Dr Claire Taylor learns more about the the UK's fastest growing health condition, she meets patients living with dementia, as well as scientists and experts working in the field. The GP puts herself through innovative tests to find out how to spot the earliest signs and learns about different types of the disease. Plus, Claire investigates cutting edge treatments and asks what can be done to prevent dementia developing.
2025 • Health
A two-part documentary recounting the Cold War space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Through newly colorized archival footage and firsthand accounts, it follows the rivalry from early satellites and rocket development to espionage, surveillance, and the Apollo Moon landings.
2026 • Astronomy
Explores the ever-present dangers faced by astronauts on the ISS, ranging from meteor strikes and docking disasters to the entire station backflipping out of control.
S1E2 • Terror on the Space Station • 2025 • Astronomy
Explores the danger and ambition of building the International Space Station in space, where a single mistake could prove fatal.
S1E1 • Terror on the Space Station • 2025 • Astronomy
How did Stone Age communities build enormous burial mounds, stone circles, temples, and tombs with the limited technology available to them? This episode visits major archaeological sites in Scotland, Brittany, Austria, Malta, Turkey, and Jordan to investigate how massive stones were transported, what these monuments meant, and what they reveal about early social organization and beliefs.
S1E2 • Secrets of the Stone Age • 2017 • History
Around 12,000 years ago, humans began abandoning a nomadic existence for settled life. The episode follows the emergence of agriculture and animal husbandry, the growth of settlements, changing diets, and the remarkable discovery of Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey—where hunter-gatherers erected massive decorated stone columns long before farming became widespread.
S1E1 • Secrets of the Stone Age • 2017 • History
Philomena Cunk returns with her most ambitious quest yet - venturing right up the universe to examine life and existence. Mockumentary from Charlie Brooker starring Diane Morgan.
2024 • Nature
Simon Reeve embarks on a 3,000-mile journey across the deserts, plains and mountains of Mongolia in search of snow leopards and the nomadic people who hunt with golden eagles.
S2E4 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature
Simon Reeve treks and canoes through Canada’s rugged and frozen Yukon Territory to meet the people who make the wilderness home and to search for grizzly bears, the apex predator.
S2E3 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature
Simon Reeve voyages across Mexico’s beautiful and remote Sea of Cortez, known as the 'aquarium of the world', to dive with rare and dangerous sharks.
S2E2 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature
Simon Reeve journeys through the lost world of Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforest in search of the tenkile tree kangaroo, one of the rarest animals on Earth.
S2E1 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2026 • Nature
Simon Reeve crosses the parched desert of southern Africa, tracking wildebeest with the famous hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari, before heading to the oasis of the Okavango Delta.
S1E4 • Wilderness with Simon Reeve • 2024 • Nature
From St Abbs in Scotland, Steve reveals how ocean plastic rubbish is turned into kayaks that clean up our seas, Gillian goes oyster fishing in Cornwall and Chris meets author Philip Hoare who thinks we should all take a daily dip in the sea.
S1E1 • Blue Planet UK • 2019 • Nature
Professor Brian Cox fulfils a childhood dream by going behind the scenes at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), mission control for Mars 2020 – one of the most ambitious missions ever launched that may finally reveal if life ever existed on the red planet. In 1980, a young Brian Cox wrote to JPL asking for photos from some of their missions to the planets. The pictures they sent him from Voyager and the Viking mission to Mars were a source of inspiration that set him on the path to becoming a physicist. Now, over 40 years later, he has been granted privileged access to JPL, including key mission areas that are usually off-limits to film crews. Brian spends a week following the team who guide the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter - the first powered aircraft ever sent to another planet - across the surface of Mars during a critical stage of the mission. Perseverance's goal is to search for signs of long extinct life on the surface of Mars in an area called Jezero Crater, which, 3.8 billion years ago, was filled by a vast lake. If it finds evidence of that life, it could change everything we know about life in the universe - and even transform our understanding of our own origins.
2022 • Astronomy
Without the chemistry of photosynthesis, ozone, and a molecule called Rubisco, none of us would be here. So how did we get so lucky? To find out, host David Pogue investigates the surprising molecules that allowed life on Earth to begin, and ultimately thrive. Along the way, he finds out what we’re all made of—literally.
S1E2 • Beyond the Elements • 2020 • Science
DNA testing is becoming more and more common. People are making important health and life decisions based off this data, despite these tests being largely inaccurate.
S1E3 • A User's Guide to Cheating Death • 2017 • Health
To determine the true age of the Earth, geochemist Clair Patterson developed the uranium-lead dating method to make an unprecedented discovery - calculating Earth's age of 4.5 billion years. But Patterson's groundbreaking discoveries were just beginning. Patterson made it his mission to draw public attention to the detrimental effects of lead in the environment and dedicated his career to fighting against the petroleum and chemical industry, eventually achieving public health's biggest victory of the 20th century.
S1E7 • Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey • 2014 • Astronomy
The Earth, the sun, the stars, and everything we can see, only comprise five percent of the universe. But what about the other 95 percent? Scientists are puzzling over dark matter and dark energy, the mysterious components that make up the rest.
The Economist • 2015 • Astronomy
Over billions of years, planet Earth has become home to an amazing interdependent ecosystem, containing a dizzying variety of animals and plants. But how did life here begin? And does it exist anywhere outside of our solar system? We uncover the secrets of our world by tracking the evolution of the cosmos itself, from the Big Bang onwards. Follow scientists responsible for some of the major breakthroughs in understanding the origins of life and witness how their discoveries are fundamentally changing the way we perceive the universe.
2017 • Astronomy
It’s a golden age for planet hunters: NASA's Kepler mission has identified more than 3,500 potential planets orbiting stars beyond our Sun. Some of them, like a planet called Kepler-22b, might even be able to harbor life. How did we come upon this distant planet? Combining startling animation with input from expert astrophysicists and astrobiologists, “Alien Planets Revealed” takes viewers on a journey along with the Kepler telescope. How does the telescope look for planets? How many of these planets are like our Earth? Will any of these planets be suitable for life as we know it? Bringing the creative power of veteran animators together with the latest discoveries in planet-hunting, “Alien Planets Revealed” shows the successes of the Kepler mission, taking us to planets beyond our solar system and providing a glimpse of creatures we might one day encounter.
NASA is on a mission to send humans to Mars within just 15 years, but to reach this next frontier of space exploration, experts must discover new technology and cutting-edge science that protects astronauts from the Red Planet's deadliest killers.
S8E2 • How the Universe Works • 2020 • Astronomy
A hidden underground network, a collaboration of four kingdoms of life, is revealed.
7/13 • Cosmos: Possible Worlds • 2020 • Astronomy
Astronaut Mike Massimino explores the mysterious oceans of the solar system, where the latest discoveries provide new clues in the search for alien life.
S2E15 • The Planets (US) • 2017 • Astronomy
"It is beyond our powers to predict the future"
4/10 • The Sagan Series • 1989 • Astronomy
A two-hour special from the producers of "Making Stuff" Where do nature's building blocks, called the elements, come from? They're the hidden ingredients of everything in our world, from the carbon in our bodies to the metals in our smartphones. To unlock their secrets, David Pogue, technology columnist and lively host of Nova’s popular "Making Stuff" series, spins viewers through the world of weird, extreme chemistry: the strongest acids, the deadliest poisons, the universe's most abundant elements, and the rarest of the rare—substances cooked up in atom smashers that flicker into existence for only fractions of a second.
Do you make your own luck or does luck make you? We find luck, good and bad, in casinos, basketball courts, genetics labs and the subatomic world. It's a journey that will radically revise your understanding of the laws of nature and the human brain.
S5E02 • Through the Wormhole • Science
Previously it was thought that only 2% of our DNA is meaningful and the remaining 98% is non-coding “junk”. But today we are beginning to know how the junk part of our DNA works to decide our personal characteristics and tendencies.
S1E1 • Dynamic Genomes • 2019 • Science
The final lecture in the series begins with a 'heist'. A jewel thief steals a precious man-made diamond from the Royal Institution's collection. Can forensic evidence conclusively identify and convict the criminal responsible? To find out, the Royal Institution's lecture theatre is transformed into a courtroom and the audience acts as jury on the case, with a special guest king's counsel invited to defend the suspect. Forensic evidence is based on probability; it can never be 100 per cent certain. So, how convincing does the evidence need to be for the court of the Royal Institution's own jury to reach a guilty verdict? Includes insights from real criminal investigations.
S1E3 • Secrets of Forensic Science • 2022 • Science
Brian Cox looks at our attempts to answer one of the most profound questions we can ask – are we alone in the universe? With scientists sending space probes to the furthest reaches of our solar system and beyond, the scientific search for alien life has begun. Inspired by a childhood love of science fiction, Brian still hopes to hear from ET. In this film, he explains why this search deserves to be taken seriously, and he explores the chances of it happening.
S1E2 • Brian Cox's Adventures in Space and Time • 2021 • Science
The pioneering developmental psychologist Uta Frith discusses Alice Lee, whose work in craniology challenged the idea that women were intellectually inferior because they have smaller brain sizes.
S1E2 • People of Science with Brian Cox • 2018 • Science
Chris Packham explores a childhood fantasy - discovering the true animal behind centuries of Hollywood misrepresentation. Using knowledge from groundbreaking paleontological discoveries and utilising the latest CGI wizardry, Chris creates the most authentic T-Rex ever.
2018 • Nature
For centuries, cities have been built near a fresh water supply. Without water, we'd be lucky to live three days. This most basic human need can be deadly too... the wrong supply can poison us, or get too close or careless and it can drown thousands in an instant. With every passing year, the challenge of providing water to billions of people becomes harder and harder.
S1E5 • How Cities Work • 2013 • Technology
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam takes a deep dive into the fascinating and varied world of viruses. He aims to show how public health measures, combined with ground-breaking science, will have an impact far beyond Covid-19, including breakthroughs that could help fight other infectious diseases, genetic disorders and even cancer.
S1E1 • Royal Institution Christmas Lectures - Going Viral • 2021 • Health
It was 1990: Sega, startup gaming company assembled a team to take on Nintendo, world's greatest video game company. A make or break conflict pit brother against brother, Sonic against Mario and, American capitalism against Japanese tradition.
2020 • Technology
This is an astonishing tale of perseverance and ingenuity that reveals how scientists have battled against the odds for almost a century to detect and decode the neutrino, the smallest and strangest particle of matter in the universe. Inside the world-renowned physics laboratory Fermilab, a team of scientists are constructing an audacious experiment to hunt for a mysterious new 'ghost' neutrino. If they find it, this could transform our understanding of the nature and fabric of our universe. The problem is, these tiny particles are almost impossible to detect. Elsewhere, physicists conduct experiments in some of the most extreme environments on the planet: from deep mine shafts in South Dakota to vast ice fields at the South Pole. In these unlikely places supersized neutrino detectors hope to unlock the universe's deepest secrets. Could neutrinos overturn the most precise theory of particle physics that humans have ever written down? Could they even be a link to a hidden realm of new particles that permeate the cosmos - so called dark matter? Scientists at Fermilab are edging towards the truth.
2021 • Physics
A language that can be spoken, hummed, or whistled? A language with no unique words for colour or numbers? Linguistics professor Daniel Everett claims that the unique language of the Piraha people of the Amazon is exactly that. More than 30 years ago, he travelled as a missionary into the Amazon rainforest to teach the tribe, but they ended up teaching him. Their way of life and unique form of communication have profoundly changed Everett, and inspired a theory that could undermine the most powerful theory (or theorist) of linguistics.
2012 • People