It is one of the most unnerving discoveries in space science - that most of the universe is missing. We live in a material world, so instinctively we know what normal matter is - the world around us, the planets, stars and interstellar dust. But scientists currently estimate that 95 per cent of everything in the universe is actually - one way or another - invisible. Some of this is ordinary matter that we just can't easily see. But there's also stuff that's much more weird. For instance, there's a new kind of matter we think is out there, but whose very existence is still largely hypothetical - dark matter. And most mysteriously of all, scientists think there is an unknown form of energy pervading the universe that we know so little about, all it has so far is a name - dark energy. Embark on a tour of this invisible universe, and shows how its existence - or lack of it - will define the fate of the entire universe.
Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the electrifying story of our quest to master nature's most mysterious force - electricity. Until fairly recently, electricity was seen as a magical power, but it is now the lifeblood of the modern world and underpins every aspect of our technological advancements.Without electricity, we would be lost. This series tells of dazzling leaps of imagination and extraordinary experiments - a story of maverick geniuses who used electricity to light our cities, to communicate across the seas and through the air, to create modern industry and to give us the digital revolution. Episode one tells the story of the very first 'natural philosophers' who started to unlock the mysteries of electricity. They studied its curious link to life, built strange and powerful instruments to create it and even tamed lightning itself. It was these men who truly laid the foundations of the modern world. Electricity was without doubt a fantastical wonder. This is the story about what happened when the first real concerted effort was made to understand electricity; how we learned to create and store it, before finally creating something that enabled us to make it at will - the battery.
Since 2010, Artificial Intelligence is revolutionized by deep learning, neural networks that discern complex patterns in huge quantities of data and react in real time. A.I. is a primal force, like fire. The same fire that warms us can incinerate our homes; A.I. could enslave mankind -- or, join us in a grand alliance to reach the stars.
After several rogue traders stories made the headlines these last years, revealing the human factor behind the global economy, neuroscientists have started to scrutinize traders' brain and stress management. What stimulates and motivates them? How can their brain cope with such a high level of stress and competition? This film investigates further into Neuroeconomics, showing how traders are being governed by unconscious psychological and biological processes which can trigger borderline behaviours and have disastrous financial consequences on the financial markets.
The series takes place after the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago and recreates animals of the Cenozoic with computer-generated imagery and animatronics. The first episode starts 49 million years ago, when Earth has fully recovered from the dinosaur extinction and is covered in a mysterious forest. This is a time that the world has almost forgotten - Germany was a hot sweaty jungle, birds ruled the earth and preyed on miniature horses and whales walked on land.
David Attenborough concludes his epic history of the evolution of flight with an exploration of the highly advanced fliers that dominate our skies today – the extraordinarily diverse skills of the birds, and the sonar-guided precision of the bats. He encounters some of our planet’s most remarkable fliers – from peregrine falcons dive-bombing starlings over Rome, to hummingbirds hovering in the cloud forests of Ecuador. In a spectacular finale, he visits Gomantong cave in Borneo to witness the mass exodus of a million bats.
Some of this is ordinary matter that we just can't easily see. But there's also stuff that's much more weird. For instance, there's a new kind of matter we think is out there, but whose very existence is still largely hypothetical - dark matter. And most mysteriously of all, scientists think there is an unknown form of energy pervading the universe that we know so little about, all it has so far is a name - dark energy. Embark on a tour of this invisible universe, and shows how its existence - or lack of it - will define the fate of the entire universe.