MP3s transformed how we listen to music - and spawned digital piracy. Streaming helped the industry recover, but how can artists get their fair share?
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Fifteen international agencies spend $62 billion every year on space travel. What's fueling our costly - and dangerous - drive to explore the universe?
2020 • Astronomy
In the 21st century, China has become a global economic powerhouse. Why was the rest of the world so slow to notice its rise to the top?
2020 • Economics
Plastics have transformed how we live, but progress comes at a high price: 7.8 billion tons of waste. Are plastics a miracle or a catastrophe?
2000 • Environment
Oil has brought great wealth to the Middle East and ignited major wars. Is it a blessing or a curse for the region, as well as the rest of the world?
2020 • Economics
We share the planet with an estimated 9 million robots, from self-driving cars to surgical arms. Could they one day completely replace humans?
2020 • Technology
Over 10% of the world's electricity comes from nuclear power. But with radioactive waste and the threat of nuclear meltdown, are we playing with fire?
2020 • Economics
Today, GPS is guiding - and following - pretty much anything that moves, all around the world. It's so accurate it can track you down to the head of a pin. But where is GPS leading us? Is it helping us find the way, or lose it?
2022 • Technology
MP3s transformed how we listen to music - and spawned digital piracy. Streaming helped the industry recover, but how can artists get their fair share?
2022 • Technology
Credit cards changed the global economy and attitudes about personal spending, but record levels of consumer debt beg the question: Just who's in charge?
2022 • Technology
Growing evidence suggests that psychedelic drugs could treat brain injuries and psychological problems. But can we get past their controversial history?
2022 • Brain
Bottled water is a big business, selling itself as a tastier and healthier alternative to the tap variety. Is there truth behind the claims?
2022 • Economics
Thanks to dating apps, finding love is easier than ever. But are we now so focused on playing the game that we're missing out on real connection?
2022 • Technology
The home fitness revolution has exploded into a multibillion-dollar industry. Are home workouts a healthy habit - or just hype?
2022 • Health
Sweet deal or bitter pill? High fructose corn syrup rose up to dominate supermarket shelves, but what is it doing to our health?
2022 • Health
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
Look at a parallel world that humans cannot see. Among other stories, we delve into how boxers and table tennis pros see; the skills of Shaolin Monks; the way a bee transmits the locale of flowers, and the amazing lion fish and how it hunts.
S1E4 • Invisible Universe • 2016 • Technology
The surprising story of the hidden powerhouse behind the globalised world - the diesel engine, a 19th-century invention that has become indispensable to the 21st century. It's a turtle versus hare tale in which the diesel engine races the petrol engine in a competition to replace ageing steam technology - a race eventually won hands down by diesel. Splendidly, car enthusiast presenter Mark Evans gets excitedly hands on with some of the many applications of Mr Diesel's - yes, there was one - original creation, from vintage submarines and tractors to locomotive trains and container ships. You'll never feel the same about that humble old diesel family car again.
Time Shift • 2015 • Technology
Examines the decline of physical media in the video game industry and the rise of digital distribution. Changing technology has affected everything from secondhand mom and pop retail stores to independent game developers. As the way we fundamentally interact with media moves inevitably into the future, new opportunities arise.
2019 • Technology
To respond to global demand and population growth, energy production will have to increase by 75% between now and 2050. The fossil fuels (oil, coal and natural gas) that we use currently use on a massive scale are becoming increasingly rare and are highly polluting, wreaking havoc on the climate.
S2E5 • Dream the Future • 2018 • Technology
Go for a ride through the 9,000-year history of the car, from its roots in dogsleds to Henry Ford’s affordable and assembly line-built Model T, and meet the scientists working on the next generation of self-driving automobiles.
Breakthrough the Ideas that Changed the World • 2019 • Technology