Life and death in the 21st century.

In the 21st century, will scientists reach the new Holy Grail - will they discover the fountain of youth? Will we live forever? And what will this mean for the evolution of the human race. Will evolution stop or is this just a logical conclusion of evolution?

Horizon - Living forever.

The ultimate predators.

Some think nature is a peacefully place and its not cruel at all. Well they are wrong in nature its all about who eats who, and how to survive the next day or night. This rare documentary is about some of the most fascinating predators in the wild.

The ultimate predators.

The secret life of cats.

Worshiped as a symbol of life in ancient Egypt, and coveted by sea captains and farmers for centuries, the cat is one of the most beloved animal in history. Through the ages, it was the cat's extraordinary ability to hunt and kill rodents that endeared it to humans.

Today, cats are adored for their beauty and unique personalities. Nevertheless, the soul of a killer still lurks inside every kitty. In the time it takes to watch this film, house cats in the United States will catch as many as 100,000 small mammals and more than 30,000 birds.

From the county parks of Florida to the outback of Australia, domestic cats and their feral cousins are stalking some creatures to the brink of extinction. What is your cat doing when it slips out of the house? You'll learn more about your pet than you might want to know.

The secret life of cats.

The moon.

A BBC documentary about the history of our relationship with the moon. From old Pagan religions until today with the next rat race to revisit the moon again.

The moon.

Cosmological origins: the universe, galaxies, and stars.

The March 13, 2007 Volunteer Enrichment Committee lecture at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science by Curator of Space Science Dr. Ka Chun Yu.

This lecture covers the 13.7 billion year history of the Universe, including topics on cosmology (relativity, the expansion of the universe, the aftermath of the Big Bang, inflation, the cosmic microwave background radiation, formation of the elements), and the evolution of the universe's contents afterwards (large structure formation, the evolution of galaxies, the roles of dark matter and dark energy). The talk ends with star formation covering molecular clouds.

Cosmological origins: the universe, galaxies, and stars.

Planet Earth - Ocean deep.

It begins with a whale shark used as a shield by a shoal of bait fish to protect themselves from yellowfin tuna. Also shown is an oceanic whitetip shark trailing rainbow runners. Meanwhile, a 500-strong school of dolphins head for the Azores, where they work together to feast on scad mackerel.

Down in the ocean's furthest reaches, some creatures defy classification. On the sea floor, scavengers such as the spider crab bide their time, awaiting carrion from above. The volcanic mountain chain at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean also sustains life through the bacteria that surround its sulphide vents. There are thought to be around 30,000 undersea volcanoes, some of them taller than Mount Everest. Their sheer cliffs provide anchorage for several corals and sponges. Nearer the surface, the currents that surround these seamounts force nutrients up from below and thus marine life around them is abundant.

Off the Mexican coast, a large group of sailfish encircle another shoal of bait fish. The hunters change colour as a message of their intentions, since an attack could also be fatal to others of their number. The last sequence depicts the largest animal on Earth: the blue whale, of which 300,000 once roamed the world's oceans. Now fewer than 3% remain. Planet Earth Diaries shows the search in the Bahamas for oceanic whitetip sharks.

Life goes to extraordinary lengths to survive this immense realm. A 30 tonne whale shark gorges on a school of fish and the unique overhead heli-gimbal camera reveals common dolphins rocketing at more than 30km an hour.

Descending into the abyss, deep sea octopus fly with wings and vampire squid use bioluminescence to create an extraordinary colour display. The first ever time-lapse footage taken from 2,000m down captures eels, crabs and giant isopods eating a carcass, completely consuming it within three hours.

Planet Earth - Ocean deep.

The mystery of the human Hobbit.

Is the hobbit a new human species or nothing more than a modern human with a crippling deformity? On the far-flung island of Flores, in the Indonesian archipelago, a team of archaeologists happened upon a tiny 18,000-year old skeleton. It was no more than a metre tall. They assumed they have found the remains of a young girl. But other signs suggested she was in fact much older. They had discovered one of the smallest human adults ever found.

The mystery of the Human Hobbit.

Ape Genius.

A PBS Nova presentation on the growing cultural intelligence of the greater apes.

Ape Genius.

Horizon - How does your memory work?

You might think that your memory is there to help you remember facts, such as birthdays or shopping lists. If so, you would be very wrong. The ability to travel back in time in your mind is, perhaps, your most remarkable ability, and develops over your lifespan.

Horizon takes viewers on an extraordinary journey into the human memory. From the woman who is having her most traumatic memories wiped by a pill, to the man with no memory, this film reveals how these remarkable human stories are transforming our understanding of this unique human ability.

The findings reveal the startling truth that everyone is little more than their own memory.

How does your memory work?

Richard Dawkins - Queerer than we suppose...

Richard Dawkins is Oxford University's "Professor for the Public Understanding of Science." Author of the landmark 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, he's a brilliant (and trenchant) evangelist for Darwin's ideas.

In this talk, titled, "Queerer Than We Suppose: The strangeness of science," he suggests that the true nature of the universe eludes us, because the human mind evolved only to understand the "middle-sized" world we can observe.

Queerer than we suppose: The strangeness of science.

The Indian rope trick.

There are different accounts of the Indian rope trick in circulation, but apart from minor changes in the settings and the participants, the basic trick remained the same as described below.

In the simplest version of the trick, the magician would hurl a rope into the air. The rope would not fall but stand erect. His boy assistant would climb the rope and then descend.

A more elaborate version of the trick would find the magician (or his assistant) disappearing after reaching the top of the rope, then reappearing at ground level.
The "classic" version of the trick, however, was even more detailed: the rope would seem to rise high into the skies, even disappearing from view. The boy assistant would climb the rope, and soon be lost to view. The magician would call back his boy assistant, and on hearing no response, would become furious. The magician then armed himself with a knife or sword, and he would also climb the rope and disappear in the thin air. An argument would be heard, and then human limbs would start falling on the ground, presumably cut from the assistant by the magician. When all the parts of the body, including the torso, landed on the ground, the magician would be seen climbing down from the erect rope. He would collect the limbs and put them in a basket, or simply collect all the limbs in one place and then cover them with a cape or blanket. Soon the magician’s boy assistant would appear, miraculously restored.

Descartes originally claimed that consciousness involves an immaterial soul, which observes a representation of the world in the pineal gland of the brain. Under this notion, the soul plays the role of a homunculus, a creature with self-directed will power.

Dennett says that, when the dualism is removed, what remains of Descartes' original model amounts to imagining a tiny theater in the brain where the homunculus, now physical, performs the task of observing all the sensory data projected on a screen at a particular instant, making the decisions and sending out commands. And all that is left is a Cartesian Theater. Who's driving the car?

Professor Daniel Dennett's - Lecture on consciousness.

Richard Dawkins: An atheist's call to arms.

The session was titled "The Design of Life," and the TED audience was probably expecting remarks about evolution's role in our history from biologist Richard Dawkins.

Instead, he launched into a full-on appeal for atheists to make public their beliefs and to aggressively fight the incursion of religion into politics and education. Scientists and intellectuals hold very different beliefs about God from the American public, he says, yet they are cowed by the overall political environment. Dawkins' scornful tone drew strongly mixed reactions from the audience; some stood and applauded his courage. Others wondered whether his strident approach could do more harm than good.

Richard Dawkins: An atheist's call to arms.

Life After People.

What would happen to planet earth if the human race were to suddenly disappear forever? Would ecosystems thrive? What remnants of our industrialized world would survive? What would crumble fastest?

Abandoned skyscrapers would, after hundreds of years, become "vertical ecosystems" complete with birds, rodents and even plant life. One small animal might be responsible for bringing down the Hoover Dam hydroelectric plant. Swelled rivers, crumbling bridges and buildings, grizzly bears in California and herds of buffalo returning to the Great Western Plains: In a world without humans, these would be the visual hallmarks. Our cars would shrivel to piles of dust, our house pets would be overtaken by flourishing wildlife and most of the records of our human story�books, photos, records�would fade quickly, leaving little evidence that we ever existed.

So what would happen to the Earth if humans ceased to exist? Would all the remnants of mankind eventually disappear from our planet? How long would it take? Would endangered species thrive or would extinctions continue at an advanced pace?

History Channel - Life After People.