(wind gusting)
(gentle music)
This little beetle could save your life.
It may seem like an insignificant creature,
but it's setting off to perform a piece of magic
that's been millions of years in the making,
a feat of evolution that could change the fate of humanity.
(adventurous music)
I'm on a mission to discover how nature
can teach us how to better survive on this planet.
As a biologist,
I know that the best survivors are forged
in the harshest of landscapes.
Look at that.
Amazing, eh?
Wow!
(Sean laughs)
We are in the middle of the desert.
Yes!
I mean, look at it.
It just explodes your mind
that it's completely made out of sand,
yet the wind whips into all these different shapes
and Ss, and curves, and just texture,
and, oh,
amazing!
(gentle music)
In this beautiful, alien world,
you and I wouldn't survive more than three days
without a drink.
There's almost no water out here
unless you know where to look.
I think there's fog bask
on the top of that little ridge there,
you got a little black speck.
Yeah.
This little critter belongs to a family of beetles
called toktokkies;
but I like its other name, the fog basker.
This beetle has adapted to survive
in this harsh desert environment.
Receiving less than two inches of rain a year,
it's existed here for 55 million years,
enough time for the beetle to evolve a survival strategy.
(gentle music)
It emerges early in the morning
when the conditions are just right,
as fog from the distant Atlantic Ocean
sweeps over the sand dunes.
It seeks high ground, heading up to the tops of the dunes,
long legs keeping it above the sands
where temperatures can reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once at the top, it performs a strange ritual.
Oh yeah, that is the classic position, isn't it?
The classic position, yeah.
Let me get my camera out.
Yeah, before we disturb him.
(Patrick speaks faintly)
(Sean laughing)
That is spot on what we were looking for,
exactly what we were looking for. (laughs)
He's right there.
He's propped himself up with those long legs
so that he is able to wait for to condense on his abdomen.
And if you look closely on the beetle,
there's these fine ridges
that run all the way down towards the mouth parts.
And the water droplets
is then sent down these lines to the mouth
where it creates a drop,
and he's able to drink.
Evolution has uncovered the blueprints
for harvesting water from fog, these tiny grooves,
which is great news for our thirsty friend here.
It's a life hack that already has scientists excited
as they try to further unlock its secrets.
After all,
why should we wait millions of years
when the animals around us have done the hard work already,
Sean, what a beetle!
I love the fact that over the course of millennia
these creatures have adapted
to be able to live in an environment like this.
This tiny beetle could be the key
to saving millions and millions of lives.
(adventurous music)
Planet Earth is a laboratory
where nature has been experimenting for 3.8 billion years.
(thrilling music)
Since the dawn of life,
it's forced every living creature to adapt or die,
what's left are the winning solutions.
8.7 million species, 8.7 million survival strategies.
There's such and engineering brilliance in nature,
you can't ignore it.
This journey is the culmination
of my years in the wild.
I want to prove that our survival in the future
lies in tapping into nature's genius.
Could we triumph against our planet's worst catastrophes?
This could save millions and millions of lives.
Or thrive in the most inhospitable regions?
Could we even re-engineer our civilization
in the face of a climate crisis?
The similarities between this
and what we've seen at a termite mound is alarming.
(thrilling music)
It all starts with that most basic of survival needs,
water.
(mysterious music)
It's so hot out here.
Kind of jealous of those fog sand beetles.
They've come up with such a clever way
of collecting water out of thin air.
But the difference between where they live
and out here in this desert, in Jordan,
is that this location doesn't get that early morning fog.
(Patrick clears throat)
So the challenge here, really,
is trying to retain what little moisture you can.
(adventurous music)
Out here,
you quickly realize how poorly adapted we are
to living in deserts.
But evolution has equipped my body
with a way to avoid overheating,
it releases water in the form of sweat to cool me down.
In a place like this, survival relies on water retention.
But there's another way I'm sacrificing precious moisture.
I can lose more than a cup of water a day
simply by breathing.
Without regular access to water, I'd be toast.
For an animal to survive out here,
it needs to retain every drop possible.
Embarking on their own desert crossing,
a strange group of creatures is making its way
across the burning sand.
(mysterious music)
When the ancestors of these camels emerged
from the sub-tropical forests millions of years ago,
they would have been the size of dogs;
now look at them, towering masters of the desert.
Rainfall here can be less than two inches a year.
These camels haven't had a drop of water for several days;
this would kill most other animals,
but not these camels.
They need to drink, and soon.
This herd includes mothers nursing their newborns;
for them, water is even more precious.
The desert air can reach over 100 degrees Fahrenheit,
meaning much of their life is dedicated to both finding
and preserving water.
Luckily,
evolution has given them plenty of tricks
to survive out here.
Instead of sweating,
it's their thick hair that protects them
from the punishing desert sun.
Even the way they breathe
is designed to hold on to moisture.
(gentle music)
They stop and sniff.
A camel can smell water
from a distance of nearly 50 miles away.
(camel bellowing)
Their long legs and webbed feet
help them to move across the soft sand,
inching toward the scent of precious water.
(hopeful music)
At long lost, these camels can drink.
And boy, can they drink;
as much as 30 gallons in just a few minutes.
Taking in this amount of water
would kill virtually any other animal,
but not the camel.
Even their blood cells especially are adapted
to take on a massive influx of water without rupturing.
(bright music)
All these abilities are why Bedouin, like Hasan,
have relied on camels for thousands of years.
And with fresh water increasingly scarce around the world,
could they hold the key to our future survival.
Hasan. Hey.
You got some interesting friends.
Do they have names?
Yeah, this is Samhan and that's Godan.
Samhan.
And Godan.
Ey! (laughs)
So these camels recognize their names?
Yeah, he knows.
(Hasan speaking in foreign language)
So the camel's actually...
It was looking like it was gonna try
and bite my arm (laughs),
and Hasan is just like, "No, chill out, Samhan." (laughs)
Now, Samhan, keep it quiet.
When it comes to surviving in the desert,
everybody in the world knows that camels are the animals
that you want by your side.
What is it about these animals
that makes them so special to living out here in the desert?
You know, the camel can stay without water,
without food for like 10 days,
without anything.
You know, the Bedouin, the Bedouin,
before no cars and no anything, used the camels.
Only the camels lived with the Bedouin in the desert,
no animals.
Yeah, the donkey, he can't.
And like the horses, they an't live in the desert.
(Patrick chuckles)
Hasan, I think I've found a friend.
Your camel seems to like me.
Can I look around the camel?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The thing that make camels really iconic,
it's the hump.
Yeah, to keep the water inside.
I think a lot of children
think that inside there's liquid water
like this one in my bag, this.
(Patrick laughs)
I'm just making sure I'm friends with your camel.
(Patrick laughing)
Brilliant.
Did you brush your teeth?
I hope you did. (laughs)
What's inside is just a lot of fat, but it's a really,
really efficient way of storing that water.
But of course,
it's not just about storing water
but keeping it in your body.
Just looking at the structure of their head,
you can see that this part, the front...
Let me see if he'll let me come closer.
Hello.
This whole part here, the nasal cavity,
is full of these structures inside-
Yeah, yeah, like-
That's like folded paper
but made up bone; soft, spongy bone;
which means that as it's breathing out,
exhaling all this moist air,
'cause it's got lots of moisture in its body
and it doesn't wanna lose that;
having that high surface area
means that warm air can cool down,
and that means all of the water can condense.
That allows the camel to keep as much moisture on its body.
The camel's nose is evolution at its finest.
Inside are structures called turbinates,
scroll-like bones curled up tightly like an onion
and covered in a moist membrane,
they increase the surface area
that the air has to pass over.
As our friend inhales,
the desert air passes over this moist membrane.
The moisture evaporates,
which dries and cools the inside of the nose.
(dramatic music)
As the camel exhales,
the warm humid air from the lungs
hits this now cooled area and the moisture condenses,
saving precious water from being lost to the desert.
But that's not all.
The same structure doubles as a brain coolant,
it's surrounded by blood vessels
which carry this cool blood
to the base of the camel's brain,
preventing it from overheating.
These camels are masters of retaining water,
storing and retaining water. (laughs)
Look how tall they are as well.
Nature doesn't do anything by accident.
Can we ride them?
Yeah.
Okay.
And I wanna ride this one.
You want to ride this one? Yeah.
I think I've found a friend.
(Hasan speaking in foreign language)
(Patrick straining)
Okay.
Whoo!
(Patrick laughing)
Get up. Get up. (laughing)
Wow!
Okay. Okay.
Yeah, this feels good. (laughs)
Okay. Are you happy?
Yes, let's go. (speaks foreign language)
(Hasan speaking foreign language)
I'll ride how you're riding,
one leg over.
(adventurous music)
I understand now why you call them ships of the desert.
It's like a ocean of sand and then those big mountains
are like different islands, you know? (laughs)
Ships of the desert. Yeah.
Good camel.
Oh!
Oh, that was good.
Yeah.
Thank you.
(gentle music)
(wind whooshing)
There's a dangerous beauty to this desert,
not even the Hardy Bedouin can survive here
without their camels.
I started this journey to find solutions to water shortages
in our future.
So if camels have found a way to manage their water,
maybe they can teach us a thing to two.
Welcome aboard.
We have cold water for you.
Oh, perfect.
You had a long walk?
Yeah, a little bit. (laughs)
So, Frank, I've heard a lot about the work that you do,
an engineer that is finding a way to rehydrate the desert.
It's gonna take a lot of water.
(Frank laughs)
Everything is about water, actually.
Half of the world's population,
they don't have access to fresh water or to drinking water.
That's a lot of people.
That's a huge amount of people.
(adventurous music)
And we also know that the agriculture
is 75% of the water consumptions in the world.
A lot of farmers do as their father did,
and their father did,
and that's wasting lots of water actually.
(adventurous music)
Out here in Jordan,
up to 90% of fresh water is lost through evaporation.
I have an inkling that the reason why you're here
is to try and come up with some kind of solutions
to that massive problem.
We don't have the solution,
but we have a solution.
Frank, it's windy windy, windy today.
Yeah, it is.
It's a very windy, hot day.
This is the cooling chamber.
This is where we...
(Patrick laughs)
You can feel the difference?
Yeah. I feel massive difference.
Ah, nice.
(gentle music)
I knew you were using something that kind of replicated
what's happening inside the camel's nose.
Yes. And so this is it here.
Wow, it feels really, really cold.
Yeah. Really cold.
Fresh water may be scarce but sea water is abundant;
heavy with salt, it can't be used on crops.
But Frank has developed a way to make use of the water
from the red sea.
This is the cardboard wall
that we are actually using for our cooling system.
The water we have in here, those two small pumps,
we are pumping the water up here.
Oh, up, okay.
So that's where the water is trickling down from.
Yeah.
When the wind is strong enough,
we open a curtain outside
and then we just let the wind blow through it.
And by evaporation of the air,
we get this cooling effect that we actually want to have.
But in essence is raising the humidity.
So if I'm picturing what's happening in the camel's nose
with those turbinates, all those folded bits of bone;
instead of folded bone, you've got folded cardboard.
This whole system is kind of like the camel.
The greenhouse is the body,
which Frank needs to keep hydrated to grow crops.
The wool acts like the camel's nose.
Warm, dry desert air blows through the damp membrane.
The water evaporates cooling the membrane
while also saturating the air
that's sent into the greenhouse with moisture.
The result, plants that need much less fresh water.
Wow, check us out.
On the root of every plant, we have a spear like this.
So we give water directly to the root, right?
But if it wasn't that humid in here,
we needed to give them more water.
Looking at that, that is...
That's a really nice cucumber there.
You can still see the- You can taste it
if you like.
Oh, this? Yeah, of course.
Now? Yeah, of course.
Is it gonna taste good?
I hope so.
All right.
No, I mean, they're all good.
Oh yeah.
It's snack cucumbers.
I mean-
It's literally snack sized.
Yeah.
(tranquil music)
So much to think about from my chat with Frank today.
This is exactly what was being used in the greenhouse.
Just by soaking that in water
and letting the wind do its work, well,
Frank and his team have been able to reduce the temperature
by up to 15 degrees.
It's remarkable, really;
helping to grow plants,
not only inside the greenhouse but also outside.
Here, we've got...
We've actually got some passion fruit.
It just goes to show,
in a world of increasing desertification and water scarcity,
what might a set up like this mean for humanity?
(gentle music)
By 2025,
two-thirds of the world's population
are likely to face water shortages.
But just one of these greenhouses
could provide fruit and vegetables
for up to a thousand people.
Using much less freshwater than a typical greenhouse,
it could do a lot more than just provide food.
(gentle music)
If other plants could grow in the areas
surrounding the greenhouse,
they would attract insect and even larger animals.
The whole local environment could begin to change.
Desertification is increasing.
Just 6,000 years ago,
the Sahara was covered in grassland.
And this desert is still expanding.
Could this new tech reverse that trend
and in the process help humanity survive a parched future?
It is possible,
and it's all thanks to the evolutionary genius
found inside the camel's nose.
That's certainly nothing to be sneezed at.
(waves crashing)
Surviving on this world goes beyond the basic needs of food,
water, and shelter.
Our planet can be dangerous, deadly even,
and its mood swings are hardly predictable,
which is why I've come here.
(mysterious music)
Hawaii sits on a tectonic hotspot.
Far below me,
it's so intensely hot that tons of molten rock
can burst to the surface in the form of a volcano.
This is amazing.
I've come here to Hawaii to see this.
This is one of the few places
that you can see this kind of primeval,
prehistoric type of setting.
And it may look years, millions of years old,
but actually this is all new.
This was all laid down only three years ago
when Kilauea Volcano erupted
and produced these vast quantities of lava.
(thrilling music)
In 2018, when the beast that awoke again,
it spewed out rivers of molten rock
that devoured everything in its wake.
At over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit,
you'd expect the result to be a lifeless wasteland.
(thrilling music)
But still, regardless, even with all of this,
life finds a way.
Out here,
volcanoes aren't the only geological threats
created by tectonic forces.
One in three of us are now living in earthquake zones.
But can nature help us to overcome these elemental forces?
Everyone here knows that tsunamis are a threat.
What happened in 2011,
where all of these properties were...
they were affected by the high times,
it still was nothing compared to what actually happened
in Japan. Yeah, of course.
And we were so lucky that there wasn't a single casualty;
whereas in Japan, that same tsunami,
it took 18,000 lives and a lot of damage.
(man speaking in foreign language)
The magnitude 9 earthquake took place
just 80 miles off Japan's coastline.
Residents only had 15 minutes warning
before a 130 foot wave hit
and traveled six miles further inland.
(faint chatter)
Even 4,000 miles away, here in Hawaii,
seven foot waves still left behind them
a wake of destruction.
Picture this place, this scene,
and the rest of the island,
and imagine that you had the same earthquake,
the epicenter of which was 80 miles from this coastline,
from this beach where we're standing.
That scares.
Actually you made it real, Patrick.
Yeah. (laughs)
If that happened like now,
what would we expect?
Well, if it happened now, we wouldn't have a lot of time.
It's really a huge earthquake
that happens underneath the water.
And so that's why it's so important
that we have really good ways
to be able to tell what's happening underneath there
'cause it's not like you're gonna see a huge wave.
You see that huge wave-
It's too late.
Gosh.
(thrilling music)
We do have high-tech sensors on the seabed.
But sending a wireless signal through miles of water
is extremely challenging.
Luckily,
it's a problem which has already been solved by nature.
(ethereal music)
(dolphins whistling and clicking)
Early morning and just off the coast of Maui,
a pod of dolphins is on the hunt.
(water splashes)
Dolphins are true superstars of evolutionary design.
They've had to solve the incredibly difficult challenges
of surviving in the open ocean.
(gentle music)
They rely on sound to locate their prey,
(adventurous music)
bouncing clicks off objects
to learn their shape and properties.
(water splashing)
Having tracked down a school of fish,
they begin to move in.
(thrilling music)
As they do so they whistle,
calling for other dolphins to join the hunt,
coordinating with each other to better assist
with rounding up the prey.
Working together, they isolate a section of the fish.
(thrilling music)
Without the safety of the main school,
the dolphins take turns to gorge themselves.
(dolphins whistling and clicking)
(gentle music)
Hunt over and well fed,
the dolphins take some time out for a well-deserved rest.
But to do this, they need cover,
somewhere safe away from predators.
These dolphins ahead it to a sheltered bay
further up the Hawaiian coastline.
(water splashing)
Up on the surface,
I've teamed up with underwater acoustic expert, Eden Zang.
Javier.
I want to experience myself
exactly what the problems are with underwater communication.
Yeah, we got...
Right there, did you see it?
Oh yes.
That's so cool.
Eden's been listening to dolphins for years,
and now it's my turn.
All right,
so the dolphins are just off of our one o'clock right now.
(dolphins whistling)
Oh yeah.
Yeah, I can hear the whistles, really high pitched.
(dolphins whistling)
It sounds like they're laughing. (imitating dolphins)
(Eden laughs)
"You pesky humans,
(group laughing)
you can't follow us."
That's actually really great that you're hearing that
because those are actually something
that's called burst pulses,
clicks that are just super, super,
super close together.
Because of our limited way to discern these clicks,
they sound like a continuous sound to us,
like a (mimics dolphins), like a zipper almost.
Yes.
Yeah. (laughs) Yeah.
Sound travels
about four and a half times faster underwater,
so it's a great medium to actually communicate,
but it also comes with a lot of challenges.
I'm helping Eden retrieve some sound recorders
she's placed on the seabed.
(water plashes)
And I'm about to find out for myself
just how difficult it is to communicate underwater.
So Patrick,
we're here at forest feeding crater,
where there's a lot of light for all.
There's great light for pasta making business.
Yeah, a nice sand patch here;
and then around us, a really nice squirrel.
Okay, so it wasn't quite that bad, but you get the idea.
Comms are okay over short distances,
but any further apart and it would get very difficult
very quickly.
Communicating through water is nothing
like communicating through air.
For a start, as Eden's signal travels towards me,
it gets absorbed,
hitting air bubbles or different water densities;
when it finally gets to me, there's not much signal left.
Another problem is reflection.
The signal bounces off the water surface,
off the seabed and other objects.
I end up receiving multiple versions,
each interfering with the other,
degrading the signal.
(dramatic music)
Still, despite the communication issues,
we managed to retrieve the recorders.
I reckon we go to the surface,
change the battery, get the hard drives out.
Here we are.
But before we return, some visitors.
(gentle music)
Swimming alongside these graceful beings
feels like a daydream.
(dolphins whistling)
(gentle music continues)
This fleeting moment is over all too quickly.
(lively music)
In the short time I've spent watching them,
it's clear from the way they move in unison
with such purpose and intention,
that evolving the ability to communicate under water
has been crucial to their survival as a species.
(gentle music)
(overlapping chatter)
This is it.
This is it right here.
Recorder retrieved,
it's time to listen to what we found.
What it reveals is that dolphins communicate
over a far wider range of frequencies than we do
many of them beyond our ability to even hear.
Right now it seems like there's quite a lot of information
packed into a very short space of time.
(dolphins whistling)
Those are actually whistles from dolphins,
but there's a lot more information
contained higher above in these whistles
that we don't necessarily hear.
I've slowed it down to half speed
so that you can hear the ultrasonic frequencies
that are there.
(dolphins whistling)
Yeah, I can hear those high-pitched whistles
(whistling) kind of,
and then like those (mimicking dolphins).
Yep. (laughs)
I know my impression is really bad.
But sounds like whistles, clicks,
lots of communication going on.
By making use of a very wide range of frequencies,
they can overcome these issues we have
when we're trying to communicate under water.
Right.
(thrilling music)
Dolphins have solved the underwater communication problem
in several ways.
To get around the problem of absorption,
they constantly calibrate the frequency of the sounds
they send out,
listening and then settling on whatever frequency works best
for the current conditions.
And to solve the problems of reflection and interference,
dolphins have evolved the ability
to send a wide range of frequencies at the same time.
For each different frequency,
different parts of the message get through.
The dolphin's brain has the ability to combine these
to reconstruct the whole message.
(thrilling music)
Okay.
So dolphins have evolved this superpower
by sending out their clicks and whistles
over different frequencies,
and this has inspired some scientists
to adapt these principles,
helping us to send vital information under water.
(keyboard tapping)
(ringtone chiming)
Hello, is that Professor Mandar?
Are you live?
Yes, I am with you.
Hi Patrick, how are you?
Fantastic.
Thanks for taking this time to have a chat with me.
I really appreciate it.
I've been doing a bit of research
and I've seen that one of the applications, potentially,
that you're looking at is underwater wireless internet.
Why on earth would we need the internet under water?
Most of our Earth surface is covered by ocean,
yet we know very little about it.
And the reason is it's very hard to put sensors
in water and get that data back.
So if you had an internet of things under water,
where you could put sensors anywhere in the ocean
and be able to talk to them and get data back,
that would improve our understanding of our oceans
quite a lot.
(gentle music)
This dolphin inspired underwater internet
could reveal the marine environment like never before,
giving us a better monitoring system of the vast,
hidden landscape miles beneath the surface.
(gentle music)
In the event of an earthquake,
we would quickly know almost everything there is to know
about the resulting tsunami and exactly where it originated,
giving those in its path more precious time
to escape to higher ground.
(graphic trilling)
As humanity becomes ever more advanced,
I can't help but speculate.
With sea levels rising and almost 40% of us
living near the coast,
perhaps one day we'll want to survive under the waves.
True underwater wireless communication
might make that future possible.
(tranquil music)
There's another ocean dwelling animal
that has bent the laws of biology to help it survive.
(tranquil music continues)
Plants take sunlight and turn it into energy
and in turn most animals eat plants to attain that energy.
But what if an animal could somehow turn this logic
on its head and steal the plant's superpower.
(chiming music)
Say hello to the leaf sheep.
(bouncy music)
In the reef's shallow waters,
this two millimeter long leaf sheep
is searching for a very particular type of seaweed.
(playful music)
This may look a sheep munching on grass,
but there's something remarkable going on here.
As a leaf sheep eats,
it doesn't digest the seaweeds green chloroplasts,
the part of the plant that turns sunlight into energy,
instead it steals them.
Those appendages on its back a green for a reason,
it's where all those stolen chloroplasts are stored.
(gentle music)
Younger leaf sheep lack this coloring,
likely because they've yet to steal enough chloroplasts
to turn the deep shade of glorious green
shown by their elders.
The leaf sheep is among just a handful of creatures
that can eat food like an animal
and harness sunlight like a plant.
They even appear to give off little bubbles of oxygen,
just like underwater plants.
Scientists are still mystified by how
and why the leaf sheep evolved this ability.
What is known is that it can go
for as long as 10 whole days without eating,
surviving solely on sunlight.
Can we look to animals like the leaf sheep
to access easy energy from the sun?
Well, for now we're starting small.
(gentle music)
(water bubbling)
This apartment building in Hamburg, Germany,
doesn't get its green hue from paint,
it's algae in the panels that feed on the sun's rays,
which grow greener by the day,
excess algae is collected to produce methane gas
which generates sustainable electricity for the building.
The next step is to try to also use
this renewable source of algae as a food source.
By 2050, we'll need to increase food production by 60%,
Maybe leaf sheep inspired tech
could produce the food of the future.
(siren wailing faintly)
(horns honking)
Oh, okay, cool.
Yes, look at that.
Go on, brother.
Yeah! (chuckles)
There are three things that are crucial
when it comes to survival: water, food, and shelter.
The reason why I wanted to come to New York,
it's the perfect illustration
of why we've been so successful as a species.
The only problem is these skyscrapers
are like sealed of boxes.
We are shutting ourselves out from the environment
and then using electricity to try
and control our climate in doors;
but it can't go on, we've gotta find a solution.
I've been doing some research
and it's led me to a chap called Rupert Soar,
he is a professor of design architecture
and he believes we need to look to nature
if we're gonna design the next generation of buildings.
(dial tone ringing)
All right, there?
How you doing? You all right?
Yeah, not too bad.
We've got this big issue of how we construct our buildings.
What are your thoughts on the whole thing?
The problem we have in our own environment
is we need to get carbon dioxide out
and we need to get oxygen in.
At the same time,
we need to conserve the temperature and the moisture
that we've got in there already.
Essentially what we're doing is really going back to nature
and really trying to take a second look
at the water going off there.
Rupert,
I really wanna delve a bit further deeper into this.
Have you got any advice on where
or who might be best to speak to?
You would do very well
to make your way down to Southern Africa,
in particular Namibia,
the guy is Eugene Marais,
who's one of the go-to guy.
Fantastic, okay.
Next stop, Namibia.
(dramatic music)
(insects chirping)
I love coming out here.
I love this rugged type of landscape.
If I'm honest, deep down inside,
I am a city boy at heart.
I love the skyline of a city that gets dominated,
whoa, (laughs)
by incredible skyscrapers.
Eugene's invited me to join him at his research site.
He's promised to show me a master builder
that has its own solution to the problem of ventilation.
The guy that told me to meet him out here
said to look for the really big termite mound,
but I've seen loads of them.
Can you see it?
Whoa, look at that!
That is huge.
Oh man, this is gonna be great.
Eugene, where you at?
Hi, Patrick.
How are you, my man?
Made it. I'm good, brother.
Welcome.
Oh
my
days!
That's impressive. That is about 16 feet.
Wow. Yeah.
Probably about five tons of soil.
Termites are amazing creatures,
that's why their ecosystem engineers.
They shift about one to one and a half tons of soil a year.
Now you can see they on that side, where you go-
If I rest on it, will I break it?
No, no, not at all.
(Patrick laughs)
An elephant will even have to work at it.
You can drive your car full speed into this
and you're going to scratch the surface.
It's still...
Oh, it's hard though.
It may be wet clay but it's still hard.
So basically what I'm holding right now is mud
and termite saliva?
Yes, mixed in with a little bit of poop.
(both laughing)
Now you tell me.
It's an inanimate object,
but it's almost like it's alive.
Oh, but for the termites it is alive.
Without the mound they are just little white organisms,
blind organisms running around.
The mound is what makes them.
(insects chirping)
Eugene's scientific studies require him
to hack into this mound.
But don't worry,
termites deal with animal damage all the time.
The colony will have the mound rebuilt
in just a few weeks.
Oh!
So here you you are. Cool. Yeah, look.
Gosh, I can't believe... (chuckles)
I'm basically inside a termite mound.
How weird is this?
What's the whole purpose of this?
Why are they creating these structures.
In this case,
it's all to support this farm system here at the bottom,
you know, where they- A farm?
What do you mean? Yes.
Because they can't digest cellulose themselves,
so they have to have something.
And so they deposit the wood that they collect
and on it they plant the mushrooms, and they feed mushrooms,
they're mushroom farmers.
I have to admit,
mushrooms with the last thing I had in mind
when talking about one of the most successful constructors
on earth.
(lively music)
With more than 2,000 species,
they've evolved to survive on every continent
except Antarctica.
(lively music)
The secret to their survival, cooperation.
As individuals they're helpless,
but together they possess what we call swarm intelligence.
They've even developed a social stomach.
Unable to digest the local wood directly,
they chew it up into a pump and then deposit it
deep in the mound.
It's the mushrooms that grow on this material
that do the digestion for them,
breaking the cellulose down into complex sugars
that the termites can digest.
Delegating these tasks to the group
means termites can specialize.
They produce workers who build and maintain the mound
and warriors with massive mandibles
that can snaps shut at a speed of over 75 miles per hour,
their role is to defend the nest.
(lively music)
There we go, look.
That's why you've got gloves.
Soldier termite right there.
Oh, it just...
They lunge as well.
Look at it, this one here.
They keep on lunging and got some of the...
They're already biting at the gloves,
these soldier termites.
They're there to protect the colony.
(Patrick groaning)
Oh, whoa!
Yeah, look at that.
(Patrick groaning)
So it got you again? Oh, yes.
It's getting me real good.
Ooh.
Well, you teased it, and it strikes very fast.
Okay. I might have deserved that.
But Eugene says it's how they construct
the top of the mound that's the key to their survival.
I know it looks like I'm damaging their home,
but I promise you they'll have this back to normal
in no time.
(inquisitive music)
Oh wow.
Who! Oh my days!
That's cool.
You see, it's like it's cathedral.
It is just like a cathedral.
Organ pipes going in.
Everything about it is carved
to have as much surface area as possible?
Yes.
And why is that.
Just like in your lungs,
is the more surface area you have-
Better gaseous exchange. The better gaseous exchange.
What actually this whole mound does
is to regulate the gas.
The mushrooms, the termites,
they of course produce carbon dioxide, CO2,
and that has to be replaced with oxygen.
The top of the mound is the lungs of the system.
This is the stomach that we deal with over there,
the upper part is the lungs.
So it really is...
When scientists, like yourself, say,
refer to this entire structure,
this system as a super organism, it really is.
Yes.
(tranquil music)
The mound is built tall to intercept the wind
and use its energy.
Let's imagine taking a ride on an air molecule.
As the breeze hits the mound,
oxygen rich air is pushed through the porous surface
into small tunnels beneath,
and then down the central pipes towards the nest.
Beneath us,
the termites mushroom farm
is producing waste carbon dioxide.
Above us, fresh air is being breathed in
with every gust of wind,
mixing with this waste gas
and exchanging the carbon dioxide for oxygen.
When the wind dies down, the pressure re-balances.
It's the flow of the wind around the mound
that sucks the air out and up from the lower levels.
In effect,
the mound is a huge lung
and breathes like a living creature.
Okay, end of the day.
This has been a fantastic,
incredible opportunity to see inside the inner workings
of a termite mound.
These insects have been around for 250 million years.
Seeing how they build that buildings, buildings,
I think we need to do the same;
we need to, it just makes total sense.
Thank you for having us, man.
Oh, it was great to having you guys.
I mean, it's great interaction.
I love the way that you guys think.
Oh, why, why, thank you. (laughs)
(car engine revs)
Understanding how termites
have evolved to solve this problem is one thing,
applying it on a human scale is a whole new challenge.
Luckily,
I know just the person to speak to.
(lively music)
That's the one, number nine.
Rupert. Hey.
How is it going?
Nice to meet you, mate.
Long time. Yes.
You sent me on a bit of a wild goose chase
or a wild termite chase. Sorry.
Yeah, yeah.
Which what?
Took you around the world?
Yeah, it was amazing. Absolutely.
That was the point.
You have redesigned your house
based on the work that you do with termites.
The idea is to take some of the learning
and the knowledge that we've gained over those years
and try to bring it into a project like here,
which is just a renovation.
Well, you know what?
I reckon we should get inside and take a look.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cool. Come in.
(bouncy music)
Nice place to work.
Rupert spent his career developing technologies
based on termites.
That is the actual nest of a termite.
His workshop is like an Aladdin's cave for biomimicry.
I really like this marble lattice kind of-
Yes, sure.
That kind of represents what it is
to be am termite mound skin.
Well, if I could encourage you to pick up that can
behind it and squirt it at the back of the-
What? This can here? Yeah, yeah.
Is this a trick?
So just pulse it at the back here
and you'll see the effect.
(delicate music) (can spraying)
You can get the idea that this allows a certain size
of flow of air but it rejects everything else.
So instead of having a house
and having to open up your doors or windows for fresh air,
you could literally just have your walls
made out of this stuff.
The idea of the air moving backwards
and forwards in there,
that allows oxygen in and carbon dioxide out
while keeping what you feel as comfort,
the temperature and the moisture,
the same inside.
That's brilliant, isn't it?
Perfect.
Rupert's even developed a prototype brick
based on this idea.
What's that?
That looks like something out of aliens-
Yeah, right.
That's been generated on a computer
and it's designed to have lots of different functions
at once.
It has ducts and channels for moving electricity
and pipes and things like- Yeah.
I love the idea that our buildings
could soon be made from porous alien-like bricks
inspired by termites.
But there's another issue.
How do you move this fresh air around the building?
Oh, wow.
Rupert, what on earth is going on here?
This is some serious renovations.
So air, if you put it in a large, tall space,
just by the heat in it,
will want to rise.
And that's what termites use extensively.
Yeah.
Rupert's aim is to adapt his house
to replicate the airflow of a termite mound.
All right, let's step on up.
Let's go.
By exchanging fresh air for stale air
through porous bricks
and then using natural convection to circulate it,
he hopes to reduce his energy consumption.
Oh man, this is incredible.
Look at that.
And the swirling patterns show that he's onto something.
(ethereal music)
The similarities between this
and what we've seen in a termite mound is alarming.
Is this the first time you've done this before?
Yeah, absolutely. Really?
No, seriously.
This is it.
I've now got to look at ways
on how I can exploit it.
How do I structure and permeate the rest of the building
to actually move these and create these flows in it?
Hopefully we'll be able to save some energy.
(Patrick laughs)
So we got a bit more to look at.
From seeing them in the flesh
and your research;
by learning from them,
we could potentially find a way to survive longer
on this planet.
I so agree.
There are ways through this.
It's it's not actually a disaster.
I'm generally optimistic.
I have faith that we can do that, that we can survive.
Well, it's nice to actually speak to somebody
who believes that we're not completely doomed,
and actually just to kind of reinforce that mindset;
look to nature and be willing and ready
crucially to adapt in order to survive.
Precisely.
(dramatic music)
If we were to learn from tiny creatures,
like the termites,
what radically efficient buildings might we construct
in the future?
Buildings that could help us to survive
in even the most challenging of environments.
(dramatic music continues)
Take this termite inspired building.
It would harness the power of the wind.
Porous construction materials would allow air in on one side
and out the other,
utilizing natural convection currents to circulate the air,
a gigantic lung replenishing the air of its inhabitants;
no need for electricity, just the raw power of nature.
It would take a monumental shift in the way we build.
It would mean our buildings themselves would have to evolve.
So where does that leave us?
We don't have to wait billions of years to evolve
because there are fast tracks all around us.
I don't know what the future holds,
but I can tell you one thing.
This is just the beginning.
(adventurous music)
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