Take a look back at many of the most fascinating science stories of 2018. Discover how a young woman who fell into a cave 3.7 million years ago is rewriting our understanding of early human history. Learn how space missions are unraveling the mysteries of our universe. See the year in a new light!
First in a three-part documentary series offering an insight into the dramatic forces that shape life on Earth, using speeded-up footage that compresses centuries into seconds. The programme follows the movement of mountains, rivers, glaciers and the sea, and offers a glimpse of what the future might hold, revealing how the Great Rift Valley may well be on its way to becoming the next ocean.
1/3 • Time Machine • Science
Previously it was thought that only 2% of our DNA is meaningful and the remaining 98% is non-coding “junk”. But today we are beginning to know how the junk part of our DNA works to decide our personal characteristics and tendencies.
1/2 • Dynamic Genomes • 2019 • Science
The story of how power has been harnessed from wind, steam and from inside the atom.
4/6 • The Story of Science • 2010 • Science
A war has been raging for billions of years, killing trillions every single day, while we don’t even notice. This war involves the single deadliest being on our planet: The Bacteriophage.
In a Nutshell • 2018 • 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.
The promise of time travel has long been one of the world's favorite scientific "what-ifs?" Hawking explores all the possibilities, warping the very fabric of time and space as he goes.
2/3 • Stephen Hawking's Universe • 1997 • Science
