CUNY TV's Science Goes to the Movies

In “Transformers,” Decepticons come to Earth and stomp across our planet like they own it. But don’t worry – in real life it takes a lot of work just to teach a robot not to smash itself into a tree.

Sometimes science has to bend a little to make the plot of a movie work better and we don’t want to criticize those choices, but we do want to make fun of them.

In the 1999 movie “Lake Placid” Betty White was the only person who understood the crocodile. Two top biologists rant about major science errors in movies.

In this second of two parts, Daniel H. Wilson, an author and roboticist joins Christopher E. Mason, a geneticist for a deep dive into the things we fear about these two overlapping sciences.

They’re going to kill us. They’re going to take our jobs. They are an abomination. Those fears could apply to robots, but it could also be mutants. A look at two real-life game changers with two of the best from each field.

In a modern retelling of “The Jungle Book” Mowgli’s first challenge if he wants to remain in the jungle is running on all fours. Dr. Ashley Hammond of the American Museum of Natural History explains why standing up was the first step towards civilization.

Are coincidences the opposite of randomness or are they a naturally occurring part of chaos? Why are randomness and entropy extraordinarily valuable to a computer scientist? We look at why and how these values matter.

Symbiote as superhero​: A look at “Venom” and “Captain Marvel” and a discussion of why we’re never really getting the Woolly Mammoth back - with Dr. Mark Siddall, The American Museum of Natural Histories “King of Creepy Crawlies.”

What’s the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship? Could it all come down to math?

Using “Game of Thrones” as a model, co-author of “The Dictator’s Handbook” Alastair Smith joins us to talk about the math of political science,

Are robots taking over our world? What’s the difference between a robot and an AI?

A look at Black Mirror’s “Metalhead” episode, and Beymax and Daniel H. Wilson’s “Robopocalypse” series, with Wilson himself and the professor who taught him.