Protecting and fixing the environment is perhaps the most important use of technology we have today. This film discovers how fuel can be made from plants and how wave and wind power works. Take a look inside a new eco-house then find out how composting helps the planet.

Science has entered its fourth paradigm: after being observational, empirical, and theoretical, scientific discovery is now data-intensive. Anastasia (Natassa) Ailamaki, professor of computer sciences at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and winner of the Eppendorf European Young Investigator Award and a Sloan Research Fellowship, is pushing the limits of the speed of research and our capacity to deal with massive amounts of information....

In police departments and courts across the country, artificial intelligence is being used to help decide who is policed, who gets bail, how offenders should be sentenced, and who gets parole. But is it actually making our law enforcement and court systems fairer and more just? This timely investigation digs into the hidden biases, privacy risks, and design flaws of this controversial technology.

Few substances in history have had as profound an effect on mankind as gunpowder. And yet its discovery was probably an accident - a big bang, for one. This program examines the invention and history of gunpowder, as well as its surprising ingredients. As you can imagine, making gunpowder takes some effort. Gunpowder once needed saltpeter, and saltpeter needed poop. It turns out that secretions have such an explosive character due to microscopic bacteria,...

In the 1950s some bright sparks caused a revolution in the way we communicate by designing the first optical fibers. Now, watch this video to learn how new optic fiber designs are allowing scientists to bend light in a whole new way. Dr. Paul Willis heads to Adelaide, where light's fantastic future is being written.

In this video segment, visit the "Very Large Telescope" right outside Antofagasta in Chile. It is one of the biggest optical telescopes in the world. The extreme desert landscape makes it an ideal location for telescope viewing. Find out why astronomers come from all over the world to work with this telescope and what they are finding out about planets around other stars, black holes, gravitational lensing, dark energy, and more.

South American tribes used rubber long before the world got to know about it. When Columbus witnessed Haitian natives playing ball, he found himself mesmerized by the bouncing goo. This program discovers how Charles Goodyear learned the secret of stabilizing rubber - by dropping a lump of natural rubber on his wife's stove. Viewers then see how this invention spurred the Industrial Revolution and created a rubber boom - turning a remote Brazilian...

Plastic has become ubiquitous - impressive, since we'd been living without it for centuries! Can you imagine that plastic was invented accidentally - for the purpose of making billiard balls? This program investigates the history of plastic: from the first plastic - discovered when someone witnessed how Southeast Asian farmers used the poop of a little beetle, called shellac, to preserve wood - to Dupont's development of nylon, the first synthetic...

This is the place to explore the latest groundbreaking ideas that will change the world we live in. Entertaining and thought-provoking, Dara O'Briain's Science Club combines lively studio discussions featuring some of the world's most eminent scientists, with exciting experiments, studio demonstrations and film reports of cutting-edge science stories. Loosely themed each episode - from Invisible Worlds to Size Matters via Adventures in Time - Science...

This program looks at the impact of digital technology across a broad swath of contemporary African life, examining the ways in which it affects traditional culture and considering how it can best be used to overcome poverty without falling into the trap of neocolonialism. The film also raises the intriguing possibility that computing technology is indigenous to Africa due to the discovery of the Ishango Bone, which may be the oldest calculating tool...