We routinely talk about healthy food and clean water, but how often do we spare a thought for what enters our lungs? The World Health Organization calls air pollution the silent killer. Air pollution is proven to shorten our lifetimes and it hits the vulnerable - children, the sick and the elderly - hardest of all. Prince William, Sir David Attenborough and astronaut Naoko Yamazaki hear the personal stories of people who are directly affected by air pollution and show us incredible solutions.
Long ago, two species of human beings coexisted on Earth until competition drove one of them to extinction. This program, set in the southwest of France 35,000 years ago, reconstructs the life in the Neanderthal world at the time Cro-Magnons first entered the scene. All aspects of Neanderthal clan life are examined, including tool- and weapon-making, hunting and gathering, health and healing, childbirth, rituals, and making fire. Footage of skeletal remains and the scholarly research of eminent paleontologist Chris Stringer and Oxford University's Paul Pettitt support the documentary.
The story of the British Library's Royal Manuscripts collection reaches its end with the last great flowering of illumination, in the magnificent courts of the Tudors. Dr Janina Ramirez investigates astrological texts created for Henry VII, and unwraps his will - still in its original, extravagantly-decorated velvet and gold cover. She hears music written for Henry VIII, which went unperformed for centuries; and reads love notes between the king and Anne Boleyn, written in the margins of a prayer book. Nina also visits Bruges, the source of many of the greatest manuscripts, where this medieval art form collided with the artistic innovations of the Renaissance.
What if we could explore the vastness of Space? Science fiction has always fed upon our need to explore – to wonder what is out there. Space journeys from Jules Verne’s earliest ideas about attempts to leave our planet, to the Star Wars far away galaxy through to Nichelle Nichols revealing how her groundbreaking role as Lt. Uhura in Star Trek led to her participation in the recruitment of NASA’s astronauts. It explores the deep sea inspiration for Avatar, finds out why Ursula K Le Guin wrote The Left Hand of Darkness and discovers how Stanley Kubrick was able to make 2001: A Space Odyssey seem so believable. In addition, the program looks at the way Dune and The Mars Trilogy embraced the challenge of world building and discusses the appeal of the beaten up ‘dirty space’ of Dark Star and Firefly. From the horrifying scenes of Alien, to the epic spectacle of Star Wars, this is a journey to the stars and the alien encounters that await us there.
When a mysterious cigar-shaped object is spotted tumbling through our solar system, experts race to uncover it's true nature. The object, nicknamed Oumuamua, meaning 'a messenger that reaches out from the distant past' in Hawaiian, was discovered by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii. Since its discovery, scientists have been at odds to explain its unusual features and precise origins, with researchers first calling it a comet and then an asteroid before finally deeming it the first of its kind: a new class of 'interstellar objects.' A recent paper by researchers at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics raises the possibility that the elongated dark-red object, which is 10 times as long as it is wide and travelling at speeds of 196,000 mph, might have an 'artificial origin.' The theory is based on the object's 'excess acceleration,' or its unexpected boost in speed as it travelled through and ultimately out of our solar system.
Prince William, Sir David Attenborough and astronaut Naoko Yamazaki hear the personal stories of people who are directly affected by air pollution and show us incredible solutions.