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The Silk Spinners

   2005    Nature
Silk is the invertebrates' great invention, used in a range of ways from from the protective stalks of lacewing eggs to the amazing hanging threads of New Zealand's 'glow worms'. Spiders, though, have taken silk-spinning to extremes. The common wolf spider has no web, but the female is a gentle parent, encasing her eggs in silk and carrying the precious bundle wherever she goes. The bolas spider uses a ball of sticky silk soaked in a copy of moth pheromone to lure its prey. Millions of communal spiders live and feed together in a vast, towering web - an arachnophobe's nightmare.
Series: Life in the Undergrowth

The Smartphone

   2019    Technology
Dial in to the fascinating history of the smartphone, from its roots in Morse Code to the latest models. Discover how the next generation of Smartphones will allow us to communicate through them just by thinking.
For most of history, we were isolated from the rest of humankind, but the urge to communicate with one another was so powerful that it changed how we interact and gave us a new interface with the world. The story of how we got here is full of the most astonishing twists and unlikely turns to create a device that put the whole world in our hands, the smartphone.
Series: Breakthrough: The Ideas That Changed the World

The Social Dilemma

   2020    Technology
Set in the dark underbelly of Silicon Valley, The Social Dilemma fuses investigative documentary with enlightening narrative drama. Expert testimony from tech whistle-blowers exposes our disturbing predicament: the services Big Tech provides-search engines, networks, instant information, etc.-are merely the candy that lures us to bite. Once we're hooked and coming back for more, the real commodity they sell is their prowess to influence and manipulate us.

The Social Struggle

   1995    Nature
Fourth episode examines how plants either share environments harmoniously or compete for dominance within them. Attenborough highlights the 1987 hurricane and the devastation it caused. However, for some species, it was that opportunity for which they had lain dormant for many years. The space left by uprooted trees is soon filled by others who move relatively swiftly towards the light. The oak is one of the strongest and longest-lived, and other, lesser plants nearby must wait until the spring to flourish before the light above is extinguished by leaves. Tropical forests are green throughout the year, so brute force is needed for a successful climb to the top of the canopy: the rattan is an example that has the longest stem of any plant. As its name suggests, the strangler fig 'throttles' its host by growing around it and cutting off essential water and light. Some can take advantage of a fallen tree by setting down roots on the now horizontal trunk and getting nutriment from the surrounding moss and the fungi on the dead bark. The mountain ash (eucalyptus regnans) grows so tall, that regeneration becomes a considerable problem. It is easily flammable, so its solution is to shed its seeds during a forest fire and sacrifice itself. It therefore relies on the periodic near-destruction of its surroundings in order to survive. Attenborough observes that catastrophes such as fire and drought, while initially detrimental to wildlife, eventually allow for deserted habitats to be reborn.
Series: The Private Life of Plants

The Spiral

   2012    Science
The Pythagorian philosopher Plato hinted enigmatically that there was a golden key that unified all of the mysteries of the universe. It is this golden key that we will return to time and again throughout our exploration. The golden key is the intelligence of the logos, the source of the primordial om. One could say that it is the mind of God. With our limited senses we are observing only the outer manifestation of the hidden mechanics of self similarity. The source of this divine symmetry is the greatest mystery of our existence.
Series: Inner Worlds Outer Worlds

The Spirit of forty five

       Culture
The film is focused on and celebrating the radical changes in postwar Britain under the Labour government of Clement Attlee, which came to power in 1945. Relying primarily on archive footage and interviews, and without a narrative voiceover, the documentary recounts the endemic poverty in prewar Britain, the sense of optimism that followed victory in World War II and the subsequent expansion of the welfare state, founding of the National Health Service and nationalisation of significant parts of the UK's economy.
The film documents the extent to which these achievements, as the filmmaker Ken Loach sees them, have since been subject to attack in the decades that followed, particularly under the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s
Building Giants

Building Giants

2019  Technology
Frozen Planet

Frozen Planet

2011  Nature
Dirty Money

Dirty Money

2018  Culture
Planet Earth

Planet Earth

2007  Nature
The Truth About

The Truth About

2018  Medicine
Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist

2007  Culture