Snowball Earth • 2024 • episode "S1E2" • Fateful Planet

Category: Nature | Subtitle:

Temperatures are about to plummet as our planet heads straight into a period known as 'Snowball Earth'. Throughout its history, Earth has continuously fluctuated between greenhouse and icehouse. But this particular icehouse phase is the most extreme period of cold our planet has ever witnessed, with ice encasing Earth from the poles to the equator. Life, which had only recently developed on the planet, seems doomed to extinction, but somehow manages to survive.

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Fateful Planet • 2024 • 5 episodes •

Dramatic Birth

Our planet has had a difficult and violent past. The potential for life all begins when Earth collides with another protoplanet, the size of Mars, shortly after the formation of our solar system. The impact nearly destroys our home, but Earth survives. And in the end a new world was created: The moon. Although it causes a lot of trouble on Earth, it is the moon that plays an important role in the story of how life ultimately came to be on our planet.

2024 • Nature

Snowball Earth

Temperatures are about to plummet as our planet heads straight into a period known as 'Snowball Earth'. Throughout its history, Earth has continuously fluctuated between greenhouse and icehouse. But this particular icehouse phase is the most extreme period of cold our planet has ever witnessed, with ice encasing Earth from the poles to the equator. Life, which had only recently developed on the planet, seems doomed to extinction, but somehow manages to survive.

2024 • Nature

Great Dying

540 million years ago, the ancestors of modern complex organisms suddenly emerge in the Cambrian seas. Evolution progresses and even manages to make the leap onto land. But 250 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions trigger the most severe mass extinctions in Earth’s history.

2024 • Nature

Doom of the Dinosaurs

In the Triassic period, dinosaurs rise to dominate our planet for 150 million years. 66 million years ago, the dinosaurs vanish—along with 75% of all species. Did an asteroid cause the last mass extinction? Experts are using the latest scientific methods to discover what killed the dinosaurs.

2024 • Nature

Age of Humankind

Shortly after humans appear, they become the dominant species on Earth, but face threats from both above and below—including super volcanic eruptions and falling asteroids. Today, scientists around the world use the latest technology to mitigate future catastrophes.

2024 • Nature

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Gorilla Doctors

In the thick of the jungle of Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park, an infant mountain gorilla has been caught in a snare. If the rope is not removed quickly enough, the young gorilla could lose its hand. In order to remove the snare, a team of veterinarians will first need to sedate the infant's mother. But if the infant screams too much, the three 400-pound adult males that form part of this gorilla group will all attack. Everything must go perfectly, or there's no telling what could happen. And being jungle medicine, things rarely go perfectly. The pioneering group of vets performing this medical intervention is known as Gorilla Doctors. Led by Canadian Mike Cranfield, they work in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, where the world's last Mountain Gorillas can be found.

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Life From Light

In this first episode Iain journeys from the spectacular caves of Vietnam to the remote deserts of Africa. He sees how plants first harnessed light from the sun and created our life-giving atmosphere. He uncovers the epic battle between the dinosaurs and the tallest trees on the planet. And, using remarkable imagery, he shows plants breathing - and for the first time talking to each other.

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Earth: One Amazing Day

Tells the story of life on earth in the course of one single day, narrated by Robert Redford and made by BBC Earth Films. This film features stunning visuals and scored a 100 per cent positive rating on the critical aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The family feature took three years to make, was filmed over 142 filming days in 22 countries and features 38 different species. It takes viewers up close and personal with a cast of unforgettable characters - a baby zebra desperate to cross a swollen river, a penguin who heroically undertakes a death-defying daily commute to feed his family, a family of sperm whales who like to snooze vertically, and a sloth on the hunt for love. 'As a storyteller and film-maker I often look to nature for sources of inspiration', said Robert Redford, narrator. 'In Earth: One Amazing Day, BBC Earth Films captured the natural world and its inhabitants using the perfect combination of storytelling and cutting-edge technology. The scenes and images are as inspirational as they are beautiful, and I was honoured to be a part of the film'. Told with humour, intimacy, emotion and a jaw-dropping sense of cinematic splendour, this film is a colourful, ultra-vivid family friendly adventure that spectacularly highlights how every day the natural world is filled with more unseen dramas and wonders than can possibly be imagined - until now.

2018 • Nature

Alaskan Dinosaurs

A team of intrepid paleontologists discovers that dinosaurs thrived in the unlikeliest of places—the cold and dark of winter in the Arctic Circle. How did they survive year-round and raise their young in frigid and dark winter conditions?

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Invasion

The incredible anticipation of the annual great migration is being felt by all of the Serengeti's families as they wait with great desperation for it to arrive. The land continues to get hotter and hunger start to bite as food becomes ever more scarce for the predators. But life continues, with Kali the lioness and her sister entrusting their cubs to their new male babysitter, Sefu, with near-disastrous results. Bakari the baboon is shocked when a trip across the river to collect crocodile eggs looks like it will end in tragedy for his new female, Cheka, and the adopted baby. His rivalry with the troop leader then puts him and the baby in more danger. A family of wild dogs moves in, led by male Jasari. With a huge litter of pups, Jasari is ready to take advantage of the coming feast, but until the migrating herds arrive, it is a struggle to survive. Shani, a female zebra, is leading her family on the great migration. She is forced to stop temporarily to give birth to her foal, but as soon as he can run, they are off again heading towards the great river. When the herds finally arrive at the river, they find it teeming with crocodiles, and zebra mother Shani has to decide how and when she can take her newborn foal across the treacherous water. Lying in wait and watching them carefully is a large mother crocodile, who is determined to eat them if they try. With the great migration now in full flow, there are winners and losers on both sides. The awe-inspiring spectacle it brings are part of the deep seasonal rhythms that govern all life in the Serengeti.

S1E3 • Serengeti • 2019 • Nature