Meet the Avatars • 2017 • episode "S1E1" Catalyst: Series 18

Category: Technology

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.

Make a donation

Buy a brother a hot coffee? Or a cold beer?

Hope you're finding these documentaries fascinating and eye-opening. It's just me, working hard behind the scenes to bring you this enriching content.

Running and maintaining a website like this takes time and resources. That's why I'm reaching out to you. If you appreciate what I do and would like to support my efforts, would you consider "buying me a coffee"?

Donation addresses

patreon.com

BTC: bc1q8ldskxh4x9qnddhcrgcun8rtvddeldm2a07r2v

ETH: 0x5CCAAA1afc5c5D814129d99277dDb5A979672116

With your donation through , you can show your appreciation and help me keep this project going. Every contribution, no matter how small, makes a significant impact. It goes directly towards covering server costs.

Catalyst: Series 18 • 2017 • 6 episodes •

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

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

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?

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

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

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

You might also like

Rising Concerns

With its survival challenged by a rapidly growing and aging population and by accelerating climate change, where can land-poor Singapore expand? The futurists offer a radical solution: a massive vertical city. What will it be like living high up in the sky?

S1E1Futuropolis: Mapping the City of Tomorrow • 2018 • Technology

The Joy of AI

Professor Jim Al-Khalili looks at how we have created machines that can simulate, augment, and even outperform the human mind - and why we shouldn't let this spook us. He reveals the story of the pursuit of AI, the emergence of machine learning and the recent breakthroughs brought about by artificial neural networks. He shows how AI is not only changing our world but also challenging our very ideas of intelligence and consciousness. Along the way, we'll investigate spam filters, meet a cutting-edge chatbot, look at why a few altered pixels makes a computer think it's looking at a trombone rather than a dog and talk to Demis Hassabis, who heads DeepMind and whose stated mission is to 'solve intelligence, and then use that to solve everything else'. Stephen Hawking remarked 'AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilisation. Or the worst'. Jim argues that AI is a potent new tool that should enhance our lives, not replace us.

2018 • Technology

Mechanical Monsters

Simon Schaffer tells the stories behind some of the most extraordinary engineering wonders of the 19th century. These were gigantic feats of technology which transformed everyday life but also had the capacity to challenge the Victorians' faith in God, their place in the universe and their hopes for the future. Through stunning images of these beautiful creations, this film investigates the origins of our love-hate relationship with technology.

2018 • Technology

Fight!

Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat give rise to head-to-head fighting genre, but the increasing graphic violence in games brings controversy.

S1E5High Score • 2020 • Technology

Laxative Lunacy

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.

S1E8Oops, I Changed the World • 2022 • Technology

Game of Drones

The military and defence industry are looking for ways to defend against a mass drone attack, and they'll learn how at the Game of Drones competition.

S2E4Breakthrough National Geographic • 2017 • Technology