Mega Tsunamis • 2015 • episode "9/10" • Catalyst: Season 1
By investigating the tell-tale signs of earthquakes and tsunamis written into the landscape over the last thousand years, Japanese scientists are rewriting the rule books for disaster prevention in the Pacific.
Catalyst: Season 1 • 2015 • 10 episodes •
Polar People
Each year, over 2000 people apply for jobs in Antarctica, but few are successful. What are the physical and psychological attributes required to work in the most remote location on Earth? Could you snag a job in sub-zero temperatures at an Antarctic station?
Our Chemical Lives
Thousands of chemicals are used in everyday products – in our water, our food and in the air we breathe. It's the chemical soup of modern life and it's virtually impossible to escape them. Is there adequate regulation and testing, or are we in the midst of an uncontrolled, human experiment?
Good to know as you travel to the Antipodes - Australia has the most venomous snakes and spiders in the world. But, if you're bitten, can you rely on anti-venom? Dr Graham Phillips investigates the effectiveness of anti-venom.
It's amazing to think that in the 1900s a mere tenth of the world's population lived and worked in cities. Now it is over half. With soaring populations, how will we keep our cities live-able? And what will the city of tomorrow look like?
The promise of quantum computers is that what would otherwise take a billion years to calculate, could be done in a few seconds. First-generation quantum computers have started to appear. Indeed, earlier this year, Google bought one, The D-Wave 2. How will this advance change our future lives?
Tokyo Flood Prevention
Fifty meters beneath the teeming mega-city of Tokyo is an underworld river system - 6.4km of tunnels, colossal water tanks, massive pillars, giant pumps that remove 200 tons of floodwater every second. It's an engineering marvel built to protect Tokyo against the increasing threat of flooding.
Mega Tsunamis
Is there anyone out there? Does the popular movie quote 'ET phone home' have any substance? Astronomers have been pointing their radio telescopes at the skies for decades trying to pick up alien signals. Hitch a ride as we join astronomers trawling through the galaxy looking for signs of life.
Chris Packham: In Search of the Lost Girl
In 1998, wildlife enthusiast and photographer Chris Packham had a remarkable encounter with the Orang Rimba, a tribe of hunter gatherers in the rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia. It was the first time he had ever seen people living in perfect harmony with their environment. One photograph in particular that Chris took, a picture of a young tribal girl, has since become immensely important to him as a barometer of how we are treating our planet. In this real-life detective story, with no clues as to her identity or whereabouts other than his original photograph, Chris sets off to Sumatra 20 years on to try to find her; the girl in the picture. Chris's search is further complicated because her tribe is nomadic and often cover vast distances on foot, and since he was last there, millions of hectares of her rainforest habitat has been destroyed. Piecing together the clues, Chris discovers to his horror that the girl's close-knit group of Orang Rimba was attacked not long after he met them, and a number of them killed. But was the girl among them? Chris travels into the heart of Sumatra and tries to discover the girl's fate by meeting the men who pulled the murdered tribespeople's bodies out of the river. On his way, he discovers just how much of Sumatra's once pristine rainforests have been replaced by palm oil plantations, palm oil which is in around 50% of the products we buy in our supermarkets. Chris learns some uncomfortable truths about how we are all in some way connected to deforestation.
Trapped in the Volcano
How the cruise of a lifetime turned into a deadly nightmare. Passengers and day trippers were trapped when New Zealand's most active volcano erupted. Were tourists warned of the danger and could more have been done to prevent tragedy?
Four Corners • 2020 • Environment
Race to Escape
As winter approaches, field teams are finishing up their science for the season. It's the last chance to obtain information for their research on the frozen continent. As most people are preparing to leave, a container ship is on its way in to supply food and materials to the skeleton crew that remains during the cold, dark winter months.
6/6 • Continent 7: Antarctica • 2017 • Environment
Why Meat is the Best Worst Thing in the World ??
In a Nutshell • 2018 • Environment
Two hundred million years ago the continent we know as Eurasia - "the vast swathe of land that extends from Europe in the West to Asia in the East" - didn't exist.
4/4 • Rise of the Continents • Environment