Horizon

Horizon follows the work of R. Buckminster Fuller and his research of the geodesic dome.

At a time when the use of teaching machines is fast expanding, Horizon looks at the principles behind them and enquires into their success

Horizon follows experiments on the eyes being undertaken at the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago. The purpose of the experiments are to discover if our eyes can tell us things we might prefer to keep secret. In Romania, more than forty thousand people have been given Gerovital H3, in the belief that it will make them younger.

Horizon probes into whether aggressiveness is our birthright and can society live without violence?

Horizon reports on Prof. Sir John Baker who is a distinguished British engineer, tracing his career beginning from his early work on airships.

Horizon probes into the problems of obesity and investigates cures for obesity using diets and drugs.

This episode of Horizon centers on the study of the moon rock samples brought back to the earth by the Apollo 11 flight to the moon.

In this episode, Horizon looks a the efforts of zoos to save animal species from extinction by breeding enough to ensure their survival in captivity

In this episode of Horizon, you find out how feasible it is to build a 35 mile long tunnel between Britain and France.

Horizon examines sources of infection that have, and could still, cause epidemics in Britain.

This episode of Horizon explains how our body fights infections and cancers and brings us up-to-date on recent research in immunology.

This investigative report by Horizon covers an investigation into the deaths of people who inhaled asbestos dust at Acre Mill, Yorkshire, England.

Horizon investigates heart transplant research and techniques perfected and currently used by Dr. Norman Shumway in Britain.

Horizon documents the life of crocodiles and alligators, and their breeding and exploitation.

Horizon investigates how biologists and engineers are pooling their ideas to understand how nature's machines work.

Horizon presents an investigation into the potential and problems of using hydrogen as an alternative to existing fuels.

Documentary examination of the causes and conditions of the sinking of the Amoco Cadiz oil-tanker, in 1978.

Horizon presents a portrait of the renowned economist John Maynard Keynes, Cambridge Don, and Bloomsbury intellectual.

Profile of the snake, which presents a close-up look at how it kills and digests it's prey. Also shows how snake venom could be used in the treatment of many human ailments.

Horizon investigates if Britain should build a United States designed nuclear power station that uses a pressurized water reactor at its core.

Sir Cyril Burt died in 1971, the most eminent psychologist of his age. Within two years the most bitter and disturbing scientific controversy since Piltdown Man saw Burt accused of lifelong faking and manipulation of phoney data. How and why was Burt allowed to get away with this?

Documentary about colour perception based on the theories of Dr. Edwin Land, which oppose the long-held three-receptor theory of colour vision

Horizon presents a documentary about how white racists and black victims of racism volunteered to spend time in an isolated house living and talking about their prejudices.

Report on research into biological body clocks, which can effect emotional and physical health and well-being.

This episode of Horizon looks at a new approach that holds hope for the treatment of Parkinson's Disease.

Horizon looks again at the Human Genome Project which aims to decipher or sequence all genes.

After the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, Horizon looks at tanker design and the technology used for dealing with major oil slicks.

Documentary considering the nature of sudden death, the effects of coronary heart disease and the part they play.

Horizon presents a new study that has highlighted the case of breast cancer.

Horizons presents a report on a daring Swedish operation that transplants foetal tissue into the brains of Parkinson's disease sufferers.

Horizon brings you the international campaign to frame the laws of war by limiting the design and use of weapons aimed at "soft targets".

Horizon presents a documentary on the ideas of Maureen Raymo's thesis on what triggered the last ice age.

Investigates the case of the "Boxgrove Man". Follows archaeologist Mark Roberts who tries to piece together the history of the first Englishman, from a shin bone nearly 500,000 years old, discovered in Boxgrove in Sussex.

Horizon reports on the resurgence in research on psychedelic drugs in the 1990's.

After the 1991 Gulf War, a UN Special Commission was set up to go into war-torn Iraq, seek out Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and destroy or disable them. This remarkable Horizon follows the tension of the inspectors' every move as they track down secret military bases, Scud missile launchers, the infamous super-gun barrels, decaying chemical weapons dumps, and the remains of the nuclear research establishment, cunningly hidden amongst debris and the innocent-looking rubble of post-war reconstruction. At each stage in the cat-and-mouse game with the Iraqi security forces, the UN team had to draw on cunning and courage to force their way into secret locations. Day by day, they recorded their progress on video, and charted the tensions of diplomatic stand-offs as the world was twice drawn close to another violent confrontation in the Gulf. The courage of the UN team, drawn from scientists from all over the world, is graphically revealed as they attempt to gauge the lethal nature of rusting canisters of poison gas, at Saddam's decaying chemical weapons store. After the immediate rush of successes, the inspectors' work became a steady process of attrition - grinding on against the stonewalling of their hosts. "The weapons programme is like layers of an onion. Every now and then, Saddam would allow us to peel one back, but there is always more underneath." But five years on, the inspectors had still not tracked down proof of the darkest of Saddam's secrets: his biological weapons programme. However, painstaking detective work revealed that huge quantities of the media needed for growing biological organisms had been imported, and Iraq finally admitted to having substantial biological weapons, which are cheaper and more simple to produce than nuclear and chemical weapons, yet have the same destructive power. 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.

Horizon examines how observations of supernova in distant parts of the universe has provided evidence of the accelerating expansion of the universe. This new evidence suggests the existence of a new type energy in space which may have significant implications for the ultimate fate of the universe.

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.

Builders in Miami, Florida unearth a ring of holes. The State then pays $27million to preserve either a Native American village or remnants of a 1950s sewerage system.

On a winter night in 373 BC, the classical Greek city of Helike was destroyed by a massive earthquake and tidal wave. The entire city and all its inhabitants were lost beneath the sea. What has bewitched archaeologists about Helike is that it was engulfed just when ancient Greece was reaching its height; when the philosophy and art that inspired the western world for thousands of years were invented. Its destruction was one of the most appalling tragedies of the classical world and most probably the reality behind the myth of Atlantis. But now, unlike Atlantis, a team of archaeologists may have found Helike - a lost city from the heyday of Greek civilisation. If it is as well preserved as everyone hopes, Helike could be a time capsule from this crucial time in human development. For centuries there had been just no sign of it. All archaeologists had to guide them were obscure and often contradictory ancient texts. So, despite numerous expeditions trawling the waters off the coast of Greece and vast amounts of money and technology thrown at the problem, no one could find anything except two small coins, unearthed over a hundred years ago. Then, in 1988 Dora Katsonopoulou and Steven Soter took up the challenge. Dora had grown up with the legend from childhood and was determined to find the archaeological treasure on her doorstep. Together they went back to basics and re-examined the ancient texts. These said that Helike had sunk into a poros, which everyone had taken to mean Gulf of Corinthe. But Dora thought that a poros could also be an inland lagoon. If she was right, the lost city which had inspired Atlantis might not be under the sea, as everyone thought, but somewhere inland. Studying the geology of the region, earthquake expert Iain Stewart argues that a large earthquake could well cause an inland lagoon. Small recent earthquakes in the region have caused ground liquefaction - a terrifying phenomenon where the ground literally turns to water beneath your feet. If the same had happened on a much larger scale then the whole city could have been plunged downwards, taking much of the city below sea level. But the earthquake in 373 BC could also have had a second more devastating effect. As well as liquifaction recent earthquakes have caused chunks of coastline to fall into the sea. If this happened on a large scale underwater landslides could cause a large wave, or tsunami. This would race across the Gulf of Corinthe, ricochet off the opposite bank and come charging back again, to crash over the sunken plain and fill in the lagoon. Dora's theory makes sense, except for one thing. There is no lagoon in the region today. There is, though, a trail of clues that explains what could have happened. An ancient bridge that is strangely nowhere near water shows how river sediment coming down from the mountains changes the shape of the plain - over hundreds of years the lagoon would have silted up, hiding the lost city beneath solid ground. A host of boreholes drilled into the plain and a remote cave with the legend attached to it have helped pinpoint where the now underground city might lie. Slowly Dora and Steven have pieced it all together, but there have been several false starts along the way. The first lot of ruins they found were Roman - a settlement built hundreds of years after Helike's disappearance to honour the famous lost city. Next they found ruins that turned out to be prehistoric - an early bronze age settlement built 2,500 years before Helike. It wasn't until 2001 that Dora and Steven at last got their breakthrough. Whilst Horizon was filming, the team uncovered ruins from classical Greece. Securely dated by coins and pottery, the team are convinced they have at last found the city they've been looking for. It will take years to uncover Helike's riches, but for the first time in thousands of years, we have glimpses of the lost city that inspired Atlantis.

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.

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.

Horizon producer David Sington on why predictions about the Earth's climate will need to be re-examined.

Is a space tourism revolution just around the corner?

What if dinosaurs were still alive today? Would we hunt them, farm them - or even keep them as pets? It's a palaeontologist's dream: the chance to live in a world where dinosaurs are not something to be dug out of the ground but are living among us. It may sound far-fetched but dinosaurs were actually rather unlucky. The meteorite impact that doomed them to extinction was an event with a probability of millions to one. What if the meteorite had missed? Had dinosaurs survived, the world today would be very different. If humans managed to survive alongside them, we wouldn't have the company of most, if not all, of the mammals with which we are familiar today. Giraffes, elephants and other mammals wouldn't have had space to evolve. Would we be hunting Hadrosaurs instead of elk? Or farming Protoceratops instead of pigs? Would dinosaurs be kept as pets? And could the brighter dinosaurs have evolved into something humanoid?

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.

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.

Alcohol is by far the most widely used drug - and a dangerous one at that. So why are so many of us drinking over the recommended limits? Why does alcohol have such a powerful grip on us? How much of our relationship with this drug is written in our genes? What are the real dangers of our children drinking too young? Addiction expert John Marsden, who likes a drink, makes a professional and personal exploration of our relationship with alcohol. He undergoes physical and neurological examinations to determine its impact, and finds out why some people will find it much harder than others to resist alcohol. Even at the age of 14 there may be a way of determining which healthy children will turn into addicts. John experiments with a designer drug being developed that hopes to replicate all the benefits of alcohol without the dangers. Could this drug replace alcohol in the future?

Dr Kevin Fong investigates a technique that is used to bring people back from the dead.

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.

Plastic surgeon Dr Rozina Ali leaves the operating theatre behind for the frontiers of skin science and asks if it is possible to make your skin look younger without surgery. She discovers the latest research about how the foods we eat can protect our skin from damage, and how a chemical found in a squid's eye is at the forefront of a new sun protection cream. She also finds out how sugar in our blood can make us look older, and explores an exciting new science called glycobiology which promises a breakthrough in making us look younger.

Dr Kevin Fong explores a medical revolution that promises to help us live longer, healthier lives. Inspired by the boom in health-related apps and gadgets, it's all about novel ways we can monitor ourselves around the clock. How we exercise, how we sleep, even how we sit.

Michael Mosley investigates the alleged danger in eating red and processed meat, and does a one month test on himself, doubling his meat intake.

Investigating the story of how a Russian internet millionaire, Dmitry Itskov, is turning to cutting edge science to try to unlock the secret of living forever. The programme investigates the real science inspiring his bold plan to upload the human mind to a computer, and examines whether his goal of bringing about immortality for humans within thirty years is attainable.

Imagine if the food you eat could 'clean' your body and make you feel well. Dr Giles Yeo investigates the latest diet craze and social media sensation - clean eating. In a television first, Giles cooks with Ella Mills, the Instagram entrepreneur behind Deliciously Ella, one of the most popular brands associated with clean eating, and examines how far her plant-based cooking is based on science. She tells him clean has lost its way: "Clean now implies dirty and that's negative. I haven't used it, but as far as I understood it when I first read the term, it meant natural, kind of unprocessed, and now it doesn't mean that at all. It means diet, it means fad". Giles sifts through the claims of the Hemsley sisters, who advocate not just gluten-free but grain-free cooking, and Natasha Corrett, who popularises alkaline eating through her Honestly Healthy brand. In America, Giles reveals the key alternative health figures whose food philosophies are influencing the new gurus of clean. He discovers that when it comes to their promises about food and our health, all is not always what it appears to be. Inside a Californian ranch where cancer patients have been treated with alkaline food, Giles sees for himself what can happen when pseudoscience is taken to a shocking extreme.

The rarely seen journey back to recovery of Richard Gray after a life-changing catastrophic stroke. Initially bed bound and unable to do anything, including speak, the initial outlook was bleak, yet occasionally small glimmers of hope emerged. Armed always with her camera, his film-maker wife Fiona captures the moment Richard moves his fingers for the first time, and then over months she documents his struggle to relearn how to walk again.

Dr Kevin Fong makes a personal journey through the moral questions about death that face not just the medical profession, but each and every one of us.

Dr Michael Mosley immerses himself on the frontline of our prescription painkiller habit. In America, it is an epidemic. Now, new evidence raises concern about the UK's use of prescription opioids.

Gregg Wallace and mathematician Hannah Fry invite five special guests to a unique dinner party where they are scored on the environmental impact of every dish they choose.

As more people than ever report struggling with their sleep, Michael Mosley uses the latest science to explore how this impacts our health and what can be done to improve our sleep.

In medical science, there’s been no longer harder fight than against malaria. This is the inside story of a historic new vaccine - from the Oxford lab behind the Covid jab. Part of the Horizon strand

Top brain surgeon Henry Marsh is facing his own life-threatening diagnosis. He reveals the huge risks and emotional impact of a job filled with difficult life-and-death decisions. This heartwarming portrait of an eccentric surgical hero facing the end of his life reveals the truth about brain surgery and its human impact, with devastating emotional power and life-affirming honesty.