The written word is so important in everyday life that there can be few more radical acts than forcing an entire nation to learn a new script. Yet that is what happened in Turkey in 1928 when Mustafa Kemal decreed that the Arabic script would be replaced by the letters of the Latin alphabet. Communication with computers using human language is usually made with Latin letters. This is how most Chinese people interact with their computers and smart phones, using a Latin-based phonetic script called Pinyin. As a result, even highly educated Chinese are losing the ability to write using Chinese characters. Could what is happening in China be the future of writing everywhere?

Fathom is a visual and aural wonder of a documentary that follows researchers working to finally decode the communication of humpback whales. Dr. Ellen Garland and Dr. Michelle Fournet embark on parallel journeys on opposite sides of the world, as they seek to better understand whale culture and communication. The film uniquely reveals a deep commitment and reverence to the scientific process and the universal human need to seek answers about the world around us.
From hypothesis to groundbreaking experiences in the field, 'Fathom' showcases the passion, curiosity, collaboration, perseverance and work it takes for leading scientists to make scientific discoveries.

Take another walk on the wild side with our favourite pets. Extraordinary photography reveals their hidden senses and secret communication skills. Dogs take a car trip through Paris, using their legendary sense of smell to show us a very different city. A hamster uses his remarkable senses to stage a great escape and then deploys more navigational talents to find his way home. Cats become intoxicated on the scent of a plant and suffer the consequences. A budgie shows his hidden charms to his mate as, under UV light, his crown and cheeks positively glow. Goldfish reveal secret senses that can detect the slightest water movement. A guinea pig gives birth and the newborns receive surprising care from their father. In South America, where guinea pigs have lived with people for 7,000 years, they express the true meaning of their entertaining calls. When we groom a horse we speak their language, but horses use ears to communicate in ways that we are rarely aware of. In Japan cats show their secret messages and in Peru dogs reveal the hidden signs that allow them to communicate across a city. Packed with extraordinary facts and wild behaviour - you'll never look at your pet in the same way again

In the second episode, Will Smith descends 3,300 feet to the bottom of the ocean in a deep-water submersible, where even fewer people have gone than outer space. Along the way down, Will and explorer Diva Amon investigate how colour is used in the natural world and the role of bioluminescence. In the oceans, nearly 80 percent of animals use bioluminescence in some way, possibly the most common form of communication on the planet.

After becoming the most powerful mob boss in the country, Al Capone now finds himself locked up in America's newest and harshest maximum security prison: Alcatraz. Prohibition has recently been repealed and one of the Outfit's most important sources of income dries up. With Capone cut off from all communication, his most trusted men, Frank Nitti, Tony Accardo and Paul Ricca, must keep his organization from collapsing. With Americans flocking to theaters by the thousands, the movie business is raking in millions of dollars a month. To take advantage of Hollywood, Nitti recruits Willy Bioff. Acardo breaks into a new racket in Chicago: slot machines. With help from Ricca, Accardo builds a network of slots in Chicago bars, earning up to $20,000 a year. By the end of 1939, the Outfit is bringing in more money than ever before... But new problems start to appear.

This remarkable science-history series investigates the blistering pace of human endeavour in space exploration, computing, energy, resources, Earth science and our understanding of the evolution of life itself. Across the last 50 years, humans have set a blistering pace and scientific discovery. We've crossed the boundaries of our solar system, made machines that can learn harnessed the power of the sun and built life from scratch. It's a period like no other in history, where human endeavour is changing everything: this is The Great Acceleration. As we race toward the future, we must examine the journey.
In the first episode, Dr Shalin Naik explores the ambitious space shuttle mission that began in the '70s plus the future colonization of Mars. Over the past 50 years, space has become central to everything, from communications to entertainment to climate modelling. And as private enterprise enters space exploration, our understanding of the universe will only continue to expand. We will know if we can survive on other objects - the moon, maybe Mars, maybe even some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Deep space is the last and infinite frontier. That's what we do as human beings. We explore, we learn, we make discoveries, from the moment we're born to the moment we die.