The Science of Overpopulation • 2012

59:12

Alice Roberts explores the latest discoveries in the study of human origins, revealing the transformation that has been brought about in this field by genetics. Traditional paleo-anthropology, based on fossils, is being transformed by advanced genome sequencing techniques. We now know that there were at least four other distinct species of human on the planet at the same time as us - some of them identified from astonishingly well-preserved DNA extracted from 50,000-year-old bones, others hinted at by archaic sections of DNA hidden in our modern genome. What's more, we now know that our ancestors met and interacted with these other humans, in ways that still have ramifications today. Alice uses these revelations to update our picture of the human family tree.

Horizon • 2016 • People

59:00

Dr Tara Shine explores the gases that make up the air we breathe, one of which may provide the answer to transport in the future.

S1E3 • BBC Royal Institution Christmas Lectures - Planet Earth: A User's Guide • 2020 • People

58:30

Conductor Charles Hazlewood explores the life of composer Antonio Vivaldi, examining the development of his music and his most famous work, The Four Seasons. Having mastered the violin and been hailed a child prodigy, the ordained priest and teacher went on to court scandal by embarking on a passionate affair with a much younger woman, and ended his life penniless and far from home.

2002 • People

25:57

How do cults lure people in and exert control? Learn a cult’s telltale signs, and how loneliness and life online makes indoctrination easier than ever.

S2E1 • Explained • 2019 • People

46:07

The early years of Bin Laden, from timid Saudi schoolboy to revered freedom fighter. The first episode begins with Osama Bin Laden's schooldays in Saudi Arabia. He grew up in a wealthy family, loved westerns and soccer, and avoided fights in the schoolyard. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, like many Arab men, he joined the resistance to liberate the country from the occupying forces. In Peshawar, Pakistan, just across the Afghan border, he sets up a "service bureau" and uses his connections to organize money for the fight. He keeps promising his mother not to go into battle himself, but then joins the mujahideen commander Sayed Wahidyar, who is only called "Fearless". According to Wahidyar, bin Laden is initially a burden because he has no idea about fighting. The wealth he inherited and the family's connections to the construction industry come in handy when he begins to build much-needed infrastructure such as roads, warehouses and clinics on his own. In the Battle of Jaji, the Soviet troops were finally repulsed with the help of the experienced Afghan mujahideen - a decisive victory for bin Laden, which resulted in the superpower's final withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. It is the beginning of a myth fueled in part by Bin Laden himself. His supposed military success gives him enormous prestige. In the same year, Bin Laden founded Al-Qaeda. The die is cast.

S1E1 • Bin Laden: The Road to 9.11 • 2021 • People

3:34

Perhaps the greatest existential bummer of all is Entropy

People