SETTING: 80 million years ago in the South American forests of Patagonia. The world is a very dangerous place for tiny hatchlings like Alpha, a female saltasaur. Follow Alpha along the road of her growth years, from before her birth through asolescence and on to adulthood, as she learns how to survive and beat the odds.

With Pierre Gasly announcing his departure from Alpha Tauri, Yuki Tsunoda has lost both a teammate and a friend. As Gasly leaves the Red Bull family for the first time in his career, more is expected of the young Tsunoda at Alpha Tauri, who is now being asked to prove that he is ready to take charge.

After eight grueling years of hunting in the hot, wind-scoured desert of central Africa, an international team of researchers has uncovered one of the most sensational fossil finds in living memory: the well-preserved 7 million years old skull of a chimp-size animal, probably a male, that doesn't fit any known species. According to paleontologist Michel Brunet of the University of Poitiers in France, whose team reported the find in Nature last week, there is no way it could have been an ape of any kind. It was almost certainly a hominid — a member of a subdivision of the primate family whose only living representative is modern man.

Boy or girl? It’s the eternal question. But that question may have more than two answers. Science reveals the line between male and female is blurred. And the battle of the sexes is happening deep within our cells. Are there more than two sexes?

The world of the armoured creatures is equally fascinating and bizarre. Galapagos giant tortoises solve the problem of making love in a suit of armour; a heated sea turtle orgy leaves females in mortal danger and we witness the explosive arrival of a baby pig-nosed turtle. Giant salt-water crocodiles crowd a flooded river-run to fish for mullet and a caiman leads her brood in a touching trek to a communal crèche.

Sir David Attenborough chooses his favorite recordings from the natural world --from the song of the largest lemur to the song of the humpback whale to the song of the lyrebird-- that have revolutionized our understanding of song. The science of song had been transformed by Charles Darwin’s theory of sexual selection: singing is dangerous as it reveals the singer’s location to predators, but it also offers the male a huge reward, the chance to attract a female and pass on genes to the next generation. Today, new science in the field of birdsong is transforming those long-held ideas.
Scientists are discovering that, in fact, in the majority of all songbird species, females sing - and it is only now they are being properly heard. Through this revelation and others, we can understand that animal songs are marvellous examples of the spectacular survival strategies that species have developed.