How do the five senses really work? In fact, there are many more than five, and they all work together to create our own version of reality. We dive into the stories of a pairs figure skating team, a perfumer, a cave explorer, and a musician to decipher how different ways of sensing the world all create their own vivid, and unique, picture. This episode explores the world of human sensation and how it defines reality.
600 miles off the coast of South America in the Pacific Ocean there are 120 tropical islands that erupted from the deep ocean floor more than 10 million years ago. Journey from the lava ramparts to its fiery heart, we'll discover how the Galapagos archipelago became one of the most important areas of biodiversity in the world. Those swept here by storms and currents survived million to one odds to find untouched islands free from competition. These hardy pioneers evolved in remarkable ways in what's known as Nature's Greatest Experiment. Home to bizarre specialists and unexpected giants, the most precious collection of island creatures on Earth.
At the far tip of South America, lies a magical realm that seems frozen in time. Known as 'the end of the world', this is Patagonia. Vast glaciers shaped it into an Eden like no other. Adaptable and resilient creatures evolved unique survival strategies to flourish across its remarkable habitats. From precipitous mountain citadels and icy desert plateaus windswept steppe uplands through remote, primal forests to a mosaic of glacial valleys. To thrive here is to be as extreme as the land itself.
The war on drugs was upon them, and despite believing that they were untouchable, the authorities close in. The 'Cowboys' are left with three options: flee, flip or face the music. Falcon and Magluta, along with their associates, were ultimately arrested and tried for their crimes. But they won't go down so easily.
The Rosetta mission was a ground-breaking expedition to land on a comet for the first time, the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet. The Rosetta mission tries to answer our most fundamental questions and to change our understanding of the cosmos forever. Special access reveals what this cutting-edge journey discovered and how these mysterious objects helped create life on Earth.
Humans have long gazed up at the night sky, wondering whether other lifeforms and intelligences could be thriving on worlds far beyond our own. But over the last few decades, ultra-sensitive telescopes and dogged detective work have transformed alien planet-hunting from science fiction into hard fact. We expected to find worlds similar to the planets in our own solar system, but we instead discovered a riot of exotic worlds. Vivid animation based on data from the most successful planet hunter of them all, the Kepler space telescope, brings these worlds into view: puffy planets with the density of polystyrene, unstable worlds orbiting two suns and 1,000-degree, broiling gas giants with skies whipped into titanic winds. But perhaps the most startling discovery was the number of worlds that may be contenders for a second Earth, at the right distance from their sun to have that ingredient so crucial for life as we know it, liquid water. Amongst them, we witness the most tantalizing discovery of all: a so-called ‘super-Earth’, situated in the Goldilocks zone - the area just the right distance from a sun to potentially support life - and with the faint signal of water in its atmosphere.
This episode explores the world of human sensation and how it defines reality.