BBC Earth
We're All Going On A Summer Holiday
Eighty summers ago, thousands of working-class Britons got their very first tastes of sun, sea and sand, courtesy of the 1938 Holidays with Pay Act. Kathryn Ferry chronicles the fraught birth of a holidaymaking revolution
8 min |
January 2019
BBC Earth
Have A Laugh
Comedian and mathematician Dara Ó Briain is diving into the invisible science behind everyday life in his second children’s book, Secret Science: The Amazing World Beyond Your Eyes. He chats to HELEN GLENNY
3 min |
January 2019
BBC Earth
My Life Scientific
This month, anatomist and presenter Alice Roberts talks to Helen Pilcher about her love of skeletons and the lure of Strictly Come Dancing
2 min |
January 2019
BBC Earth
'The Neurons Have A Completely Different Activity Pattern Before The Movement'
Planned and immediate movements are processed differently by the brain. Dr Benjamin Dann of the German Primate Center explains how it might help humans
2 min |
January 2019
BBC Earth
Incan Surgeons Were Surprisingly Skilled At Drilling Holes In People's Skulls
Thankfully, trepanation – the act of scraping, cutting, or drilling an opening into a person’s cranium to treat everything from headaches, to seizures, or even supposed demonic possession – is a practice largely confined to the past. But if you were ever in need of such an operation, you could do a lot worse than seeking out an Incan surgeon.
1 min |
December 2018
BBC Earth
Dolphins Are Phenomenally Good At Using Echolocation, Much Better Than Man-made Devices
Dolphins echolocate with two-part acoustic beams. Dr Josefin Starkhammar of Lund University explains how this could help us improve ultrasound technology.
2 min |
December 2018
BBC Earth
The Trials Of Writing Modern History
Fallible memories and a surplus of sources mean that the most challenging era for historians to tackle is the one in which we now live.
10 min |
December 2018
BBC Earth
Invent Everything
In his latest book How To Invent Everything, Canadian computer scientist and comic writer RYAN NORTH takes a look at the 200,000 years of inventions and discoveries that have helped to shape our society and humanity itself. He talks to HELEN GLENNY
3 min |
December 2018
BBC Earth
Cairo Battleground Of Empires
The city of Cairo is an architectural masterpiece 5,000 years in the making, created by some of humanity’s greatest empire-builders. From the pharaohs to Napoleon, Michael Scott reveals how five civilisations left their mark on Egypt’s teeming capital.
7 min |
December 2018
BBC Earth
All Summer, I Live And Breathe Swifts
Across the UK, people from all walks of life are coming together to save the swifts. It’s one of the most inspiring stories in conservation today.
7 min |
December 2018
BBC Earth
'Oh Father, Why Have You Abandoned Me?'
In 1347, chroniclers of the Black Death began reporting incidents of mothers, uncles, brothers and wives deserting their plague-stricken relatives and fleeing for their lives. Samuel Cohn tells the story of a horrifying, yet little known phenomenon: abandonment
8 min |
October 2018
BBC Earth
Space Is Fast Replacing Land As The Arena For Conflict
Forget the traditional battlegrounds of land, sea and air. Rapid developments in technology and our reliance on satellites for every thing from communication to navigation are pushing conflicts into a new arena: outer space
9 min |
October 2018
BBC Earth
Karl Marx- The Godfather Of Revolution
5 May 2018 marked the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth. Gregory Claeys reveals how a poverty-stricken dissident became one of the most influential thinkers in the history of the world.
8 min |
September 2018
BBC Earth
Tricks Of The Mind
Psychologists are starting to figure out why we get false memories, and it turns out that they might even be useful…
7 min |
August 2018
BBC Earth
Hawking's Last Hurrah
The world famous physicist and author of A Brief History Of Time is laid to rest alongside Newton and Darwin.
3 min |
September 2018
BBC Earth
Planet's Waters Have More Intellect Than we Gave Them Credit For
Think of intelligence in the animal world and you rarely think of fish. But there’s growing evidence to show that the various species living in the planet’s waters have greater intellects than we’ve given them credit for.
7 min |
September 2018
BBC Earth
Where Does Time Come From?
US physicist Prof Richard Muller thinks that new chunks of time could be created as the universe expands. And he wants to peer into the heart of colliding black holes to prove it…
6 min |
July 2017
BBC Earth
Who Wants To Live Forever?
A new facility will store tens of thousands of cryogenically frozen people The hope is to one day bring them back to life, but just how realistic are its aims?
6 min |
May 2017
BBC Earth
What's At The Centre Of The Earth?
We live on the surface of a dense, rocky ball, but science has allowed us to peer deep within its core.
8 min |
April 2017
BBC Earth
Dinosaur Brain Identified for First Time Ever
This ‘brown pebble’ found by a fossil hunter in Sussex more than a decade ago has been confirmed as the first known example of dinosaur brain tissue.
2 min |