Horizon

When a rubber tyre rolls fast on a wet surface it may rise on a film of water and begin to 'aquaplane.' Scientists are studying this fact which creates a real hazard to aircraft passengers and fast drivers.

A new membrane developed in America holds forth the prospect of men being able to live under water.

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Men and Sharks / Sir Henry Dale, OM, FRS

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June 9, 1965 • 1h

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Horizon looks at Prof. Perry Gilbert's research on captured sharks and meets with the eminent physiologist Sir Henry Dale as he celebrates his 90th birthday and looks back on his career in medical research.

The eminent physiologist, who celebrates his ninetieth birthday today, looks back on his first discovery sixty years ago.

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The Brain Gain / The Sudden Night / Learning to Speak

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June 23, 1965 • 1h

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Dr. Jacob Bronowski, who a year ago took up the deputy directorship of the Salk Institute in California, discusses with Tom Rosenthal his new activities and how he feels about working in the golden West.

The recent total eclipse of the sun was probably the most closely studied ever. With special film from the Pacific, Horizon examines what was done and why.

For the first time deaf children can see a visual pattern of their own attempts at speech. In the programme a new machine is shown which may revolutionize the teaching of speech and language to these handicapped children.

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Dr. Joseph Needham / Mariner IV

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July 14, 1965 • 1h

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This episode of Horizon features Dr. Joseph Needham, an eminent scientist and humanist who is perhaps the greatest living authority on China.

An account of the space probe Mariner IV which will be flying past Mars tonight.

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Science Fiction : Science Fact? / Alone and Unarmed

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An Affair of the Heart

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October 24, 1965 • 1h

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Horizon explores heart attacks and thrombosis.

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10,000 Tombs

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November 7, 1965 • 1h

2x21

Horizon probes into the Etruscan tombs in Italy.

Carlo Lerici, scientist and archaeologist, has brought past and future together. Using geophysical methods intended for mineral surveying, he has detected 10,000 unknown Etruscan tombs in ten years.

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Albert Szent-Györgyi M.D., Ph.D., D.h.c.

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November 21, 1965 • 1h

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Horizon profiles the scientist, polymath, and Nobel prize winner Prof. Albert Szent-Gyorgi.

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February 27, 1966 • 1h

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North of Boston, on Route 128, a new industrial landscape based on science is developing. Here men of high intellectual qualifications are developing way-out products, including a helicopter powered by radio waves, a computer which teaches medical diagnosis, and a hair-raising way of testing driving conditions.

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The Beginning of Life / Science Friction

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March 13, 1966 • 1h

3x6

A remarkable Swedish film of the gradual development of the human embryo from fertilisation until birth.

One man's impression of what science has done for the modern world: an animated film by Stan Vanderbeek.

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So you want to be an Inventor? / The Severed Hand

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March 27, 1966 • 1h

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Horizon looks into inventors who struggle against exploding technology, the buying power of great industries and taxation problems to make their leaps into the unknown.

An account of a remarkable surgical operation recently performed in China.

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Chance and Decay / Meteorite Mystery

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April 10, 1966 • 1h

3x8

Europe's heritage of pictures, statues, and buildings is being destroyed at a frightening rate by atmospheric pollution, but an American scientist has just invented a method of preserving limestone.

In 1908, a vast explosion shook the Tungus district of Siberia: was it due to the biggest meteorite ever to hit the earth, or something odder?

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Towers of Ilium / The Exploding City

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April 24, 1966 • 1h

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The location of the historic city of Troy was finally pinned down by the researches of Carl Blegen.

By A.D. 2,000, more than half the world's population may be living in cities. The population of some of them may exceed 60 million. This is one of the main preoccupations of the World Institute of Ekistics.

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June 19, 1966 • 1h

3x13

Horizon explores substitute 'phantoms' which are used in radiation studies, manned spaceflight experiments and accident research that gives valuable information on the limits of tolerance on the human body.

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Genes in Action / Scientists and War

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July 3, 1966 • 1h

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Dr. John Gurdon talks about the action of the chromosomes puffing when they undergo intense genetic activity.

Sir Solly Zuckerman talks about his new book Scientists and War which outlines his views on the impact of science on affairs civil and military.

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The Gargantuan Triumph of Science

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The Lysenko Affair

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Season Finale

December 30, 1974 • 1h

11x33

Horizon presents a dramatized documentary on the rise to power of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, a young Ukrainian agriculturalist.

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The Killer Dust

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August 18, 1975 • 1h

12x25

This is a report by Horizon on Transcendental Meditation, or TM, brought to the West by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

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The Trobriand Experiment

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Decade

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The Academy

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Janice's Choice

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In this story, Horizon explores how the destructive patterns of child abuse and depression can be broken by concentrating on the mothers of young children.

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Time of Darkness

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Genes R Us

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The Runaway Mountain

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Ice Mummies: The Ice Maiden

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January 30, 1997 • 1h

0x27

Follows archeologist Natalya Polosmok as she journeys to the Altay Mountains in southern Siberia to search for traces of an ancient people known as the Pazyryk.

* Polosmok and her team discover and unearth a wooden tomb surrounded by the frozen remains of six horses, uncovering a 2,400-year-old woman dubbed the Siberian Ice Maiden.

* The Ice Maiden is buried alone, lying as if asleep, in a wood coffin with a headdress and a mirror. An afterlife meal, a yak horn vessel and a wooden table are also found outside the coffin. Archeologists record the Ice Maiden's height, and discover a hole in her skull and peat packed in her body.

*They use radiocarbon dating, tree-ring chronology and biological testing to determine the age of the remains and time of death.

*The body is excavated and taken to Moscow for preservation and facial reconstruction. Another mummy, and other skeletons, are discovered elsewhere.

*The program concludes by raising the question of who has rights to the ancient graves.

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Ice Mummies: A Life in Ice

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May 1, 1997 • 1h

34x9

Horizon reports on the technical and logistical struggles of teams trying for the first time to circumnavigate the earth by balloon.

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Gradually the inspectors got close to the labs and animal testing stations where the lethal toxins had been produced. In addition to the most common biological warfare organisms, anthrax and botulinus, Iraq developed and tested strains of viruses never before adopted for weapons purposes. This was part of an ongoing international biological arms race to design novel weapons using gene-splicing or fibroviruses such as Ebola, Hanta fever and others.

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Dr Miller and the Islanders

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February 26, 1998 • 1h

35x2

Horizon presents a documentary with Jonathan Miller who sets out for the Torres Strait, near Australia, to retrace the footsteps of the first British anthropological expedition 100 years ago. The expedition laid the foundations of modern anthropology's aims, ethos, and rules.

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The Rainmaker

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March 5, 1998 • 1h

35x3

Horizon presents the scientist, Graeme Mather, whose claims to be able to cause rainfall, are tested in Mexico with his reputation at stake.

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Hopeful Monsters

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March 19, 1998 • 1h

35x4

In this documentary, Horizon reports on the genetic research of biologist Mike Levine, whose discovery of a mutant fruit fly led to cures for illnesses as diverse as Parkinson's disease and skin cancer.

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The Limits to Birth

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March 26, 1998 • 1h

35x5

Horizon examines how much further we can and should go in our treatment of those born too soon in Britain.

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January 12, 2000 • 1h

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In this moving film Horizon follows the Loughran family in their fight to save the life of their daughter Sheila who suffers from cystic fibrosis. They lost their youngest daughter Ann to the disease in 1974 at the age of 15, and now as the health of their third daughter Sheila deteriorates, they must face the prospect of losing a second child. The current shortage of donor organs means that Sheila's only hope of survival is a rare and controversial operation that requires her two surviving siblings to undergo an arduous and potentially fatal operation.

An X-ray of Shelia's lungs Cystic fibrosis (CF) is the most common genetic disease in this country and it is incurable. The lungs of people with cystic fibrosis become covered with a sticky mucus making them extremely susceptible to bacterial infection. Over time these infections badly scar the lungs, until eventually they stop functioning. The defective CF gene is harmless when only a single copy of the gene is inherited. However, both the Loughran parents carry the gene, giving any child they may have a 25% chance of being born with cystic fibrosis. In fact two of their four children were born with the condition.

Horizon joins the family at a time when Sheila's health has deteriorated to such an extent that she requires oxygen 24 hours a day and has only months to live. Although on the waiting list for a donor lung, with 50% of patients dying while waiting to receive a transplant, Sheila's chances are not good.

The family has become aware of a controversial new operation, pioneered in the UK by Professor Sir Magdi Yacoub at Harefield Hospital. The technique, known as Living Donor Lung Transplantation, would involve removing Sheila's diseased lungs and, in an extraordinary three-way operation, replacing them with a lobe from one of the lungs of each her two siblings.

There have been six of these groundbreaking operations carried out in this country. However, only three patients have lived longer than a month. There is a clear moral dilemma - with such a low success rate, is it ethical to put the lives of two healthy people at risk? Even if the operation is initially successful it may only give Sheila five more years to live, by which time her new lungs are likely to fail again.

Damian Loughran Sheila's brother and sister, Damian and Josephine, feel compelled to do anything they can to save their dying sister. They undergo stringent tests before being certain that they are compatible donors and fit for surgery. They will have to face the risk of haemorrhaging and infection, both of which could potentially be fatal. After the operation both donors will be left with a 20-25% permanent loss of lung function. Despite these dangers, Damian and Josephine remain determined to proceed.

As all three of their children are wheeled in for the 12-hour operation, Mary and Harry Loughran's emotion is apparent. A day later, Sheila is breathing with her new lungs, but it is not long before complications arise. She is unable to absorb food and develops an abscess on her lung. Sheila is kept under sedation and so is unaware of these complications. Sadly, three weeks after the operation, Sheila loses her fight for life.

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The Lost City of Nasca

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January 20, 2000 • 1h

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On a barren desert in South America lies one of the greatest archaeological puzzles in the world. Etched in the surface of the desert pampa sand are hundreds of straight lines, geometric shapes and pictures of animals and birds - and their patterns are only clearly visible from the air. They were built by a people called the Nasca - but why and how they created these wonders of the world has defied explanation.

On the pampa, south of the Nasca Lines, archaeologists have now uncovered the lost city of the line-builders, Cahuachi. It was built nearly two thousand years ago and was mysteriously abandoned 500 years later. New discoveries at Cahuachi are at last beginning to give us insight into the Nasca people and to unravel the mystery of the Nasca Lines.

Distorted heads The Lines were first spotted when commercial airlines began flying across the Peruvian desert in the 1920's. Passengers reported seeing 'primitive landing strips' on the ground below. No one knew who had built them or indeed why. Since their discovery, the Nasca Lines have inspired fantastic explanations.

SpiderPerhaps most famously, the Austrian writer Erich von Danikken claimed that they were evidence that the earth had been visited by extra-terrestrials. The lines, he said, were runways for their spacecraft. Scientific study began in the 1940s with the arrival of a German mathematician and astronomer called Maria Reiche. She lived at Nazca until her death in 1998 and was known as the Lady of the Lines. Reiche believed that the lines were a sophisticated astronomical calendar. However, in 1965, astronomer Gerald Hawkins came to Nazca and used computers to check Reiche's theory. Hawkins could find no correlation between the lines and the stars.

Giuseppe Orefici Italian archaeologist Giuseppe Orefici has been excavating the immense Cahuachi site for the last 17 years. Every year he brings a team of specialists to South America for three, intensive months of excavation. Horizon joined Orefici and his team in the hot, windy months of 1998 and this is a fascinating record of their extraordinary finds.

Woven clothCahuachi is emerging as a treasure trove of the Nasca culture. As Orefici and his team excavate, discoveries of paintings on preserved pottery, and the ancient technique of weaving that the Nasca people developed, have given an insight into how the lines may have been made, and what they might have been used for, more than 1500 years ago.

MummyMost exciting is the discovery of human remains. Stunningly preserved in the dry soil of the Peruvian desert are the mummified bodies of the Nasca themselves. Orefici's colleagues Brian Harrison and Andrea Drusini carry out modern autopsies on these remarkable finds, and reveal the strange world and rituals of the Nasca people.

CahuachiOriginally believed to have been a military stronghold, Cahuachi is now reckoned to be a place of ritual and ceremony, and Orefici's stunning new evidence confirms this idea. Cahuachi is now revealed to have been abandoned after a series of natural disasters destroyed the city. But before they left it, the Nasca people covered the city in the arid pampa sand where, until recently, it has remained a barely visible mound in the desert.

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March 9, 2000 • 1h

37x7

Some people see GM food as a ground-breaking scientific idea that could help to end world hunger and reduce global pollution. Others see it purely as 'Frankenstein foods' on 21st century menus, bringing health and environmental disasters. But what are the real scientific facts behind the newspaper headlines?

Scientists can manipulate the genetic code of life to produce plants with new characteristics never seen in nature. They can isolate any one gene from any organism like an animal or bacterium, and insert it into a completely unrelated species like a plant. The possibilities are almost endless - Scientists can insert a gene from a bacterium into a grape to make it resistant to viruses. Or they can engineer maize that resists drought or potatoes that resist pests, so farmers can use less pesticides on their crops.

For thousands of years we have been tampering with the genes of plants by traditional breeding. But there's a key difference here - with traditional plant breeding genes cross within the same species. But GM allows plant breeders to break the species barrier. And for critics this is fundamentally unnatural.

The fear is that the proteins produced by these foreign genes might be dangerous. Either because the protein itself is poisonous or because it might alter the chemistry of the plant so that the plant becomes toxic. Detailed tests are performed on the plants to discover if they are substantially biologically and chemically the same as before modification and if they have become toxic or allergenic.

Critics believe that no amount of testing can ensure that GM crops are completely safe. They believe that there is too much we don't understand about the complex genetic make-up of living organisms. And that even though there is little evidence so far, there may be a risk that genetic modification could cause effects so unexpected that they will be missed by all the tests biotech scientists carry out.

In contrast genetic engineers claim their work is safer and more predictable because they are moving just one or two specific genes, and they can more easily test the effects.

But those who campaign against GM have another fear: that the genes from the engineered plant will spread throughout the plant world, creating new strains of superweed and superbug we cannot control.

Horizon explores the key elements of scientific facts to try to answer the ultimate question: do the dangers of GM foods outweigh their benefits?

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Planet Hunters

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March 16, 2000 • 1h

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If extra-terrestrials do exist they must have a home. Horizon tells the story of the race to find out where in the Universe this might be. The answer, for scientists across the world, lies in the hunt for planets around distant stars.

Stars which are trillions of miles away from our own solar system.

But the history of the planet hunters is littered with failure. Centuries of searching had thrown up nothing. It was time for the new style planet hunters to step in. However, it is only in the last ten years that these scientists have had the technology to succeed. Even now looking for these distant planets is far from straightforward.

The planets themselves are so faint that they cannot be seen, even by the most powerful telescopes ever built. Instead the astronomers must devise ingenious ways to search for clues to their presence. They examine stars just like our own Sun, across the galaxy, for any give-away characteristics that might indicate that they too have planets circling around them.

A Swiss team finally struck gold in 1995 - convinced they'd detected a star that must have its own planet. Their discovery was the first of its kind but not the last. Other teams started to get lucky and suddenly it seemed like there were stars with planets everywhere. But the scientific community soon became restless. All they had done so far was detect the presence of alien planets - without seeing one, it was impossible to work out what the planet was like.

If these planets really did exist it was time the scientists caught a glimpse of one of them. Only then would they be able to learn about the planet - its surface and its atmosphere. And only then would they know whether it could sustain life as we know it.

Horizon follows the trials and tribulations of the planet hunters and shares in the triumph of the Scottish team who, just a few months ago, became the first to achieve the ultimate goal - to capture the image of an alien planet. It is orbiting another star, 55 light years away from Earth.

The question is - how similar is this planet to our own and could it be home to alien life? Horizon uncovers the answers.

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Moon Children

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April 4, 2000 • 1h

37x9

A handful of children around the world cannot tolerate the sun. Any exposure leads rapidly to skin cancer. They must either play indoors during daylight or be protected from head to toe in UV-proof suits. These children suffer from a strange and rare genetically-inherited disease, xeroderma pigmentosum, or XP, which means that within seconds of the sun's rays touching their skin, they are in danger of developing skin cancer.

Sun Children with XP are missing the crucial gene that repairs damage to DNA and so exposure to any carcinogen - UV light, or even cigarette smoke - is lethal. Unless, they are thoroughly protected they will die from cancer at an early age. There is no cure.

But these tragic children may may lead the way to new and better cancer treatment. Through studying XP sufferers, scientists have reached a whole new understanding of the genetic basis of cancer. They can now predict why one in three people will succumb to cancer. Scientists have discovered how the body survives damage and repairs itself and as a result of this, developed a radical new approach to treating cancer.

Horizon explores the story of one family, where 5 out of 7 siblings suffer from XP, and how they provide the final proof that genes and DNA repair are linked to cancer. It follows an intricate 40-year scientific detective story from the discovery of DNA, through the chance findings of the cells of the XP families that led to the unexpected insight that DNA is capable of repairing itself and that the failure of this repair system underlies most cancers.

After years of research, this insight is finally beginning to revolutionise medicine. Now a new concept in cancer drug therapy is just beginning medical trials based on the knowledge gained from children suffering from XP.

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Inside the Internet

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June 10, 2000 • 1h

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We don't have an overview translated in English. Help us expand our database by adding one.

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Mega-tsunami: Wave of Destruction

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October 12, 2000 • 1h

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Scattered across the world’s oceans are a handful of rare geological time-bombs. Once unleashed they create an extraordinary phenomenon, a gigantic tidal wave, far bigger than any normal tsunami, able to cross oceans and ravage countries on the other side of the world. Only recently have scientists realised the next episode is likely to begin at the Canary Islands, off North Africa, where a wall of water will one day be created which will race across the entire Atlantic ocean at the speed of a jet airliner to devastate the east coast of the United States. America will have been struck by a mega-tsunami.

Back in 1953 two geologists travelled to a remote bay in Alaska looking for oil. They gradually realised that in the past the bay had been struck by huge waves, and wondered what could have possibly caused them. Five years later, they got their answer. In 1958 there was a landslide, in which a towering cliff collapsed into the bay, creating a wave half a kilometre high, higher than any skyscraper on Earth. The true destructive potential of landslide-generated tsunami, which scientists named "Mega-tsunami", suddenly began to be appreciated. If a modest-sized landslide in Alaska could create a wave of this size, what havoc could a really huge landslide cause?

Scientists now realise that the greatest danger comes from large volcanic islands, which are particularly prone to these massive landslides. Geologists began to look for evidence of past landslides on the sea bed, and what they saw astonished them. The sea floor around Hawaii, for instance, was covered with the remains of millions of years’ worth of ancient landslides, colossal in size.

But huge landslides and the mega-tsunami that they cause are extremely rare - the last one happened 4,000 years ago on the island of Réunion. The growing concern is that the ideal conditions for just such a landslide - and consequent mega-tsunami - now exist on the island of La Palma in the Canaries. In 1949 the southern volcano on the island erupted. During the eruption an enormous crack appeared across one side of the volcano, as the western half slipped a few metres towards the Atlantic before stopping in its tracks. Although the volcano presents no danger while it is quiescent, scientists believe the western flank will give way completely during some future eruption on the summit of the volcano. In other words, any time in the next few thousand years a huge section of southern La Palma, weighing 500 thousand million tonnes, will fall into the Atlantic ocean.

What will happen when the volcano on La Palma collapses? Scientists predict that it will generate a wave that will be almost inconceivably destructive, far bigger than anything ever witnessed in modern times. It will surge across the entire Atlantic in a matter of hours, engulfing the whole US east coast, sweeping away everything in its path up to 20km inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami and the Caribbean.

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Conjoined Twins

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October 19, 2000 • 1h

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Conjoined twins are among the rarest of human beings. There are probably fewer than a dozen adult pairs living in the world today. Only a few hundred pairs of conjoined twins are born in the whole world each year - they appear about once in every 100,000 births - but more than half of them are stillborn, and one in three live for only a few days.

Of those who survive, a very small number will be selected for separation surgery. But as there are few hospitals with the skills and experience to perform this kind of surgery, separation is still a very unusual event. The harrowing decisions which surgeons have to make when faced with conjoined twins have been highlighted by the recent case in Manchester, England. Separating conjoined twins is not only technically challenging; it can involves life and death decisions about whether one twin should be sacrificed in the hope of saving the other. But "sacrifice surgery" has a poor record of success, and the Manchester case is the latest round in an international debate about the value of separation operations.

The confidence of the surgeons, who believe that separation is essential, is challenged by medical historian, Dr Alice Dreger of Michigan State University. She argues that twins themselves might take a different view - if they were ever given a chance to express it.

Horizon interviews two pairs of adult conjoined twins - Lori and Reba Schappell in Pennsylvania and Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova in Moscow. Lori and Reba are joined at the head; Masha and Dasha are joined in their lower body. They say that they prefer their conjoined lives, despite the problems and challenges, rather than face the risks of separation surgery.

Lori and Reba live independent lives in their own apartment in Pennsylvania; Lori enjoys working with computers and Reba is developing a career as a country singer. Masha and Dasha had a difficult childhood; they were subjected to medical experimentation when they were very young and hidden away from the public. Since the end of the communist era they have been able to tell their story. Their autobiography is being written by a British journalist, Juliet Butler.

Horizon also follows surgeons at the Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town, Africa as they plan to separate eight month old twins, Stella and Esther Alphonce. The baby girls are joined at the hip, and the surgeons have little doubt that they can and should be separated, even though the operation carries risks of disability for the twins. Historically conjoined twins who were not, or could not be separated have lived successful lives, even if this involved putting themselves on public display. The original Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, were joined by a narrow strip of flesh and could easily be separated today.

Like Millie and Christine McCoy, who also lived in the USA in the middle of the last century, they earned fame and fortune touring the world. But life for conjoined twins has never been easy, Millie and Christine were kidnapped and sold several times in their childhood. The British conjoined twin sisters, Violet and Daisy Hilton, provoked a scandal in the USA when one of them tried to get married. They did eventually marry, but they were never separated. The tragedy for conjoined twins who spend their lives together is that they inevitably die together too. When one twin dies, the heart of the other twin keeps pumping until he or she is drained of blood.

Is this another reason why twins should be separated when they are young? There are no simple answers, because every pair of twins is unique.

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The Lost World of Lake Vostok

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October 26, 2000 • 1h

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It sometimes seems as if our planet has no secrets left - but deep beneath the great Antarctic ice sheet scientists have made an astonishing discovery. They’ve found one of the largest lakes in the world. It’s very existence defies belief. Scientists are desperate to get into the lake because its extreme environment may be home to unique flora and fauna, never seen before, and NASA are excited by what it could teach us about extraterrestrial life. But 4 kilometres of ice stand between the lake and the surface, and breaking this seal without contaminating the most pristine body of water on the planet is possibly one of the greatest challenges science faces in the 21st century.

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Vanished: The Plane that Disappeared

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November 2, 2000 • 1h

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On August 2nd 1947, a British civilian version of the wartime Lancaster bomber took off from Buenos Aires airport on a scheduled flight to Santiago. There were 5 crew and 6 passengers on board the plane - named "Stardust". But Stardust never made it to Santiago. Instead it vanished when it was apparently just a few minutes from touchdown. One final strange Morse code radio message - "STENDEC" - was sent, but after that nothing more was heard from the plane. Despite a massive search of the Andes mountains no trace of the plane was ever found. For 53 years the families of those who disappeared have not known what happened to their loved ones. But earlier this year the plane suddenly reappeared on a glacier high up in the Andes, more than 50 km’s from the area where the plane was last reported.

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The Secret Treasures of Zeugma

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November 9, 2000 • 1h

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In the summer of 2000, one of the great frontier cities of the Roman Empire, the city of Zeugma, all but disappeared from the face of the Earth under the flood waters of a dam. In a bid to modernise, the Turkish government has embarked on one of the most ambitious engineering projects in the world, building a series of dams on the Euphrates over the past twenty years. Almost every dam threatens ancient remains that lie below in one of the most archaeologically rich regions of the world. The completion of the Birecik dam, featured in this film, has flooded the valley where Zeugma is buried. The city on the flat plain has entirely disappeared and the waters have now risen to cover 30% of the city on the hillside.

Horizon tells the story of the archaeologists' fifth and final visit, struggling to save what they could before the dam waters rose. It witnesses the uncovering of some of the most beautiful examples of Roman art ever found. The team’s discoveries at Zeugma caused an international outcry and further excavations were hurriedly put together.

Since 1995, French archaeologists Pierre Leriche and Catherine Abadie-Reynal have taken up the challenge to save what they can from the city before the dam is finished. The archaeologists have two main tasks - to uncover the history of this desperately under-excavated region of Turkey and to remove what treasures they could from the site before they were lost forever. On this, their final excavation, they had to work against the clock: they only had a permit to dig for six weeks

Zeugma was founded by one of Alexander the Great’s generals, Seleucia Nicator, and prospered under later Roman rule. It became one of the major cities of the Roman eastern frontier with a garrison of over 6,000 soldiers. The city’s bridge across the Euphrates made it one of the most critical trading cities in the region, on the silk routes to the East. The archaeologists know that the city contains vital clues to the history of the region. Previously looted exquisite mosaics have hinted at the treasures of its past that must be buried somewhere in the vast site.

The part of the old city on the Euphrates flood plain, Apamea, was the first to go. But the archaeologists didn’t stand a chance of excavating it in such a short amount of time. So using a technology originally developed for finding oil and mineral deposits, they instead generated a picture of the buried city just as it lies below ground. They discovered a preserved ancient Greek city, laid out in a perfect grid. Meanwhile, in the remains of a Roman villa across the river, the archaeologists had an extraordinary stroke of luck.

With only five days left on the excavation permit, Catherine Abadie-Reynal unearthed a masterpiece: a beautiful Roman mosaic floor. The discovery caused an international outcry and hit the headlines across the world. The archaeologists were granted more days to excavate, but they could not stem the tide of the dam project.

With time running out, they uncovered more stunning mosaics in the villa. They were dug out from the site and sent to a local museum at Gaziantep - just in time. By mid June 2000, the newly uncovered fourteen room villa disappeared underwater. By October, the level of the water finally settled to form a vast, still lake in the valley. All excavations at the site ceased.

There's recently been a move by the Turkish government to declare Zeugma a site of special archaeological interest. The remainder of the ancient city on the hillside could, in theory, still be explored.

The dam will not only erase much of Zeugma from history. It will also displace 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, from the villages they have lived in for generations. For many, the loss of Zeugma is a tragedy.

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Valley of Life or Death

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November 16, 2000 • 1h

37x15

At the heart of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, there is a deadly mystery that has puzzled scientists for years. There are groups of people who are four times less likely to get HIV than other people, sometimes living just yards away, across a single valley - people with apparently similar behaviour and lifestyle. Scientists realised that if they could understand why these people are so much less vulnerable to the HIV virus, it might lead to an answer that could save millions of lives. And after 15 years of detective work it turns out there may be a remarkably simple answer: the high risk areas for HIV coincide with tribes who are uncircumcised. In Africa, it seems a man is much more likely to get HIV if he is uncircumcised.

In Kaoma, Western Zambia, a young boy is on his way to the sacred Mukondaa - the tribal circumcision ground. Around him the tribal elders are gathered, dressed in their ceremonial garb, and vivid masks. But the young boy himself is an outsider, not from this tribe, and none of his relatives or ancestors have ever been circumcised. In fact, his parents are only prepared to break the taboo of their own tribe because they believe that circumcision could save his life by protecting him from AIDS. At first sight this belief seems like the kind of superstition to which desperate people often turn in times of plague. But now there is scientific evidence that suggests these people could well be right.

There have now been twenty seven statistical studies that show a big difference in HIV infection between circumcised and uncircumcised men. For example, among the uncircumcised people of Kisumu in Western Kenya, a man is three times as likely to get AIDS than his circumcised neighbours. Among truck drivers in Mombasa the difference is four-fold.

Horizon travels across Africa, tracing the work of scientists who have unearthed the statistical data behind this correlation. At the same time microbiologists have been battling to understand the complex and insidious virus, and their work indicates that the foreskin may be a key entry point for HIV. The logical conclusion for these scientists is that if you remove the foreskin, you begin to protect the man. No-one believes that circumcision can protect completely - the evidence so far only indicates that it reduces the risk of infection by HIV, and then only during heterosexual sex. Unquestionably, condoms are still the best protection. But in the many countries where the use of condoms is minimal, it seems that circumcision might help to reduce the spread of AIDS.

In the absence of a vaccine for AIDS, and the lack of condom use in the developing world, should governments think the unthinkable and encourage the circumcision of young boys in non-circumcising tribes as a public policy? Opposing this idea are the voices of tribal elders who are loath to change tribal traditions that have existed for generations, and a fierce Western anti-circumcision lobby which believes that circumcision is a form of mutilation and violates basic human rights.

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Extreme Dinosaurs

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November 23, 2000 • 1h

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Amazing new discoveries in South America are revolutionising what we thought we knew about the dinosaur world. It now seems that South America was home to both the largest meat-eater - so new it's still without a name - and the largest herbivore - the enormous long-necked Argentinasaurus. And what's more, these dinosaurs lived at the same time in the same place. So it's possible that like in a science fiction movie, in this prehistoric world these two giants of their kind fought each other in a spectacular clash of the Titans.

Horizon follows the scientists to Argentina as they unearth one of these giants - a brand new species of dinosaur; the biggest carnivore ever discovered. Not yet named, this new creature is even bigger than T. rex, the so-called 'king' of the carnivores. The new giant South American predator had a skull bigger than a man that was full of serrated, knife-like teeth and long powerful jaw muscles. They could dissect their prey with almost surgical precision.

But even this formidable killing machine couldn't alone have taken on the massive long-neck, Argentinasaurus, which was the height of a five-storey building. It must have hunted in a pack. The problem is, the mega-meat-eaters have always been assumed to have been solitary creatures. The evidence shows that they lived and hunted alone. If they weren't pack hunters, then they would never have attacked Argentinasaurus. So it looked like the idea of a mighty battle between these two giants was simply science fiction. But extraordinary new clues are proving otherwise.

Palaeontologist Phil Currie had long suspected that the giant carnivores might indeed have hunted in packs and he set out to find the proof. Only now after many years' work have Currie and his team unearthed the clues that are beginning to convince other palaeontologists that the huge carnivorous dinosaurs hunted in groups. With the help of his colleague Rodolfo Coria, Currie has discovered not one but two fossil bone-beds showing packs of massive carnivorous dinosaurs that have lain buried for millions of years. Each pack - one found in the badlands of Alberta, Canada and the other in Patagonia, Argentina - contains a whole range of individuals, from young through to fully mature adults indicating that they lived alongside in a herd. He's convinced that these dinosaurs were buried together because they were living together.

These new finds are good evidence that these creatures really did hunt as a team. And that means a ferocious pack of enormous carnivorous dinosaurs roaming the lands of South America may indeed have taken on a huge Argentinasaurus in a fight to the death. So it may not just be science fiction - the Clash of the Titans could have happened after all.

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Supermassive Black Holes

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November 30, 2000 • 1h

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In June 2000, astronomers made an extraordinary discovery. One that promises to solve one of the biggest problems in cosmology - how and why galaxies are created. Incredibly, the answer involves the most weird, destructive and terrifying objects in the Universe - supermassive black holes. Scientists are beginning to believe that these forces of pure destruction actually help trigger the birth of galaxies and therefore are at the heart of the creation of stars, planets and all life. Supermassive black holes are so extraordinary that until recently, many people doubted that they existed at all. The idea of giant black holes the size of the Solar System seemed more like science fiction that reality - such monsters would be so powerful that they could destroy the very fabric of the Universe. But in the last five years a series of discoveries has changed our understanding of supermassive black holes and galaxies forever. Using the powerful Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have been scanning nearby galaxies, searching for these giant black holes. It's a difficult job - by their very nature black holes swallow light - so can never be seen. So what scientists have been looking for is the effect of their massive gravity, hurling stars around them at immense speed. What they've found is more extraordinary than anyone could ever have imagined; not just evidence that these vast destructive monsters exist… but so far they're in every single galaxy toward which they have turned their telescopes. These giant agents of destruction appear to be common throughout the Universe. Scientists now think supermassive black holes are a fundamental part of what a galaxy actually is. Lurking at the heart of every single galaxy is a giant black hole of apocalyptic proportions - and that includes our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Astronomer Andrea Ghez has been studying the heart of the Milky Way for the last five years. What she's discovered is irrefutable evidence for a giant black hole, 3 billion times the size of our own sun. A black hole that could destroy the entire Solar System. And as Horizon was filming in July 2000, Ghez got some terrifying images - of the giant monster sucking up gas and stars at the galaxy heart. So what is this giant monster doing at the heart of our galaxy? What effect will this giant black hole 25,000 light years away have on us and the rest of the galaxy around it? These are questions that have been puzzling astronomers for the last few years - and in June, two separate groups of scientists found evidence that points to a startling answer. Rather than being destructive parasites, it seems that supermassive black holes may be essential in the very creation of the galaxies they live in. Exactly how our galaxy was created has mystified astronomers and physicists for years. Although there have been many theories, there's little evidence to explain how the gas in the early Universe condensed to form the galaxy we see today. Now scientists realise they've been missing a vital ingredient - a supermassive black hole. The immense gravity of a giant black hole might trigger the gas to collapse in the first place. By churning up the gas around it, a giant black hole would trigger the birth of stars, planets and life itself. Despite being the most destructive thing in the Universe, scientists now think our supermassive black hole could be crucial in creating the galaxy as we know it. The supermassive black hole in our own galaxy may be the reason we exist, but recent work suggests it may also be our end. At present Earth is so far away from the black hole that it can't affect us, but physicist John Dubinski thinks all that could change. In January 2000 he graphically simulated the final fate of our galaxy. In 3 billion years we will collide with the next door galaxy, Andromeda. The resulting apocalypse will force the Earth and our Solar System out of orbit. Dubinski has calculated a worrying 50:50 chance that we'll be sent hurtling in towards the black hole at the centre of this maelstrom. This would be fatal for the Earth.

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The Boy who was Turned into a Girl

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December 7, 2000 • 1h

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In 1965 in the Canadian town of Winnipeg, Janet Reimer gave birth to twin boys - Bruce and Brian. Six months later a bungled circumcision left Bruce without a penis. Based on a radical new theory of gender development the decision was taken to raise Bruce as a girl. In 1967 Bruce became Brenda and for the next three decades this case would be at the heart of one of the most controversial theories in the history of science.

The man behind this work was world-renowned psychologist Dr John Money. In the 1950s Dr Money developed a theory that revolutionised our understanding of gender. Money believed that what he called our 'gender identity' - what makes us think, feel and behave as boys or girls - is not fully formed by the time of birth. While we may have some innate sense of being a boy or a girl, for up to two years after birth, our brains are, in effect, malleable and we can be taught to grow up as either a boy or girl by how we are raised - by the toys we are given, the guidance we receive from adults and the clothes we are given to wear. This became known as the 'theory of gender neutrality'.

Dr Money had reached this conclusion by working with a rare group of individuals born with ambiguous genitals - people known as intersexuals or hermaphrodites. Dr Money studied groups of intersex children, and concluded that these children could be brought up as either boys or girls regardless of their genetic or physical sex. The legacy of Dr Money's work was a revolution in the treatment of 'intersex'. From the 1950s to the present day many intersex children born with a tiny penis are reassigned as female even if they are actually genetically male.

But not everyone agreed with Dr Money's theories. Since the 1950s a small group of scientists including Dr Milton Diamond have questioned John Money's work. Diamond believed that our sex is already defined in our brains before we are born. He was convinced that the power of our genes and hormones was so strong that no amount of nurturing could override them.

But John Money's theory had already become firmly accepted around the world and the most dramatic confirmation of the theory came from one particular case - the case of Bruce Reimer.

Bruce was a normal boy, not an intersex child, and yet the decision was made to turn this boy who had lost his penis, into a girl. Under the guidance of Dr Money and his team at Johns Hopkins University this baby boy was surgically changed into a girl. After surgeons at Hopkins had castrated baby Bruce, he became baby Brenda. The family were instructed how to bring up Brenda as a normal little girl. According to Dr Money's theory she would grow up believing herself to be female and would go on to live a normal happy life as a woman. It seemed the ultimate test that nurture could override nature.

Thirty years after Bruce became Brenda, the impact of this extraordinary story continues. After almost 14 years living as a female, Brenda Reimer reverted to her true biological sex - the case of the boy who was turned into a girl had failed. Brenda took the name David and for the last twenty years he has lived anonymously in his hometown of Winnipeg. For almost all this time no one knew the outcome of John Money's celebrated case. But now that David has gone public, the case is being widely discussed once again and its impact on John Money's theory of gender development and the treatment of intersex children is being hotly debated.

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Atlantis Reborn Again

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September 20, 2001 • 1h

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In November 2000, the international press reported an amazing find: a mummy, which was claimed to be that of an ancient Persian princess, over 2,600 years old. She was encased in a carved stone coffin, inside a wooden sarcophagus and was wearing an exquisite golden crown and mask.

Her cloth-bound body was dressed with golden artefacts, with an inscription on her breastplate that read, "I am the daughter of the great King Xerxes, I am Rhodugune." All the internal organs had been taken out of her body, in the same way that the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead. It was the find of a lifetime, one of the most magnificent ancient treasures ever to be unearthed in the area.

When the curator from the Karachi National Museum, Dr Asma Ibrahim, began her investigations into the mummy, a different story began to emerge. Horizon follows the story as forensic experts all over the globe analyse the mummy and her magnificent trappings and discover that she is an elaborate fake with a terrible secret.

The mummy was found in a house in the desert region of Pakistan during a police raid, after a tip-off that it was to be illegally sold on the antiquities black market for $20m, and smuggled out of Pakistan. The Persian princess was immediately hailed as a major archaeological discovery. In fact, no Persian mummy had ever been found before, let alone a royal mummy. Mummification to preserve bodies had always been thought to be unique to the ancient Egyptians.

However, there were some strange puzzles about this beautiful princess. The inscriptions on the mummy's breastplate had some grammatical errors. And there were peculiarities in the way she had been mummified. Several detailed operations common to Egyptian mummifications had been omitted. So it began to look like the mummy was not the princess she was supposed to be; perhaps she was a more ordinary ancient mummy dressed up to be a Persian princess by forgers trying to increase her value.

As scientists investigated more closely, it became clear that this mummy had an even darker history. Computerised tomography (CT) scans and X-ray photographs of the body inside the mummy revealed that this was no ancient corpse but a woman who had died in the recent past, and that her neck was broken. An autopsy confirmed that this woman may indeed have been murdered to provide a body for the fakers to mummify - a body they intended to pass off as an ancient mummy for millions of dollars on the international art black market. And, finally there is evidence to suggest that they have done this not once but three times, raising the spectre of a mummy factory and the terrifying thought of yet more victims.

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The Ape that Took Over the World

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October 4, 2001 • 1h

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In 2001, scientists announced an amazing discovery: the oldest skull of a human ancestor ever found. The 3 million year old fossil was remarkably complete, and unlike any previous fossil find. Its discovery - by a team led by Meave Leakey of the famous Leakey fossil-hunting family - has revolutionised our understanding of how humans evolved.

The great mystery of our evolution is how an ape could have evolved into the extraordinary creature that is a human being. There has never been another animal like us on the planet. And yet ten million years ago there was no sign that humans would take over the world. Instead the Earth was dominated by the apes. More than 50 different species of ape roamed the world - ten million years ago Earth really was the planet of the apes. Three million years later, most had vanished. In their place came something clearly related to the apes, but also completely different: human beings!

For years scientists searched for the first key characteristic which had allowed us to make the huge leap from ape to amazing human. At first they thought the development of our big brains was decisive. They even found the fossil that seemed to prove it, until along came the famous three million year old fossilised skeleton Lucy. This quashed the big brain theory, because here was a human ancestor which clearly walked on two legs, just as we do, but had the tiny brain of an ape. It seemed that the development of walking on two legs (bipedalism) was the first key human characteristic, the thing that set us on the road to becoming human.

Lucy soon became even more important. She seemed to defy the laws of evolution. Normally a major evolutionary adaptation like walking on two legs is followed by what scientists call an adaptive radiation. Many related species quickly evolve from an initial evolutionary innovation. It gives a very bushy evolutionary family tree, with many different but related species. Scientists knew that the human branch of the family tree had begun about six or seven million years ago, when the planet of the apes ended. And yet there was no sign of an adaptive radiation. The family tree showed just a straight line leading from the planet of the apes through to Lucy.

All that has changed with Meave Leakey's spectacular new discovery, named Kenyanthropus platyops or, less formally, Flat-faced Man. Her find is the same age as Lucy's species, but also completely different. It's proof that there were two different bipedal human ancestors living at the same time, more than three million years ago. And it's the first sign of the adaptive radiation that the theory of evolution says should have followed the planet of the apes.

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Life Blood

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October 11, 2001 • 1h

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Matthew Farrow was born with a rare and fatal blood disease, Fanconi's anaemia. His family and doctors thought he was going to die. Instead, aged just five, he became the first person in the world to be given a radical new treatment that few believed would work. It saved his life.

The treatment was remarkably simple. A small quantity of blood taken from a newborn baby's umbilical cord and placenta was infused into him. Thanks to this cord blood, Matthew Farrow is now a healthy teenager and the treatment he helped to pioneer is giving hope to hundreds of critically ill children around the world.

Cord blood contains a large number of blood stem cells, the mysterious factory cells that make all the red and white blood cells our body needs. Stem cells can rebuild a sick child's blood system in just a few weeks, by producing healthy new blood cells.

Until Matthew's case, babies' umbilical cords and placentas were just thrown away at birth. Established medical thought said the only source of blood stem cells was the bone marrow and the only treatment for children with advanced blood cancers was a bone marrow transplant. One in three affected children cannot find a suitable bone marrow donor, and there was a desperate need for an alternative.

The first doctors to suggest cord blood as an answer were dismissed as dreamers.

But pioneering work over the last twenty years, mainly in America, has shown that the tiny quantity of blood contained in a newborn's umbilical cord and placenta is rich in the crucial stem cells. It is now being used to help to treat a broad range of blood cancers and serious genetic blood diseases.

However, even its advocates admit that cord blood is no miracle cure. Cord blood is a significant medical breakthrough, but it cannot save everyone who is treated with it.

This powerful and moving film follows patients and their doctors as they go through this arduous new treatment. Not all patients survive the transplant. However, for some patients this treatment is a lifeline when there is no option of a bone marrow transplant. Since 1990, over a thousand lives have been saved by this new treatment.

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The Death Star

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October 18, 2001 • 1h

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Out in deepest space lurks a force of almost unimaginable power. Explosions of extraordinary violence, are blasting through the Universe every day. If one ever struck our Solar System it would destroy our Sun and all the planets.

For years no one could work out what was causing these awesome explosions. Now scientists think they have identified the culprit. It's the most extreme object ever found in the Universe; they have christened it a 'hypernova'.

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Cloning the First Human

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Season Finale

October 25, 2001 • 1h

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Doctors Panayiotis Zavos and Severino Antinori claim they are ready to embark on the greatest human experiment of our age. They say they will attempt to clone a human being before the year is out. Most people think the objections to this are ethical - human cloning would create many moral dilemmas.

There is another question that few ever ask: is the science actually ready yet for cloning healthy humans? Horizon follows the latest research, which has led many scientists to believe that Zavos and Antinori's plans to clone the first human could end in tragedy. The programme also meets couples like Matthew and Desiree Racquer who think cloning offers them the only way to raise a child who is truly their own.

For decades, cloning remained within the realms of science fiction. The idea that instead of combining a sperm and an egg, a new human could be made from a single cell taken from an adult, seemed completely absurd. But that all changed in February 1997, when the Roslin Institute introduced the world to Dolly the sheep - the first animal cloned from an adult. Ever since Dolly, scientists have been continuing to experiment with cloning animals. So far, they have succeeded in cloning sheep, cattle, pigs, goats and mice, fuelling the belief that humans could be next.

But even Dolly's creator, Professor Ian Wilmut, is concerned that beneath the veneer of success lies a disturbing reality. Most cloning attempts on animals so far have resulted in failed implantation or abnormal foetuses. Of the animals born alive, some soon die of catastrophic organ failure. Others appear to be healthy for weeks or even months, then die suddenly, sometimes from bizarre new illnesses which do not occur in nature.

Years of painstaking work are only now revealing some vital clues to what is going wrong. Horizon talks to the scientists who have uncovered new evidence, suggesting that the process of cloning itself causes subtle errors in the way genes function. These random errors may be like a time bomb inside every clone, causing some of the strange - often fatal - problems. There's no reason to think cloned human babies would fare any better. According to embryologist Dr Susan Avery, death might be the best outcome for many human clones. If they survived, they would suffer from catastrophic illnesses that modern medicine is powerless to prevent or cure.

Dr Zavos claims that these problems are the result of the still unsophisticated methods being used by animal researchers. Using advanced in vitro fertilisation ('test tube baby') techniques, he claims that he will strive to make human cloning safer than natural reproduction. Now though, it seems that some IVF procedures themselves are being investigated for possible harmful effects on the long term health of children. Professor Gerald Schatten of the University of Pittsburgh reveals evidence of these risks, which could be magnified in cloning.

Most reproductive specialists believe that the danger to any human born by cloning is enormous. But the would-be human cloners are determined to clone a human baby. If they proceed, they may be courting tragedy.

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The Mystery Of Easter Island

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January 9, 2003 • 1h

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On Easter Day 1722, Dutch explorers landed on Easter Island. A civilisation isolated by 4,000km of Pacific Ocean was about to meet the outside world for the first time in centuries. The strangers were about to find something very strange themselves - an island dotted with hundreds of huge stone statues and a society that was not as primitive as they expected. The first meeting was an immense clash of cultures. (Bloody too: the sailors killed ten natives within minutes of landing.) Where had the Islanders originally come from? Why and how had they built the figures? Modern science is piecing together the story, but it is far too late for the Easter Islanders themselves.

They were virtually wiped out by a series of disasters - natural and man made - that brought a population of 12,000 down to just 111 in a few centuries. The Island's inhabitants today all have Chilean roots, making solving the mysteries even harder. There is no one to ask about the first people of Easter Island. Although fragmentary legends have been passed down, only science can hope to explain the rise and fall of this unusual civilisation.

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Living Nightmare

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January 16, 2003 • 1h

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Sleeping is an essential part of everyone's life yet it remains little understood is barely understood. You might think it's a relaxing recharge but in fact your brain is working harder at times overnight than when you're conscious in the day.

Fresh insight into why and how we sleep has come from studying people with sleep disorders, especially sufferers of narcolepsy. The condition means that people fall asleep many times a day, completely out of the blue. A less known symptom is paralysing attacks, that can cause narcoleptics to fall to the ground - unable to move - several times a day. If a way can be found to ease their symptoms, it could open the way to helping any of us to control our sleep patterns and perhaps even to go without rest while staying alert.

Gaynor Carr has been nodding off routinely since the age of seven. Her narcolepsy has made holding down a job impossible and made her question the idea of ever having children. Gary Beattie used to work in construction, until he fell asleep 7m up a ladder. He not only loses consciousness, his body becomes paralysed in a so-called cataleptic attack. Both of them say that showing emotion sparks the paralysing attacks and that has forced them to avoid laughing and crying. Bill Baird worked in finance but describes his stockbroking days as a race. The emotion of closing a deal would bring on a fit; he had constantly to hope he could get a client's signature before his almost inevitable collapse. His sleep is restless, with vivid nightmares when he is able to hear his surroundings while seeing terrifying hallucinations.

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Averting Armageddon

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January 23, 2003 • 1h

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The Earth is under constant bombardment. Each year, many fragments of debris hit our planet. Fortunately for us, most are so small that they burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere.

However, there are hundreds of larger asteroids orbiting near the Earth. Many scientists now believe that one of these hit the Earth 65 million years ago, killing the dinosaurs, along with 90% of all life on the planet. What is more, it is only a matter of time before the Earth is hit again.

Experts warn that nuclear weapons might not destroy an approaching asteroid. But Jay Meloch thinks he can use the power of the Sun to nudge an asteroid away from the Earth.

Until recently, no one took the asteroid threat very seriously. Yet the evidence that we are in danger is on our own doorstep. We need only look at the cratered surface of the Moon to realise that it has been pounded by impacts throughout its history.

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Dirty Bomb

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January 30, 2003 • 1h

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A dirty bomb is a radiological weapon but unlike a nuclear bomb, its purpose is to contaminate rather than destroy. It uses normal explosives to disperse radioactive materials in the local environment, creating a hazard to health that could last for years unless cleaned up.

The relative ease of making such a bomb means it is a potent terrorist weapon but Horizon's investigation shows that the risk to health from most such devices need not be great. It also underlines the need for governments to act to secure radioactive sources from falling into criminal hands. Horizon deliberately avoids outlining the production process in any detail.

Horizon publishes the results of specially commissioned research, modelling two possible dirty bomb scenarios: attacks on either London or Washington DC. The main conclusion is that the health risks from a dirty bomb explosion are localised to people who are close to the incident or are in contact with the contamination. Although the modelled attack scenarios could have wide-ranging economic repercussions, the majority of the population of either capital city would have only a negligible increase in their risk of developing cancer.

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Sexual Chemistry (Update)

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February 13, 2003 • 1h

40x5

The drug Viagra revolutionised the treatment of sexual dysfunction in men on its launch five years ago. An accidental discovery, the tablet that gave impotent men the chance once more to have natural erections became the fastest selling pill in history and has earned its manufacturer, Pfizer, over $6bn.

The search is now on for a similar drug that could help women. Research is revealing that female sexuality is more complex than expected. For women suffering from a loss of desire many scientists believe that drugs acting on the brain may be the way forward. A pioneering Scottish study may have identified just such a drug and begun testing it scientifically.

An erection is achieved by filling the erectile tissue of the penis with blood. Blood vessels widen to allow blood in and then constrict to maintain the pressure. Male impotence was long thought to be a psychiatric effect, a result of stress, anxiety or depression. Medical advice was that there was not much to be done. Some patients refused to take this message on board.

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The Day We Learned To Think

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February 20, 2003 • 1h

40x6

Understanding of humans' earliest past often comes from studying fossils. They tell us much of what we know about the people who lived before us. There is one thing fossils cannot tell us; at what point did we stop living day-to-day and start to think symbolically, to represent ideas about our environment and how we could change it? At a dig in South Africa the discovery of a small piece of ochre pigment, 70,000 years old, has raised some very interesting questions.

Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged in Africa roughly 100,000 years ago. We know from fossil evidence that Homo sapiens replaced other hominids around them and moved out of Africa into Asia and the Middle East, reaching Europe 40,000 years ago.

Prof Richard Klein believes art is a landmark in human evolution. Unquestionable art that's widespread and common suggests you're dealing with people just like us. No other animals, after all, are able to define a painting as anything other than a collection of colours and shapes. This ability is unique to humans.

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Trial and Error

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February 27, 2003 • 1h

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It was the simplest idea but one with enormous potential. If a gene is defective in the human body, just replace it with one that works properly. Gene therapy would mean that genetic disorders would become a thing of the past. Cancer would be cured, as would cystic fibrosis and hundreds of other genetic illnesses. Scientists were justifiably excited about the idea but, this enthusiasm that would end up costing one young man his life.

Jesse Gelsinger was born with a liver disorder, a rare condition called ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency that stops the liver metabolising ammonia. People with the disease can suffer from brain damage or coma. At its most extreme the illness is fatal.

Jesse was lucky, able to lead a fairly normal life although he had a daily cocktail of drugs to control his condition. Jesse wanted to help others. When he was offered a chance to take part in a medical trial to test the safety of using gene therapy for OTC deficiency, he was keen to participate. He knew this was not a cure for his condition but that, by volunteering he might be able to help others in the future.

Although the concept of gene therapy is simple, the practice of administering the treatment is much more difficult. In order to replace defective genes, doctors must get working ones into the body and to the place where they are needed.

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Earthquake Storms

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March 6, 2003 • 1h

40x8

Earthquakes are among the most devastating natural disasters on the planet. In the last hundred years they have claimed the lives of over one million people. Earthquakes are destructive mainly because of their unpredictable nature. It is impossible to say accurately when a quake will strike but a new theory could help save lives by preparing cities long in advance for an earthquake.

The surface of the Earth is made up of large 'tectonic' plates. These plates are in slow but constant motion. When two plates push against each other friction generates a great deal of energy. For this reason earthquakes occur most frequently on tectonic fault lines, where two plates meet. However these fault lines run for thousands of kilometres; predicting exactly where a quake will occur is nearly impossible.

In 1992, Dr Ross Stein was monitoring a large earthquake in a town in California called Landers. Three hours later, there was another quake 67km away at Great Bear. Stein believed that this was not simply an aftershock, instead he theorised the event at Landers had set off the earthquake at Big Bear. Stein believes that when an earthquake occurs the stress that has built up along the fault, is in part, transferred along the fault line. It is this energy transfer that causes other quakes to occur hours, days or months after the original.

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Life On Mars (Update)

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March 27, 2003 • 1h

40x9

Are we alone in the Universe? Or are there aliens somewhere in space? New evidence suggests not only might other life-forms be out there, they may even be living on the planet right next door to us - Mars.

Recent discoveries have shown that Mars has all the ingredients for life, including water. Now the Mars Odyssey probe, launched in April 2001, has detected huge frozen areas of permafrost, just like that found in the Antarctic on Earth.

According to astronomers, the position of this frozen slush could hold the key to Mars' mysterious water cycle. And the surface ice may hide something even more exciting below.

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The Secret Life Of Caves

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April 3, 2003 • 1h

40x10

Set against the back drop of awe inspiring geological beauty, a strange scientific adventure sets out to discover how a mineral clad cave network - the height of a 30 storey building and the length of six football fields - came to exist deep below the Guadalupe Mountains in North America.

But this journey soon unravels a multitude of inexplicable phenomena and obscure geological formations, leading to the discovery of extreme rock-eating microbes - a testimony from primordial Earth and a glimpse of life elsewhere in the Solar System.

Geologists believed that all limestone caves were formed by rain and underground water percolating through cracks in the rocks. Absorbing carbon dioxide from the soil, this water becomes weak carbonic acid, nibbling away at limestone, etching out networks of subterranean caves.

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God On The Brain

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April 17, 2003 • 1h

40x11

Rudi Affolter and Gwen Tighe have both experienced strong religious visions. He is an atheist; she a Christian. He thought he had died; she thought she had given birth to Jesus. Both have temporal lobe epilepsy.

Like other forms of epilepsy, the condition causes fitting but it is also associated with religious hallucinations. Research into why people like Rudi and Gwen saw what they did has opened up a whole field of brain science: neurotheology.

The connection between the temporal lobes of the brain and religious feeling has led one Canadian scientist to try stimulating them. (They are near your ears.) 80% of Dr Michael Persinger's experimental subjects report that an artificial magnetic field focused on those brain areas gives them a feeling of 'not being alone'. Some of them describe it as a religious sensation.

His work raises the prospect that we are programmed to believe in god, that faith is a mental ability humans have developed or been given. And temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) could help unlock the mystery.

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Flight 587

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May 8, 2003 • 1h

40x12

265 people died when an Airbus operated by American Airlines crashed into the New York suburb of Queens in November 2001. The twin-engined jet took off from John F Kennedy Airport in fine conditions but hit trouble after just 67 seconds. In the following 38 seconds the plane started to disintegrate before nose-diving into the residential Rockaway area of the city.

Everyone aboard was killed (along with five people on the ground) so the crash investigators had to rely on eyewitnesses, recovered parts of the plane and information from both air traffic control and the flight data recorders. The discovery of the Airbus' vertical tailfin hundreds of metres from the fuselage immediately focussed attention on whether the pilots lost the ability to control the plane.

Why the tailfin detached was at the heart of the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. The airline and the manufacturer blame each other for creating a situation in which the stress on the rudder and tailfin exceeded the so-called ultimate load, the worst-case scenario set by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). A number of American Airlines pilots have taken matters into their own hands though: requesting transfers to other aircraft because of their safety concerns.

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SARS: The True Story

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May 29, 2003 • 1h

40x13

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome didn't even have its name in February 2003, when it struck its first known victim, Johnny Cheng, in Hanoi, Vietnam. Within days, an international effort led by the World Health Organization (WHO) had massed scientific expertise to fight the mystery illness and avert the nightmare scenario of an uncontrollable pandemic sweeping the globe.

Amid attempts to quarantine high risk groups of people, it seemed only fear could spread more rapidly than the disease itself. Nothing was known about the condition - where it had come from, how it was passed on, how to spot it, contain it or treat it. The infection was described merely as 'flu-like'. But if this was a type of influenza, it was one that killed up to 15% of its sufferers.

The doctor treating Mr Cheng, who first contacted the WHO about the unusual symptoms, was one of six medics to die of SARS at the hospital. But the alarm had been raised and the Organization began to pull together a response. Colossal effort by scientists around the world - and unprecedented co-operation - followed. Meanwhile, the media made much of the risk posed by and to international travel, and watched financial markets respond in gloomy fashion.

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The Big Chill

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November 13, 2003 • 1h

40x14

Remember that long, hot summer? You might never see its like again. And all that talk of global warming? Forget it.

This season's first Horizon reveals that a growing number of experts fear Britain could be heading for a climate like Alaska. Our ports could be frozen over. Ice storms could ravage the country, and London could see snow lying for weeks on end. It would be the biggest change in the British way of life since the last Ice Age.

The first signs that such a disaster could happen came from deep within the ice sheet of Greenland. Scientists discovered that the Earth's past was littered with sudden, drastic drops in temperature.

The big question was: could it ever happen again? Clues came from tiny shells at the bottom of the Atlantic; a huge glacier on the move in Arctic and some alarming discoveries in the far north of Russia.

In the end there came the terrifying revelation: the Gulf Stream, that vast current of water that keeps us warm, could be cut off.

According to one scientist, there is a one in two chance it will happen in the next century.

Others say a climatic catastrophe could be heading our way in just twenty years time.

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The Bible Code

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November 20, 2003 • 1h

40x15

This week Horizon investigates the science behind the Bible Code.

What he can see is truly horrific; according to Drosnin, the world could end in an atomic holocaust - in 2006.

It sounds preposterous yet Drosnin claims to have serious scientific backing. Behind his findings lies the work of one of the world's most brilliant theoretical mathematicians, an Israeli professor called Eliyahu Rips.

In 1994, using exactly the same ancient code, Michael Drosnin accurately predicted the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin - twelve months before it occurred.

Drosnin's books on the Bible Code have been translated into most of the world's major languages and are read by millions of people. If he's right, he's stumbled on one of the most important discoveries ever made.

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Last Flight of the Columbia

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November 27, 2003 • 1h

40x16

Mixing powerful and deeply moving footage with telling forensic analysis, Horizon reveals what really went wrong on the Space Shuttle Columbia. The film's final revelation is telling. If NASA had acted differently, all seven astronauts could have been brought back to Earth alive.

The film begins with the astronauts' final moments and shows the haunting scenes at Mission Control at the moment the disaster struck.

What then follows is a disturbing detective story as the investigators gradually realise that the tragedy was caused by the failure of a small panel on the shuttle's left wing that had been built to be indestructible.

No one had ever thought such an accident was possible. It has led to the shuttle being grounded for the foreseeable future.

But that wasn't all. The film also shows that NASA had a number of options to bring the crew back safely - if only it had commandeered a spy telescope to visually inspect the damage. It could even have launched a rescue mission.

But instead, NASA chose to rely on a computer programme for damage assessment. The programme got it wrong; as a result, there was no hope for those seven crew members.

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The Hunt for an AIDS Vaccine

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December 4, 2003 • 1h

40x17

Horizon tells the microbiological detective story in which some of the best brains in science have been pitted against the most extraordinary bug the world has ever seen.

In 1984 it was discovered that HIV was the cause of AIDS. Straight away, there were confident predictions that there would be a vaccine ready for testing in just two years.

Back then, just 1,292 deaths from AIDS had been reported. Now the figure is 25 million dead. By 2010 it is predicted there will be 85 million infections and 70 million deaths. And after 20 years there is still no sign of a vaccine.

Despite work of dazzling complexity, the ambition of so many brilliant scientists has been constantly thwarted. Just as a vaccine seems to be working, the AIDS virus alters itself, and ten to fifteen years of work, and millions of pounds, go down the drain. These bitter disappointments are only compounded by the desperate human urgency of the work.

This is a story where the clock doesn't stop ticking.

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Percy Pilcher's Flying Machine

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December 11, 2003 • 1h

40x18

Could an unknown Englishman have been the first person ever to fly?

To mark the hundredth anniversary of the Wright brothers inaugural flight, Horizon tells the remarkable story of Percy Pilcher.

He could have been the most famous aviator of them all. Four years before the Wright brothers, he had constructed his own aeroplane. But on the day it was due to take off for the very first time, something so terrible happened that he was denied the chance of ever flying it. So Horizon has rebuilt his long lost flying machine to see if Percy Pilcher, the British amateur, could have claimed the glory and been the first person ever to fly.

This film mixes dramatic reconstruction with fabulous contemporary scenes and gripping science. With a specially assembled team of historians, aviation experts and our own test pilot, Horizon painstakingly rebuilds Pilcher's flying machine and puts it to the test. The results will leave you cheering.

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Time Trip

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Season Finale

December 18, 2003 • 1h

40x19

Horizon's Time Trip is a thrilling journey deep into the strangeness of cutting-edge physics - a place where beautiful, baffling ideas are sometimes indistinguishable from the utterly crazy.

On this journey, we meet a time-travelling pizza, a brilliant mathematician in a ski mask and even God. The journey ends with a strange and dark conclusion - one which calls into question our very existence.

Ever since Einstein showed it was theoretically possible, the quest to travel through time has drawn eccentric amateurs and brilliant scientists in almost equal numbers. The amateurs include Aage Nost, who demonstrates his time machine in front of the cameras. The professionals include the likes of Professor Frank Tipler of Tulane University. His time machine sounds good - but it would weigh half the mass of the galaxy.

There is, however, one way that time travel to the past could be possible. And it would be much more convenient. Future civilisations could use computers to create exact replicas of the past. Unfortunately that idea has physics trembling in its socks. Because if you can generate a perfect virtual reality version of the past, who's to say we are not one of the replicas?

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The Demonic Ape

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January 8, 2004 • 1h

41x1

In a film that is in turns charming, disturbing and poignant, Horizon explores the relationship between science and the chimpanzee.

It began with a magical story. A young girl ventured alone into the jungle and befriended a group of chimpanzees. What she saw became the stuff of scientific legend. But then, last year came a terrible tragedy. Frodo, one of the chimpanzees she had helped make famous, killed a human baby. That shocking act brought into focus a huge debate about the relationship between humans and chimps, and what these primates have taught us about the origins of our own behaviour.

The saga of how Jane Goodall went into the jungle to study the chimps of Gombe in Tanzania has inspired novels and movies. Her observations revealed that chimpanzees were in many ways like humans. They used tools, had culture and even language. And what's more they had empathy. They were also capable of savage brutality against their own kind. Just like us.

In fact many began to think that the origins of aggressive human male behaviour could be traced back to our shared evolutionary ancestry with chimps. In other words, men are genetically programmed to be violent. But then came some disturbing questions.

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The Moscow Theatre Siege

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January 15, 2004 • 1h

41x2

With the help of doctors and scientists in America, Germany and Britain, Horizon unpicks the mystery of the Moscow theatre siege.

In October 2002, Chechen terrorists took a thousand people hostage in a Moscow theatre and threatened to kill them. The problem was how to get them out alive. A bloodbath seemed inevitable.

Three days later Russian special forces stormed the theatre using a secret gas to knock everybody out. 129 hostages died - apparently killed by the very gas that was meant to save them. Horizon investigates the mystery substance, and why so many died.

The Russian authorities insisted their secret weapon was not lethal. The claim provoked contempt from the victims families, and incredulity among doctors and scientists around the world. But were the Russians actually right?

The Russians offered just one clue. And in Germany there was a scientist who had the means to test it: a urine sample taken from one of the survivors shortly after he was freed. Horizon follows as extremely sensitive tests are performed to find out if the Russians were telling the truth, and uncovers a deeper secret.

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The Atkins Diet

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January 22, 2004 • 1h

41x3

This is the truth about the world's most famous, most glamorous and most controversial diet. The Atkins diet says that eating fat can make you thin. It says you don't need to bother watching the calories. Rene Zellweger, Geri Halliwell and a host of other celebrities swear by it. But many scientists think it is scientific nonsense. Some even believe it is dangerous. Horizon cuts through the confusion and provide the answers.

When Dr Atkins first launched his diet, he was accused of breaking one of the most fundamental laws of nature. Scientists said that if you eat more, you'll get fatter. They also said it could kill. Fat increases your cholesterol levels. You'd get a heart attack.

The only problem was that people who followed the Atkins diet got thinner. Much of the rest of us got fatter. Then came studies showing that cholesterol levels can actually improve on the Atkins diet.

So what was going on? Horizon's investigation seems to show that the diet may really work - but for a reason and in a way that no scientists or even Atkins himself had seriously considered.

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Secrets of the Star Disc

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January 29, 2004 • 1h

41x4

This is the extraordinary story of how a small metal disc is rewriting the epic saga of how civilisation first came to Europe, 3600 years ago.

When grave robbers ransacked a Bronze Age tomb in Germany, they had no idea that they had unearthed the find of a lifetime. But they knew that it was worth selling. It was a small bronze disc of exquisite design. So they contacted the archaeologist Harald Meller, offering to sell it to him for €300,000.

Meller went deep into the criminal underworld and, after a police sting, he got his disc. It depicted the sun, the moon and the stars. This suggested an understanding of the heavens greater than that of the first great civilisations, like Egypt. Could it possibly be real?

After exhaustive tests, the disc was declared genuine. Then a team of crack scientists pieced together what it meant. What emerged is a true marvel.

This disc, it seems, is a Bronze Age Bible, combining an advanced understanding of the stars with some of the most sophisticated religious imagery of the age. In intellectual achievement and also age, it surpasses anything yet found in Egypt or Greece. It seems that civilisation had already dawned in Europe.

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The Dark Secret of Hendrik Schön

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February 5, 2004 • 1h

41x5

Imagine a world where disease could be eradicated by an injection of tiny robots the size of molecules. That is the hope offered by nanotechnology - the science of microscopically small machines. But others fear nanotechnology could lead to a non-biological cancer - where swarms of tiny nanobots come together and literally devour human flesh.

Sounds like science fiction? It certainly did until a brilliant young scientist called Hendrik Schön seemed to bring it a step closer.

Schön's great breakthrough was to make a computer transistor out of a single organic molecule. It was an achievement of almost incalculable brilliance. Some speculated this technology could spell the end of the entire silicon chip industry.

Crucially, Schön's transistor was organic. Suddenly, this seemed to be the first step towards true nanotechnology, where minute computers could grow as living cells.

Scientists speculated about how these tiny machines could be used to target diseases with astonishing precision. Others wondered - could the military use them as a new weapon? Others, including Prince Charles, were terrified. If these machines can grow by themselves, how do we stop them from growing?

What happened next would destroy reputations and shatter lives - because there was more to Hendrik Schön's discovery than anyone knew.

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Thalidomide - A Second Chance?

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February 12, 2004 • 1h

41x6

Thalidomide was one of the biggest medical tragedies of modern times. The images of children born with shrunken limbs still haunt anyone who sees them. And the tragedy is not over. Those children are adults today, still coping with their disability.

For many, thalidomide is a drug that should be consigned to the dustbin of history - an awful cautionary tale of the errors that science can make. But now it is making a comeback - as a radical treatment for incurable blood cancers. But can it possibly be safe to use such a dangerous drug again?

In a powerful and deeply moving film, Horizon tells the tale of thalidomide and how this drug that has become so infamous may now be giving hope to people who otherwise face death.

It also explores the mystery at the heart of thalidomide. It seems that the reason why it works for cancer may at least partly explain something that has long baffled scientists - why thalidomide caused such terrible damage to babies in the womb all those years ago.

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Diamond Labs

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March 4, 2004 • 1h

41x7

Top quality diamonds at knock down prices? The only catch is: these rocks don't come out of the ground, but are made in a lab. This is the promise offered by a series of recent scientific breakthroughs.

For most of us, it seems we may soon be able to bejewel ourselves like movie stars. But for De Beers, the world's largest diamond trader, could this, one day, be a serious threat?

Following a dodgy meeting in Moscow, retired US Army General Carter Clarke acquired some experimental diamond growing machines, originally destined for the Russian military. He created the world's first gem diamond production line, to mass produce highly prized coloured diamonds.

In a secret location south of Boston, a father and son team developed a different technique. Robert Linares and son Bryant have made colourless diamonds, allegedly higher quality than those found in nature.

De Beers, at vast cost, set up a new scientific division called the Gem Defensive Programme. Its goal: to find ways to tell apart their natural diamonds from these new synthetic gems.

But will the new synthetics slip through De Beers detection net? And could anyone really tell the difference? Horizon tells the story of the Diamond Labs.

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T-Rex - Warrior or Wimp?

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March 11, 2004 • 1h

41x8

Tyrannosaurus rex - it's the scariest, meanest, most bewitching dinosaur of them all. Children are captivated by the sheer savagery of the teeth. Experts marvelled at the force of its bite - ten times more powerful than anything we know today. Movie makers made millions out of the terror it inspired. But could our picture of this monster be completely wrong?

Was T. rex in fact a slow lumbering creature, with hideously bad breath, that couldn't get anywhere close to catching a Triceratops. Was it really a scavenger that lived off the scraps left by others? Was T. rex, in fact, a wimp?

Featuring fabulous graphics and interviews with T. rex experts from around the world, Horizon looks at the new science that is challenging the legend of the dinosaur we love to hate.

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Project Poltergeist

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March 18, 2004 • 1h

41x9

This is the story of two genuine scientific heroes. For forty years, John Bahcall and Ray Davis were engaged in a single extraordinary experiment - to find out why the Sun shines. In the end they would triumph. Davis would win the Nobel Prize and, thanks to their work, a whole new theory about how the universe is put together may have to be created.

At the heart of this story is a tiny, utterly mysterious thing called a neutrino. Trillions of them pass through your body every second, touching nothing, leaving no trace. Yet neutrinos are one of a handful of fundamental particles in the universe, essential to every atom in existence and clues to what makes the Sun work. But their ghost-like quality made trapping and understanding them immensely difficult.

What then followed was a bizarre series of experiments. They led from a vat containing 600 tons of cleaning fluid, to a vast cavern in a Japanese mountain, to a hole in the ground in Canada two kilometres deep.

What they would reveal would stun the world of science. It seems that neutrinos may be our parents. They may be the reason why everything, including us, exists.

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The Truth of Troy

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March 25, 2004 • 1h

41x10

It's one of the greatest stories ever told. The legend of Helen of Troy has enchanted audiences for the last three thousand years. In May this year a Hollywood film staring Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom will be launched in Britain. But is there any reality to the myth? Horizon has unprecedented access to the scientist with the answers.

Since 1988 Professor Manfred Korfmann has been excavating the site of Troy. He has never before spoken at this length. He has made amazing discoveries - how large the city was, how well it was defended and, crucially, that there was once a great battle there at precisely the time that experts believe the Trojan war occurred.

Both James and Dorothy have a mysterious condition called synaesthesia, in which their senses have become linked. For years scientists dismissed it, putting it in the same category as séances and spoon-bending. But now, synaesthesia is sparking a revolution in our understanding of the human mind.

Two synaesthetes seldom agree on the colours or tastes they experience. While Covent Garden may taste of crinkly chocolate to James, it's very unlikely to have the same taste for another synaesthete. And Dorothy's brother Peter, also a synaesthete, won't see M or Z in the same colour as she does. But despite these differences, scientists are now beginning to discover more and more overarching synaesthetic patterns.

Dorothy doesn't only see letters and numbers in colour. Music produces a riot of colour, too. As Dorothy hears notes going from low to high, her colours change from black and purple to mid-browns and then yellows and whites. Overall, lower notes evoke darker colours and higher notes brighter colours - and this pattern is true for most synaesthetes.

But surprisingly, when non-synaesthetes are asked to match colours and music, they show a similar pattern. Most of us seem to associate low notes with darker colours and high notes with brighter colours.

The evidence of the synaesthete in all of us doesn't end here. Another clue comes from the way we manipulate numbers. More than half of all synaesthetes who see coloured numbers also experience their numbers arranged in space around them. Heather Birt is such a synaesthete, and she's followed by a stream of numbers wherever she goes.

Recently, scientists started to investigate how non-synaesthetes deal with numbers. They found they're better at manipulating small numbers with their left hand, and their bigger numbers with our right hand. This suggests that we all somehow think of numbers as arranged in space, even if we're not aware of it. More evidence, it seems, that we're all synaesthetic to some degree. It's just that some people experience a more exaggerated version.

A few scientists believe that synaesthesia might even explain how we evolved two of the traits that define our species and have transformed our world - creativity and language.

Many famous artists have been synaesthetes - the jazz legend Miles Davis, for instance, and the painter Kandinsky. In fact, a number of studies suggest that synaesthesia may be more common among artists, poets and musicians. This has led some scientists to argue that synaesthesia and creativity may share a similar basis - that both may be down to brain processes that involve linking two seemingly unrelated areas.

Some believe that our common synaesthetic abilities may also have been the springboard to language. Connections between our senses of hearing and vision, for example, could have been an important initial step towards the creation of words. Our earliest ancestors may have first started to talk by using sounds that actually evoked the object they wished to describe. According to this theory, language could have emerged from the multitude of synaesthetic connections within our brains.

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What Really Killed the Dinosaurs?

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October 7, 2004 • 1h

41x14

Until recently most scientists thought they knew what killed off the dinosaurs. A 10km-wide meteorite had smashed into the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, causing worldwide forest fires, tsunamis several kilometres high, and an 'impact winter' - in which dust blocked out the sun for months or years. It was thought that the dinosaurs were blasted, roasted and frozen to death, in that order.

But now a small but vociferous group of scientists believes there is increasing evidence that this 'impact' theory could be wrong. That suggestion has generated one of the bitterest scientific rows of recent times.

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Making Millions the Easy Way

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October 14, 2004 • 1h

41x15

In the mid-1990s, a team of American science students took on the might of the Las Vegas casinos, and came home with millions of dollars. Hard working engineering students during the week, they became high-rolling gamblers by the weekend and proved that, in one game at least, the house doesn't always win.

The game was blackjack, and the students were from the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Their audacious winnings marked the climax of an arms race between casino and player that began 40 years earlier with maths professor Edward Thorp. He realised that the one feature of blackjack that made it different from other casino games also made it possible to beat.

In most gambling games - roulette, dice, slot machines, the lottery - events in the past do not determine the future. The odds are the same on every roll of the dice or spin of the wheel. Winning streaks or losing streaks may occur, but they are only one possible result from the set of all possible outcomes. A fair coin that has shown heads ten times, still only has a 50% chance of showing heads on the next flip.

Casinos and bookmakers make certain that the odds are always stacked slightly in their favour. In other words, over time, the house will always win.

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Saturn - Lord of the Rings

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October 21, 2004 • 1h

41x16

In 1610, Galileo used a new invention -- a simple telescope -- to look at Saturn. When he viewed the planet for the first time, he saw something strange. He thought he saw three stars together, a big one in the middle of two little stars. He knew they weren't really stars, but what were they?

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April 3, 2007 • 1h

44x4

Pianist Nick van Bloss has Tourette's syndrome. Is his illness a blessing or a curse?

Is there really such a thing as the mad genius? Can an illness be both a blessing and a curse?

At seven years old, Nick van Bloss started shaking his head, grinding his teeth and making wild whooping noises. Nick had Tourette's syndrome. No medical intervention helped him. But one activity stopped it all...

The moment Nick placed his hands on the piano keys his symptoms vanished. By the age of 20, he was an award winning international pianist. He felt sure that his illness had made him the success he was.

But there is a catch. The brain state necessary for his genius can also be dangerously close to mental chaos. Nick's personal journey reveals how close he came to the edge and how determined he is to triumph.

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Moon for Sale

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April 10, 2007 • 1h

44x5

After 40 years, man is preparing to return to the Moon. But this time the astronauts won't just land on the Moon - they plan to stay. From his office in Nevada, Dennis Hope has spawned a multi-million dollar business selling lunar real estate. But scientists believe the real prize is trapped in the Moon's rocks. It contains large deposits of an extremely rare gas called Helium-3. Could Helium-3 be mined and used as a new source of almost inexhaustible, clean and pollution-free energy on Earth? Whoever succeeds in transporting Helium-3 back to Earth could solve the world's energy crisis. Who will win what has been dubbed the second Moon race? And should we be exploiting the Moon's valuable resources at all?

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Battle of the Brains

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April 17, 2007 • 1h

44x6

Seven high-flyers are put through a series of tests to measure their intelligence

Can you think of 100 different uses for a sock? How would you cope with glasses that turn everything upside down? What's your emotional intelligence? Can you create a work of art in ten minutes?

Horizon takes seven people who are some of the highest flyers in their field - a musical prodigy, a quantum physicist, an artist, a dramatist, an RAF fighter pilot, a chess grandmaster and a Wall Street trader. Each is put through a series of tests to discover who is the most intelligent?

The principle way that we measure intelligence, the IQ test, remains popular and convenient. Yet most psychologists agree that it only tells half the story... at most. Where they disagree is how to measure intelligence, for the simple reason that the experts still don't know exactly what it is.

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Skyscraper Fire Fighters

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April 24, 2007 • 1h

44x7

Could Professor Jose Torero's fire protection system have saved the Twin Towers?

When a fire gets out of control in a skyscraper it tests fire fighters to their limits. Predicting how a fire is behaving high up in a building is almost impossible.

The fire fighters who entered the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001 could only guess at what was happening almost 1000 feet above them. That fateful day brought about the death of 343 New York fire fighters.

Jose Torero believes fire fighters need not be put in such danger and that new technology could have saved many of the 343 fire fighters who died doing their duty that day. He believes he could even have saved the Twin Towers.

He has spent the last ten years developing a system that could change the way fires are fought forever. It's called Firegrid. It's a revolutionary approach to fire fighting that could save thousands of lives, giving man the upper hand on one of his oldest enemies.

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The Six Billion Dollar Experiment

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May 1, 2007 • 1h

44x8

Will the Large Hadron Collider finally reveal the elusive God particle?

In the coming months the most complex scientific instrument ever built will be switched on. The Large Hadron Collider promises to recreate the conditions right after the Big Bang. By revisiting the beginning of time, scientists hope to unravel some of the deepest secrets of our Universe.

Within these first few moments the building blocks of the Universe were created. The search for these fundamental particles has occupied scientists for decades but there remains one particle that has stubbornly refused to appear in any experiment. The Higgs Boson is so crucial to our understanding of the Universe that it has been dubbed the God particle. It explains how fundamental particles acquire mass, or as one scientist plainly states: "It is what makes stuff stuff..."

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How to Commit the Perfect Murder

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Season Finale

May 8, 2007 • 1h

44x9

Is it possible to use a knowledge of forensic science, not to catch a killer, but to commit a perfect murder?

Modern forensic science should make it impossible to commit murder and get away with it. But how easy would it be to outfox the detectives? With the help of top forensic scientists, and real-life murder investigations, we explore whether it's possible to commit a perfect murder.

The body is the most important piece of evidence in any murder. Pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd reveals the crucial clues that give away the secrets of a suspicious death. Dr Lee Goff can work out a time of death from just a few maggots on a corpse. To really understand the way a human decomposes he relies on experiments - and dead pigs make ideal human models.

And what is the perfect murder weapon? Probably Agatha Christie's favourite - poison. It leaves no marks on the body, and the victim may not even realise what has happened until it's too late. But there still might not be a perfect murder. The world's most notorious poisoner - Harold Shipman - was eventually caught.

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Everest: Doctors in the Death Zone (1)

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September 23, 2007 • 1h

0x50

A team of doctors conducts potentially life-saving experiments in Horizon's 'death zone'

This two-part special follows a team of doctors conducting a series of groundbreaking experiments as they climb Everest, the world's highest peak.

From their laboratory tents, pitched in -25°C conditions, the experts use their own bodies for medical tests. They push themselves to the limit to better understand the human body's behaviour in a low-oxygen environment.

The team hopes their work will lead to new, life-saving treatments for intensive care patients suffering from hypoxia, a shortage of oxygen in the body.

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Everest: Doctors in the Death Zone (2)

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September 30, 2007 • 1h

0x51

A team of doctors conducts potentially life-saving experiments in Horizon's 'death zone'

This two-part special follows a team of doctors conducting a series of groundbreaking experiments as they climb Everest, the world's highest peak.

From their laboratory tents, pitched in -25°C conditions, the experts use their own bodies for medical tests. They push themselves to the limit to better understand the human body's behaviour in a low-oxygen environment.

The team hopes their work will lead to new, life-saving treatments for intensive care patients suffering from hypoxia, a shortage of oxygen in the body.

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How to Kill a Human Being

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January 15, 2008 • 1h

45x1

Michael Portillo looks at the science behind executions.

Former Conservative MP, Michael Portillo pushes his body to the brink of death in an investigation into the science of execution.

As the American Supreme Court examines whether the lethal injection is causing prisoners to die in unnecessary pain Michael sets out to find a solution which is fundamentally humane. To do so he examines the key methods of execution available today: he discovers why convicts can catch on fire in the electric chair, learns how easy it is to botch a hanging and inhales a noxious gas to experience first hand the terror of the gas chamber.

Armed with some startling evidence Michael considers a completely new approach. Will it be the answer? There is only one way of finding out - to experience it himself.

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Total Isolation

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January 22, 2008 • 1h

45x2

Psychologists subject six volunteers to a world without stimulation.

For the first time in 40 years Horizon re-creates a controversial sensory deprivation experiment. Six ordinary people are taken to a nuclear bunker and left alone for 48 hours. Three subjects are left alone in dark, sound-proofed rooms, while the other three are given goggles and foam cuffs, while white noise is piped into their ears.

The original experiments carried out in the 1950s and 60s by leading psychologist Prof Donald Hebb, was thought by many in the North American political and scientific establishment to be too cruel and were discontinued.

Prof Ian Robbins, head of trauma psychology at St George's Hospital, Tooting, has been treating some of the British Guantanamo detainees and the victims of torture who come to the UK from across the world. Now he evaluates the volunteers as their brains undergo strange alterations.

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What on Earth is Wrong With Gravity?

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January 29, 2008 • 1h

45x3

Dr Brian Cox wants to know why the Universe is built the way it is.

Particle physicist and ex D:Ream keyboard player Dr Brian Cox wants to know why the Universe is built the way it is. He believes the answers lie in the force of gravity. But Newton thought gravity was powered by God, and even Einstein failed to completely solve it. Heading out with his film crew on a road trip across the USA, Brian fires lasers at the moon in Texas, goes mad in the desert in Arizona, encounters the bending of space and time at a maximum security military base, tries to detect ripples in our reality in the swamps of Louisiana and searches for hidden dimensions just outside Chicago.

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Is Alcohol Worse than Ecstasy?

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February 5, 2008 • 1h

45x4

A trip through the highs and lows of the UK’s 20 most dangerous drugs.

Recent research has analysed the link between the harmful effects of drugs relative to their current classification by law with some startling conclusions. Perhaps most startling of all is that alcohol, solvents and tobacco (all unclassified drugs) are rated more dangerous than ecstasy, 4-MTA and LSD (all class A drugs). If the current ABC system is retained, alcohol would be rated a class A drug and tobacco class B.

The scientists involved, including members of the government's top advisory committee on drug classification, have produced a rigorous assessment of the social and individual harm caused by 20 of the UK's most dangerous drugs and believe this should form the basis of future ranking. They think the current ABC system is arbitrary and not based on any scientific evidence.

The drug policies have remained unchanged over the last 40 years so should they be reformed in the light of new research?

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How to Make Better Decisions

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February 12, 2008 • 1h

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Lifting the lid on the business of human choices in an exclusive guide to making better decisions.

We are bad at making decisions. According to science, our decisions are based on oversimplification, laziness and prejudice. And that's assuming that we haven't already been hijacked by our surroundings or led astray by our subconscious!

Featuring exclusive footage of experiments that show how our choices can be confounded by temperature, warped by post-rationalisation and even manipulated by the future, Horizon presents a guide to better decision making, and introduces you to Mathematician Garth Sundem, who is convinced that conclusions can best be reached using simple maths and a pencil!

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How to Live to be 101

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February 19, 2008 • 1h

45x6

While scientists have been searching for the secrets of long life, a few isolated communities have stumbled across the answer.

The quest to live longer has been one of humanities oldest dreams, but while scientists have been searching, a few isolated communities have stumbled across the answer. On the remote Japanese island of Okinawa, In the Californian town of Loma Linda and in the mountains of Sardinia people live longer than anywhere else on earth.

In these unique communities a group of scientists have dedicated their lives to trying to uncover their secrets. Horizon takes a trip around the globe to meet the people who can show us all how to live longer, healthier lives.

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March 25, 2008 • 1h

45x10

Horizon journeys into the human memory, from how it emerges in childhood, develops through to adulthood, and fades in middle age.

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.

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Lost Horizons: The Big Bang

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September 4, 2008 • 1h

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Professor Jim Al Khalili delves into over 50 years of the BBC science archive to tell the story behind the emergence of one of the greatest theories of modern science, the Big Bang.

The remarkable idea that our universe simply began from nothing has not always been accepted with the conviction it is today and, from fiercely disputed leftfield beginnings, took the best part of the 20th century to emerge as the triumphant explanation of how the universe began. Using curious horn-shaped antennas, U-2 spy planes, satellites and particle accelerators, scientists have slowly pieced together the cosmological jigsaw, and this documentary charts the overwhelming evidence for a universe created by a Big Bang.

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The President's Guide to Science

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September 16, 2008 • 1h

45x11

Horizon asks some of the biggest names in science to have a quiet word with the new American president. The United States president is quite simply the most powerful man on earth, but past presidents have often known little about science. That is a problem when the decisions they make will affect every one of us, from nuclear proliferation to climate change.

To help the new president get to grips with this intimidating responsibility, some of the world's leading scientists, from Dawkins to Watson, share some crucial words of advice.

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How Mad Are You? (1)

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November 11, 2008 • 1h

0x53

First of a two-part special. Ten volunteers have come together for an extraordinary test. Five are 'normal' and the other five have been officially diagnosed as mentally ill. Horizon asks if you can tell who is who, and considers where the line between sanity and madness lies.

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How Mad Are You? (1 of 2)

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November 11, 2008 • 1h

45x12

First of a two-part special. Ten volunteers have come together for an extraordinary test. Five are 'normal' and the other five have been officially diagnosed as mentally ill. Horizon asks if you can tell who is who, and considers where the line between sanity and madness lies.

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How Mad Are You? (2)

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November 18, 2008 • 1h

0x54

Second part of the special documentary considering where the line between sanity and madness lies as ten volunteers come together for an extraordinary test. With five 'normal' volunteers and five who have been officially diagnosed as mentally ill, Horizon asks if you can tell who is who.

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How Mad Are You? (2 of 2)

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November 18, 2008 • 1h

45x13

Second part of the special documentary considering where the line between sanity and madness lies as ten volunteers come together for an extraordinary test.

With five 'normal' volunteers and five who have been officially diagnosed as mentally ill, Horizon asks if you can tell who is who.

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Jimmy's GM Food Fight

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November 25, 2008 • 1h

45x14

Jimmy Doherty, pig farmer, one-time scientist and poster-boy for sustainable food production is on a mission to find out if GM crops really can feed the world.

We need to double the amount of food we produce in the next fifty years to feed the world's growing population. Are GM crops the answer? Or are they a dangerous Frankenstein technology that could start an environmental catastrophe?

To find the answers Jimmy is on a journey that will take him from the vast soya plantations of Argentina to the traditional Amish farms of Pennsylvania; and from the cutting-edge technology of the GM laboratories to the banana plantations of Uganda.

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Do You Know What Time It Is?

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December 2, 2008 • 1h

45x15

Particle physicist Professor Brian Cox asks, 'What time is it?' It's a simple question and it sounds like it has a simple answer. But do we really know what it is that we're asking?

Brian visits the ancient Mayan pyramids in Mexico where the Maya built temples to time. He finds out that a day is never 24 hours and meets Earth's very own Director of Time. He journeys to the beginning of time, and goes beyond within the realms of string theory, and explores the very limit of time. He discovers that we not only travel through time at the speed of light, but the experience we feel as the passing of time could be an illusion.

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Allergy Planet

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December 9, 2008 • 1h

45x16

We are in the grip of an allergy epidemic. Fifty years ago one in 30 were affected, but in Britain today it is closer to one in three. Why this should be is one of modern medicine's greatest puzzles.

In search of answers, Horizon travels round the globe, from the remotest inhabited island to the polluted centres of California and the UK. We meet sufferers and the scientists who have dedicated their lives trying to answer the mystery of why we are becoming allergic to our world.

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Where's My Robot?

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Season Finale

December 16, 2008 • 1h

45x17

Danny Wallace really wants a robot. He wants it to walk like him and talk like him. It's what scientists have been promising us for generations but it's a promise so far unfulfilled. Danny circumnavigates the globe searching for robot nirvana, trying to uncover how far away his dream is.

He discovers that the robotics world is as weird as it is insanely complicated. During his quest he meets a Japanese man who makes copies of himself and his daughter, an Italian who claims he's found the key to human intelligence in a video game and a Singaporean whose unpromising-looking homage to Dusty Bin might just turn out to be the robot of Danny's dreams.

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Why Are Thin People Not Fat?

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January 26, 2009 • 1h

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The world is affected by an obesity epidemic, but why is it that not everyone is succumbing? Medical science has been obsessed with this subject and is coming up with some unexpected answers. As it turns out, it is not all about exercise and diet. At the centre of this programme is a controversial overeating experiment that aims to identify exactly what it is about some people that makes it hard for them to bulk up.

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Cannabis: The Evil Weed?

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February 3, 2009 • 1h

46x2

Cannabis is the world's favourite drug, but also one of the least understood. Can cannabis cause schizophrenia? Is it addictive? Can it lead you on to harder drugs? Or is it simply a herb, an undervalued medicine?

Addiction specialist Dr John Marsden discovers that modern science is finally beginning to find answers to these questions. John traces the cannabis plants' birthplace in Kazakhstan; finds the origins of our sensitivity to cannabis in the simple sea squirt; and finds out just what it does to our brains.

He meets people who have been changed by this drug in drastically different ways - from those whose lives have been shattered to those who lives have been revived.

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Why Do We Dream?

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February 10, 2009 • 1h

46x3

Horizon uncovers the secret world of our dreams. In a series of cutting-edge experiments and personal stories, we go in search of the science behind this most enduring mystery and ask: where do dreams come from? Do they have meaning? And ultimately, why do we dream?

What the film reveals is that much of what we thought we knew no longer stands true. Dreams are not simply wild imaginings but play a significant part in all our lives as they have an impact on our memories, the ability to learn, and our mental health. Most surprisingly, we find nightmares, too, are beneficial and may even explain the survival of our species.

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Can We Make a Star on Earth?

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February 17, 2009 • 1h

46x4

Professor Brian Cox takes a global journey in search of the energy source of the future. Called nuclear fusion, it is the process that fuels the sun and every other star in the universe. Yet despite over five decades of effort, scientists have been unable to get even a single watt of fusion electricity onto the grid.

Brian returns to Horizon to find out why. Granted extraordinary access to the biggest and most ambitious fusion experiments on the planet, Brian travels to the USA to see a high security fusion bomb testing facility in action and is given a tour of the world's most powerful laser. In South Korea, he clambers inside the reaction chamber of K-Star, the world's first super-cooled, super-conducting fusion reactor where the fate of future fusion research will be decided.

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The Secret Life of Your Bodyclock

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February 24, 2009 • 1h

46x5

Why are you more likely to have a heart attack at eight o'clock in the morning or crash your car on the motorway at two o'clock in the afternoon? Can taking your medication at the right time of day really save your life? And have you ever wondered why teenagers will not get out of bed in the morning?

The answers to these questions lie in the secret world of the biological clock.

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What's the Problem with Nudity?

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March 3, 2009 • 1h

46x6

What is wrong with nudity? Why are people embarrassed about their bodies? How and why did they get the way they are?

Horizon takes a group of volunteers and subjects them to a series of psychological and physical tests to challenge attitudes to the naked human form. The questions raised strike at the heart of human physical and social evolution.

Human beings are the only creatures that can be 'naked' - but why, how and when did people lose their fur? That question takes Horizon around the world to meet scientists from Africa to Florida, and they are finding answers in unexpected places: the chest hair of Finnish students, the genetic history of lice, and the sweat of an unusual monkey.

It turns out that something everyone takes for granted may hold the key to the success of the entire human species.

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How to Survive a Disaster

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March 10, 2009 • 1h

46x7

When disaster strikes who lives and who dies is not purely a matter of luck. In every disaster, from those people face once in a lifetime, to those they face every day, there are things that can be done to increase the chances of getting out alive.

Horizon has gathered a team of leading experts to produce the ultimate guide to disaster survival. Through controversial experiments, computer simulations and analysis of hundreds of survivor testimonies from plane crashes to ferry disasters and even 9/11, they will reveal what happens in the mind in the moment of crisis and how the human brain can be programmed for survival.

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Who Do You Want Your Child to Be?

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March 17, 2009 • 1h

46x8

David Baddiel, father of two, sets out to answer one of the greatest questions a parent can ask: how best to educate your child.

Taking in the latest scientific research, David uncovers some unconventional approaches: from the parent hot-hosing his child to record-breaking feats of maths, to a school that pays hard cash for good grades.

David witnesses a ground-breaking experiment that suggests a child's destiny can be predicted at four, and hears the three little words that can ruin a child's chance of success for good. He also uncovers the neurological basis for why teenagers can be stroppy and explosive and has his own brain tinkered with to experience what it is like to struggle at school.

Through it all, David's quest remains true: to maximise his child's potential for success and happiness.

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Why Can't We Predict Earthquakes?

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March 24, 2009 • 1h

46x9

Last century, earthquakes killed over one million, and it is predicted that this century might see ten times as many deaths. Yet when an earthquake strikes, it always takes people by surprise. So why hasn't science worked out how to predict when and where the next big quake is going to happen? This is the story of the men and women who chase earthquakes and try to understand this mysterious force of nature. Journeying to China's Sichuan Province, which still lies devastated by the earthquake that struck in May 2008, as well as the notorious San Andreas Fault in California, Horizon asks why science has so far fallen short of answering this fundamental question.

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Alan and Marcus Go Forth and Multiply

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March 31, 2009 • 1h

46x10

Ever since he was at school, actor and comedian Alan Davies has hated maths. And like many people, he is not much good at it either. But Alan has always had a sneaking suspicion that he was missing out.

So, with the help of top mathematician Professor Marcus du Sautoy, Alan is going to embark on a maths odyssey. Together they visit the fourth dimension, cross the universe and explore the concept of infinity. Along the way, Alan does battle with some of the toughest maths questions of our age.

But did his abilities peak 25 years ago when he got his grade C O-Level? Or will Alan be able to master the most complex maths concept there is?

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How Violent Are You?

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Season Finale

May 12, 2009 • 1h

46x11

What makes ordinary people commit extreme acts of violence? Michael Portillo investigates the dark side of human nature, and discovers what it is like to inflict pain.

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40 Years on the Moon

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July 9, 2009 • 1h

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Professor Brian Cox takes a look through nearly 50 years of BBC archive at the story of man's relationship with the Moon.

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Pandemic: A Horizon Guide

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August 9, 2009 • 1h

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November 15, 2009 • 1h

0x57

The intriguing possibility of life on Mars has fuelled man's quest to visit the Red Planet. Drawing on 45 years of Horizon archive, space expert Dr Kevin Fong presents a documentary on Earth's near neighbour.

Man's extraordinary attempts to reach Mars have pushed technological boundaries past their limit and raised the tantalising prospect of establishing human colonies beyond our own planet.

While the moon lies 240,000 miles away, Mars is at a distance of 50 million miles. Reaching the moon takes three days, but to land on Mars would take

nearly eight months, and only two thirds of the missions to Mars have made it.

The BBC has been there to analyse the highs and lows - including the ill-fated British attempt, the Beagle.

Horizon has explored how scientists believe the only way to truly understand Mars is to send people there. If and when we do, it will be the most challenging trip humanity has ever undertaken.

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How Long is a Piece of String?

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November 17, 2009 • 1h

47x6

Alan Davies attempts to answer the proverbial question: how long is a piece of string? But what appears to be a simple task soon turns into a mind-bending voyage of discovery where nothing is as it seems.

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How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?

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December 9, 2009 • 1h

0x58

In a Horizon special, naturalist Sir David Attenborough investigates whether the world is heading for a population crisis.

In his lengthy career, Sir David has watched the human population more than double from 2.5 billion in 1950 to nearly seven billion. He reflects on the profound effects of this rapid growth, both on humans and the environment.

While much of the projected growth in human population is likely to come from the developing world, it is the lifestyle enjoyed by many in the West that has the most impact on the planet. Some experts claim that in the UK consumers use as much as two and a half times their fair share of Earth's resources.

Sir David examines whether it is the duty of individuals to commit not only to smaller families, but to change the way they live for the sake of humanity and planet Earth.

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The Secret Life of the Dog

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January 6, 2010 • 1h

47x7

We have an extraordinary relationship with dogs - closer than with any other animal on the planet. But what makes the bond between us so special? Research into dogs is gaining momentum, and scientists are investigating them like never before. From the latest fossil evidence, to the sequencing of the canine genome, to cognitive experiments, dogs are fast turning into the new chimps as a window into understanding ourselves.

Where does this relationship come from? In Siberia, a unique breeding experiment reveals the astonishing secret of how dogs evolved from wolves. Swedish scientists demonstrate how the human/dog bond is controlled by a powerful hormone also responsible for bonding mothers to their babies. Why are dogs so good at reading our emotions? Horizon meets Betsy, the world's most intelligent dog, and compares her incredible abilities to those of children. Man's best friend has recently gone one step further - helping us identify genes responsible for causing human diseases.

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Diet: A Horizon Guide

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January 7, 2010 • 1h

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Dr Susan Jebb takes a look through nearly fifty years of amazing BBC archive of mankind's relationship with what we eat, charting the shift from the malnutrition of the past to today's obesity epidemic.

This is the story of our attempt to control nature through the wholesale industrialisation of food production in our search for enough to eat, and the consequences of that massive shift in our diet on the shape of our bodies, and the diseases that kill us.

From the BBC's original eccentric scientist Magnus Pyke comparing the virtues of artificial additives to a Beethoven sonata, to the tragic side effects of diet pills, Horizon and the BBC have covered it all.

On her journey through the decades, Dr Jebb explores how scientists have played a crucial role both in transforming the way our food is produced, but also in attempting to understand the biological mechanisms that determine why it is that some of us have become so large.

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Why Do Viruses Kill?

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January 13, 2010 • 1h

47x8

Just months ago, the world stood in fear of an emerging new disease that threatened to kill millions. A new flu variant H1N1 had arrived. In the UK alone, 65,000 deaths were predicted. Yet to date, these dire warnings have not materialised. If this latest pandemic has taught anything, it is just how little is understood about the invisible world of viruses. But that has not stopped scientists trying. Horizon follows the leading researchers from across the world, who are attempting to unravel the many secrets of viruses to understand when and why they kill.

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February 17, 2010 • 1h

47x12

Could you have come up with Einstein's theory of relativity? If not - why not? This is what Marcus du Sautoy, professor of mathematics, wants to explore. Marcus readily admits that he is no genius, but wants to know if geniuses are just an extreme version of himself - or whether their brains are fundamentally different. Marcus meets some remarkable individuals - Tommy, an obsessive artist who uses his whole house as his canvas; Derek: blind, autistic, and a pianist with apparently prodigious gifts; Claire who is also blind, but whose brain has learnt to see using sound. Marcus is shown how babies have remarkable abilities which most of us lose as teenagers. He meets a neuroscientist who claims he has evidence of innate ability, a scientist who's identified a gene for learning, and Dr. Paulus, who has discovered how to sharpen the brain... by electrically turbo-charging it.

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Did Cooking Make Us Human?

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March 2, 2010 • 1h

47x13

Horizon examines the evidence that our ancestors' changing diet and mastery of fire prompted anatomical and neurological changes that took us out of the trees and into the kitchen.

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Is Everything We Know About the Universe Wrong?

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Season Finale

March 9, 2010 • 1h

47x14

There's something very odd going on in space - something that shouldn't be possible. It is as though vast swathes of the universe are being hoovered up by a vast and unseen celestial vacuum cleaner. Sasha Kaslinsky, the scientist who discovered the phenomenon, is understandably nervous: 'It left us quite unsettled and jittery' he says, 'because this is not something we planned to find'. The accidental discovery of what is ominously being called 'dark flow' not only has implications for the destinies of large numbers of galaxies - it also means that large numbers of scientists might have to find a new way of understanding the universe. Dark flow is the latest in a long line of phenomena that have threatened to rewrite the textbooks. Does it herald a new era of understanding, or does it simply mean that everything we know about the universe is wrong?

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The End of God? A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion

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September 17, 2010 • 1h

0x60

As the Pope ends his visit to Britain, historian Dr Thomas Dixon delves into the BBC's archive to explore the troubled relationship between religion and science. From the creationists of America to the physicists of the Large Hadron Collider, he traces the expansion of scientific knowledge and asks whether there is still room for God in the modern world.

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Back from the Dead

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0%

February 14, 2011 • 1h

48x13

Dr Kevin Fong finds out how close scientists are to being able to mend your heart if it stops working. He meets some of the people who have undergone pioneering heart operations and the scientists who are pushing the limits of cardiac treatment. We meet a man who has had his heart replaced with an artificial one powered by a mechanical pump he carries around in a rucksack, and witness a scientist bring a dead animal heart back to life on a workbench. Plus, the work of an American scientist who is using stem cells to turn what she calls a 'ghost heart' - the scaffold of a heart - into a replacement heart for humans.

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Are We Still Evolving?

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March 1, 2011 • 1h

48x14

Dr Alice Roberts asks one of the great questions about our species: are we still evolving? There's no doubt that we're a product of millions of years of evolution. But thanks to modern technology and medicine, did we escape Darwin's law of the survival of the fittest? Alice follows a trail of clues from ancient human bones, to studies of remarkable people living in the most inhospitable parts of the planet, to the frontiers of genetic research to discover if we are still evolving - and where we might be heading.

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Predators in Your Backyard

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Season Finale

March 8, 2011 • 1h

48x15

Across the world scientists are releasing predators, nature's ultimate killers, close to where people live. In Florida, a new population of panthers, feared as ambush predators, have been released near to the busy town of Naples. In the Italian Alps, bears have been reintroduced after they became virtually extinct, and now try to get into people's homes in the middle of the night. And in Yellowstone National Park, wolves have been brought back 70 years after they were exterminated. Horizon meets the scientist behind this radical scheme, and the people who now have to share their backyards with these predators.

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Japan Earthquake: A Horizon Special

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March 27, 2011 • 1h

0x62

Professor Iain Stewart examines the powerful geological forces that unleashed the devastating Japanese earthquake, and explores how the release of this power of the planet brought Japan to the brink of a nuclear meltdown.

He follows moment by moment how the earthquake was generated under the Pacific Ocean, travelled to the Japanese mainland, and the rare conditions that unleashed a tsunami.

He also reveals the latest science behind earthquakes - from why we can't predict them, to what causes some of them to reach such power.

Iain shows why our civilisation has developed such a dangerous relationship with earthquakes, and why millions of us continue to live in earthquake zones across the world.

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The Space Shuttle: A Horizon Guide

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April 10, 2011 • 1h

0x63

In 2011, after more than 30 years of service, America's space shuttle will take to the skies for the last time. Its story has been characterised by incredible triumphs, but blighted by devastating tragedies - and the BBC and Horizon have chronicled every step of its career. This unique and poignant Horizon Guide brings together coverage from three decades of programmes to present a biography of the shuttle and to ask what its legacy will be. Will it be remembered as an impressive chapter in human space exploration, or as a fatally flawed white elephant?

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The End of the World? A Horizon Guide to Armageddon

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May 12, 2011 • 1h

0x64

Our understanding of the world around us is better now than ever before. But are we any closer to knowing how its all going to end?

Dallas Campbell delves into the Horizon archive to discover how scientists have tried to predict an impending apocalypse - from natural disaster to killer disease to asteroid impact - and to ask: when Armageddon arrives, will science be able to save us?

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Do You See What I See?

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August 8, 2011 • 1h

49x1

Documentary exploring the impact of colours on people's lives, and how perceptions of them can be influenced by age, gender and mood. The programme examines scientists' claims that different hues have hidden powers, from the winning properties of red to how blue seemingly makes time speed up.

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Carrot or Stick? A Horizon Guide to Raising Kids

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August 11, 2011 • 1h

0x65

Child psychologist Laverne Antrobus delves into the Horizon archive to find out how science has shaped our approach to parenting and education over the last fifty years. From lessons in motherly love to tough discipline to bribery tactics, she asks what's the best approach when it comes to bringing up children.

Laverne also explores how extreme behaviour can sometimes be explained by underlying neurological problems and discovers whether children learn best in a more child-centred environment.

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Seeing Stars

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August 15, 2011 • 1h

49x2

Around the world, a new generation of astronomers are hunting for the most mysterious objects in the universe. Young stars, black holes, even other forms of life. They have created a dazzling new set of super-telescopes that promise to rewrite the story of the heavens. This film follows the men and women who are pushing the limits of science and engineering in some of the most extreme environments on earth. But most striking of all, no-one really knows what they will find out there.

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The Nine Months That Made You

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August 22, 2011 • 1h

49x3

Horizon explores the secrets of what makes a long, healthy and happy life. It turns out that a time you can't remember - the nine months you spend in the womb - could have more lasting effects on you today than your lifestyle or genes. It is one of the most powerful and provocative new ideas in human science, and it was pioneered by a British scientist, Professor David Barker. His theory has inspired a field of study that is revealing how our time in the womb could affect your health, personality, and even the lives of your children.

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The Core

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August 31, 2011 • 1h

49x4

For centuries we have dreamt of reaching the centre of the Earth. Now scientists are uncovering a bizarre and alien world that lies 4,000 miles beneath our feet, unlike anything we know on the surface. It is a planet buried within the planet we know, where storms rage within a sea of white-hot metal and a giant forest of crystals make up a metal core the size of the Moon. Horizon follows scientists who are conducting experiments to recreate this core within their own laboratories, with surprising results.

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Are You Good or Evil?

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September 7, 2011 • 1h

49x5

What makes us good or evil? It's a simple but deeply unsettling question. One that scientists are now starting to answer. Horizon meets the researchers who have studied some of the most terrifying people behind bars - psychopathic killers. But there was a shock in store for one of these scientists, Professor Jim Fallon, when he discovered that he had the profile of a psychopath. And the reason he didn't turn out to be a killer holds important lessons for all of us. We meet the scientist who believes he has found the moral molecule and the man who is using this new understanding to rewrite our ideas of crime and punishment.

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Fukushima: Is Nuclear Power Safe?

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September 14, 2011 • 1h

49x6

Six months after the explosions at the Fukushima nuclear plant and the release of radiation there, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to discover whether nuclear power is safe. He begins in Japan, where he meets some of the tens of thousands of people who have been evacuated from the exclusion zone. He travels to an abandoned village just outside the zone to witness a nuclear clean-up operation. Jim draws on the latest scientific findings from Japan and from the previous explosion at Chernobyl to understand how dangerous the release of radiation is likely to be and what that means for our trust in nuclear power.

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Extinct: A Horizon Guide to Dinosaurs

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September 21, 2011 • 1h

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Dallas Campbell explores how mankind's understanding of dinosaurs has developed since the 1970s. He reveals how technological advances led to scientists revising their theories about how the creatures might have lived, as well as gaining new insights into the reasons for their extinction. The presenter also explores the genetic links between modern birds and the prehistoric lizards.

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What Happened Before the Big Bang?

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October 11, 2011 • 1h

48x3

They are the biggest questions that science can possibly ask: where did everything in our universe come from? How did it all begin? For nearly a hundred years, we thought we had the answer: a big bang some 14 billion years ago. But now some scientists believe that was not really the beginning. Our universe may have had a life before this violent moment of creation. Horizon takes the ultimate trip into the unknown, to explore a dizzying world of cosmic bounces, rips and multiple universes, and finds out what happened before the big bang.

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The Hunt for Higgs: A Horizon Special

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January 9, 2012 • 1h

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Horizon goes behind the scenes at CERN to follow one of the most epic and expensive scientific quests of all time: the search for the Higgs particle, believed to give mass to everything in our universe.

However, the hunt for Higgs is part of a much grander search for how the universe works. It promises to help answer questions like why we exist and is a vital part of a Grand Unified Theory of nature. At the heart of the pursuit of the elusive particle is the same feature that makes snowflakes beautiful and human faces attractive: the simple and enchanting idea of symmetry.

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Playing God

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January 17, 2012 • 1h

49x7

Adam Rutherford meets a new creature created by American scientists, the spider-goat. It is part goat, part spider, and its milk can be used to create artificial spider's web. It is part of a new field of research, synthetic biology, with a radical aim: to break down nature into spare parts so that we can rebuild it however we please. This technology is already being used to make bio-diesel to power cars. Other researchers are looking at how we might, one day, control human emotions by sending 'biological machines' into our brains.

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The Truth About Exercise

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February 28, 2012 • 1h

49x8

Like many, Michael Mosley want to get fitter and healthier but can't face hours on the treadmill or trips to the gym. Help may be at hand. He uncovers the surprising new research which suggests many of us could benefit from just three minutes of high intensity exercise a week. He discovers the hidden power of simple activities like walking and fidgeting, and finds out why some of us don't respond to exercise at all Using himself as a guinea pig, Michael uncovers the surprising new research about exercise, that has the power to make us all live longer and healthier lives.

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Woof! A Horizon Guide to Dogs

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March 1, 2012 • 1h

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Dallas Campbell looks back through the Horizon archives to find out what science can tell us about our best friend the dog, and whether new thinking should change the way we treat them. From investigating the domestic dog's wild wolf origins to discovering the remarkable impact that humans have had on canine evolution, Dallas explores why our bond with dogs is so strong and how we can best use that to manage them.

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Solar Storms: The Threat to Planet Earth

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March 6, 2012 • 1h

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Scientists are expecting a fit of violent activity on the sun which will propel billions of tonnes of superheated gas and pulses of energy towards our planet. They have the power to close down our modern technological civilization. Horizon meets the space weathermen who are trying to predict what's coming our way, and organistions like the National Grid which are preparing for the impending solar storms.

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Out of Control?

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March 13, 2012 • 1h

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We all like to think we are in control of our lives - of what we feel and what we think. But scientists are now discovering this is often simply an illusion. Surprising experiments are revealing that what you think you do and what you actually do can be very different. Your unconscious mind is often calling the shots, influencing the decisions you make, from what you eat to who you fall in love with. If you think you are really in control of your life, you may have to think again.

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The Truth about Fat

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March 20, 2012 • 1h

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Surgeon Gabriel Weston discovers the surprising truth about why so many people are piling on the pounds, and how to fight the fat epidemic. She discovers the hidden battles of hormones that control people's appetites, and sees the latest surgery that fundamentally changes what a patient wants to eat by altering how their brains work. Gabriel is shocked to find out that when it comes to being overweight, it is not always your fault you are fat.

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Global Weirding

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March 27, 2012 • 1h

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Something weird seems to be happening to our weather - it appears to be getting more extreme. In the past few years we have shivered through two record-breaking cold winters and parts of the country have experienced intense droughts and torrential floods. It is a pattern that appears to be playing out across the globe. Hurricane chasers are recording bigger storms and in Texas, record-breaking rain has been followed by record-breaking drought. Horizon follows the scientists who are trying to understand what's been happening to our weather and investigates if these extremes are a taste of whats to come.

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The Hunt for AI

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April 3, 2012 • 1h

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Marcus Du Sautoy wants to find out how close we are to creating machines that can think like us: robots or computers that have artificial intelligence.

His journey takes him to a strange and bizarre world where AI is now taking shape.

Marcus meets two robots who are developing their own private language, and attempts to communicate to them. He discovers how a super computer beat humans at one of the toughest quiz shows on the planet, Jeopardy. And finds out if machines can have creativity and intuition like us.

Marcus is worried that if machines can think like us, then he will be out of business. But his conclusion is that AI machines may surprise us with their own distinct way of thinking.

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Defeating Cancer

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Season Finale

April 10, 2012 • 1h

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Over the past year, Horizon has been behind the scenes at one of Britain's leading cancer hospitals, the Royal Marsden in London. The film follows Rosemary, Phil and Ray as they undergo remarkable new treatments - from a billion pound genetically targeted drug designed to fight a type of skin cancer, to advanced robotic surgery. We witness the breakthroughs in surgery and in scientific research that are offering new hope and helping to defeat a disease that more than one in three of us will develop at some stage of our lives.

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Stuff: A Horizon Guide to Materials

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April 19, 2012 • 1h

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March 3, 2013 • 1h

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On a bright, cold morning on 15th February 2013, a meteorite ripped across the skies above the Ural mountains in Russia, distintegrating into three pieces and exploding with the force of 20 Hiroshimas. It was a stark reminder that the Earth's journey through space is fraught with danger. A day later, another much larger 143,000-tonne asteroid passed within just 17,000 miles of the Earth. Presented by Professor Iain Stewart, this film explores what meteorites and asteroids are, where they come from, the danger they pose and the role they have played in Earth's history.

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Mend Me: A Horizon Guide to Transplants

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March 27, 2013 • 1h

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Transplant surgery has now reached incredible heights, from achieving full face transplants to growing organs in the lab. This Horizon Guide looks back at the extraordinary odds doctors and patients have had to overcome to achieve these amazing breakthroughs. What we now take for granted has been a hard won struggle, both for the patients who were willing to gamble their lives and the doctors who faced ethical and medical dilemmas in the name of progress. Michael Mosley looks through the Horizon archive, identifying the key turning points for transplant surgery to explore how far science can go in its bid to prolong life.

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Tomorrow's World: A Horizon Special

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April 11, 2013 • 1h

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Liz Bonnin delves in to the world of invention, revealing the people and technologies set to transform all our lives. She examines the conditions that are promising to make the 21st century a golden age of innovation and meets some of the world's foremost visionaries, mavericks and dreamers.

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What's Killing Our Bees? A Horizon Special

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August 2, 2013 • 1h

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Changes in the weather, pesticides, and even a virus have all all been blamed for the ongoing mass deaths of bees Bill Turnbull meets the scientists who are fitting minute radar transponders on to bees to try to find answers.

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Sex: A Horizon Guide

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September 11, 2013 • 1h

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Alice Roberts looks through 45 years of Horizon archive material to see how science came to understand sex, strived to solve our problems with it and even helped us do it better.

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Impact! A Horizon Guide to Plane Crashes

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October 14, 2013 • 1h

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It's a macabre paradox, but almost every advance in aviation safety has been driven by a crash. After every crash, investigators determine its cause and scientists make every effort to ensure the same mistakes never happen again. Dallas Campbell delves into the Horizon archives to chart the deadly disasters that have helped make air travel today the safest it has ever been.

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Impact! A Horizon Guide to Car Crashes

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October 21, 2013 • 1h

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In the 1950s up to 8,000 people died every year on the roads in this country - a truly horrific figure. Thankfully it has now fallen to around 2,000 a year - still a terrible toll, but a vast improvement, particularly given the increase in cars on the road. Dallas Campbell looks back over decades of Horizon and BBC archive to chart the key scientific breakthroughs that have transformed road safety and saved millions of lives. However, it hasn't all been about innovative engineering and groundbreaking medical discoveries - scientists have also had to act as campaigners, persuading car manufacturers to install their life saving devices and urging the public to use them.

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Comet of the Century: A Horizon Special

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May 28, 2016 • 1h

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BBC weatherman Peter Gibbs's return to Antarctica becomes something of a rescue mission. The British Antarctic Survey reveals how it will save the Halley Research Station from being cast adrift on an iceberg. (Part Two as shown on BBC News)

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Jimmy Carr and the Science of Laughter

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September 11, 2016 • 1h

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Comedian Jimmy Carr takes over Horizon for this one-off special programme, produced as part of BBC2's sitcom season.

Jimmy turns venerable documentary strand Horizon into a chat show, with eminent laughter scientists as guests and a studio audience to use as guinea pigs. Jimmy and his guests try to get to the bottom of what laughter is, why we enjoy it so much and what, if anything, it has to do with comedy.

Between them, and with the help of contributions from other scientists on film, Jimmy and guests discover that laughter is much older than our species, and may well have contributed to making us human.

With professors Sophie Scott, Robin Dunbar and Peter McGraw.

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The Horizon Guide to AI

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September 4, 2018 • 1h

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Documentary looking at the perception of AI from 1964 to the present day. Can we be optimistic about all that AI can deliver - or fearful of its ability to control our lives?

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Alastair Campbell: Depression and Me

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May 21, 2019 • 1h

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In an intensely personal and often surprising film for BBC Two, Alastair Campbell candidly talks about his experience living with depression and explores if radical new treatments can make a difference. Alastair is best known for his role as Tony Blair’s formidable and often contentious spin doctor, but, away from the public eye, he has been dogged by crippling bouts of depression for most of his life. Some days, just getting out of bed is too hard. Therapy and anti-depressant medication is helping him keep his head above water, but is that really the best he can hope for? Encouraged by his family, Alastair sets out on a journey to explore if cutting edge science can offer him - and the millions of people like him - the hope of one day living depression-free. As he tries to understand his depression better, he also reflects on key events in his life and asks if they could have had a negative effect on his mind.

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Journey to the Moon: A Horizon Special

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July 17, 2019 • 1h

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Professor Brian Cox takes a journey through the BBC science archive to explore the story of mankind's relationship with the moon, from James Burke testing Nasa equipment to Neil Armstrong's first steps on the lunar surface and the dramatic tale of Apollo 13. He also asks whether international competition could help reignite the public's enthusiasm for space travel and bring about the dawn of a new space age.

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Coronavirus Special - Part 1

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April 9, 2020 • 1h

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Investigating the scientific facts and figures behind the biggest public health crisis in living memory as a new coronavirus takes an unprepared world by storm.

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Coronavirus Special - Part 2

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May 19, 2020 • 1h

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Dr Chris van Tulleken, Dr Hannah Fry and Michael Mosley examine the latest research and explore some of the big questions about the new coronavirus and the pandemic it has created.

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Coronavirus Special - What We Know Now

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February 25, 2021 • 1h

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In this third Horizon special, Dr Chris Van Tulleken is joined by his brother Xand and Dr Guddi Singh to take us through the latest developments and answer current concerns. Though the effect of the coronavirus pandemic has been devastating to many, the team reveal the breakthroughs in genetics, medicine and modelling that have provided a way out of this situation and given hope and confidence that, in the event of a future pandemic, we can take it on and win.

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Horizon Special: The Vaccine

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June 16, 2021 • 1h

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The extraordinary inside story of the biggest scientific challenge of our age - following a small band of vaccine scientists around the world who took on Covid-19 and ultimately delivered the weapon to beat it. As news of the coronavirus broke around the globe, a small group of scientists jumped into action to tackle one of the greatest medical challenges of our time: to create a vaccine against a virus no-one had ever seen before and to do so in record time, all during a deadly, global pandemic.

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Horizon Special: The Vaccine

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June 16, 2021 • 1h

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The extraordinary inside story of the biggest scientific challenge of our age - following a small band of vaccine scientists around the world who took on Covid-19 and ultimately delivered the weapon to beat it. As news of the coronavirus broke around the globe, a small group of scientists jumped into action to tackle one of the greatest medical challenges of our time: to create a vaccine against a virus no-one had ever seen before and to do so in record time, all during a deadly, global pandemic.

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Horizon (1964)

John Lynch — Executive Producer

Episodes 1012