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Why do storms spin in different directions depending on their location—and why do they spin in the first place?
2013 • Science
How do we learn properly so we can be right all the time? How can we know that we know, when we don't know what we don't know?
This Place • 2015 • Science
We have a relationship with few things in nature the way we do with snow: we hate it, we love it, and we think we understand it. But we barely know the contradictory and beautiful components of snow’s character. But that’s something scientists are changing. From the formation of single flakes to the howling 70 km/h winds of lake effect snow storms to the destructive power of avalanches, intrepid researchers are bringing snow science into the 21st Century.
S54E06 • The Nature of Things • 2014 • Science
When most of us hear "scientific research", it conjures the image of serious men and women in meticulous labs using carefully prescribed methods to achieve rather predictable outcomes. We have an expectation that science is calculated and controlled. Yet some of the most influential scientific discoveries have been made entirely by accident. Does chance work alone or are other phenomenons at play? Combining dramatic re-creation with cheeky animation and cleverly manipulated archival images, Gone Sideways illustrates three areas of exploration: medicine, technology and natural science.
The Nature of Things • 2009 • Science
Do you make your own luck or does luck make you? We find luck, good and bad, in casinos, basketball courts, genetics labs and the subatomic world. It's a journey that will radically revise your understanding of the laws of nature and the human brain.
S5E02 • Through the Wormhole • Science
Antarctica is the last great wilderness. It's the coldest, windiest, driest and most isolated place on Earth. And every winter, for over three months of the year, the sun never rises. But it's also home to the British Antarctic Survey's Halley Research Station. A veteran of living and working at Halley in the early eighties, BBC weatherman Peter Gibbs makes an emotional return to the place he once called home. A place that, during his time, was key to the discovery of the ozone hole. The journey starts with an arduous 12-day, 3000-mile voyage onboard the RRS Ernest Shackleton. Once on the ice shelf, Peter is delighted to finally arrive at the futuristic research station and marvels at the cutting edge science being done at Halley today. From vital discoveries about how our lives are vulnerable to the sun's activities, to studying interplanetary travel and the threat of man-made climate change. But Peter's journey is also something of a rescue mission. The research station's home is a floating ice shelf that constantly moves and cracks, and the ice shelf has developed a chasm that could cast Halley adrift on a massive iceberg.