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113-468: Horizon is an ongoing and long-running British documentary television series on BBC Two that covers science and philosophy . The programme was first broadcast on 2 May 1964 with "The World of Buckminster Fuller", which explored the theories and structures of inventor Richard Buckminster Fuller and included the Horizon mission statement: "The aim of Horizon is to provide a platform from which some of

226-446: A 2D gel electrophoresis . The Bradford assay is a molecular biology technique which enables the fast, accurate quantitation of protein molecules utilizing the unique properties of a dye called Coomassie Brilliant Blue G-250. Coomassie Blue undergoes a visible color shift from reddish-brown to bright blue upon binding to protein. In its unstable, cationic state, Coomassie Blue has a background wavelength of 465 nm and gives off

339-481: A Prix Italia ) and another in 2001 for Best Factual Series or Strand. Three Horizon episodes were included on The Wonders Collection Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray. The episodes were "Do You Know What Time It Is?", "Can We Make A Star On Earth?" and "What on Earth is Wrong With Gravity?" Documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining

452-508: A Royal Television Society Award and a Grierson Trust Award. Other Emmy winning programmes are: "Chernobyl's Sarcophagus" (1991), "Assault on the Male" (1993) and "The Fall of the World Trade Centre" (2003). In 1988, Horizon won a BAFTA for Best Drama, "Life Story" (about the elucidation of the structure of DNA ), another in 1996 for Best Documentary, "Fermat's Last Theorem" (which also won

565-564: A historical record ". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries". Early documentary films, originally called " actuality films ", briefly lasted for one minute or less. Over time, documentaries have evolved to become longer in length and to include more categories. Some examples are educational , observational and docufiction . Documentaries are very informative , and are often used within schools as

678-736: A plasmid ( expression vector ). The plasmid vector usually has at least 3 distinctive features: an origin of replication, a multiple cloning site (MCS), and a selective marker (usually antibiotic resistance ). Additionally, upstream of the MCS are the promoter regions and the transcription start site, which regulate the expression of cloned gene. This plasmid can be inserted into either bacterial or animal cells. Introducing DNA into bacterial cells can be done by transformation via uptake of naked DNA, conjugation via cell-cell contact or by transduction via viral vector. Introducing DNA into eukaryotic cells, such as animal cells, by physical or chemical means

791-584: A Metropolis (dir. Walter Ruttmann , 1927); Man with a Movie Camera (dir. Dziga Vertov , 1929); Douro, Faina Fluvial (dir. Manoel de Oliveira , 1931); and Rhapsody in Two Languages (dir. Gordon Sparling , 1934). A city symphony film, as the name suggests, is most often based around a major metropolitan city area and seeks to capture the life, events and activities of the city. It can use abstract cinematography (Walter Ruttman's Berlin ) or may use Soviet montage theory (Dziga Vertov's, Man with

904-421: A Movie Camera ). Most importantly, a city symphony film is a form of cinepoetry , shot and edited in the style of a " symphony ". The European continental tradition ( See: Realism ) focused on humans within human-made environments, and included the so-called city symphony films such as Walter Ruttmann's, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (of which Grierson noted in an article that Berlin, represented what

1017-429: A Summer ( Jean Rouch ), Dont Look Back ( D. A. Pennebaker ), Grey Gardens ( Albert and David Maysles ), Titicut Follies ( Frederick Wiseman ), Primary and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (both produced by Robert Drew ), Harlan County, USA (directed by Barbara Kopple ), Lonely Boy ( Wolf Koenig and Roman Kroitor ) are all frequently deemed cinéma vérité films. The fundamentals of

1130-520: A broader perspective, as a reaction against studio-based film production constraints. Shooting on location, with smaller crews, would also happen in the French New Wave , the filmmakers taking advantage of advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld cameras and synchronized sound to film events on location as they unfolded. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are important differences between cinéma vérité ( Jean Rouch ) and

1243-448: A density gradient, which separated the DNA molecules based on their density. The results showed that after one generation of replication in the N medium, the DNA formed a band of intermediate density between that of pure N DNA and pure N DNA. This supported the semiconservative DNA replication proposed by Watson and Crick, where each strand of the parental DNA molecule serves as a template for

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1356-414: A distinctive narrative form, typically employing an underlying "detective" metaphor, to relate scientific issues and discoveries to the lives of its viewers. Many episodes of Horizon are structured in a format that starts with a tease or menu laying out what the show has in store, followed by two "acts" with a "plot twist" around 25–35 minutes into the show. The twist frequently propels the story line from

1469-622: A documentary should not be); Alberto Cavalcanti's, Rien que les heures; and Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera . These films tend to feature people as products of their environment, and lean towards the avant-garde. Dziga Vertov was central to the Soviet Kino-Pravda (literally, "cinematic truth") newsreel series of the 1920s. Vertov believed the camera – with its varied lenses, shot-counter shot editing, time-lapse, ability to slow motion, stop motion and fast-motion – could render reality more accurately than

1582-409: A focus on an individual scientist's human and intellectual journey of discovery through to explore the impact of that insight while, at the same time, providing a change of "texture" and filmic pace. Often, episodes of Horizon end up with a montage of "talking heads" as experts and people affected by the implications of the science covered are intercut to create a sense of summary. Until early 2008,

1695-437: A form of journalism, advocacy, or personal expression. Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. Single-shot moments were captured on film, such as a train entering a station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work. These short films were called "actuality" films; the term "documentary" was not coined until 1926. Many of the first films, such as those made by Auguste and Louis Lumière , were

1808-526: A host's immune system cannot recognize the bacteria and it kills the host. The other, avirulent, rough strain lacks this polysaccharide capsule and has a dull, rough appearance. Presence or absence of capsule in the strain, is known to be genetically determined. Smooth and rough strains occur in several different type such as S-I, S-II, S-III, etc. and R-I, R-II, R-III, etc. respectively. All this subtypes of S and R bacteria differ with each other in antigen type they produce. The Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment

1921-453: A labeled complement of a sequence of interest. The results may be visualized through a variety of ways depending on the label used; however, most result in the revelation of bands representing the sizes of the RNA detected in sample. The intensity of these bands is related to the amount of the target RNA in the samples analyzed. The procedure is commonly used to study when and how much gene expression

2034-511: A major battle and re-enact scenes to film them. The propagandist tradition consists of films made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. One of the most celebrated and controversial propaganda films is Leni Riefenstahl 's film Triumph of the Will (1935), which chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party Congress and was commissioned by Adolf Hitler . Leftist filmmakers Joris Ivens and Henri Storck directed Borinage (1931) about

2147-437: A minute or less in length, due to technological limitations. Examples can be viewed on YouTube. Films showing many people (for example, leaving a factory) were often made for commercial reasons: the people being filmed were eager to see, for payment, the film showing them. One notable film clocked in at over an hour and a half, The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight . Using pioneering film-looping technology, Enoch J. Rector presented

2260-518: A mixture of proteins. Western blots can be used to determine the size of isolated proteins, as well as to quantify their expression. In western blotting , proteins are first separated by size, in a thin gel sandwiched between two glass plates in a technique known as SDS-PAGE . The proteins in the gel are then transferred to a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), nitrocellulose, nylon, or other support membrane. This membrane can then be probed with solutions of antibodies . Antibodies that specifically bind to

2373-501: A more poetic aesthetic approach to documentary. Examples of their work include Drifters (John Grierson), Song of Ceylon (Basil Wright), Fires Were Started , and A Diary for Timothy (Humphrey Jennings). Their work involved poets such as W. H. Auden , composers such as Benjamin Britten , and writers such as J. B. Priestley . Among the best known films of the movement are Night Mail and Coal Face . Calling Mr. Smith (1943)

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2486-577: A new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts for interpreting the modern world; and that materials "thus taken from the raw" can be more real than the acted article. In this regard, Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" has gained some acceptance; however, this position is at variance with Soviet film-maker Dziga Vertov 's credos of provocation to present "life as it is" (that is, life filmed surreptitiously), and "life caught unawares" (life provoked or surprised by

2599-436: A reddish-brown color. When Coomassie Blue binds to protein in an acidic solution, the background wavelength shifts to 595 nm and the dye gives off a bright blue color. Proteins in the assay bind Coomassie blue in about 2 minutes, and the protein-dye complex is stable for about an hour, although it is recommended that absorbance readings are taken within 5 to 20 minutes of reaction initiation. The concentration of protein in

2712-428: A resource to teach various principles . Documentary filmmakers have a responsibility to be truthful to their vision of the world without intentionally misrepresenting a topic. Social media platforms (such as YouTube ) have provided an avenue for the growth of the documentary- film genre . These platforms have increased the distribution area and ease-of-accessibility. Polish writer and filmmaker Bolesław Matuszewski

2825-408: A single slide. Each spot has a DNA fragment molecule that is complementary to a single DNA sequence . A variation of this technique allows the gene expression of an organism at a particular stage in development to be qualified ( expression profiling ). In this technique the RNA in a tissue is isolated and converted to labeled complementary DNA (cDNA). This cDNA is then hybridized to the fragments on

2938-909: A special episode on the Artemis program in conjunction with the American series Nova and the Open University was announced. Horizon has enjoyed high viewing figures, even though it covered subjects as complex as molecular biology and particle physics . It has shown a change of direction since June 2006, offering a more light-hearted approach, though the subjects it covers remain serious. For instance, an episode broadcast in 2019 entitled "We Need To Talk About Death" features Kevin Fong talking to palliative care clinician Mark Taubert and some of his patients who are facing terminal illness. The down-side to Horizon ' s recent focus on "Pure Science, Sheer Drama" and

3051-462: A viewpoint on the interdisciplinary relationships between molecular biology and other related fields. While researchers practice techniques specific to molecular biology, it is common to combine these with methods from genetics and biochemistry . Much of molecular biology is quantitative, and recently a significant amount of work has been done using computer science techniques such as bioinformatics and computational biology . Molecular genetics ,

3164-503: A wordless meditation on wartime Britain. From 1982, the Qatsi trilogy and the similar Baraka could be described as visual tone poems, with music related to the images, but no spoken content. Koyaanisqatsi (part of the Qatsi trilogy ) consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. Baraka tries to capture

3277-470: Is a separate area. Pathé was the best-known global manufacturer of such films in the early 20th century. A vivid example is Moscow Clad in Snow (1909). Biographical documentaries appeared during this time, such as the feature Eminescu-Veronica-Creangă (1914) on the relationship between the writers Mihai Eminescu , Veronica Micle and Ion Creangă (all deceased at the time of the production), released by

3390-439: Is also a long tradition of studying biomolecules "from the ground up", or molecularly, in biophysics . Molecular cloning is used to isolate and then transfer a DNA sequence of interest into a plasmid vector. This recombinant DNA technology was first developed in the 1960s. In this technique, a DNA sequence coding for a protein of interest is cloned using polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and/or restriction enzymes , into

3503-419: Is an anti-Nazi color film created by Stefan Themerson which is both a documentary and an avant-garde film against war. It was one of the first anti-Nazi films in history. Cinéma vérité (or the closely related direct cinema ) was dependent on some technical advances to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and portable sync sound. Cinéma vérité and similar documentary traditions can thus be seen, in

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3616-439: Is becoming more affordable and used in many different scientific fields. This will drive the development of industries in developing nations and increase accessibility to individual researchers. Likewise, CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing experiments can now be conceived and implemented by individuals for under $ 10,000 in novel organisms, which will drive the development of industrial and medical applications. The following list describes

3729-413: Is called transfection . Several different transfection techniques are available, such as calcium phosphate transfection, electroporation , microinjection and liposome transfection . The plasmid may be integrated into the genome , resulting in a stable transfection, or may remain independent of the genome and expressed temporarily, called a transient transfection. DNA coding for a protein of interest

3842-410: Is centrifuged and the pellet which contains E.coli cells was checked and the supernatant was discarded. The E.coli cells showed radioactive phosphorus, which indicated that the transformed material was DNA not the protein coat. The transformed DNA gets attached to the DNA of E.coli and radioactivity is only seen onto the bacteriophage's DNA. This mutated DNA can be passed to the next generation and

3955-433: Is found in a cDNA library . PCR has many variations, like reverse transcription PCR ( RT-PCR ) for amplification of RNA, and, more recently, quantitative PCR which allow for quantitative measurement of DNA or RNA molecules. Gel electrophoresis is a technique which separates molecules by their size using an agarose or polyacrylamide gel. This technique is one of the principal tools of molecular biology. The basic principle

4068-454: Is known as horizontal gene transfer (HGT). This phenomenon is now referred to as genetic transformation. Griffith's experiment addressed the pneumococcus bacteria, which had two different strains, one virulent and smooth and one avirulent and rough. The smooth strain had glistering appearance owing to the presence of a type of specific polysaccharide – a polymer of glucose and glucuronic acid capsule. Due to this polysaccharide layer of bacteria,

4181-472: Is now inside a cell, and the protein can now be expressed. A variety of systems, such as inducible promoters and specific cell-signaling factors, are available to help express the protein of interest at high levels. Large quantities of a protein can then be extracted from the bacterial or eukaryotic cell. The protein can be tested for enzymatic activity under a variety of situations, the protein may be crystallized so its tertiary structure can be studied, or, in

4294-456: Is occurring by measuring how much of that RNA is present in different samples, assuming that no post-transcriptional regulation occurs and that the levels of mRNA reflect proportional levels of the corresponding protein being produced. It is one of the most basic tools for determining at what time, and under what conditions, certain genes are expressed in living tissues. A western blot is a technique by which specific proteins can be detected from

4407-479: Is susceptible to influence by strong alkaline buffering agents, such as sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The terms northern , western and eastern blotting are derived from what initially was a molecular biology joke that played on the term Southern blotting , after the technique described by Edwin Southern for the hybridisation of blotted DNA. Patricia Thomas, developer of the RNA blot which then became known as

4520-400: Is that DNA fragments can be separated by applying an electric current across the gel - because the DNA backbone contains negatively charged phosphate groups, the DNA will migrate through the agarose gel towards the positive end of the current. Proteins can also be separated on the basis of size using an SDS-PAGE gel, or on the basis of size and their electric charge by using what is known as

4633-412: Is then exposed to a labeled DNA probe that has a complement base sequence to the sequence on the DNA of interest. Southern blotting is less commonly used in laboratory science due to the capacity of other techniques, such as PCR , to detect specific DNA sequences from DNA samples. These blots are still used for some applications, however, such as measuring transgene copy number in transgenic mice or in

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4746-516: Is used to detect post-translational modification of proteins. Proteins blotted on to the PVDF or nitrocellulose membrane are probed for modifications using specific substrates. A DNA microarray is a collection of spots attached to a solid support such as a microscope slide where each spot contains one or more single-stranded DNA oligonucleotide fragments. Arrays make it possible to put down large quantities of very small (100 micrometre diameter) spots on

4859-660: The Bucharest chapter of Pathé . Early color motion picture processes such as Kinemacolor (known for the feature With Our King and Queen Through India (1912)) and Prizma Color (known for Everywhere With Prizma (1919) and the five-reel feature Bali the Unknown (1921)) used travelogues to promote the new color processes. In contrast, Technicolor concentrated primarily on getting their process adopted by Hollywood studios for fiction feature films. Also during this period, Frank Hurley 's feature documentary film, South (1919) about

4972-644: The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was released. The film documented the failed Antarctic expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1914. With Robert J. Flaherty 's Nanook of the North in 1922, documentary film embraced romanticism . Flaherty filmed a number of heavily staged romantic documentary films during this time period, often showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then. For instance, in Nanook of

5085-553: The Medical Research Council Unit, Cavendish Laboratory , were the first to describe the double helix model for the chemical structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which is often considered a landmark event for the nascent field because it provided a physico-chemical basis by which to understand the previously nebulous idea of nucleic acids as the primary substance of biological inheritance. They proposed this structure based on previous research done by Franklin, which

5198-425: The genetic code is a triplet code, where each triplet (called a codon ) specifies a particular amino acid. Furthermore, it was shown that the codons do not overlap with each other in the DNA sequence encoding a protein, and that each sequence is read from a fixed starting point. During 1962–1964, through the use of conditional lethal mutants of a bacterial virus, fundamental advances were made in our understanding of

5311-422: The northern blot , actually did not use the term. Named after its inventor, biologist Edwin Southern , the Southern blot is a method for probing for the presence of a specific DNA sequence within a DNA sample. DNA samples before or after restriction enzyme (restriction endonuclease) digestion are separated by gel electrophoresis and then transferred to a membrane by blotting via capillary action . The membrane

5424-884: The 1920s and 1930s. These films were particularly influenced by modern art , namely Cubism , Constructivism , and Impressionism . According to art historian and author Scott MacDonald , city symphony films can be described as, "An intersection between documentary and avant-garde film: an avant-doc "; however, A.L. Rees suggests regarding them as avant-garde films. Early titles produced within this genre include: Manhatta (New York; dir. Paul Strand , 1921); Rien que les heures /Nothing But The Hours ( France ; dir. Alberto Cavalcanti , 1926); Twenty Four Dollar Island (dir. Robert J. Flaherty , 1927); Moscow (dir. Mikhail Kaufman , 1927); Études sur Paris (dir. André Sauvage , 1928); The Bridge (1928) and Rain (1929), both by Joris Ivens ; São Paulo, Sinfonia da Metrópole (dir. Adalberto Kemeny , 1929), Berlin: Symphony of

5537-796: The 20th century, when technologies used in physics and chemistry had advanced sufficiently to permit their application in the biological sciences. The term 'molecular biology' was first used in 1945 by the English physicist William Astbury , who described it as an approach focused on discerning the underpinnings of biological phenomena—i.e. uncovering the physical and chemical structures and properties of biological molecules, as well as their interactions with other molecules and how these interactions explain observations of so-called classical biology, which instead studies biological processes at larger scales and higher levels of organization. In 1953, Francis Crick , James Watson , Rosalind Franklin , and their colleagues at

5650-556: The BBC's in-house production division, BBC Studios , and the BBC invited independent production companies to pitch to make episodes of the strand. There have been 57 series and more than 1,200 episodes produced. Horizon has investigated an eclectic mix of subjects and controversial topics. It opened the awareness of consumers to the use of whale meat in pet food in 1972 ("Whales, Dolphins, and Men"), and produced award-winning documentary-dramas such as Life Story in 1987, which dramatised

5763-544: The Belgian coal mining region. Luis Buñuel directed a " surrealist " documentary Las Hurdes (1933). Pare Lorentz 's The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) and The River (1938) and Willard Van Dyke 's The City (1939) are notable New Deal productions, each presenting complex combinations of social and ecological awareness, government propaganda, and leftist viewpoints. Frank Capra 's Why We Fight (1942–1944) series

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5876-631: The Bradford assay can then be measured using a visible light spectrophotometer , and therefore does not require extensive equipment. This method was developed in 1975 by Marion M. Bradford , and has enabled significantly faster, more accurate protein quantitation compared to previous methods: the Lowry procedure and the biuret assay. Unlike the previous methods, the Bradford assay is not susceptible to interference by several non-protein molecules, including ethanol, sodium chloride, and magnesium chloride. However, it

5989-456: The DNA model was Phoebus Levene , who proposed the "polynucleotide model" of DNA in 1919 as a result of his biochemical experiments on yeast. In 1950, Erwin Chargaff expanded on the work of Levene and elucidated a few critical properties of nucleic acids: first, the sequence of nucleic acids varies across species. Second, the total concentration of purines (adenine and guanine) is always equal to

6102-780: The Furnaces , from 1968), directed by Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas , influenced a whole generation of filmmakers. Among the many political documentaries produced in the early 1970s was "Chile: A Special Report", public television's first in-depth expository look at the September 1973 overthrow of the Salvador Allende government in Chile by military leaders under Augusto Pinochet , produced by documentarians Ari Martinez and José Garcia. A June 2020 article in The New York Times reviewed

6215-574: The North , Flaherty did not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby shotgun, but had them use a harpoon instead. Some of Flaherty's staging, such as building a roofless igloo for interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming technology of the time. Paramount Pictures tried to repeat the success of Flaherty's Nanook and Moana with two romanticized documentaries, Grass (1925) and Chang (1927), both directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack . The " city symphony " sub film genre consisted of avant-garde films during

6328-673: The North American " direct cinema " (or more accurately " cinéma direct "), pioneered by, among others, Canadians Michel Brault , Pierre Perrault and Allan King , and Americans Robert Drew , Richard Leacock , Frederick Wiseman and Albert and David Maysles . The directors of the movement take different viewpoints on their degree of involvement with their subjects. Kopple and Pennebaker, for instance, choose non-involvement (or at least no overt involvement), and Perrault, Rouch, Koenig, and Kroitor favor direct involvement or even provocation when they deem it necessary. The films Chronicle of

6441-460: The Penguins , and An Inconvenient Truth among the most prominent examples. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable. The nature of documentary films has expanded in the past 30 years from the cinéma vérité style introduced in the 1960s in which

6554-571: The Romanian professor Gheorghe Marinescu made several science films in his neurology clinic in Bucharest : Walking Troubles of Organic Hemiplegy (1898), The Walking Troubles of Organic Paraplegies (1899), A Case of Hysteric Hemiplegy Healed Through Hypnosis (1899), The Walking Troubles of Progressive Locomotion Ataxy (1900), and Illnesses of the Muscles (1901). All these short films have been preserved. The professor called his works "studies with

6667-485: The advantage of documentaries lies in introducing new perspectives which may not be prevalent in traditional media such as written publications and school curricula. Documentary practice is the complex process of creating documentary projects. It refers to what people do with media devices, content, form, and production strategies to address the creative, ethical, and conceptual problems and choices that arise as they make documentaries. Documentary filmmaking can be used as

6780-437: The array and visualization of the hybridization can be done. Since multiple arrays can be made with exactly the same position of fragments, they are particularly useful for comparing the gene expression of two different tissues, such as a healthy and cancerous tissue. Also, one can measure what genes are expressed and how that expression changes with time or with other factors. There are many different ways to fabricate microarrays;

6893-473: The atomic level. Molecular biologists today have access to increasingly affordable sequencing data at increasingly higher depths, facilitating the development of novel genetic manipulation methods in new non-model organisms. Likewise, synthetic molecular biologists will drive the industrial production of small and macro molecules through the introduction of exogenous metabolic pathways in various prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell lines. Horizontally, sequencing data

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7006-403: The bacteriophage's protein coat with radioactive sulphur and DNA with radioactive phosphorus, into two different test tubes respectively. After mixing bacteriophage and E.coli into the test tube, the incubation period starts in which phage transforms the genetic material in the E.coli cells. Then the mixture is blended or agitated, which separates the phage from E.coli cells. The whole mixture

7119-474: The camera). The American film critic Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as "a factual film which is dramatic." Others further state that a documentary stands out from the other types of non-fiction films for providing an opinion, and a specific message, along with the facts it presents. Scholar Betsy McLane asserted that documentaries are for filmmakers to convey their views about historical events, people, and places which they find significant. Therefore,

7232-492: The creation of a Film Archive to collect and keep safe visual materials. The word "documentary" was coined by Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson in his review of Robert Flaherty 's film Moana (1926), published in the New York Sun on 8 February 1926, written by "The Moviegoer" (a pen name for Grierson). Grierson's principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in

7345-429: The development of "reality television" that occasionally verges on the documentary but more often veers to the fictional or staged. The "making-of" documentary shows how a movie or a computer game was produced. Usually made for promotional purposes, it is closer to an advertisement than a classic documentary. Modern lightweight digital video cameras and computer-based editing have greatly aided documentary makers, as has

7458-493: The development of new technologies and their optimization. Molecular biology has been elucidated by the work of many scientists, and thus the history of the field depends on an understanding of these scientists and their experiments. The field of genetics arose from attempts to understand the set of rules underlying reproduction and heredity , and the nature of the hypothetical units of heredity known as genes . Gregor Mendel pioneered this work in 1866, when he first described

7571-407: The director. The commercial success of these documentaries may derive from this narrative shift in the documentary form, leading some critics to question whether such films can truly be called documentaries; critics sometimes refer to these works as " mondo films " or "docu-ganda." However, directorial manipulation of documentary subjects has been noted since the work of Flaherty, and may be endemic to

7684-539: The discovery of the structure of DNA . A 1978 programme about the silicon chip documented the decline of the Swiss watch industry. In 1993, an Emmy -winning episode about decreasing male fertility ("Assault on the Male") was given a special screening at the White House . The format of the series has varied over the years. The first ever Horizon was "The World of Buckminster Fuller", produced and directed by Ramsay Short,

7797-448: The dramatic drop in equipment prices. The first film to take full advantage of this change was Martin Kunert and Eric Manes ' Voices of Iraq , where 150 DV cameras were sent to Iraq during the war and passed out to Iraqis to record themselves. Films in the documentary form without words have been made. Listen to Britain , directed by Humphrey Jennings and Stuart McAllister in 1942, is

7910-526: The early part of the 20th century. They were often referred to by distributors as "scenics". Scenics were among the most popular sort of films at the time. An important early film which moved beyond the concept of the scenic was In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), which embraced primitivism and exoticism in a staged story presented as truthful re-enactments of the life of Native Americans . Contemplation

8023-401: The engineering of gene knockout embryonic stem cell lines . The northern blot is used to study the presence of specific RNA molecules as relative comparison among a set of different samples of RNA. It is essentially a combination of denaturing RNA gel electrophoresis , and a blot . In this process RNA is separated based on size and is then transferred to a membrane that is then probed with

8136-519: The entirety of a famous 1897 prize-fight on cinema screens across the United States. In May 1896, Bolesław Matuszewski recorded on film a few surgical operations in Warsaw and Saint Petersburg hospitals. In 1898, French surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen invited Matuszewski and Clément Maurice to record his surgical operations. They started in Paris a series of surgical films sometime before July 1898. Until 1906,

8249-412: The experiment involved growing E. coli bacteria in a medium containing heavy isotope of nitrogen ( N) for several generations. This caused all the newly synthesized bacterial DNA to be incorporated with the heavy isotope. After allowing the bacteria to replicate in a medium containing normal nitrogen ( N), samples were taken at various time points. These samples were then subjected to centrifugation in

8362-399: The extract. They discovered that when they digested the DNA in the extract with DNase , transformation of harmless bacteria into virulent ones was lost. This provided strong evidence that DNA was the genetic material, challenging the prevailing belief that proteins were responsible. It laid the basis for the subsequent discovery of its structure by Watson and Crick. Confirmation that DNA is

8475-513: The films was so vital that they were often given co-director credits. Famous cinéma vérité/direct cinema films include Les Raquetteurs , Showman , Salesman , Near Death , and The Children Were Watching . In the 1960s and 1970s, documentary film was often regarded as a political weapon against neocolonialism and capitalism in general, especially in Latin America, but also in a changing society. La Hora de los hornos ( The Hour of

8588-533: The form due to problematic ontological foundations. Documentary filmmakers are increasingly using social impact campaigns with their films. Social impact campaigns seek to leverage media projects by converting public awareness of social issues and causes into engagement and action, largely by offering the audience a way to get involved. Examples of such documentaries include Kony 2012 , Salam Neighbor , Gasland , Living on One Dollar , and Girl Rising . Although documentaries are financially more viable with

8701-504: The functions and interactions of the proteins employed in the machinery of DNA replication , DNA repair , DNA recombination , and in the assembly of molecular structures. In 1928, Frederick Griffith , encountered a virulence property in pneumococcus bacteria, which was killing lab rats. According to Mendel, prevalent at that time, gene transfer could occur only from parent to daughter cells. Griffith advanced another theory, stating that gene transfer occurring in member of same generation

8814-526: The genetic material which is cause of infection came from the Hershey–Chase experiment . They used E.coli and bacteriophage for the experiment. This experiment is also known as blender experiment, as kitchen blender was used as a major piece of apparatus. Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase demonstrated that the DNA injected by a phage particle into a bacterium contains all information required to synthesize progeny phage particles. They used radioactivity to tag

8927-449: The great pulse of humanity as it flocks and swarms in daily activity and religious ceremonies. Bodysong was made in 2003 and won a British Independent Film Award for "Best British Documentary." Molecular biology Though cells and other microscopic structures had been observed in living organisms as early as the 18th century, a detailed understanding of the mechanisms and interactions governing their behavior did not emerge until

9040-694: The help of the cinematograph," and published the results, along with several consecutive frames, in issues of La Semaine Médicale magazine from Paris, between 1899 and 1902. In 1924, Auguste Lumière recognized the merits of Marinescu's science films: "I've seen your scientific reports about the usage of the cinematograph in studies of nervous illnesses, when I was still receiving La Semaine Médicale , but back then I had other concerns, which left me no spare time to begin biological studies. I must say I forgot those works and I am thankful to you that you reminded them to me. Unfortunately, not many scientists have followed your way." Travelogue films were very popular in

9153-428: The human eye, and created a film philosophy from it. The newsreel tradition is important in documentary film. Newsreels at this time were sometimes staged but were usually re-enactments of events that had already happened, not attempts to steer events as they were in the process of happening. For instance, much of the battle footage from the early 20th century was staged; the cameramen would usually arrive on site after

9266-510: The implications of this unique structure for possible mechanisms of DNA replication. Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962, along with Wilkins, for proposing a model of the structure of DNA. In 1961, it was demonstrated that when a gene encodes a protein , three sequential bases of a gene's DNA specify each successive amino acid of the protein. Thus

9379-468: The increasing popularity of the genre and the advent of the DVD, funding for documentary film production remains elusive. Within the past decade, the largest exhibition opportunities have emerged from within the broadcast market, making filmmakers beholden to the tastes and influences of the broadcasters who have become their largest funding source. Modern documentaries have some overlap with television forms, with

9492-656: The landmark 14-hour Eyes on the Prize : America's Civil Rights Years (1986 – Part 1 and 1989 – Part 2) by Henry Hampton, 4 Little Girls (1997) by Spike Lee , The Civil War by Ken Burns , and UNESCO-awarded independent film on slavery 500 Years Later , express not only a distinctive voice but also a perspective and point of views. Some films such as The Thin Blue Line by Errol Morris incorporate stylized re-enactments, and Michael Moore 's Roger & Me place far more interpretive control with

9605-434: The laws of inheritance he observed in his studies of mating crosses in pea plants. One such law of genetic inheritance is the law of segregation , which states that diploid individuals with two alleles for a particular gene will pass one of these alleles to their offspring. Because of his critical work, the study of genetic inheritance is commonly referred to as Mendelian genetics . A major milestone in molecular biology

9718-409: The length was standardised at 50 minutes, which was extended in the latter half of 2008 to 60 minutes. Some episodes are adapted from documentaries by other broadcasters such as PBS's Nova , and episodes of Horizon are in turn adapted by PBS (to American English) and other broadcasters around the world in their own languages. No new episodes were broadcast between July 2022 and 2024. In January 2024,

9831-415: The most common are silicon chips, microscope slides with spots of ~100 micrometre diameter, custom arrays, and arrays with larger spots on porous membranes (macroarrays). There can be anywhere from 100 spots to more than 10,000 on a given array. Arrays can also be made with molecules other than DNA. Allele-specific oligonucleotide (ASO) is a technique that allows detection of single base mutations without

9944-399: The need for PCR or gel electrophoresis. Short (20–25 nucleotides in length), labeled probes are exposed to the non-fragmented target DNA, hybridization occurs with high specificity due to the short length of the probes and even a single base change will hinder hybridization. The target DNA is then washed and the unhybridized probes are removed. The target DNA is then analyzed for the presence of

10057-403: The occasionally forced narrative this engenders has led to some accusations of dumbing down in recent years, with one former editor writing a newspaper article about how the programme concentrates too much on human stories, and not enough on the science. One programme "Chimps are people too" was entirely presented by a non-scientist, Danny Wallace . Editor Andrew Cohen addressed the reasons why

10170-463: The pharmaceutical industry, the activity of new drugs against the protein can be studied. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is an extremely versatile technique for copying DNA. In brief, PCR allows a specific DNA sequence to be copied or modified in predetermined ways. The reaction is extremely powerful and under perfect conditions could amplify one DNA molecule to become 1.07 billion molecules in less than two hours. PCR has many applications, including

10283-513: The political documentary And She Could Be Next , directed by Grace Lee and Marjan Safinia. The Times described the documentary not only as focusing on women in politics, but more specifically on women of color, their communities, and the significant changes they have wrought upon America. Box office analysts have noted that the documentary film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as Fahrenheit 9/11 , Super Size Me , Food, Inc. , Earth , March of

10396-405: The probe via radioactivity or fluorescence. In this experiment, as in most molecular biology techniques, a control must be used to ensure successful experimentation. In molecular biology, procedures and technologies are continually being developed and older technologies abandoned. For example, before the advent of DNA gel electrophoresis ( agarose or polyacrylamide ), the size of DNA molecules

10509-569: The programme went down this route on the Horizon web page. In October 2014, a three-part special – "Cat Watch: the New Horizon Experiment" – was broadcast, following up on Horizon ' s 2013 "The Secret Life of the Cat". At the end of the first hour-long broadcast the findings of the experiment so-far were summarised on screen by presenter Liz Bonnin as: "Our cats can cope with change but you have to introduce them to it gently". Private Eye

10622-530: The protein of interest can then be visualized by a variety of techniques, including colored products, chemiluminescence , or autoradiography . Often, the antibodies are labeled with enzymes. When a chemiluminescent substrate is exposed to the enzyme it allows detection. Using western blotting techniques allows not only detection but also quantitative analysis. Analogous methods to western blotting can be used to directly stain specific proteins in live cells or tissue sections. The eastern blotting technique

10735-421: The study of gene expression, the detection of pathogenic microorganisms, the detection of genetic mutations, and the introduction of mutations to DNA. The PCR technique can be used to introduce restriction enzyme sites to ends of DNA molecules, or to mutate particular bases of DNA, the latter is a method referred to as site-directed mutagenesis . PCR can also be used to determine whether a particular DNA fragment

10848-532: The study of gene structure and function, has been among the most prominent sub-fields of molecular biology since the early 2000s. Other branches of biology are informed by molecular biology, by either directly studying the interactions of molecules in their own right such as in cell biology and developmental biology , or indirectly, where molecular techniques are used to infer historical attributes of populations or species , as in fields in evolutionary biology such as population genetics and phylogenetics . There

10961-530: The style include following a person during a crisis with a moving, often handheld, camera to capture more personal reactions. There are no sit-down interviews, and the shooting ratio (the amount of film shot to the finished product) is very high, often reaching 80 to one. From there, editors find and sculpt the work into a film. The editors of the movement – such as Werner Nold , Charlotte Zwerin , Muffie Meyer , Susan Froemke , and Ellen Hovde  – are often overlooked, but their input to

11074-554: The synthesis of a new complementary strand, resulting in two daughter DNA molecules, each consisting of one parental and one newly synthesized strand. The Meselson-Stahl experiment provided compelling evidence for the semiconservative replication of DNA, which is fundamental to the understanding of genetics and molecular biology. In the early 2020s, molecular biology entered a golden age defined by both vertical and horizontal technical development. Vertically, novel technologies are allowing for real-time monitoring of biological processes at

11187-482: The theory of Transduction came into existence. Transduction is a process in which the bacterial DNA carry the fragment of bacteriophages and pass it on the next generation. This is also a type of horizontal gene transfer. The Meselson-Stahl experiment was a landmark experiment in molecular biology that provided evidence for the semiconservative replication of DNA. Conducted in 1958 by Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl ,

11300-447: The total concentration of pyrimidines (cysteine and thymine). This is now known as Chargaff's rule. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick published the double helical structure of DNA, based on the X-ray crystallography work done by Rosalind Franklin which was conveyed to them by Maurice Wilkins and Max Perutz . Watson and Crick described the structure of DNA and conjectured about

11413-443: The use of molecular biology or molecular cell biology in medicine is now referred to as molecular medicine . Molecular biology sits at the intersection of biochemistry and genetics ; as these scientific disciplines emerged and evolved in the 20th century, it became clear that they both sought to determine the molecular mechanisms which underlie vital cellular functions. Advances in molecular biology have been closely related to

11526-432: The use of portable camera and sound equipment allowed an intimate relationship between filmmaker and subject. The line blurs between documentary and narrative and some works are very personal, such as Marlon Riggs 's Tongues Untied (1989) and Black Is...Black Ain't (1995), which mix expressive, poetic, and rhetorical elements and stresses subjectivities rather than historical materials. Historical documentaries, such as

11639-441: The world's greatest scientists and philosophers can communicate their curiosity, observations and reflections, and infuse into our common knowledge their changing views of the universe". Horizon continues to be broadcast on BBC Two , and in 2009 added a series of films based on the rich Horizon archive, called Horizon Guides , on BBC Four . In December 2016, it was announced that Horizon would no longer be made exclusively by

11752-494: The year of his last film, Doyen recorded more than 60 operations. Doyen said that his first films taught him how to correct professional errors he had been unaware of. For scientific purposes, after 1906, Doyen combined 15 of his films into three compilations, two of which survive, the six-film series Extirpation des tumeurs encapsulées (1906), and the four-film Les Opérations sur la cavité crânienne (1911). These and five other of Doyen's films survive. Between July 1898 and 1901,

11865-467: Was a landmark study conducted in 1944 that demonstrated that DNA, not protein as previously thought, carries genetic information in bacteria. Oswald Avery , Colin Munro MacLeod , and Maclyn McCarty used an extract from a strain of pneumococcus that could cause pneumonia in mice. They showed that genetic transformation in the bacteria could be accomplished by injecting them with purified DNA from

11978-661: Was a newsreel series in the United States, commissioned by the government to convince the U.S. public that it was time to go to war. Constance Bennett and her husband Henri de la Falaise produced two feature-length documentaries, Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1935) filmed in Bali , and Kilou the Killer Tiger (1936) filmed in Indochina . In Canada, the Film Board , set up by John Grierson,

12091-417: Was also the writer. The first Horizon in colour was "Koestler on Creativity", produced by Robert Vas , was shown on 5 December 1967. The Public Broadcasting Service 's (PBS) Nova series was created in 1974, after Michael Ambrosino, who had served a year-long fellowship with the BBC, was inspired to create an American program based on the same model . Since the early 1990s, Horizon has developed

12204-475: Was among those who identified the mode of documentary film. He wrote two of the earliest texts on cinema, Une nouvelle source de l'histoire ("A New Source of History") and La photographie animée ("Animated photography"). Both were published in 1898 in French and were among the earliest written works to consider the historical and documentary value of the film. Matuszewski is also among the first filmmakers to propose

12317-495: Was conveyed to them by Maurice Wilkins and Max Perutz . Their work led to the discovery of DNA in other microorganisms, plants, and animals. The field of molecular biology includes techniques which enable scientists to learn about molecular processes. These techniques are used to efficiently target new drugs, diagnose disease, and better understand cell physiology. Some clinical research and medical therapies arising from molecular biology are covered under gene therapy , whereas

12430-406: Was critical of the scientific value of the programme saying: "By all means, if the BBC wants to, make a series called The Secret Life of Cats ; but don't insult the history of television by branding it, however obliquely, as a Horizon ". In the period of "Pure Science, Sheer Drama", Horizon won an unprecedented series of the world's top awards, including a BAFTA , an Emmy for Best Documentary,

12543-599: Was set up for the same propaganda reasons. It also created newsreels that were seen by their national governments as legitimate counter-propaganda to the psychological warfare of Nazi Germany orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels . In Britain, a number of different filmmakers came together under John Grierson. They became known as the Documentary Film Movement . Grierson, Alberto Cavalcanti , Harry Watt , Basil Wright , and Humphrey Jennings amongst others succeeded in blending propaganda, information, and education with

12656-401: Was shown on 5 February 1964. It set the style; running time 50 minutes, no in-vision presenter, interviewees speaking off camera (in practice, almost always to the producer/director whose questions were usually edited out). Until the 1980s Horizon , in common with all BBC documentaries, was shot on 16 mm film. Only rare programmes had a specialist writer – in most cases the producer/director

12769-414: Was the discovery of the structure of DNA . This work began in 1869 by Friedrich Miescher , a Swiss biochemist who first proposed a structure called nuclein , which we now know to be (deoxyribonucleic acid), or DNA. He discovered this unique substance by studying the components of pus-filled bandages, and noting the unique properties of the "phosphorus-containing substances". Another notable contributor to

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