Polar People • 2015 • episode "1/10" Catalyst: Season 1

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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?

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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After 9/11, Osama goes into hiding. But US Navy Seals are on his tail. In 1997, bin Laden's al-Qaida expanded its operations in Afghanistan. With the United States as his target, he occasionally gives interviews to US networks from his base in the mountains to take his threats straight into the enemy's living room. In 1998, bin Laden followed with his infamous fatwa, in which he declared the killing of civilians and soldiers of the United States and its allies everywhere as the duty of every Muslim. Just months later, the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya are bombed, followed by a missile attack on Bin Laden's training camp and placing him on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List. That doesn't deter him, however: in 2000, the secret services already suspected that "something was up" when al-Qaeda activists attacked a US warship and killed 17 people. In 2001, the first plans for an attack on the twin towers were already five years old. One of bin Laden's closest associates, Abu Hafs, disagrees with the strategy and leaves al-Qaeda before the operation goes ahead. On September 11, when the only TV station authorized by the Taliban broadcast the attack, a revolt broke out among the mujahideen. When George W. Bush declared the war on terror, bin Laden withdrew to the Tora Bora mountains. He never stays in the same place and always stays out of reach of American forces. In 2005, he and his family moved into a large house in Abbottabad, Pakistan. There he lived unnoticed by the public until he was shot dead during an intelligence operation by US Navy SEALs in 2011.

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Going to War

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2018 • People