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The Secret Life of Chaos

   2010    Science
Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand. It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia - how did we get here? In this documentary, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to uncover one of the great mysteries of science - how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder? It's a mindbending, counterintuitive and for many people a deeply troubling idea. But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern. And the best thing is that one doesn't need to be a scientist to understand it. The natural world is full of awe-inspiring examples of the way nature transforms simplicity into complexity. From trees to clouds to humans - after watching this film you'll never be able to look at the world in the same way again.

Power

   2014    Nature
An individual’s life journey interweaves with many others. Those who are successful know when to fight or back down, when to cooperate or to go it alone and how to manipulate and deceive. But power is the ultimate prize: animals will use any means to rise through the ranks and win the game of life.
Series: Life Story

Life Rocky Start

   2016    Science
Four and a half billion years ago, the young Earth was a hellish place, a seething chaos of meteorite impacts, volcanoes belching noxious gases, and lightning flashing through a thin, torrid atmosphere. Then, in a process that has puzzled scientists for decades, life emerged. But how? Join mineralogist Robert Hazen as he journeys around the globe. From an ancient Moroccan market to the Australian Outback, he advances a startling and counterintuitive idea—that the rocks beneath our feet were not only essential to jump-starting life, but that microbial life helped give birth to hundreds of minerals we know and depend on today. It's a theory of the co-evolution of Earth and life that is reshaping the grand-narrative of our planet’s story.

The Genius of Charles Darwin: The Fifth Ape

   2008    Culture
Richard Dawkins deals with some of the philosophical and social ramifications of the theory of evolution. Dawkins starts out in Kenya, speaking with palaeontologist Richard Leakey. He then visits Christ is the Answer Ministries, Kenya's largest Pentecostal church, to interview Bishop Bonifes Adoyo. Adoyo has led the movement to press Kenya's national museum to sideline its collection of hominid bones pointing to man's evolution from ape to human.[5] The collection includes the Turkana Boy discovered by Kamoya Kimeu, a member of a team led by Richard Leakey in 1984. Dawkins discusses social darwinism and eugenics, explaining how these are not versions of natural selection, and that 'Darwin has been wrongly tainted'. He then meets with evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker to discuss how morals can be compatible with natural selection. He goes on to explaining sexual selection, with peafowls as an example. To find out whether sexual selection plays a role for altruism and kindness among humans, he visits women who are looking for sperm donors, as well as a sperm bank manager. Dawkins also explains kin selection and selfish genes.

Second Genesis

   2018    Technology
In episode 3, Artemis arrives on the exoplanet Minerva B, but will she find evidence of life? This is a vision of our future, the fateful day in a far-flung corner of the universe, when a probe from Earth initiates the first descent onto an alien world, looking for proof of life beyond our solar system.
There are no witnesses, no cheering crowds in the control room. A decade or more will pass before news finally reaches us, back across the dark oceans of space. But the seeds of this mission are already being sowed today by the first generation of scientists bold enough to believe it could be possible.
Series: Living Universe

Growing Up

   2014    Nature
David Attenborough brings us the universal story that unites each of us with every animal on the planet, the story of the greatest of all adventures - the journey through life. For animals there is just one goal in life - to continue their bloodline in the form of offspring, the next best thing to immortality. The series shows how animals attempt to overcome the challenges that face them at each of the six crucial stages of life as they strive towards ultimate success." In the journey towards adulthood, a moment comes for all animals when they must strike out on their own. With their parents absent they must learn to survive in a dangerous world. At this stage of life every small success may mean the difference between life and death.
Series: Life Story
The Story of the Jews

The Story of the Jews

2013  History
Our Universe

Our Universe

2022  Nature
Untold

Untold

2021  Culture
Black Hole Apocalypse

Black Hole Apocalypse

2018  Science
The Toys that Made Us

The Toys that Made Us

2017  Technology