Our Chemical Lives • 2015 • episode "2/10" Catalyst: Season 1

Category: Health

Thousands of chemicals are used in everyday products – in our water, our food and in the air we breathe. It’s the chemical soup of modern life and it’s virtually impossible to escape them. Is there adequate regulation and testing, or are we in the midst of an uncontrolled, human experiment?

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Catalyst: Season 1 • 2015 • 10 episodes •

Polar People

Each year, over 2000 people apply for jobs in Antarctica, but few are successful. What are the physical and psychological attributes required to work in the most remote location on Earth? Could you snag a job in sub-zero temperatures at an Antarctic station?

2015 • People

Our Chemical Lives

Thousands of chemicals are used in everyday products – in our water, our food and in the air we breathe. It’s the chemical soup of modern life and it’s virtually impossible to escape them. Is there adequate regulation and testing, or are we in the midst of an uncontrolled, human experiment?

2015 • Health

Anti-venom

Good to know as you travel to the Antipodes - Australia has the most venomous snakes and spiders in the world. But, if you’re bitten, can you rely on anti-venom? Dr Graham Phillips investigates the effectiveness of anti-venom.

2015 • Health

Future Cities

It's amazing to think that in the 1900s a mere tenth of the world's population lived and worked in cities. Now it is over half. With soaring populations, how will we keep our cities live-able? And what will the city of tomorrow look like?

2015 • Environment

Quantum Computing

The promise of quantum computers is that what would otherwise take a billion years to calculate, could be done in a few seconds. First-generation quantum computers have started to appear. Indeed, earlier this year, Google bought one, The D-Wave 2. How will this advance change our future lives?

2015 • Technology

Powering the Mind

What is memory? How do our memories change from childhood to adulthood? How we can build up greater brain reserves to power our mind into old age? Brain epigenetics, how the expression of our DNA can be changed by our experiences, is an intriguing new area of science with huge health implications.

2015 • Brain

Extreme Weather

This special report looks at the domino effect of environmental and atmospheric factors that drive the globe to wetter, hotter, drier and colder extremes.

2015 • Environment

Tokyo Flood Prevention

Fifty meters beneath the teeming mega-city of Tokyo is an underworld river system - 6.4km of tunnels, colossal water tanks, massive pillars, giant pumps that remove 200 tons of floodwater every second. It’s an engineering marvel built to protect Tokyo against the increasing threat of flooding.

2015 • Technology

Mega Tsunamis

By investigating the tell-tale signs of earthquakes and tsunamis written into the landscape over the last thousand years, Japanese scientists are rewriting the rule books for disaster prevention in the Pacific.

2015 • Environment

Alien Technology

Is there anyone out there? Does the popular movie quote 'ET phone home' have any substance? Astronomers have been pointing their radio telescopes at the skies for decades trying to pick up alien signals. Hitch a ride as we join astronomers trawling through the galaxy looking for signs of life.

2015 • Technology

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Diet Fiction

The film exposes the most popular diets on the planet as well as several misconceptions about weight loss and nutrition. The film follows the audacious filmmaker Michal Siewierski (Food Choices) in his treacherous journey.

2019 • Health

The Truth about: Healthy Eating

Fiona Phillips teams up with leading scientists to look at how to eat and drink to good health, and she uncovers some surprising truths. She reveals which cheap, everyday foods can give us all the benefits of so-called superfoods at a fraction of the price and why frying can be the healthiest way to cook. Fiona becomes a human guinea pig to test some of the top-selling health drinks and supplements. She investigates whether antioxidant smoothies really give us the healthy boost we think and discovers why multivitamin pills might do us more harm than good. In a unique experiment with scientists from Aston and Liverpool John Moores universities, she sets out to find the healthiest breakfast, and discovers why we'd be better off with bacon and eggs rather than cereal and fruit. To find out whether we can really detoxify our bodies, she puts some popular detox foods and drinks to the test and reveals why we're better off with fresh foods and the odd glass of wine.

2016 • Health

Secret Life of Babies

Think you know your baby? Think again. This beautifully shot, heart-warming and scientifically revealing film, narrated by Martin Clunes, brings you babies as you've never seen them before. The first two years of our lives are the most critical of all. We grow more, learn more, move more and even fight more than at any other time in our life. We have to master the complex skills of walking, talking and relating to the world around us. But we are not yet built like an adult. We have more bones in our body at birth than an adult does, yet we don't have kneecaps. We laugh 300 times a day as a baby, but in the first few months we can't produce tears when we're upset. Secret Life of Babies reveals all these facts and more, telling incredible stories of babies' resilience and survival skills to boot. This film will surprise, move, amaze and delight all those who have ever come into contact with a baby, whilst taking you from the moment of birth, through to the point where language begins, memories start to kick in, and a new phase of their lives takes over. This is the Secret Life of Babies.

2014 • Health

The Pioneers

Many clinical trials target the nation's most acute health issues. With deaths from liver disease soaring by 40 per cent in a decade, more and more patients are waiting for vital liver transplants. There is a shortage of organ donors and many donated organs are rejected as only those in excellent condition are considered suitable for a transplant procedure. Surgeons Richard Laing and Thamara Perera are part of a team at QEHB trialling a revolutionary way to tackle this crisis, by maximising the number of donor organs that can be safely re-used. The film follows the trial every step of the way, as Richard receives a donor liver that would usually be rejected and tries to prove it is viable for transplant by rejuvenating and testing it on a perfusion machine. This machine sustains the liver by mimicking the supply of blood, oxygen and nutrients an organ receives inside a live, healthy human body. Once the donor liver has proved itself fit for transplant, the surgical team start to remove grandmother Connie O'Driscoll's severely diseased liver. Once the donor liver has been disconnected from the perfusion machine, they have just 20 minutes to place it in Connie's body and plumb it into the complex and delicate network of hepatic blood vessels.

S1E3Surgeons: At the Edge of Life • 2018 • Health

Data

Track the importance of data mapping and analysis in the quest to improve public health. The painstaking work of past data detectives made us aware of epidemic "curves" as well as the extent of health inequalities among different U.S. communities.

S1E3Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer • 2021 • Health

The Truth About... Alcohol

A&E doctor Javid Abdelmoneim is on a mission to find out the truth about alcohol. In January, the government released its new alcohol guidelines. For men, the recommended weekly limit was cut by a third to 14 units per week, equivalent to about seven pints of beer, bringing it in line with the amount recommended for women. So what is behind the change? This is just one question of many that Javid aims to answer as he explores the science of drinking and the new evidence for the health risks of alcohol. Why do some people get drunk quicker than others? What is behind red wine's healthy reputation? Is a nightcap actually good for your sleep? Does lining your stomach work? And can alcohol actually make you eat more?

2016 • Health