In the first episode, Dr Alice Roberts looks at how our skeleton reveals our incredible evolutionary journey.
Across our planet, there are a handful of places that truly astonish, like Mount Everest, the Grand Canyon and Victoria Falls. These wonders seem to have little in common other than - literally - taking your breath away. But they share one other thing: they pose extraordinary challenges for their inhabitants. The second of two documentaries profiling some of the world's most expansive - and inhospitable - landscapes, and the people who live there. A fisherman in Zambia faces off against crocodiles and risks being swept to his death as he tries to make a living above the imposing Victoria Falls, and in the Amazon, a giant fish offers salvation to a hungry family that calls the river home. A boy's future hangs on the outcome of a single horse race in the vast grasslands of the Steppe, and in a European salt marsh, a young man duels with a savage bull in a centuries-old battle of wills.
2/2 • Earth's Natural Wonders: Living on the Edge • 2015 • Nature
Giant insects once dominated the earth before the dinosaurs. Thanks to new technologies combining genetics, ethology, geology and even particle physics, paleontologists can now recreate the missing branches of the tree of life. Assumptions have been shattered and all the rules are changing.
1/3 • Ancient Earth: Series 2 • 2018 • Nature
As temperatures hit minus 60 food becomes scarce, and animals such as foxes and hares shed their colourful coats to camouflage themselves in the snow. The end of winter heralds one of the world's greatest feeding frenzies as large ocean predators target the millions of fish who have found refuge in the Gulf of Alaska.
1/4 • Alaska: A Year in the Wild • 2017 • Nature
Captured in a single, animated time lapsed shot, and based on archeological findings, we trace our epic journey from the first spark of life billions of years ago up to our present status as the most successful species on the planet. Humans are the pinnacle of a chain of species that has survived by way of evolution, natural selection, adaptation, and pure luck. From the formation of primordial genetic material to the development of speech, this is the improbable story of the incredible set of circumstances that led to human existence.
Naked Science • 2015 • Nature
Following the success of Helen Macdonald's bestselling novel of the same name, H is for Hawk: A New Chapter is an intimate and personal journey. After the loss of her father, Helen trained the hardest bird in falconry, a goshawk. The cathartic experience helped her to grieve and now she is ready to do it again, but this time she hopes it will be her wings to somewhere new. In this beautiful and moving film, Helen trains a new bird and follows a wild goshawk family at the nest, getting closer than ever before to these fiery eyed birds of prey.
Natural World • 2017 • Nature
A look at the sardine run, which happens each winter along the South African coast.
4/6 • Nature's Great Events • Nature
