Bigger Bang • 2022 • episode "S1E7" • Oops, I Changed the World

57:27

Imagine you could make a copy of a loved one. A digital clone with a life of its own – their Avatar. That’s the dream of biomechanical engineer, Dr Jordan Nguyen, and he says we have the technology to do it right now in the form of Virtual Reality.

S1E1 • Catalyst: Series 18 • 2017 • Technology

51:46

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.

S1E7 • Oops, I Changed the World • 2022 • Technology

58:59

Setting off from a snowy mountain ski resort in Cyprus, Simon finds an island and a capital city still deeply divided between Turkish Cypriots in the north and Greek Cypriots in the south. Simon joins the UN troops who patrol the line that separates the two sides, one of the world's longest-running peacekeeping missions. From Cyprus, Simon heads to the Middle East, a region of the Mediterranean that's also no stranger to conflict and division. In Lebanon, Simon explores a country of breathtaking landscapes, with spectacular coastline, soaring mountains and a sacred valley known as the Qadisha, a holy site for Lebanese Christians. Staying overnight in an abandoned monastery carved into the rock face, Simon learns that in a Muslim-dominated Middle East, Christians are facing persecution and numbers are collapsing. Travelling south, Simon's next stop is Israel, a country that perhaps more than any other depends on the Mediterranean for its survival. With few friends in the region, Israel has to transport most of its goods by sea. Simon joins the Israeli Navy who patrol the coast and protect the country's offshore oil reserves using the latest military weaponry and technology, including unmanned, combat-ready drone boats. From Israel Simon crosses one of the world's most heavily fortified borders to reach the Gaza Strip. Palestinians and Israelis have endured a seemingly endless cycle of violence and in Gaza the result has been devastating destruction. Many building materials are restricted by an Israeli blockade on Gaza, but Simon meets an inspiring young woman who has helped reconstruction efforts by inventing an ingenious method of making bricks from ash. It's a rare ray of hope in one of the most troubled regions of the Mediterranean.

S1E2 • Mediterranean with Simon Reeve • 2018 • Technology

55:41

Join Steven Johnson and consider how the invention of the mirror spurred on the Renaissance, how glass lenses allow us to reveal worlds within worlds and how, deep beneath the ocean, glass is essential to communication. Johnson learns about the daring exploits of glassmakers who were forced to work under threat of the death penalty, a physics teacher who liked to fire molten glass from a crossbow and a scientist whose tinkering with a glass lens allowed 600 million people to see a man set foot on the moon. The link between the worlds of art, science, astronomy, disease prevention and global communication starts with the little-known maverick innovators of glass.

S1E3 • How We Got to Now • 2014 • Technology

52:16

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.

S1E4 • Oops, I Changed the World • 2022 • Technology

114:12

Explore how a data company named Cambridge Analytica came to symbolize the dark side of social media in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

2019 • Technology