David Attenborough embarks on an extraordinary journey to unravel one of nature s most gripping stories the evolution of flying animals. The power of flight is one of the greatest miracles of nature. Over one hundred billion creatures soar through the air today - from nectar-drinking hummingbirds, to armoured airborne beetles; from bats hunting in the black of night, to bizarre winged lizards. The film travels back in time to unravel the astonishing 300-million-year story of how these animals first appeared, and then evolved into the huge variety of aeronauts that fill our skies today. Only now, using the latest scientific analysis, can he reveal the hidden mechanics behind their gravity-defying skills. Ground-breaking 3D cameras, high speed filming and stunning CGI bring the viewer closer than ever to this astounding aerial world.

Birds of paradise are one of David Attenborough's lifelong passions. He was the first to film many of their beautiful and often bizarre displays, and over his lifetime he has tracked them all over the jungles of New Guinea. In this very personal film, he uncovers the remarkable story of how these 'birds from paradise' have captivated explorers, naturalists, artists, film-makers and even royalty. He explores the myths surrounding their discovery 500 years ago, the latest extraordinary behaviour captured on camera and reveals the scientific truth behind their beauty": the evolution of their spectacular appearance has in fact been driven by sex. And in a final contemporary twist to this story of obsession and royalty, he travels to the desert of Qatar, to a state-of-the-art facility which houses the largest breeding group of these birds in the world - a sheikh's very own private collection. There he has his closest ever encounter with a greater bird of paradise and its dramatic display, reliving the experience that captivated him in the forests of New Guinea more than 50 years ago.

Spy in the Huddle use innovative techniques to reveal the incredible secrets of your pets' behaviour in ways never seen before. As astonishing photography explores the wild side of our playful pets, find out why hamsters love to run in a wheel, how dogs pick up the rules of the pack and how kittens learn to be solitary hunters. Featuring incredible views of plunge-diving dogs, babysitting cats, acrobatic hamsters and a playful cat outwitted by his prey" - you'll never look at your favourite companions in quite the same way again. The latest science also reveals why budgies talk, how a cat scales a vertical wall with the help of a special claw, why hamsters stuff their faces with more food than they can eat and the real meaning behind a rabbit's hop. Our pets are also given a chance to explore their wild side as we join the free-roaming pet dogs of Cusco Peru, pet rabbits living in a natural warren and the wild-living inhabitants of Cat Island, Japan. A range of innovative techniques such as moving X-rays, thermal imagery, minicam-carrying dogs and revelatory slow-motion photography shows why our pets play and how their true wild nature is just a whisker away.

Adam Rutherford meets a new creature created by American scientists, the spider-goat. It is part goat, part spider, and its milk can be used to create artificial spider's web. It is part of a new field of research, synthetic biology, with a radical aim: to break down nature into spare parts so that we can rebuild it however we please. This technology is already being used to make bio-diesel to power cars. Other researchers are looking at how we might, one day, control human emotions by sending 'biological machines' into our brains.

Acclaimed National Geographic photographer James Balog was once a skeptic about climate change. But through his Extreme Ice Survey, he discovers undeniable evidence of our changing planet. In Chasing Ice, Balog deploys revolutionary time-lapse cameras to capture a multi-year record of the world's changing glaciers". His hauntingly beautiful videos compress years into seconds and capture ancient mountains of ice in motion as they disappear at a breathtaking rate. Traveling with a team of young adventurers across the brutal Arctic, Balog risks his career and his well-being in pursuit of the biggest story facing humanity. As the debate polarizes America, and the intensity of natural disasters ramps up globally, Chasing Ice depicts a heroic photojournalist on a mission to deliver fragile hope to our carbon-powered planet. Directed by Jeff Orlowski

Go with us behind the scenes at CERN to follow one of the most epic and expensive scientific quests of all time: the search for the Higgs particle, believed to give mass to everything in our universe. However, the hunt for Higgs is part of a much grander search for how the universe works. It promises to help answer questions like why we exist and is a vital part of a Grand Unified Theory of nature". At the heart of the pursuit of the elusive particle is the same feature that makes snowflakes beautiful and human faces attractive: the simple and enchanting idea of symmetry. Presenter Jim Al-Khalil