Closing in the Hunt for Alien Life • 2017 • episode "S1E3" • Catalyst: Series 18

Category: Astronomy

Right now researchers are hunting for extra-terrestrial life on several fronts. To find out just how close we might be to a breakthrough, astrophysicist Dr Graham Phillips visits telescopes, swims among the stromatolites on the remote West Australian coastline, and chats with scientists from around the world

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Catalyst: Series 18 • 2017 • 6 episodes •

Meet the Avatars

Meet the Avatars

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.

2017 • Technology

Can Seaweed Save the World

Can Seaweed Save the World

Growing seaweed is now a ten billion dollar a year global industry. Tim travels to Korea to see some of the biggest seaweed farms in the world and meets the scientists who are hoping to create a seaweed revolution in Australia.

2017 • Economics

Closing in the Hunt for Alien Life

Closing in the Hunt for Alien Life

Right now researchers are hunting for extra-terrestrial life on several fronts. To find out just how close we might be to a breakthrough, astrophysicist Dr Graham Phillips visits telescopes, swims among the stromatolites on the remote West Australian coastline, and chats with scientists from around the world

2017 • Astronomy

Can We Save the Reef?

Can We Save the Reef?

Off Australia's northeast coast lies a wonder of the world, a living structure so big it can be seen from space, more intricate and complex than any city, and so diverse it hosts a third of all fish species in Australia. The Great Barrier Reef as we know it -- 8,000 years old and home to thousands of marine species -- is dying in our lifetime.

2017 • Environment

Secrets of the Dinosaur Crater

Secrets of the Dinosaur Crater

A group of world-renowned scientists are on a quest to uncover the secrets of the most significant day in our planet's history: the day that killed the dinosaurs. 66 million years ago an asteroid the size of London hit the planet in the modern-day Gulf of Mexico. Now, as co-leaders of an expedition to drill deep into the Chicxulub asteroid impact crater, Geologists Sean Gulick and Jo Morgan have set out to answer how this resulted in the extinction of dinosaurs.

2017 • Nature

Heartbeat the Miracle Inside You

Heartbeat the Miracle Inside You

Nikki Stamp takes us into the amazing world of our hearts -- revealing how they function, how we can look after them and shows us the latest science she uses to help fix them when they go wrong.

2017 • Health

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Sagan discusses the story of the Heike crab and artificial selection of crabs resembling samurai warriors, as an opening into a larger discussion of evolution through natural selection (and the pitfalls of intelligent design). Among the topics are the development of life on the Cosmic Calendar and the Cambrian explosion; the function of DNA in growth; genetic replication, repairs, and mutation; the common biochemistry of terrestrial organisms; the creation of the molecules of life in the Miller-Urey experiment; and speculation on alien life (such as life in Jupiter's clouds). In the Cosmos Update ten years later, Sagan remarks on RNA also controlling chemical reactions and reproducing itself and the different roles of comets (potentially carrying organic molecules or causing the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event).

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Curse of the White Holes

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Einstein predicted strange cosmic phenomena known as white holes, but scientists have yet to prove they exist; as experts investigate the tiny black holes that hide in the most ancient parts of the universe, they might finally find the smoking gun.

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Journey to a Black Hole

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Journey to the heart of the M87 supermassive black hole, the first and only black hole ever photographed, and explore the mystery of how it grew so large, what lies inside, and how it controls the entire galaxy.

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Secret Lives of Neutrinos

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Neutrinos are the most mysterious particles in the universe, and they power some of the most explosive events in the cosmos; new discoveries reveal how these ghosts pass through objects undetected and why they could be the reason we exist.

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Mission Update

NASA's Juno probe has been orbiting the largest planet on our Solar System, the gas giant Jupiter, since July 4, 2016. As the February 2017 closest-to-the-planet flyby approaches, what secrets has its moon, Juno, revealed thus far and how has a simple valve altered a decade of planning?

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The Universe

James May takes a journey of discovery across the universe.

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