bulletins. In humans, if the embryo hasn't divided by the third week of pregnancy, then Siamese or conjoined twins may result. They're among the rarest of human beings. Only a few hundred pairs are born each year, more than half are stillborn and may live for only a few days. But are conjoined twins actually caused by mutation? Whether conjoined twins are mutations or not they're only the tip of the mutation iceberg. Mutations are happening every day to all of us, but most of the time they're invisible.

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Beyond the Bermuda Triangle: The Devil's Sea

The Bermuda Triangle is one of the deadliest stretches of ocean on earth. But what if there were an even deadlier one? In the Pacific there may be. Why massive state-of-the-art ship was suddenly lost with all hands? What happened to the aircraft that vanished without a clue? What deadly forces sent sailors to their doom? It's really a terrifying experience for those that were on board. The world's most powerful navy knows the dangers well. The moment you stop respecting it and fearing it is when things go wrong.
Join the search to fathom the Pacific Ocean's deadliest enigma, a quest that takes us over, on, and deep into the depths of the deep blue graveyard called The Devil's Sea.



On September 8, 1980, carrying 150,000 tons of iron ore, the boat carrier Derbyshire was 230 miles off the east coast of Okinawa. The Derbyshire was a gigantic ship, longer than three football fields, twice the size of the Titanic, only four years old. From stem to stern, her design was state of the art. Anyone should have felt perfectly safe sailing aboard her. But some, like able seaman Peter Lambert, didn't.
Reluctantly, Peter signed on for one more voyage to earn enough money to get married. He was 19 years old. But his wedding would never take place. On September 9, the Derbyshire and her entire crew disappeared. It was the largest British ship ever lost at sea, and no one could explain why. How could this giant ship, crewed by experienced mariners, simply vanish, without a distress call, and without leaving any trace? Could she be another victim of one of the Pacific Ocean's most enduring and frightening enigmas?
To the south of Japan lies a vast expanse of empty ocean. Since the 1940s, scores of gigantic ships have mysteriously vanished in these cruel seas. Many of them were lost without even sending an SOS, leaving no clue as to their fate. But these waters have been claiming victims for centuries. Long ago, Japanese sailors gave this region a chilling name, Mano Umi, The Devil's Sea. Japanese legends tell of unknown forces that overpowered the strongest of ships, and great sea monsters that dragged sailors to their death.
Today, the legend of sea monsters may have faded, but Japanese fishermen still fear The Devil's Sea, even as its rich bounty draws them to risk their lives. The Devil's Sea is also an abundant sea. Fish always cluster here. These seas are very different from other places. Waves change quickly and unpredictably. So if you're relaxed on a boat in these places, you will get into trouble. Intrigued by persistent reports of mysterious disappearances, some have searched for patterns that might solve the enigma of The Devil's Sea.

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The Fabric of the Cosmos: Quantum Leap

The Fabric of the Cosmos, a four-hour series based on the book by renowned physicist and author Brian Greene, takes us to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time and the universe. With each step, audiences will discover that just beneath the surface of our everyday experience lies a world we'd hardly recognize--a startling world far stranger and more wondrous than anyone expected.



In Episode 3, "Quantum Leap," Join Brian Greene on a wild ride into the weird realm of quantum physics, which governs the universe on the tiniest of scales. Greene brings quantum mechanics to life in a nightclub like no other, where objects pop in and out of existence, and things over here can affect others over there, instantaneously and without anything crossing the space between them. A century ago, during the initial shots in the quantum revolution, the best minds of a generation-including Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr-squared off in a battle for the soul of physics. How could the rules of the quantum world, which work so well to describe the behavior of individual atoms and their components, conflict so dramatically with the everyday rules that govern people, planets and galaxies?

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Traditional Chinese Medicine - The Science of Acupuncture

BBC Documentary on Traditional Chinese Medicine. For thousands of years, what we now think of as Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) was the only medicine; now, traditional cures are being treated with a fresh respect. For BBC TWO, scientist Professor Kathy Sykes from Bristol University Kathy Sykes investigates why science is starting to respond to these centuries-old remedies....  



Alternative Medicine: The Evidence on Acupuncture Kathy begins her journey in China where she sees some incredible demonstrations of acupuncture. The most astonishing is a scene in a Chinese hospital in which doctors perform open heart surgery on a young woman - using a combination of acupuncture and conventional pain relief instead of a general anaesthetic. In China, she discovers, acupuncture is used alongside western medicine and, at times, as a replacement.

So, what does western science make of these claims? Kathy meets the key scientists, both in the UK and in the US, who have put them to the test. She discovers that - although for most conditions and illnesses acupuncture cannot be shown to work - scientists have, intriguingly, uncovered a number of conditions relating to chronic pain in which they can be fairly certain acupuncture is having a powerful effect.

Kathy recruits a team of top scientists and alternative practitioners to find out if acupuncture might be having an effect. Over several months they devise an experiment which they hope will find the answer and finally uncover the secrets of acupuncture. Kathy and her team scan the brains of volunteers undergoing acupuncture. The conclusions challenge current understandings of the workings of the brain and throws new light on this ancient practice.

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How China Fooled the World : BBC

How China Fooled the World - with Robert Peston. Robert Peston travels to China to investigate how this mighty economic giant could actually be in serious trouble. China is now the second largest economy in the world and for the last 30 years China's economy has been growing at an astonishing rate. While Britain has been in the grip of the worst recession in a generation, China's economic miracle has wowed the world.



Now, for BBC Two's award-winning strand This World, Peston reveals what has actually happened inside China since the economic collapse in the west in 2008. It is a story of spending and investment on a scale never seen before in human history - 30 new airports, 26,000 miles of motorways and a new skyscraper every five days have been built in China in the last five years. But, in a situation eerily reminiscent of what has happened in the west, the vast majority of it has been built on credit. This has now left the Chinese economy with huge debts and questions over whether much of the money can ever be paid back.

Interviewing key players including the former American treasury secretary Henry Paulson, Lord Adair Turner, former chairman of the FSA, and Charlene Chu, a leading Chinese banking analyst, Robert Peston reveals how China's extraordinary spending has left the country with levels of debt that many believe can only end in an economic crash with untold consequences for us all.

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Time Machine : BBC

From the creation of the highest mountains to the opening of a flower's petals, time controls the world around us. To understand this super-powerful force on Earth, we must wrench control of time ourselves - compressing, expanding, stopping and dissecting it, to reveal how the passing of time shapes our world and lives.
The World Shaped By Time. First in a three-part documentary series offering an insight into the dramatic forces that shape life on Earth, using speeded-up footage that compresses centuries into seconds. The programme follows the movement of mountains, rivers, glaciers and the sea, and offers a glimpse of what the future might hold, revealing how the Great Rift Valley may well be on its way to becoming the next ocean.



Life: The Race Against Time. How the passing of time on Earth affects life on a variety of levels, from the daily opening of a flower's petals to the evolution of the horse. A swift journey through the seasons demonstrates how caribou spend most of their time on the move, while the flying squirrel's body clock, attuned to the rhythms of the Earth, is revealed to be the most accurate in nature.
Masters of Time. The last episode in the series examines how humans perceive and experience time, investigating the internal body clock which tells people when to eat, drink, sleep and relax. The importance of accurately measuring time is explored in relation to human evolution, and there's a debate about whether mankind will ever be able to travel between past, present and future.

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FRONTLINE - Memory of the Camps

Sixty years ago, in the spring of 1945, Allied forces liberating Europe found evidence of atrocities which have tortured the world's conscience ever since. As the troops entered the German concentration camps, they made a stematic film record of what they saw. Work began in the summer of 1945 on the documentary, but the film was left unfinished.
FRONTLINE found it stored in a vault of London's Imperial War Museum and, in 1985, broadcast it for the first time using the title the Imperial War Museum gave it, 'Memory of the Camps. 


 

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September 11 : "Why the Towers Fell" - Nova PBS

For most people the image of the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001, was not only a scene of unforgettable horror, it was a moment of unimaginable consequence. Within days, NOVA began following a blue ribbon team of forensic engineers as they began searching for clues that would tell them why the towers fell.



This moving and informative documentary features interviews with survivors and rescue personnel who recount the buildings' last moments and their harrowing journeys to safety, interweaving these stories with the insights of some of the leading structural engineers in the world to explain exactly what happened on that fateful day.
Why the Towers Fell takes viewers through the process by which the investigative team came to understand the how's and why's of one of America's greatest tragedies. From a detailed examination of the building's original design to the relentless process of combing scrap steel yards and Ground Zero itself for evidence, this was one of the most extensive and difficult disaster investigations ever undertaken. The team tested building materials, calculated the role of the jet fuel in the fire, estimated the speed of the aircraft and the damage to the building's core, and they analyzed the effectiveness of the escape and fire protection systems. The conclusions they reached will certainly influence the building of future skyscrapers for years to come.

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What Darwin Never Knew

Earth teems with a staggering variety of animals, including 9,000 kinds of birds, 28,000 types of fish, and more than 350,000 species of beetles. What explains this explosion of living creatures—1.4 million different species discovered so far, with perhaps another 50 million to go? The source of life's endless forms was a profound mystery until Charles Darwin brought forth his revolutionary idea of natural selection. But Darwin's radical insights raised as many questions as they answered. What actually drives evolution and turns one species into another? To what degree do different animals rely on the same genetic toolkit? And how did we evolve? 



"What Darwin Never Knew" offers answers to riddles that Darwin couldn't explain. Breakthroughs in a brand-new science—nicknamed "evo devo"—are linking the enigmas of evolution to another of nature's great mysteries, the development of the embryo. NOVA takes viewers on a journey from the Galapagos Islands to the Arctic, and from the explosion of animal forms half a billion years ago to the research labs of today. Scientists are finally beginning to crack nature's biggest secrets at the genetic level. The results are confirming the brilliance of Darwin's insights while revealing clues to life's breathtaking diversity in ways the great naturalist could scarcely have imagined.

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Horizon : The Dinosaur that Fooled the World

In the mid 1800s, when Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution, one species of animal remained a mystery; where did birds fit on his evolutionary tree? Several years later his friend and colleague, Thomas Henry Huxley, came up with an answer. Huxley had recently examined a new fossil from southern Germany called Archaeopteryx which was causing considerable excitement in palaeontological circles. There were clear signs of feathers and it was obvious this was the earliest fossil evidence of a bird ever found. Huxley noticed something else as well. To him it looked as though the skeleton bore a striking similarity to that of a family of meat eating dinosaurs known as therapods. 



Transitional trail

In the 1860s, on the basis of this observation, he announced a new theory; birds must have evolved from dinosaurs. The theory ignited what was to become one of the biggest controversies in palaeontology. Could Huxley possibly be right; how could a large, land-bound creature like a dinosaur have ever evolved into something as light and sleek as a bird? Many questioned the accuracy of Huxley's observations and ever since there has been a search for further fossil evidence to confirm the theory; a transitional animal which would incontrovertibly show how, in one creature, birds had evolved from dinosaurs. It has become one of the big missing links in palaeontology.

In Spring 1999, at the Tucson Gem and Fossil Fair in Arizona, an American collector came across a new Chinese fossil which seemed to be just this transitional animal. It had the head and upper body of a bird but the tail of a dinosaur. It was called Archaeoraptor or 'ancient hunter'.

Fossil hunting has become an industry for some Chinese farmersChinese finds

Throughout the 1990s a number of important fossils emerged from China showing an apparent relationship between dinosaurs and birds. Practically all come from a region in the north of the country called Liaoning, one of the richest fossil areas in the world. Here, 130 million years ago, volcanic eruptions buried a wetland once teeming in wildlife. Many of the fossils have been magnificently preserved in the fine silt; some even have the remains of soft tissue attached to them.

It was here, in 1996, that Chinese scientists found a creature they called Sinosauropteryx, an animal which bore many similarities to a dinosaur but appeared to have been covered in a feathery like coat. Two years later a joint Chinese/American team found an even more striking creature; a dinosaur like animal with very clear feathers which they called Caudipteryx. Other similar feathered dinosaurs followed, including in 1999, an important specimen called Sinornithosurus. Yet to those who questioned the relationship between dinosaurs and birds, these fabulous finds raised as many questions as they answered. Were the feather-like markings really signs of feathers, or were they something else? And were the skeletons really those of dinosaurs or were they, in fact, the skeletons of new, as yet unidentified, birds? What was still missing was the piece of evidence which would satisfy everybody.

The best of both worlds

The new Archaeoraptor fossil, also from the Liaoning region of China, seemed to be just that. Here, in one animal, was a unique range of dinosaur and bird features. It had the skull and upper body of a bird, but the teeth and hands of a dinosaur. It also had the legs of a bird but the tail of a dinosaur. It was the most complete set of transitional features ever found in one creature. In November 1999 National Geographic Magazine gave it a special mention in an article about the origins of birds, calling it, "a true missing link.". The debate, started by Thomas Huxley in the 1860s, seemed to have been resolved.

Xu Xing from Beijing University first questioned the Archaeoraptor's authenticityYet within months, new finds in China showed Archaeoraptor to be an extremely clever fake. The head and upper body of a hitherto unidentified bird had been glued onto the tail of a previously unknown dinosaur. It was a journalistic disaster for National Geographic Magazine. The fossil, however, was anything but a disaster for palaeontology. By an extraordinary stroke of good luck, as scientists in China and America examined the head and tail separately, they found that both were, in their own right, unique and extremely valuable specimens. Both, in their different ways, contained powerful evidence that birds had evolved from dinosaurs

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Kings of Camouflage : The Cuttlefish

Join NOVA on a voyage beneath the waves, where you'll discover a bizarre, alien-like creature like no other. It's an animal with eight sucker-covered arms growing out of its head, three hearts pumping its blue-green blood, and a doughnut-shaped brain. It has the ability to change its color and shape to blend in with seaweed and rocks, and it has a knack for switching on electrifying light shows that dazzle its prey. Perhaps most surprising of all, this animal is quite intelligent, with a highly complex brain. In this program, underwater cameras capture the extraordinary powers of the cuttlefish.

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Sharks in the South Pacific - The Polynesian SHARK

Watch the Wildlife Nature Documentary . Sharks in the South Pacific - The Polynesian SHARK

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Jaguar: Year of the Cat

The jaguar is the third largest cat in the world, surpassed only by the lion and tiger. These felines once roamed throughout the southwestern United States, throughout Central America, and down into Brazil and Argentina. But today, their numbers cut by the animal-skin trade and much of their habitat lost to farmland, jaguars exist only in protected areas and fragments of their former range.
     


In fact, the jaguar is almost impossible to spot in the wild. A silent hunter by day or by night, the jaguar sports a patterned coat that gives it near-perfect camouflage against the dapple of the forest, and unlike other large cats, it does not roar. This presents a big problem for wildlife cinematographers: how do you film an animal you can't see? The answer can be found in the NATURE program JAGUAR: YEAR OF THE CAT.

In 1993, as they prepared to make the film, JAGUAR's producers were faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge. "It's very rare to see jaguars in the wild," says Barry Clark, the show's executive producer. "[Jaguar researcher] Alan Rabinowitz has spent many years studying jaguars in the wild and has seen only one. No one could do a program on wild jaguars, because no one could get the footage."

       
So the filmmakers compromised: instead of trying to locate this elusive animal, they placed a zoo-owned jaguar in an outdoor setting that mimicked the cat's natural habitat. The jaguar you see on the show is from the Belize Zoo, near the Cockscomb Basin Jaguar Preserve, the world's only protected area for jaguars.

Clark's crew created a series of more than 100 "sets" which, although constructed, were nevertheless totally natural. Just outside the Cockscomb Basin Preserve, the crew enclosed parts of the forest and installed lights, rain machines, and dolly tracks to make natural soundstages. Before they began filming, they brought in the jaguar to get it accustomed to the environment.

   
"The jaguar would live in the set for a period of time, sometimes weeks before the crew would film on the set," describes Clark. "That way, the jaguar would get used to the set and the crew would set the dolly tracks to what the animal's habits were." The jaguar quickly established a daily routine, which helped make the filming easier. The crew strove to keep the environment as real as possible, even creating a simulated rainy season, during which the jaguar waited out the storm inside a fabricated cave.

Skeptics might argue that this manipulation means JAGUAR: YEAR OF THE CAT is not a real nature film, but Clark maintains that the viewer sees only natural behaviors, not manufactured ones. Even though the circumstances are somewhat modified, everything we see the jaguar doing in the NATURE program is real.

And furthermore, Clark points out, in a film made this way, producers have the ability to spare the lives of other animals involved in the making of the show. During the NATURE show, the jaguar catches a turtle and carries it off to eat it, using his powerful jaws to rip through the turtle's tough shell. But in reality, after the jaguar had fished the turtle out of the river, it was quickly taken from him, released back into the water, and replaced with a dead turtle bought at a local market.

       
Clark is happy to be in control of the amount of violence during a shoot. "We don't need to kill any animals to get the scene," he says. That's good news for animal lovers -- and for wildlife cinematographers who want to lessen the amount of bloodshed commonly seen in nature films.

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