How will changes to our planet’s weather system affect us? Will it lead to a terrifying scenario, an ice age ? ? ….

The planet appears to be warming. The ten warmest years on record have all occurred since 1987. Spring is arriving earlier each year. Now research carried out by two NASA scientists using the latest GPS technology, has revealed that the Greenland ice cap is melting much more rapidly than previously thought. This is going to have worrying consequences for the world’s weather.

Already, sea levels are rising. In places a 12-inch rise has been detected. If the melting continues apace, by the time sea levels have risen four foot, large swathes of land will be underwater, including Florida, and much of the eastern seeboard of the United States.

This extra water, coupled with warmer air temperatures, is going to lead to more violent storms, as hurricanes and tornadoes feed off warmth and moisture. We see the effect these storms have on people’s lives.

And there could be a further consequence of this melting ice cap. It could plunge the northern hemisphere into an ice age. An ocean current, the Atlantic conveyor, brings the heat of a million power stations to Northern Europe. It means you can swim off the coast of Britain whilst at the same latitude Canada has polar bears.

The conveyor is driven by salty water. Tropical water is more salty than northern oceanic waters, as more evaporation takes place in the Tropics. This salty water is more dense than the more dilute water, so when it cools in northern waters, it is heavier than its surroundings and so it sinks. This cold water then returns to the Tropics as deep flow and the whole process begins again.

But melting ice caps and increased rainfall in northern latitudes could be diluting the saltier tropical water. If it is diluted enough, it will stop sinking, the conveyor will stop and an ice age will follow. We visit the State of Maine, hit by a massive ice storm a few years ago to see how difficult life would be in such a scenario.

So catastrophic are the consequences of an Atlantic conveyor shut down, that the Pentagon commissioned a report into the social implications of an event. It painted a picture of a world where conflict was endemic as countries fought ufor water and fertile land. But how quickly could an ice age happen?

Previous research suggests ice ages take thousands of years to come and go. But new research by Richard Alley has turned this notion on its head. He has examined ice cores drilled from the Greenland ice mass and by analysing chemicals found in these cores, has discovered that ice ages came ad went very quickly. He saw drops of ten degrees Celsius in just a decade. And he believes these changes came about through the switch off of the Atlantic conveyor.

Some scientists are addressing the problem. Ross Hoffman is trying to prevent severe weather before it happens, by changing the initial conditions of weather patterns. He has computer models that suggest that changes he has made to ocean temperatures could have prevented severe storms hitting populated areas, saving lives and billions of dollars. Soon he hopes to see theory become reality with a fleet of solar reflectors warming areas of oceans. Another researcher, Peter Cordani, has developed a powder that can soak up a storm cloud. He hopes to test it on a developing hurricane soon.

But an Atlantic conveyor shutdown wouldn’t just lead to an ice age. Further research by Richard Alley on his ice cores has revealed that an ice age went hand in hand with severe drought across the rest of the planet. If this happened, there would be famine and unimaginable numbers of refugees.

That the Atlantic conveyor could stop is such a real possibility that the Rapid Climate Research Council have set up their very own early warning system. An array of buoys strung across the Atlantic, designed to warn of a slow down in current. If the conveyor begins to slow down, at least we will have some warning.

An unusual breed of fly appears to have the best directional hearing on the planet. Will pioneering research into the fly transform the world of a young boy, born deaf?

A unusual breed of fly appears to have the best directional hearing on the planet. Pioneering research into how it works might allow young Kyle Duxbury to hear for the first time. Born profoundly deaf, Kyle needs a cochlea implant to transform his silent world. But the operation is dangerous. Drilling into the skull is very risky - if the surgeon hits the facial nerve Kyle will be able to hear but he’ll never be able to smile. The operation appears to go well but it will be months before Kyle’s parents know if his brain can cope with the new bombardment of sound. Meanwhile, Kent Cullers is searching the solar system for sounds of alien life. At SETI – the Search for Extra-Terrestial Intelligence – scientists have constructed the world’s largest ear.

Kyle Duxbury was born deaf. His mother first noticed something was wrong when, at 9 months, instead of making all the noises other babies his age were making, he did nothing but screamed. Soon after that, Kyle was given a hearing test. He was profoundly deaf. The hair cells in his cochlea were damaged and so his auditory nerve was not sending signals to his brain.

Kyle’s parents have decided that they want their son to have a cochlea implant fitted. This is an amazing wonder of science, a bionic ear. It consists of a microphone and speech transmitter that transmit sounds into an implanted array in Kyle’s inner ear.

But the operation to fit the implant is difficult. It involves drilling a hole in the skull, in which to embed the implant. This drilling runs very close to the facial nerve, the nerve that supplies the facial muscles. If this is damaged, Kyle could lose the ability to move his facial muscles. He will hear, but be unable to smile.

Trying to improve the performance of these cochlea implants, are two scientists Ron Hoy and Ron Miles. They discovered that a particular type of fly, Ormia, has the best directional hearing on the planet. It lays its eggs on crickets, and as crickets come out sunset, it needs to be able to find them by sound alone. Setting up a fly sized treadmill they play cricket chirrups at the fly, who runs in the direction of the sound. They found it was accurate to within a couple of degrees. Unlike our ears, a good 6 inches apart, Ormia’s ears are so close together that they get very little audio clues as to the direction of the sound. So how do they do it?

It was left to Ron Miles, who discovered the fly uses a new way of hearing, having ears constructed like a see-saw. It’s this mechanism that gives the fly its amazing directional hearing ability, and this mechanism is now being used to develop smaller, more directionally accurate microphones for use in hearing aids and cochlear implants.

Kyle’s parents decide to go ahead with the operation to have his implant fitted, and after hours of nerve racking surgery, he emerges, facial nerve intact. After some time for recovery, his implant is switched on and Kyle hears for the very first time. Although initially disturbed by the new sensation, Kyle learns to make sense of the sounds, and when we visit him six months later, he is able to say his first words.

But learning to listen doesn’t just allow us to communicate with each other, the way Kyle is beginning to do, it also allows us to communicate with the stars. Kent Cullers is a radio ham blind since birth. Fascinated by his auditory world, he spent long hours on the radio, but rather than listening for other users, he was transfixed by the interference patterns he heard, noises created by our Sun and other celestial bodies.

Now instead of listening to other radio hams, Kent uses the biggest ear in the world to listen much farther afield. He is head of research and development at SETI the search for extra terrestrial intelligence, and using the Aricebo telescope, listens for evidence of life on other planets. Although they haven’t heard signs of life yet, they have made new astronomical discoveries, hearing the sound of a collapsing star. Now an even bigger ear is coming online, the Allen Array. This will allow Kent to expend his horizons, from the one thousand stars he has already listened to to the galaxy, over 200 billion stars. Kent is convinced signs of life will be heard before long.

Mike Couillard and his son endure the agony of the cold at 7000 feet when they get lost for ten days on a ski trip in Turkey. What happens to the body in these extreme conditions?

Mike Couillard and his ten-year-old son Matt are on a ski trip in Turkey, when they get lost in heavy snow, 7000 feet up a mountain. After a long trek through deep snow trying to get off the mountain, Mike realises they need to spend the night in the open and they rig up a bivouac. But Mike and Matt would have to survive ten more days in the cold before being rescued. In that time, with only a handful of sweets to share between them, and with nothing to drink but melted snow, Mike and Matt had to endure the hope of rescue as they saw search helicopters overhead, and then the agony as they weren’t spotted. They also had to suffer the pain and the effects of frostbite.

Realising they would never be found, Mike had to make the hardest decision of his life. Should he stay with his son and wait for inevitable death, or leave his son on the mountainside, and set off on his own to get help. He left his son, and forced his body down the mountain. Eventually he came across a hut but his hopes were dashed when he found it empty. For two days Mike lay in the hut, crippled by the agony of his frostbite, unable to get back to his son because of exhaustion. Finally, woodsmen discovered him, and quickly scrambled up the mountain to find Matt, amazingly still alive. How much longer could they have survived?

Dr Michel Ducharme from the Climatic Facility at the Canadian Defence Research and Development Centre runs experiments into the effects of hypothermia. After wiring up our volunteer, Danny, to blood pressure and heart rate monitors, Dr Ducharme subjects him to a cool 46 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius), a 10 mile an hour wind, and a downpour.

Very quickly Danny starts to show signs of hypothermia, with his body temperature dropping from 37 degrees Celsius or 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit to around 35 degrees Celsius, 95 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature his brain ability begins to tail off and he shakes so violently, if he were out on a mountain, it would be almost impossible for him to put on a pair of gloves, let alone light a fire. He would be dead very soon. The dangers of hypothermia are clear.

But doctors are now beginning to discover how useful the cold can be in medical emergencies. In the Falklands, many soldiers wounded by mines and mortars were saved by the extreme cold. Their bodies became mildly hypothermic, allowing them to survive on lower blood volumes and oxygen levels. David Gray, who lost his foot in a mortar attack, should have bled to death, but owes his life to the fact that he was left in freezing conditions on the Falklands moorland, slowly becoming hypothermic. Now this idea has been developed by some hospitals who use it to treat trauma victims.

But cold therapy has gone beyond being used to limit damage. It is now being used to prevent damage. Ross Walker, a two-year-old boy who had a very difficult birth, was starved of oxygen, which set off a chain reaction in his brain, leading to seemingly inevitable brain damage. To stop the damage, doctors cooled his whole body, for almost two weeks, slowing down the reactions in his brain. The treatment worked. Today he is a normal healthy toddler.

Stress can kill. It can destroy our mind and our body, silently and secretly. But stress originally evolved to help us survive. Now scientists have discovered how we can control and even reverse and its harmful effects ...

Stress can kill. It can destroy our mind and our body, silently and secretly. But stress originally evolved to help us survive.

At a traditional Spanish bull festival, firefighter Andy Mintner, is wired up to show how his body responds in the face of mortal danger – like being chased through the streets by a herd of rampaging bulls. As the bulls draw nearer his body is flooded by powerful stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, that fire his body into action allowing him to think and run faster than he ever has before.

Stress saves Andy’s life but switch it on hour after hour, day after day and the effects can be fatal. The demands of modern life are leaving one in four of us permanently stressed. No longer concerned about predators, today we’re getting stressed about work, relationships, money and health. Over time the powerful stress hormones cripple our immune system and put dangerous pressure on our hearts.

Jude Meadows is a highflying businesswoman who allows the stress of her job to push her dangerously close to the edge. Although she loves the adrenaline rush of corporate life, sleepless nights and high blood pressure are having an impact on her health. The final alarm bell comes during an important business meeting when Jude bursts a blood vessel. She decides it’s time to do something about her stress levels.

It seems that Jude may be predisposed to stress. Science is just discovering that personality could be the key in controlling our stress response. Jude is what’s known as a type A personality – a perfectionist, an impatient, ambitious, fast talker, somebody who can’t switch off. But incredibly the work that’s revealing these links isn’t being done on humans but one of our close ancestors.

In the Serengeti in Africa, Professor Robert Sapolsky, is discovering that when it comes to stress we have a lot in common with baboons. For the past 26 years he has been measuring the levels of hormones in male baboons and has shown that stress-related diseases such as heart disease are dependant on personality. Type A personalities are more susceptible to stress. But if you’re a type A personality like Jude it doesn’t mean you’re stuck with it forever.

Jude is working hard to deal with her stress. Twice a day she takes twenty minutes out to meditate. After six months her blood pressure is normal. Meditation, it seems, is very effective at controlling the stress response. At Harvard University, Dr Herbert Benson and Dr Sarah Lazar are trying to find out why.

Using an MRI scanner they are looking inside the meditating brain and discovering that meditation not only controls our heart and breathing rates but allows us to become more alert. Dr Herbert Benson calls this the relaxation response – the body’s innate ability to deal with the harmful effects of stress. And you don’t just have to meditate to do it. Dancing, prayer and exercise are just some of the ways we can all deal with our stress and improve our health.

We spend one third of our lives asleep. We all have to sleep. Not sleeping can kill you faster than not eating. What is it about sleep that so vital to life? And can we really change the way we sleep?

Sleep is universal imperative. We spend one third of our lives asleep. We now know that not sleeping can kill you faster than not eating. So what is it about sleep that so vital to life?

In a sleep deprivation experiment twelve volunteers from the British public are forced to go without sleep for 52 hours. In the harsh environment of the Borneo jungle they are put through their paces. Enduring a gruelling regime of physical tests and mental challenges, we see how sleep deprivation starts to affect their minds and bodies. The concentrated and uncomfortable experience illustrates what happens to all of us over a much longer period – simply by skimping on sleep. Sleep deprivation is cumulative – affecting our memory, our judgement, our ability to solve problems and eventually even who we are.

In the UK we meet a man who has experienced the extremes of sleep deprivation and survived. In 1967 John Schlapobersky, a twenty one year old psychology student, was arrested by South Africa’s notorious state police. Not a hand was laid on him but he suffered the most appalling torture. For five nights and six days he was forced to stand on a brick, unable to sleep. He recounts that the worst was not the longing to sleep but the inability to manage his conscious mind whilst awake. Prolonged sleep deprivation affects the higher centres of the brain, as the brain closes down we discover that dreams can start to intrude on our waking hours.

In the mid Atlantic another sleep deprivation experiment is underway. Solo sailor Ellen Macarthur is trying to survive on half her usual sleep. She is competing in one of the world’s most dangerous races. The Vendée Globe is a three-month around the world race from the Sables D’Ollone in France around the Antarctic and back. Pitted against sixty foot waves and iceberg fields her greatest enemy is sleep – to win this race she’ll need to be alert twenty four seven. Helping her from shore is sleep biologist Dr Claudio Stampi. For sixteen months prior to the race he has studied her sleep patterns and by using an extreme sleeping regime he hopes to reduce her sleep to just three or four hours a day.

At Columbia University, sleep scientist, Dr Yaakov Stern is also trying to solve the problem of needing to sleep and stay alert at the same time. Key to his enquiries is the fact that some people can survive on considerably less sleep than others. Find out what they’re doing differently and Stern hopes to come up with a treatment for the effects of sleep deprivation. Using state of the art brain imaging he has isolated the parts of the brain that switch off when sleep deprived. If he can switch them back on he believes he’ll be able to improve people’s performance on little or no sleep.

Sleepiness could soon become a thing of the past.

The human life span may soon be doubled. Some scientists are honing in on a genetic switch to turn off ageing. Others have discovered a hormone which is already producing startling results in the over fifties ...

In the war against ageing we meet four extraordinary people who are fighting Time on various fronts. Diane, Donald, Debbie and Michael all have strategies to stay young and live longer. It's a universal desire, and we’ll do almost anything to achieve it, but no-one has yet found the elixir of youth. But now, as this programme reveals, science is unlocking the secrets of ageing.

In New York, fashion designer Diane Gilman believes she has found the answer. It’s called human growth hormone. While we're young and growing, human growth hormone helps the body to build muscle and repair tissue. By middle age, the body stops producing it altogether. At 56 Diane injects herself with enough human growth hormone to recreate the levels she had in her twenties. Her two shots a day cost of over $1,000 a month. Human growth hormone is still undergoing clinical trials, but Diane believes it is money well spent. For her, taking human growth hormone has turned back time. It's her victory in the age wars.

Donald and Debbie are in good health and live the Californian dream. Yet they take over one hundred pills a day. This is how they're fighting the age wars - with a complicated mix of vitamins and anti-oxidants. It's to protect themselves against the ravages of oxygen. Donald and Debbie began their regime over a year ago. In this short time, they're convinced that anti-oxidants have given them back the energy of their youth.

In London, Michael Young's weapons aren’t anti-oxidant pills but a highly restricted vegetarian diet. Michael is 42 years old. He plans to diet for the rest of his life, eating fewer than 1500 calories a day. It seems an unlikely solution but this starvation regime already works for rats and mice. Seventy years ago scientists discovered that halving the diet of a lab rat can double its age. Michael hopes the same is true for humans.

Taking human growth hormone, swallowing over a hundred pills a day, a life-long starvation diet - they all have high risks, and most of us would prefer something less demanding. Could we not simply turn off the genetic switch that makes us grow old? We discover a scientist who believes this is precisely what she can do.

At San Francisco University Cynthia Kenyon has found a switch that can turn off ageing. It’s a gene called DAF2. By switching it off, Cynthia has increased the lifespan of her lab animals six fold. If the same gene controls ageing in humans, switching it off could be as simple as taking one pill a day. And whether you’re in your seventies or your teens, Cynthia believes the pill would still be effective.

Are we any nearer today to winning our war on age? Does science hold the answer? In this thought-provoking edition of Explorations, we meet people who are convinced they have conquered time.

How could losing his sense of smell push a man to the brink? In turns out that smell is responsible for most of what we taste, underpins our emotional states, and is crucial in the dating game.
One Page Summary

In 1998 Mick O’Hare woke up with a bad head cold. When he couldn’t taste or smell a thing, he knew something was seriously wrong. Diagnosed with viral anosmia, he was advised that he may never regain his sense of smell. Told that he just had to live with his condition, he began to realise that life without his sense of smell would never be the same again. He began to sink into depression.

In the 21st century, our sense of smell has become increasingly ignored in favour of sight and hearing. But underneath the surface of our lives smell is subconsciously influencing our emotions and actions.

When it comes to matters of the heart, scent is a major player. Just like the animal world, humans use smell to attract potential mates. But crucially, scientists have discovered that we are attracted to the smells of people who have a different genetic make up or ‘immunotype’ to our own. This is to produce the healthiest possible babies.

Before a date, most women apply perfume - not only to make themselves smell fragrant - but, as new research shows, to enhance their natural immunotype to a potential mate. And as a date progresses we are subconsciously detecting pheromones (scent messages) indicating a whole range of emotional states. Crucially, kissing confirms whether we are a good genetic match.

Most of what we think of as taste or flavour is in fact smell. For Mick O’Hare, mealtimes became a low point. A lot of our memories are also directly triggered by smell. Mick was becoming isolated from those around him. With few smell triggers he became cut off from his childhood memories and he felt alienated from the world. One day he found himself on a bridge over the River Thames in London contemplating whether life was really worth living.

Smell is intimately connected to our emotions. Scientists in Philadelphia are now developing a truly disgusting smell called ‘stench soup’ which could well be used as an alternative to tear gas. Designed to trigger ‘flight response’ in humans, this smell, which has to be tested in safe laboratory conditions, is a potent combination of the worst smells on earth ...

Fortunately Mick O’Hare was able to find an anosmia Internet community. He got in touch with a specialist doctor who prescribed him with the drugs, which eventually cured him. And one day at work, it was the aroma of coffee, which welcomed him back to the world of smell. Along with this cure his depression fell away as he felt a part of the world around him once again. Able to breathe in life’s scents and aromas Mick could truly appreciate how smell is essential to the lives we all lead.

Will we always be able to lie and get away with it? A new breed of lie spotters and lie catching machines are hot on our trail. One machine - reputedly unbeatable - actually checks what information is stored in the brain ...

We all lie. And we do it much more than most of us like to admit. But will we always be able to lie and get away with it? A new breed of lie spotters and lie catching machines are hot on our trail…

Although parents scold their children for lying, and try to teach them the importance of telling the truth, learning to lie is in fact a crucial stage in child development. Realising others don’t necessarily know what we know, and using that to our advantage is something the smartest children pick up first.

But as we get older, we have to learn when not to lie. Socially, being discovered as a liar can be disastrous, and when the stakes are high, our lies have the biggest chance of being spotted simply from our demeanour - that’s because the brain and body are trying hardest to conceal our true feelings. Someone who knows what to look for can spot these tell tale signs quite easily. Psychologist and expert lie catcher Paul Ekman shows us some classic big stakes lies – and what gives them away.

50% of the lies that we come across in every day life pass us by. We simply miss the subtle signs that could have told us we were being lied to. Stan Walters aims to redress that balance – at least among those who need it most. Training law enforcement and security service officers all across America, Stan goes into detail to show us how to spot a cluster of lie behaviours. From voice and speech to face and body, there are a plethora of things to look out for.

At the Sioux City Police Training Academy, South Carolina Detective Mike Peters has driven 1200 miles to take Stan’s class. Everybody lies to him, even victims, and he’s convinced he’s missed out on some easy catches. “I don’t ever want to put an innocent man in jail” he tells us. But,” the bad guys are getting better, so the officer needs to also”

For 50 years, America has relied upon the lie detector, or polygraph, to determine guilt or innocence. The polygraph measures our emotional responses – heart rate, skin conductance, breathing – picking up the subtle physical changes as we try to conceal the truth. But despite years of confidence, the lie detector is failing. US super spy Aldrich Ames twice beat the lie detector to continue giving secrets to the Soviets for 11 years and these days anyone looking on the internet can discover how to beat it. New research suggests a reliability of just 70%, compared with 95% as previously thought.

As the CIA has long realised the shortcomings of the polygraph, the past 5 years has seen a race to develop new machines and technologies to detect lies. And few can claim to be as revolutionary as Brain Fingerprinting, the non-invasive technique developed by Dr Larry Farwell. Brain Fingerprinting claims to do away with lying altogether, instead looking for recognition responses inside the brain. Were you at the crime scene? Did you commit the crime? “If you were there, that information is stored in your brain, and we can detect that knowledge” says Farwell.

Is it the beginning of a new era? With the help of university student Eva, we put Farwell’s technology to the test to find out…One thing’s for sure, getting away with lying is fast becoming more difficult.

A T-Shirt salesman from London enters the worlds most gruelling race - the Lanzarote Ironman triathlon. Will the latest sports science give him the edge ...

Michael Hanreck, a T-shirt salesman from London, is preparing for the most extreme day of his sporting life. He is about to attempt the Lanzarote Ironman triathlon in which he must swim 2.4 miles, run 112 miles and then run a marathon.

Michael has science on his side. This is the key to pushing him to the very edge of his capabilities both physically and mentally. In the weeks previous to the race Michael has undergone lactate testing to find out exactly how hard he can push his body during the 11 hours it will take to complete the event. And crucially, he has a nutritional strategy. Without this his whole race plan could fall apart. Energy drinks, bars and gels are the modern day fuel to power an athlete’s body.

But there is something else unknown to Michael, which drives him on. He is programmed to win. When we achieve victory in the sporting arena our brain and body rewards us. Endorphins rush through our body giving us a natural high whilst the chemical dopamine stimulates our brain giving us a sense of wellbeing.

Over halfway through the cycle course and Michael faces a 20-mile climb up two of the biggest and most punishing hills on Lanzarote. In the midday heat and cycling against a sheer gradient the test is on. But not only must he be prepared physically for this challenge, he must have a mental strategy.

Rebecca Owen is a gymnast who wants learn a complicated new move, the gienger salto. But to do so, she must learn the psychological technique of visualisation. By running through the move in her head Rebecca reinforces the pathways in her brain. When she does finally attempt the manoeuvre her mental strategy will make it much simpler. Michael’s visualisation has helped him to the top of the highest peak on the island. Now he heads downhill to the bike finish line.

Finally he faces the marathon run leg. With 17 miles completed his energy levels are fine, but fate has intervened and his left knee is slowing him down. He hobbles along, a determined grimace on his face. The physical and mental pressure piling on top of Michael has turned this into a make or break moment.

Dr. Rod Corban of the University of Lancashire has discovered that during pressure moments, such as a soccer penalty shootout, mental anxiety can inhibit a player’s physical performance. Under pressure a player will begin to use the conscious part of their brain, instead of the unconscious part. This can result in less flowing movements, and in the case of the soccer player, a failed penalty kick.

It seems that the key to success under pressure is to use your subconscious. Michael has evidently accessed his at the right moment because he is about to finish in just over 11 hours and become an Ironman. He milks the applause of the Spanish crowd as though he were the first across the line. Arms aloft and victorious he makes it. An iron will and the helping hand of science has turned Michael Hanreck into an Ironman.

Explorations this time examines the marvels and mysteries of the human mind and body. From brain implants to artificial intelligence, we explore the complexity and achievements of the human mind.
Up to the age of six months babies are able to swim comfortably underwater thanks to a reflex
that still puzzles scientists. Although we lose this reflex very early on, the most successful free divers can train their bodies to hold their breaths for up to six minutes. Free divers can plunge to amazing depths because they use their minds to control and over-rule their bodies’ natural instincts to breathe. Now experiments are being carried out to see if we can breathe liquids whilst underwater. Perfluorocarbons carry twenty five times more oxygen than water and deliver it to the lungs three times more effectively than air. Mice have survived in the liquid for several weeks. Once the liquid has drained away from their lungs, the mice make a complete recovery.

Explorations this time tells the story of how man’s drive to communicate has enabled him to organize and develop his environment.
After 12 years perfecting his technique Swedish photographer Lennart Nielson produced pictures that astounded the world. he went inside the uterus to take pictures of a foetus in the first weeks of life. From intercourse to conception to development and finally birth. The miracle of life’s beginning is now ours to behold.

Explorations this time examines the marvels and mysteries of the human mind and body. From brain implants to artificial intelligence, we explore the complexity and achievements of the human mind.
The ideal would be to be able to grow new body parts from our own cells. Nature does this already. Adult salamanders can re-grow tails or even limbs that are lost. They have cells in their bodies that can transform themselves into other types of cells, to make bone and muscle. These are called stem cells - and we also have them in our bodies. Research is being carried out all over the world to find the triggers that will allow stem cells to become new body parts.
Through our knowledge and understanding of our brain and body, we are learning to extend and preserve life. By pushing ever further at the boundaries of our inner space, we are unravelling more of the mystery of life. By commanding nature, we have begun to take control of our own destiny.

We’ve changed the world tremendously in the process of our development. And this has led the pace for development of new infections. As we’ve changed the world, microbes have evolved and begun to fill ecological niches that weren’t there before. So, we’re setting the stage for the emergence of more and more infections. We are still trying to combat existing diseases. AIDS has killed more than 20 million people. Malaria still kills 2.7 million people a year. The future of our species is uncertain. But our skills are unparalleled. We know how to survive. Now, we must add wisdom to that knowledge.

Explorations this time tells the story of how man’s drive to communicate has enabled him to organize and develop his environment.
The desire to communicate is Man’s most fundamental urge. Today, we’re pushing that urge beyond the limits of our Earth. Seth Shostack, a SETI institute astronomer explains how SETI - the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence – listen for radio signals from outer space. Around 50 star systems are checked each year. Man is desperate to find out if there is anybody out there and SETI is our listening post.The need to share experience underpins our psyche, and is the basis of many of our technologies. The invention of the phone means we can now communicate instantly with anyone.

Explorations this time tells the story of how man’s drive to communicate has enabled him to organize and develop his environment.
At one time, our understanding of our world depended on what we could see with the naked eye, but we’ve developed technologies that have allowed us to uncover other worlds. Worlds beneath and beyond visible reality. Being able to get close to the natural world has been one of the greatest benefits of the camera. Once shrouded in mystery, the extraordinary drama of animal existence can now be experienced close up, sometimes too close. Using remote cameras we can even get a victim’s eye view of what it’s like to be stalked and caught by a hungry lion.

Explorations this time tells the story of how man’s drive to communicate has enabled him to organize and develop his environment.
Radio, telegraph and telephone transformed communication within just 80 years. But an even more radical and sudden revolution was soon to overtake us. In 1925, John Logie Baird turned on the first television. Suddenly, not only could man hear the rest of the world - he could see it too. Television became the mirror which man held up to his experience of the world. In the 20th century, communication technology changed beyond all recognition, changed beyond our wildest dreams. The telegraphs, telephone, radio, satellites, microwave links and transmitters that made 20th century Man the most connected of all, now evolved into a new form - the internet. It’s taken communication into another dimension. The communications revolution of the last century has transformed our existence. Our place in our world has changed dramatically. The next step in communications could be to dispense with computers altogether - to make a direct link between one brain and another.

Explorations this time examines the marvels and mysteries of the human mind and body. From brain implants to artificial intelligence, we explore the complexity and achievements of the human mind.
Making intelligent computers appears to be within our grasp. But if they are to realise their full potential, then they will have to become more than inanimate boxes. Computers that can control their movements and actions, and interact fully with their surroundings and with others - this is the true aspiration of those exploring artificial life. As we learn to build more intelligent and agile computers and robots, we become increasingly aware of the limitations of our own bodies. We’ve also realised that we can combine organic with artificial body parts. Failing hearts supported by pacemakers and artificial pumps have become commonplace.

Explorations this time tells the story of how man’s drive to communicate has enabled him to organize and develop his environment.
Throughout history, every civilization in history has striven to communicate, across distance and across time. Man has always shared stories and experiences. He’s also shared his hopes, his fears, his imaginings. And it’s his greatest imagining that has given Man the most inspiration. Humans have the most complex set of facial muscles in the animal kingdom. This makes a vast range of expressions possible. There is a common vocabulary in body language. The gesture speaks a thousand words. Our unmatched range of communication skills give us myriad ways to express our complex emotions. We connect with others. Now, we’re trying to connect with other species. It’s with our closest relative, the chimpanzee, that we’ve made most progress.

Man survived and thrived because he learned to understand how the world around him works. He has classified his world and he has brought order to it. His most important area of study has been the natural world and trying to understand how it came to be as it is. During this long evolution, species would vary from generation to generation. Some of these variations would continue to exist and others would die out. Darwin called this theory natural selection or survival of the fittest.

Explorations this time tells the story of our place in space.

At the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, scientists are engaged in one of the most important quests of modern astronomy. They’re scanning the universe for new planets. Planets that might support life now or in the future. Planets that might be like earth.

In the 1970’s, after decades of careful planning, 4 probes, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager One, and Voyager 2 were sent on missions to the outer limits of our solar system. Their journeys would last almost 30 years, and cover more than 8 billion miles. These probes brought mankind astonishing images of the planets in our solar system.

Mankind’s first giant leap was made with hot air in balloons. Tied to balloons, man could leave the ground and travel higher than ever before. In 1960, a balloon carrying US air force captain Joe Kittinger ascended to the edge of space, some 100,000 feet off the ground. Then he jumped out. In 4 minutes, Kittinger reached the speed of sound.

We all know that we will grow old and die. Our awareness of ourselves brings with it the knowledge that death is inevitable, a natural process, an integral stage in life and in evolution. Scientists are trying to understand and master the complex chemical signals which control this growth. There is even a possibility of altering nature at a much more fundamental level. We could identify the gene responsible for aging and remove it before we are born.

This episode of Explorations tells the story of our place in space.

All life on Earth depends on the sun. Man has always known this and so worshipped the sun as his God. Exploring our universe has become an urgent necessity for the future survival of our species. It’s a long time away, but our Earth may be dying and we could need to find other homes in space. The strongest candidate for that new home is Mars, our next door neighbour. In a process that scientists call ‘terra-forming’ we might be able to raise the temperature artificially and create an inhabitable atmosphere ...