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 In 2005, the man nicknamed the African Einstein, engineer Jean-Patrice Keka, had a crazy dream: to build and launch rockets from his native DRC.

While the Americans have their astronauts, the Europeans their spacemen, the Russians their cosmonauts and the Chinese their taikonauts, he will be the first "galaxionaut" to leave the earth.
A major challenge in a country that still bears the scars of two decades of war and where 70% of the population lives below the poverty line.
Yet in 10 years, Jean-Patrice Keka and his team have managed to get five rockets off the ground, with varying degrees of success, and above all to unite hundreds of students in the Congo who also want to give Africa a future in space.
In a few months' time, thanks to a fund-raising campaign, Jean-Patrice Keka will launch Troposphère 6, a 15-metre-high rocket capable of reaching an altitude of 200km, in front of his students, colleagues and friends. More complex than its predecessors, it will carry an experiment by Swiss microbiologist Claude-Alain Roten on the discovery of the origins of life on Earth, as well as the first Congolese satellite. With this first step towards the stars, the whole of Africa can begin to dream...

Volcanoes dominate human life in the most surprising ways. Half a billion people live at their feet. They are essential to our existence but may cause our doom.

This blue chip 4 x 52' (and more to come) takes us to 40 volcanoes filmed across 6 continents over 2 years to learn about sacred volcanos, beneficial volcanos, and destructive volcanos to tell the amazing story of the symbiotic link between men and these fire mountains.
Volcanoes led to dinosaurs’ extinction and wiped entire civilizations – like the Minoans in Crete and Santorini in 1450 BCE. Today, the lives of 600 million people are threatened by 1670 active volcanoes. The entire planet is affected: when Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines, global temperatures fell by nearly 1°C for three years. Recent studies suggest that humankind will eventually be wiped out by a gigantic volcanic eruption…
But volcanoes are not just destroyers of world, they also nurture life. It is thought that they may have helped creating life on Earth. Even today, certain wildlife species such as the giant Galápagos tortoise are only found on particular volcanoes. Human beings have always flocked to settle volcanoes in huge numbers to take advantage of their fertile soil, pleasant climate and natural heat sources. Many are even worshipped as deities.

Insomnia, sleep apnea, and narcolepsy are massively increasing in the world. In a scientific investigation, we will discover the new methods developed to find sleep: fractional sleep, light therapy, helmets that stimulate the brain. 

Consequences are huge: sick leave from work, billions of dollars lost for companies, and worse: obesity, diabetes, early Alzheimer. The science of sleep has become a major priority for researchers, so much so that the Nobel Prize in medicine has just been awarded for the discovery of the internal biological clock. 

Moss is at the origin of life on Earth 450 million years ago and helped develop multiple different ecosystems. A world tour to discover this incredible primitive system that fascinates scientists.

We travel to Japan, Iceland, France, Ireland and Denmark to meet experts who study moss for various disciplines: biotechnology, climatology, nuclear contamination, and evolutionary biology. Visually moss covered landscapes are absolutely stunning and mysterious, and offer a great background to tell our story.
 
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE MOOD BOARD!
 

Since its discovery sixty years ago, researchers have succeeded in exploiting the resources of messenger RNA, up to its use in the development of Covid-19 vaccines. Although the road to this goal has been full of obstacles, RNA is opening the way to revolutionary therapies.

To tell the story of messenger RNA revolutions is to tell the story of a science being made before our eyes by a group of international scientists devoted to their mission. The acceleration that we have experienced, in the eternal war between humans and sickness, has made our new enemy, coronavirus, our best ally to start an unprecedented medical and scientific revolution.

Nature is an inexhaustible source of knowledge. After 3 billion years of evolution, it has created amazing mechanisms, even at a microscopic level, that allow plants and animals around us to protect themselves, to grow, to move or to face the attacks of the elements. 

This "nanoworld" questions our imagination with its beauty and intelligence. Scientists have finally managed to unravel its mysteries, thanks to photonics. Let’s take an unprecedented journey into this other dimension, in which nature-inspired solutions are found to meet the meet the ecological and climatic challenges that threaten us.

NANOWORLD, THE KEY TO OUR SURVIVAL won the Grand Prize at the 2021 Deauville Green Awards.

We are thrilled to present you our NEW SCIENCE COLLECTION!
CLICK HERE TO DISCOVER THE INTERACTIVE LINE-UP

For MIP TV we are shining a spotlight on science, a great way to understand of the world around us better, with our thematic collection gathering the best scientific documentaries, from outer space to genetics, along with some answers for our health... 

Human consciousness, which is unique in the living world, has remained a mystery of divine origin for thousands of years. But today, recent and spectacular scientific progress (from medical imagery to quantum physics) is starting to shed light on it.

I think therefore I am. But who thinks inside of us? Who are we? This film takes us on a journey beyond our brains. Like conscience, human intelligence has propelled Man to the peak of evolution, giving him the opportunity to dominate the world. And yet today, intelligence would see to have broken down. Average IQ is dropping. Through this investigation into the nature of intelligence and multiple intelligences, we discover the reasons for this breakdown, and how we can give our intelligence another boost, thanks to scientific progress, including brain cell transplants.

To most of us, plants make up a familiar background decoration, albeit a beautiful one, but we don't really pay them that much attention, nor do we know much that about them. This collection is an invitation to discover more about four common plants and their astonishing properties.

Scientists, farmers, economists and sociologists will help us to view the Nettle, the Arabis, the Yew and the Lotus in a different light, as they reveal the plants' uses and new technological, medical, economic and social properties. The collection features interviews with geneticists, the head gardener at the Chateau of Versailles, an Indian industrialist and an Australian botanist, among other professionals, as they invite us into their laboratories, on their expeditions to the ends of the earth, or quite simply, around their gardens.

At a time when our society is in full reflection on its relationship to biodiversity, we travel the world to discover in what way these plants have become our partners in life.

We delve into the secret life of four ordinary plants, and discover their "extraordinary" side:
- the nettle, a symbol of the fight against merchandising living things
- the lotus, a tool-box for tomorrow's technologies, inspired by nature
- the yew, a medicinal tree, the new "green gold" threatened by over-exploitation
- the arabis, a little-known plant that has become the new worldwide star of genetic research

Hidden deep in our intestines, 100,000 billion bacteria are keeping us healthy by producing a range of molecules. Although they are invisible to the naked eye, they could revolutionize the future of medicine. That is, if our modern lifestyle doesn't wipe them out first.

Is the future of medicine being played out in your intestine? Recent discoveries about the micro-universe nestled in our guts have enabled us to better understand such diverse conditions as diabetes, obesity, inflammatory bowel diseases, some types of cancer, and even autism and depression. This understanding gives hope for a cure for chronic conditions that have so far resisted the efforts of modern medicine. For a long time, little was known about the intestinal microbiota. It is now slowing revealing its secrets. “It’s like discovering a new organ!” exclaims pioneering researcher Dusko Ehrlich. What makes it work? Symbiosis, i.e. the harmony between it and the rest of the organism. In fact, we have a kind of contract with the 100,000 billion bacteria living in our intestines: in exchange for room and board, they keep us healthy by producing a range of molecules. Thousands of scientists worldwide are currently working on decoding the singular language of this contract.