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

Category: 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?

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

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

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: 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

You might also like

The Rise and Fall of El Chapo

Killer, drug smuggler, folk hero, Houdini of jailhouse escapes--the legend of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is well known. But now this two-hour documentary special reveals an unprecedented look at the man behind the myth and how his international drug cartel impacts us right here at home.

2016 • People

Birthdays

Jeff unwraps the weird and wacky ways we celebrate birthdays. From attending a heart-warming birthday party to partaking in some daredevil deeds with a septuagenarian, Jeff discovers why these special days are so memorable while making memories of his own ... by walking across burning hot coals.

S2E8The World According to Jeff Goldblum • 2021 • People

Political Theory - Karl Marx

Karl Marx remains deeply important today not as the man who told us what to replace capitalism with, but as someone who brilliantly pointed out what was inhuman and alienating about it.

The School of Life • 2014 • People

Mountain of Evidence

Magluta was recognized and arrested by a few police officers in an office supply store in 1988. But few days later he is released after his court file has undergone a few changes. It suddenly says that he has already served a 14-month prison sentence. Everything changes in 1991: On a rainy October afternoon, a 25-man team from the U.S. Marshals raid a mansion near Miami Beach and takes Sal Magluta away in handcuffs. Hours later, the same team took Willy Falcon into custody at a house in nearby Fort Lauderdale. In the two buildings, investigators found almost a million US dollars in cash, a kilo of gold and small amounts of cocaine. As their high-profile trial begins, Willy and Sal attempt to neutralize witnesses against them in a variety of ways — some legal, others not so much.

S1E3Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami • 2021 • People

Diamonds

A diamond is forever. But why is that? Dig into how these mined pieces of carbon became both a status symbol and a sparkly sign of everlasting love.

S2E10Explained • 2019 • People

ithaka: The Fight to Free Assange

Filmed over two years and across three continents, this documentary tells the story of the campaign by Julian Assange's wife and father to prevent his extradition to America, where he faces a maximum 175-year prison sentence. Weaving historic archive and intimate behind-the-scenes footage, the film tracks their journey as they embark on a worldwide odyssey to rally a global network of supporters for one of the world's most famous prisoners. First broadcast by ITV in 2023. First released in Australia in 2021.

2021 • People