A misguided attempt to make plastic wallpaper results in bubble wrap. The precursor to a blood clotting drug becomes rave favorite, MDMA. A mopped-up kitchen spill brings us smokeless explosive guncotton. A defective satellite lens leads to a new way to identify breast cancer.
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Pavlov's investigations into dog digestion lead to phone addiction. A failed quest to find a safer refrigerant creates Teflon. A damaged delivery crate is instrumental in the invention of dynamite. And a chance encounter with a composer leads Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr to invent the basis for wifi.
2022 • Technology
The failed experiment and the world's greatest crime-fighting tool. A clumsily dressed cut leads to the invention of plastics. How chance conversation and sausage poison changed the face of Hollywood. And a broken thermometer sets in motion a chain of events that frees a country from colonialism.
2022 • Technology
A dirty laboratory and a vacation lead to the discovery of our first real weapon against bacteria: penicillin. A scientist's determination to test the ‘wrong' solution gives us Kevlar. Unwashed hands and some unexpectedly sweet bread is to thank for Saccharin. A failed laser becomes the LED light.
2022 • Technology
A swiss chemist's attempts to make a lung drug results in LSD. The son of enslaved parents tires to reverse the fortunes of sharecroppers and inadvertently gives rise to PB&J. A failed dye becomes TNT. And a prison camp doctor and a fridge full of urine lead to improve mental healthcare.
2022 • Technology
A failed blood pressure medicine and an unexpectedly hairy woman lead to a cure for baldness. How messing around with a scientific toy gave us the x-ray. An attempt to stop the paper curling in a newspaper printer becomes air conditioning. And why war is responsible for the slinky.
2022 • Technology
A clumsy lab worker leads to the invention of superglue. And the accidents behind neuroscience, beer, and chemical hair relaxant.
2022 • Technology
A misguided attempt to make plastic wallpaper results in bubble wrap. The precursor to a blood clotting drug becomes rave favorite, MDMA. A mopped-up kitchen spill brings us smokeless explosive guncotton. A defective satellite lens leads to a new way to identify breast cancer.
2022 • Technology
The accidents behind the inventions of post-it notes, Ex-lax, Graphene and the way a walk in the snow almost leads to nuclear Armageddon.
2022 • Technology
What will communication look like in 2050? First, the internet will be everywhere. Researchers and scientists from around the world are working on ways to make this happen, for example with self-sufficient balloons equipped with wifi to cover digital deserts.
S2E2 • Dream the Future • 2018 • Technology
Hannah hits the production line with appliance giants Bosch to find the lifeblood at the heart of every fridge and gets a lesson in carrot droop.
S3E2 • The Secret Genius of Modern Life • 2025 • Technology
Explores state surveillance and digital social control in China by following the experiences of two families and a journalist. Zijuan Chen is fighting for the release of her imprisoned husband, human rights lawyer Weiping Chang, while trying to keep his memory alive for their son. Wenzu Li and her newly freed husband, Quanzhang Wang, struggle against surveillance that is not only stopping him from being able to work but also affecting ordinary tasks like taking their son to school. Journalist Sophie Xueqin Huang, a pivotal figure in bringing the Me Too movement to China, is at constant risk of arrest. Chinese film-maker Jialing Zhang gives an exclusive and previously impossible intimate insight into the interior of China and tells a deeply disturbing story of how the state uses technology to control its citizens as well as propaganda to convince its people to trust it.
2024 • Technology
As YouTube turns ten, we chart the history of the last decade through the lens of the world's most famous video sharing site. It's the human story of those who created it, the stars it gave birth to, and the countries whose fates it changed. On April 23, 2005 the first YouTube video, "Meet Me at the Zoo," featuring co-founder Jawed Karim, was uploaded. Ten Years later, the video sharing platform has harnessed a power that has changed the world -transforming pop culture, rewriting the rules of politics, overthrowing governments, redefining the nature of news, and exposing us all to tweaking, planking, Psy, Beiber, and the car in the shark outfit on the robo-vac.
2015 • Technology
In the final episode of the series, learn about "white hat" hackers, the U.S. Secret Service's cyber crime division working to protect us from the risks associated with persistent connectivity.
S1E3 • Digits • 2017 • Technology
Artificial intelligence now permeates every aspect of our lives, but only a handful of people have any control over its influence on our world. With unique access to some of the most powerful pioneers of the AI revolution, iHuman asks whether we know the limits of what artificial intelligence is capable of and its true impact.
2023 • Technology