Selected Short Documentaries

About 7 minutes each. Mostly about science, design, technology, and their intersections. Featuring interviews with domain experts.

The Elements of Taste

Classic cuisine meets high tech at Chef Achatz's renowned Alinea Restaurant.

Blast Waves And The Brain

How IED blast waves impact the brains of the victims who survive them.

Artificial Muscle

A new muscle-like material could transform everything from band-aids to torpedoes.

Microbe-Made Petroleum

How modified bacteria can turn carbon-negative grasses into petroleum. 

The Climate's Future

On whether anthropogenic climate change is real — and the risks of doing nothing.

Biomechatronics

Prosthetics wired into nerves foretell devices that meld living tissue and electronics.

Digital Design in Building

Architects now use custom shapes anywhere — not just in exotic, costly buildings.

Hyperscoring Music

Listening to music doesn't help people's brains much but creating it does.

Evolutionary Design

How to design new devices, medications, and processes using evolutionary principles.

Collaborative Displays

Room-sized touch screens handle 20 touches at a time to simplify collaboration. 

Learning Without Schools

Why laptops for children in developing countries matter as much as food and health.

Understanding All Disease

Why understanding stem cells would lead to cures for diseases like cancer.

High-Speed Drug Discovery

A yeast-based platform tests possible Alzheimer's cures fast: 100,000 in a few weeks. 

Nanogates

How a tiny valve lets through molecules one at a time for precision manufacturing.

Sociometrics

New technologies enable computers to interpret not only words but tone of voice.

The Semantic Web of Data

The Web's inventor tells how webpages that say what they mean will revolutionize it.

Hostile Objects

How designed things tell stories — but stories that often lack humanity.

 

Twitter: Ambient Intimacy

Co-founder Evan Williams, when Twitter was still tiny, on being "ephemeral and trivial."

Vascular Malformations

A doctor tells about kids with craniofacial deformities and research to save their lives.

 
 

Other Videos

Here are some in other genres. If you're looking for one that's not here, let me know and I'll send a Vimeo link if available.