For how long have we been laughing? Are human beings the only ones to laugh? In the past, scientists tended to neglect such questions of laughter, leaving them to the philosophers. Jacques Mitsch's A NATURAL HISTORY OF LAUGHTER explores recent scientific attempts to explicate this most elusive of human faculties, undertaken by scientists who see it as a means of approaching some of the larger mysteries of neurology and human behavior.
Two researchers, the French Emmanuelle Charpentier and the American Jennifer Doudna developed, in 2012, the CRISPR-Cas9 molecular scissors: an invention that is revolutionizing genetics. This tool allows you to cut, correct and replace, with unprecedented ease, pieces of DNA from any living being, whether plant, animal or human. Will it soon be possible to put an end to the major causes of death in our modern societies such as genetic diseases, cancer or AIDS? At the same time more exciting and more frightening: will the molecular scissors be able to modify at will an individual, even all its descendants, efficiently, quickly and at a moderate cost? This biotechnology invention, the bearer of unprecedented medical and biological progress, will perhaps win the Nobel Prize for Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna.
Documentary about Italian Neo-Realism featuring the works of Luchino Visconti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Roberto Rossellini, and Vittorio De Sica
