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The scientific practice of Kiana Frank, a microbiologist at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, melds contemporary techniques of empirical data-collection with Indigenous knowledge born of her Native Hawaiian heritage. In Decoding Ancestral Knowledge, Frank recalls how an ancient Hawaiian myth, handed down through oral tradition, led her to a scientific breakthrough with meaningful implications for managing and restoring local fishponds. Told via a combination of in-the-lab and in-the-field footage, as well as a touch of paper puppetry, the short documentary offers an intriguing look at how ancient ways of understanding the natural world can help shape a better future.
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Technology and the self
A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg
11 minutes
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Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
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Biology
Beetles take flight at 6,000 frames per second in this perspective-shifting short
9 minutes
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War and peace
A war meteorologist’s riveting account of how the Allies averted a D-Day disaster
6 minutes
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Physics
What does it look like to hunt for dark matter? Scenes from one frontier in the search
7 minutes
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Neuroscience
Dog vision is a trendy topic, but what can we really know about how they see?
11 minutes
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Information and communication
An animation built from road signs is a whirlwind study of flash communication
2 minutes
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Biology
An elegy for a dying microbe explores what we really mean by ‘death’
9 minutes
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Art
Creating art that was aware of itself – and the viewer – made Manet the first modernist
15 minutes