This grant provides two years of support for continued production and broadcast of Open Mind. Hosted by Alexander Heffner and broadcast on 214 PBS stations, Open Mind is a 30-minute, one-on-one interview show that dives deeply into a rich variety of topics pertinent to the public discourse. Grant funds will allow Heffner and the Open Mind team to interview five Foundation-supported science and technology authors per year, allowing them to discuss their books and the ideas behind them in a thoughtful and engaging public forum. An additional 3-5 interviews per year will focus on topics of Sloan Foundation interest such as the Digital Public Library of America, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, or the economics of the aging workforce. Additional grant funds support efforts to improve the reach of the program, including expanded outreach on social media and enhanced promotion of the Open Mind podcast.

The grant provides production support to filmmaker Ric Burns for a new documentary about Oliver Sacks, the celebrated neurologist, clinician, and bestselling writer who died in 2015. Upon receiving his fatal diagnosis, Sacks invited Burns to film his final days and this production will draw on some 80 hours of unique footage from the end of Sack’s life, as well as other footage covering the full arc of Sacks’ remarkable career. Foundation funding includes support for the addition of three science advisors to the project, to ensure the accuracy of the film’s portrayal of Sack’s work The finished film will have a theatrical release, a US and international film festival run, and will be broadcast on American Masters on PBS.

This grant provides funds to the popular television history series American Experience for the production of four new shows for a total of eight hours of new, prime time science programming over the next two years. Supported shows include one two-hour series on the history of the eugenics movement (“Eugenics on Trial”) and one four-hour series about the decade-long U.S. effort to reach the moon (“Chasing the Moon”). The other two shows include a one-hour documentary about Alfred Loomis and the team of scientists who helped develop radar and the atomic bomb during World War II (“Tuxedo Park”), and a one-hour special  about advances in the science of deep sea exploration and rescue (“SeaLab”).

This grant continues support for the PBS NewsHour’s regular weekly broadcast of Making Sen$e with Paul Solman, a series that explains business and economic issues clearly and engagingly to a general audience both on air and online. Grant funds support the production of 52 Making Sen$e broadcast video reports each year on major issues facing the American and global economy. Additional funds support the production of hundreds of original pieces of web content, including long-form think pieces written by economists or based on Paul Solman's interviews with economists. The NewsHour also has a formalized partnership with NBER to feature its economists, and the reach of its segments is magnified by dissemination on Extra, the NewsHour’s educational website, on PBS Teachers, and on partner sites such as the Council for Economic Education’s econedlink.org. Planned segments over the grant period include many topics that address the economic concerns of everyday Americans. Questions to be investigated include, among others: What's going to happen if Obamacare is repealed? What rate of economic growth is plausible? Why has there been a reversal of mortality for middle-aged white men? Can jobs in the coal industry come back?

Funds from this grant support the production of a two-hour NOVA special, Beyond the Elements, that will explore the millions of substances that make up everything in our world or that we create from about 100 naturally occurring elements in the periodic table. Conceived as a follow-up to NOVA’s popular (and also Sloan-supported) Hunting the Elements, the special will be divided into thematic segments. One will focus on the chemistry of substances that drove trade during humanity’s age of exploration, such as salt, pepper, caffeine, nicotine, morphine, silk, and porcelain. Another will focus on molecules related to life itself, such as amino acids, DNA, nitrogen, and the molecular changes caused when we cook food. A third segment will focus on synthetic molecules, such as neoprene, nylon, and Kevlar, that are produced through modern industrial processes. This special will be hosted by popular technology writer David Pogue, and will be accompanied by significant online and on-air outreach efforts by NOVA, including a 3- to 5-minute immersive video piece about a molecule that changed the course of history, a suite of online articles on NOVA Next, a collection of PBS Learning Media resources, virtual field trips for science classrooms, and screening events at museums and science centers.

This grant provides partial support for production of a six-part history of the African continent to be hosted by the prominent academic Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher Professor at Harvard University and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African American Research. Foundation funds will support segments devoted to documenting the scientific, technological, and engineering achievements of various African civilizations, including such events as the founding of the world's oldest university at Al-Karouine in Morocco in 859 AD; the advanced mathematics developed in Fes, Marakesh, and Timbuktu between the 12th and 17th centuries; and Abu Raihan al-Biruni's precise calculation of Earth's radius. The proposed documentary series not only contains interesting information about the historical development of science and technology, but also challenges widespread stereotypes of Africa as backward and undeveloped and the widespread misunderstanding of the pivotal role African civilizations have played in humanity’s scientific and cultural advance.

Funds from this grant support the continued production of Making Sen$e with Paul Solman. Broadcast on the PBS NewsHour and supplemented by original content produced for the segment’s website, Making Sen$e is a series of short news segments that explain business and economic news clearly and engagingly to a general audience. Topics covered by Making Sen$e segments include the contingent workforce, welfare-to-work programs, the minimum wage, the carried interest tax loophole, the foreclosure crisis, the EB?5 visa program, and the economics of terrorism, online dating, and sports gambling. Grant funds support the production of 52 segments over the next year, as well as additional funds for improved graphics and the production of high-quality web-exclusive content.

Science Goes to the Movies is a new public television program produced by the CUNY TV Foundation that reviews current movies and television shows from a scientific perspective. Topics discussed in early episodes include visualizing black holes, Birdman and the prevalence of hallucinations, and depictions of women scientists in the Big Bang Theory. Hosted by neuroscientist Heather Belin and journalist Faith Sailie, Science Goes to the Movies premiered in February 2015 and is reaching a growing audience through integrated use of broadcast, cable, web, and mobile platforms and has performed well in its native market of New York City. Funds from this grant provide production support for the show as it explores possible distribution to a national audience through PBS’s Executive Programming Service, bringing the series to half the PBS stations in the country with a net audience of more than a million viewers.