Robot Explorers • 2016 • episode "S1E4" • The Age of Robots

58:56

From the Stone Age to the Silicon Age, materials have helped drive forward our civilisation. By manipulating materials we have been able to transform our world and our lives - and never more so than in the past century when we have discovered and designed more materials than at any other time in human history. (Part 2: Plastic) Professor Mark Miodownik tells the story of plastics - created in the lab, they have brought luxury to the masses and shaped the modern age. He recounts tales of the mavericks responsible for some of plastic's most outrageous failures and heady successes, from the explosive attempts to make a replacement for ivory billiard balls to the ultimately ubiquitous Bakelite. Investigating at atomic level, Mark discovers the properties that have allowed plastics to dominate our world and reveals how the next generation of plastics will take its inspiration from nature, creating man-made materials which behave as though they are alive and which could help rebuild the human body.

S1E2 • How It Works • 2012 • Technology

51:53

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.

S1E8 • Oops, I Changed the World • 2022 • Technology

53:32

We cannot see things like the movement of a sponge because its movements are too slow. But with specialized photography we can see imperceptibly slow and fast movements. See the dynamics of a child's first steps, rainfall, nocturnal animals and butterflies in flight-and the incredible archer fish.

S1E1 • Invisible Universe • 2016 • Technology

50:03

Think NASA's only for the stars? Think again. The space race has played a colossal part in our daily lives. From online dating to the freshness of the food we consume. The quest for the stars has created tech so woven into our everyday existence, without it, the world would simply unimaginable.

S1E2 • A World Without NASA • 2019 • Technology

57:47

In South Korea, China and Saudi Arabia, in Abu Dhabi and in Russia, a new kind of city is now under construction. These are prototypes of green, hyper-connected cities that are stuffed with digital technology and ecological equipment.

S1E1 • Cities of Tomorrow • 2016 • Technology

45:16

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?

S1E1 • Futuropolis: Mapping the City of Tomorrow • 2018 • Technology