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Couch Potato Scientists, Get Ready: Coming to Netflix in February
Looking for science- and technology-themed entertainment on Netflix? Live Science will walk you through what’s new to the site this month.
New on Feb. 1
Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies, and Cyber Attacks (Channel 4, 2016) A documentary produced by Channel 4, a public-service television broadcaster in the United Kingdom, sifts through the scandal that rocked an internet dating website. Ashley Madison, an online "hookup" site infamously marketed to adulterers, fell victim in 2015 to one of the largest data hacks to date, compromising the names and credit card numbers of an estimated 24 million people.
Contact (Warner Bros, 1997) Scientist Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) monitors signals from space with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program and discovers the first evidence of extraterrestrial life attempting to communicate with people on Earth.
Project X (20th Century Fox, 1987) A top secret military experiment involving chimpanzees may be more than it seems. U.S. Air Force pilot Jimmy Garrett (Matthew Broderick) teams up with primatologist Teri MacDonald (Helen Hunt) to save a group of chimpanzees slated for lethal flight simulator tests.
New on Feb. 13
Code: Debugging the Gender Gap (Finish Line Features, LLC, 2015) Software engineering and programming are among the most rapidly growing fields in the world, yet women and minorities remain drastically underrepresented. This documentary explores how avenues might be opened to encourage more women and girls to pursue careers in computer science, and how society would benefit as a result.
New on Feb. 14
Project MC²: Part 4 (Netflix Original, 2016) In the fourth season of this Netflix Original series, a group of brainy teenage girls employ science and technology in their undercover missions as secret agents for the clandestine government organization NOV8 (pronounced "innovate").
New on Feb. 19
Growing Up Wild (Disneynature, 2016) Documentary camera crews follow newborn wild animals — a lion, a cheetah, a chimpanzee and a grizzly bear — as they face the pitfalls and rewards of growing up in their native habitats, and weather the tough lessons that will teach them how to survive in the natural world.
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New on Feb. 28
Be Here Now (Silver Lining Entertainment, 2015) Welsh actor Andy Whitfield, best known for portraying Spartacus in the Starz television series "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" (Starz, 2010), was diagnosed in 2010 with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A documentary produced in close collaboration with Whitfield and his wife offers an intimate portrait of their daily lives as they confront the challenges presented by his terminal illness.
Original article on Live Science.
Mindy Weisberger is a science journalist and author of "Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind-Control" (Hopkins Press). She formerly edited for Scholastic and was a channel editor and senior writer for Live Science. She has reported on general science, covering climate change, paleontology, biology and space. Mindy studied film at Columbia University; prior to LS, she produced, wrote and directed media for the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. Her videos about dinosaurs, astrophysics, biodiversity and evolution appear in museums and science centers worldwide, earning awards such as the CINE Golden Eagle and the Communicator Award of Excellence. Her writing has also appeared in Scientific American, The Washington Post, How It Works Magazine and CNN.