Dr Chris van Tulleken, Dr Hannah Fry and Michael Mosley examine the latest research and explore some of the big questions about Covid-19 and the pandemic it has created. Michael visits the UK government's high-security laboratory Porton Down, where vaccines are being tested. He also uncovers what the experience of the 2002 SARs epidemic reveals about this one. Both were caused by coronaviruses, but certain key changes to today's virus have allowed it to infect the world, where SARs was contained.

Timothy Treadwell's death was as sensational as his life: Having presumed he could live safely among the grizzly bears of the Alaskan wilderness, the outdoorsman and author (Among Grizzlies)--along with his partner, Amie Huguenard--was eventually killed and devoured by one of the very animals to whom he had devoted years of study.
In telling this story, Werner Herzog relies considerably on Treadwell's own video footage, shot during his time in the wild. The famed German director takes Treadwell's story into unexpected emotional frontiers and startling landscapes of the mind. Treadwell is an intriguing, infuriating, perhaps even tragic figure. But Herzog himself is equally compelling, and this brilliant film is just one reason why.

When Homo sapiens, which means 'wise ones,' discovered and controlled fire hundreds of thousands of years ago, everything changed. Fire allowed us to cook food and heat dwellings, and it served as a focal point for storytelling and sharing cultural identity among community members. We don't yet have established parameters for what it means to be 'distinctly human,' It would seem the only thing that separates us from other animals, Neil deGrasse Tyson ponders, is our neurotic need to feel 'special'. Against the backdrop of the Halls of Extinction, Tyson insists that there must be a clear distinction between ourselves and animals that justifies our eating them, wearing them and even bringing an end to their species.
From the birth of the devil in ancient Persia to a searing story of saintliness among macaque monkeys, this episode is an exploration of human potential for change. It concludes with the story of how one of history's greatest monsters was transformed into one of its shining lights.

Hanging in the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, Seurat’s Les Poseuses is probably his least-known painting. It is also a picture brimming with codes and hidden meanings. It shows three nudes in the artist’s studio, but included in the background is Seurat’s famous masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Why is it there? What is it trying to say? Why two pictures at once? Waldemar Januszczak investigates.

The world’s first flying car might be on the market sooner than we think, and as a new, cutting-edge invention goes through a series of gruelling tests, behind-the-scenes access reveals the secrets of this sci-fi innovation. With the ability to carry up to 250 kg (551 lb) of payload at speeds up to 80 km/h (50 mph), the 12-rotor Seraph is developed by the Bristol-based company aptly named Vertical Aerospace, and is the Britain's leading electric VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) air taxi candidate.

Episode 7 focuses specifically on first contact and the search for intelligent life in the vastness of the cosmos. Are humans ready to make first contact with other intelligent beings? Is our technology even sophisticated enough to detect communication signals from another world? Who are we to search for alien intelligence when we can't even recognize or respect the consciousness all around us, or even beneath our feet.
Neil deGrasse Tyson reveals the hidden underground network that is a collaboration of four kingdoms of life, and a true first contact story between humans and beings who communicate in a symbolic language and have maintained a representative democracy for many tens of millions of years.