trom

2013-03-27 18:04:32

Darwin’s Secret Notebooks

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YEAR: 2009 | LENGTH: 1 part (46 minutes) | SOURCE: DOCUWIKI

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Of the five years that he spends circling the world on the H.M.S. Beagle, Darwin spends a mere five weeks in the Galápagos islands and, contrary to conventional belief, his greatest epiphanies do not occur on the famed islands. Instead, they are a cultivation of years exploring the wilds of South America where forests become the cathedral of Darwin’s religion.

Encountering a world like he’s never seen before, Darwin’s senses are overwhelmed by a world teeming with life, but what he finds along the way is perplexing to a 19th century naturalist. He questions why do the fossils he discovers look like giant versions of the sloths and armadillos still living nearby; why do the penguins and other birds he sees use their wings as flippers, fins or sails – but not for flying; how could sea shells be found embedded in rock layers more than 100 miles from the sea? It is not until after he leaves the Galápagos – where mockingbirds, not finches capture his attention – that he is able to fully appreciate everything he has encountered and pull together his masterwork: The Origin of Species.

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Prehistoric ParkWalking with DinosaursThe Blue PlanetLifeCharles Darwin and the Tree of LifeLife in the Undergrowth

trom

2012-10-23 15:06:01

Life

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YEAR: 2009 | LENGTH: 10 parts (60 minutes each) | SOURCE: BBC

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Life is a nature documentary series made by BBC television, first broadcast as part of the BBC’s Darwin Season on BBC One and BBC HD from October to December 2009. The series takes a global view of the specialised strategies and extreme behaviour that living things have developed in order to survive; what Charles Darwin termed “the struggle for existence”. Four years in the making, the series was shot entirely in high definition.

The UK broadcast of Life consists of ten 50-minute episodes. The opening programme gives a general introduction to the series, a second looks at plants, and the remainder are dedicated to some of the major animal groups. They aim to show common features that have contributed to the success of each group, and to document intimate and dramatic moments in the lives of selected species chosen for their charisma or their extraordinary behaviour. A ten-minute making-of featureLife on Location aired at the end of each episode, taking the total running time to 60 minutes.

Life is produced by the BBC Natural History Unit in association with the Discovery Channel, Skai TVand the Open University. The original script, used in the British and Canadian versions of the series, was written and narrated by David Attenborough.

episodes:

01. Challenges of Life

In nature, living long enough to breed is a monumental struggle. Many animals and plants go to extremes to give themselves a chance.

Uniquely, three brother cheetahs band together to bring down a huge ostrich. Aerial photography reveals how bottle-nosed dolphins trap fish in a ring of mud, and time-lapse cameras show how the Venus flytrap ensnares insect victims.

The strawberry frog carries a tadpole high into a tree and drops it in a water-filled bromeliad. The frog must climb back from the ground every day to feed it.

Fledgling chinstrap penguins undertake a heroic and tragic journey through the broken ice to get out to sea. Many can barely swim and the formidable leopard seal lies in wait.

02. Reptiles and Amphibians

Reptiles and amphibians look like hang-overs from the past. But they overcome their shortcomings through amazing innovation.

The pebble toad turns into a rubber ball to roll and bounce from its enemies. Extreme slow-motion shows how a Jesus Christ lizard runs on water, and how a chameleon fires an extendible tongue at its prey with unfailing accuracy. The camera dives with a Niuean sea snake, which must breed on land but avoids predators by swimming to an air bubble at the end of an underwater tunnel. In a TV first, Komodo dragons hunt a huge water-buffalo, biting it to inject venom, then waiting for weeks until it dies. Ten dragons strip the carcass to the bone in four hours.

03. Mammals

Mammals dominate the planet. They do it through having warm blood and by the care they lavish on their young. Weeks of filming in the bitter Antarctic winter reveal how a mother Weddell seal wears her teeth down keeping open a hole in the ice so she can catch fish for her pup.

A powered hot air balloon produces stunning images of millions of migrating bats as they converge on fruiting trees in Zambia, and slow-motion cameras reveal how a mother rufous sengi exhausts a chasing lizard. A gyroscopically stabilised camera moves alongside migrating caribou, and a diving team swim among the planet’s biggest fight as male humpback whales battle for a female.

04. Fish

Fish dominate the planet’s waters through their astonishing variety of shape and behaviour.

The beautiful weedy sea dragon looks like a creature from a fairytale, and the male protects their eggs by carrying them on his tail for months. The sarcastic fringehead, meanwhile, appears to turn its head inside out when it fights.

Slow-motion cameras show the flying fish gliding through the air like a flock of birds and capture the world’s fastest swimmer, the sailfish, plucking sardines from a shoal at 70 mph. And the tiny Hawaiian goby undertakes one of nature’s most daunting journeys, climbing a massive waterfall to find safe pools for breeding.

05. Birds

Birds owe their global success to feathers – something no other animal has. They allow birds to do extraordinary things.

For the first time, a slow-motion camera captures the unique flight of the marvellous spatuletail hummingbird as he flashes long, iridescent tail feathers in the gloomy undergrowth. Aerial photography takes us into the sky with an Ethiopian lammergeier dropping bones to smash them into edible-sized bits. Thousands of pink flamingoes promenade in one of nature’s greatest spectacles. The sage grouse rubs his feathers against his chest in a comic display to make popping noises that attract females. The Vogelkop bowerbird makes up for his dull colour by building an intricate structure and decorating it with colourful beetles and snails.

06. Insects

There are 200 million insects for each of us. They are the most successful animal group ever. Their key is an armoured covering that takes on almost any shape.

Darwin’s stag beetle fights in the tree tops with huge curved jaws. The camera flies with millions of monarch butterflies which migrate 2000 miles, navigating by the sun. Super-slow motion shows a bombardier beetle firing boiling liquid at enemies through a rotating nozzle. A honey bee army stings a raiding bear into submission. Grass cutter ants march like a Roman army, harvesting grass they cannot actually eat. They cultivate a fungus that breaks the grass down for them. Their giant colony is the closest thing in nature to the complexity of a human city.

07. Hunters and Hunted

Mammals’ ability to learn new tricks is the key to survival in the knife-edge world of hunters and hunted. In a TV first, a killer whale off the Falklands does something unique: it sneaks into a pool where elephant seal pups learn to swim and snatches them, saving itself the trouble of hunting in the open sea.

Slow-motion cameras reveal the star-nosed mole’s newly-discovered technique for smelling prey underwater: it exhales then inhales a bubble of air ten times per second. Young ibex soon learn the only way to escape a fox – run up an almost vertical cliff face – and young stoats fight mock battles, learning the skills that make them one of the world’s most efficient predators.

08. Creatures of the Deep

Marine invertebrates are some of the most bizarre and beautiful animals on the planet, and thrive in the toughest parts of the oceans.

Divers swim into a shoal of predatory Humboldt squid as they emerge from the ocean depths to hunt in packs. When cuttlefish gather to mate, their bodies flash in stroboscopic colours. Time-lapse photography reveals thousands of starfish gathering under the Arctic ice to devour a seal carcass.

A giant octopus commits suicide for her young. A camera follows her into a cave which she walls up, then she protects her eggs until she starves.

The greatest living structures on earth, coral reefs, are created by tiny animals in some of the world’s most inhospitable waters.

09. Plants

Plants’ solutions to life’s challenges are as ingenious and manipulative as any animal’s.

Innovative time-lapse photography opens up a parallel world where plants act like fly-paper, or spring-loaded traps, to catch insects. Vines develop suckers and claws to haul themselves into the rainforest canopy. Every peculiar shape proves to have a clever purpose. The dragon’s blood tree is like an upturned umbrella to capture mist and shade its roots. The seed of a Bornean tree has wings so aerodynamic they inspired the design of early gliders. The barrel-shaped desert rose is full of water. The heliconia plant even enslaves a humming bird and turns it into an addict for its nectar.

10. Primates

Primates are just like humans – intelligent, quarrelsome, family-centred.

Huge armies of Hamadryas baboons, 400 strong, battle on the plains of Ethiopia to steal females and settle old scores. Japanese macaques in Japan beat the cold by lounging in thermal springs, but only if they come from the right family. An orangutan baby fails in its struggle to make an umbrella out of leaves to keep off the rain. Young capuchins cannot quite get the hang of smashing nuts with a large rock, a technique their parents have perfected. Chimpanzees, humans’ closest relatives, have created an entire tool kit to get their food.

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Prehistoric ParkBlue Planet 2Frozen Planet 2Nature’s Great EventsThe Blue PlanetSpy in The Wild

#animals #life

BBC One - Life

A look at the extraordinary ends to which animals and plants go in order to survive.

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trom

2017-01-27 19:43:44

Clean Eating: The Dirty Truth

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YEAR: 2017 | LENGTH: 1 part (60 minutes) | SOURCE: BBC

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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.

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BBC Two - Horizon, 2017, Clean Eating - The Dirty Truth

Dr Giles Yeo investigates the latest diet craze and social media sensation - clean eating.

^BBC

trom

2012-10-22 20:22:32

The Blue Planet

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YEAR: 2001 | LENGTH: 8 parts (30 minutes each) | SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

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The Blue Planet is a BBC nature documentary series narrated by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the United Kingdom from 12 September 2001. Described as “the first ever comprehensive series on the natural history of the world’s oceans”, each of the eight 50-minute episodes examines a different aspect of marine life. The underwater photography included creatures and behaviour that had previously never been filmed.

episodes:

01. The Blue Planet
Broadcast 12 September 2001, the first episode looks at how ocean life is regulated around the globe by currents and the varying position of the sun. Near a Pacific seamount, there is a large concentration of marine animals because when the current makes contact with the submerged rock, it forces upwardsplankton and other organisms. This in turn attracts other fish to the area that are higher up the food chain, like tuna, and those that are higher still, such as silky sharks. Off South Africa, a similar situation occurs every June when sardines migrate and are pursued by a caravan of various predators. The South Atlantic waters are the roughest, and storms also churn up nutrients to the surface. These feeding grounds have led to the world’s largest albatross breeding colony, on Steeple Jason Island, west of theFalklands. Phytoplankton forms the basis of all sea life, and every night some 1,000 million tonnes of creatures ascend from the deep to search for food. Lunar phases can also have a bearing on events and the mass arrival of Ridley sea turtles on a Costa Rican beach is shown. Herring initiate the most productive food chain, providing sustenance for humpback whales, and Steller’s and California sea lions. In addition, their eggs are nutrition for many, both above and in the sea. Along the coast of California, a migrating gray whale and her calf are targeted by a pod of orcas, who hunt down and kill the calf. Meanwhile another gray whale carcass has sunk to the bottom of the deep sea. Hagfish, a sleeper shark, and other scavengers arrive to feast on the carcass. A year and a half later the carcass is striped to the bone. This episode won an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Cinematography for Non-Fiction Programming”. George Fenton’s work in this episode won another Emmy for “Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Dramatic Underscore)”. This episode was broadcast in the United States with the title “Ocean World”.

02. The Deep
Broadcast 19 September 2001, the next programme explores the unknown depths of the ocean. Over 60% of the sea is more than a mile deep and it forms the planet’s most mysterious habitat. A sperm whale descends 1,000 metres to look for food and is followed. On the way down, a number of unusual creatures are witnessed, such as transparent squid and jellies, whose photophores give pulsating displays of colour. In such dark places, both being able to see (or sense movement) and the means of quick concealment are equally desirable. To that end, some use bioluminescence as a means of detecting food or evading predators. A descent to the very bottom of the ocean — some 4,000 metres — reveals life even at such cold temperatures, much of it new to science. It is dominated byechinoderms that sweep the sea bed; however, there are occasional large hunters, such as chimaera. In addition, sixgill sharks can grow up to eight metres in length and have remained unchanged for 150 million years. They are described as “living fossils” and relatively little is known about them. As the continental slope flattens out it joins the abyssal plain, which can form huge trenches. At seven miles, the deepest is the Mariana trench, and fish have been found there right down to the very bottom. Attenborough remarks that more is known about the surface of the moon. Species captured on film for the first time include the Dumbo octopus and the hairy anglerfish. This episode was nominated for two Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing and Outstanding Sound Mixing in the non-fiction category. It was also nominated for a BAFTA TV award for Best Innovation.

03. Open Ocean
Broadcast 26 September 2001, the third installment focuses on life in the “marine deserts”: seas that are furthest from land. Such waters contain the swiftest and most powerful of ocean hunters. A feeding frenzy is shown, as striped marlin, tuna and a Sei whale pick off a shoal of sardines until all within it have been consumed. Manta rays also gather to eat the eggs of spawning surgeonfish. Accumulations of plankton correspond to ocean ‘boundaries’ and consequently, schools of fish seek them out. This in turn attracts predators, and a sailfish is filmed on the attack. The only escape for smaller fish is to put as much distance between them and their pursuers as possible. Bluefin tuna are able to heat their bodies and so can hunt in colder conditions than the others of their species. Off the coast of New Zealand, an undersea volcano has formed an island and the nearby currents sweep many kinds of creatures to it, again creating huge feeding grounds. Another Pacific seamount is surrounded by hammerhead sharks, but not to seek food: they are there to allow other fish to clean them of parasites. However, others that are on the lookout for prey arrive in vast numbers. A large pod of common dolphins is too big to feed all at once and so splits up into smaller expeditions. One of these ends up near the Azores with a shoal of mackerel in its sights, but they have to compete for their quarry with an attendant flock of shearwaters and a group of adult yellowfin tuna.

04. Frozen Seas
Broadcast 4 October 2001, the next episode compares oceanic life in the Arctic and Antarctica. The winter in these regions brings temperatures of minus 50°C and frozen seas that create the biggest challenge. However, there are polynyas in the Arctic, which are free of ice owing to the pressure of currents on either side, and such places do provide refuge for some species, like the walrus and thebowhead whale. A pod of belugas is shown: their movements are limited to a single hole in the ice — therefore putting them at risk of attack from polar bears. Everything changes with the arrival of summer, when melting ice brings a variety of migratory visitors. At the other end of the planet, in the Antarctic, winter is even more harsh, but emperor penguins and Weddell seals stay throughout. Under the sea ice,krill shrink in size and revert to their juvenile form in order to save energy. Chinstrap penguins overwinter to the north, beyond the ice, but return during the spring to breed. Having managed to get ashore, they have to walk a great distance to find a nest site, and the most favoured is Zavodovski Island, an active volcano whose warmth keeps ice from forming. Further south, as the sea ice breaks up, humpback and minke whales appear, their target the abundant krill. The leopard seal is the Antarctic’s top predator. It is most effective underwater, and emperor penguins propel themselves at speed through its territory. Nonetheless, it almost invariably makes a kill.

05. Seasonal Seas
Broadcast 10 October 2001, this programme surveys the effects of the seasons on the world’s temperate seas — the most productive on Earth. Sable Island near Nova Scotia boasts the largest colony of grey seals, which breed there when the weather is at its worst. The pups remain marooned for weeks until the spring, when they are strong enough to swim. Spring also heralds the bloom of phytoplankton: it provides food for copepods, and they in turn are prey to jellyfish, which assemble in vast, million-strong swarms. On the Californian coast, giant kelp also flourishes and by summer, grows at the rate of a metre a day. It provides a sanctuary for shoals of fish and sea otters, the latter anchoring themselves to the seaweed when resting and keeping its grazers in check by eating them. Late summer in Alaska sees Pacific salmon heading inshore to breed. However, the level of their favoured river is too low and they are forced to wait in the open sea, where they fall prey to a salmon shark. The early autumn near Vancouver Island, and the temperature drops slowly. There, the last of the year’s baby herring become the focus for a feeding frenzy by diving auks and murres, and marauding rockfish. Pacific white-sided dolphins also inhabit these waters and, when not hunting nocturnally, socialise during the day. As winter arrives in the north, adult herring seek shelter but are hunted by orca, which club the fish with their tails to subdue them by creating waves of pressure.

06. Coral Seas
Broadcast 17 October 2001, the next instalment is about coral reefs, which are so crowded that they play host to a perpetual battle for space, even among the coral itself. It starts life as a larva that becomes a polyp. Having multiplied, it hardens into a limestone skeleton and grows to form a reef. As the community flourishes, animals develop relationships with one another and such a place can feature a huge variety of ocean life. Although corals feed nocturnally on plankton, sunlight] is vital because even though they are animals, each contains millions of single-celled algae. This in turn is the favoured sustenance of the humphead parrotfish, whose jaws are so powerful that it erodes much of the reef into fine sand. Algae also grows on the top of the reef and a battle for grazing rights between shoals ofpowder blue and convict tangs is shown, the former being initially overwhelmed by the latter’s weight of numbers before regaining the upper hand. The night-time hunting of a marbled ray alerts other predators and a group of whitetip reef sharks moves in, from which few are safe. Several breeding strategies are examined, including the acrobatic habits of brown surgeonfish and the colourful courtship of the flamboyant cuttlefish. Humpback whales are visitors to the reef and males establish their seniority by the loudness and strength of their song. Being fixed to the seabed, corals must synchronise their reproduction with lunar phases and the rising spring temperatures.

07. Tidal Seas
Broadcast 24 October 2001, the penultimate episode deals with marine life that is structured around the rising and falling tides. These are caused by the gravitational pull of the orbiting moon, but in some locations, this can also combine with the power of the sun to create a tidal bore. The world’s largest tides are to be found in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia and therefore it is a rich feeding ground. A school offinback whales is closely shadowed by a flock of Cory’s shearwaters. However, they only have a limited time to feed before low tide, when they must retreat and other creatures appear. Elsewhere, some of the latter include sand bubbler crabs, bears (which feed on shellfish) and a snail species that can ‘surf’. The extreme spring tides allow opportunists to forage further, and raccoons are shown tackling a red rock crab. Some larger fish that hunt on the seabed, such as nurse sharks and stingrays, are forced to sit and wait until there is sufficient water in which to swim. A giant horse conch is shown devouring a tulip snail, and hermit crabs battle over its vacant shell. The varying water levels are no obstacle to tarpon: they can breathe air. This enables them to inhabit stagnant areas and hunt in them. The autumn equinox combines with a hurricane off the Bahamas to create a much higher tide than is usual, flooding large parts of the coast. When the sea recedes, it leaves behindsalt: food for brine shrimps and the perfect habitat in which flamingos can breed.

08. Coasts
Broadcast 31 October 2001, the final programme examines the world’s coastal environments, “the most dynamic of all ocean habitats”. The perils of living in such places are highlighted by Marine Iguanas on the Galápagos Islands, whose diet of seaweed is quickly grabbed between crashing breakers. Many shores provide sites in which to breed or lay eggs. Apart from birds, turtles are among other major species to do so, and the mass emergence of flatbacks on Crab Island in Australia is reduced by predatory herons, pelicans and other hunters. Each year, four million seabirds, comprising fourteen species, return to the island of Talan in eastern Russia to nest. By ensuring that all their chicks eventually leave at the same time, they lessen the impact of predators. The rough seas of the Southern Ocean play host to penguins, and a group of them is shown being pursued by an aggressive bull sea lion. The planet’s coldest seas are in Antarctica, and on South Georgia each spring, thousands of Southern elephant seals arrive to breed. A pair of males is shown fighting a bloody battle to control a harem of females. In Patagonia, the social nature of sea lions is shown as they establish colonies, each of them several hundred strong. While in some respects it is an ideal location for the growing young, high tide brings danger for the colony as a pod of orcas habitually goes on the attack. Having snatched a victim, the predator returns to the open ocean to ‘play’ with it.

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#nature #ocean #water

Blue Planet 2

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trom

2012-10-16 01:26:35

Walking with Cavemen

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YEAR: 2003 | LENGTH: 4 parts (30 minutes each) | SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

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Walking with Cavemen is a four-part television documentary series about human evolution produced by the BBC in the United Kingdom. It was originally released in April 2003. It was subsequently presented in the United States as a two-part series by the Discovery Channel and its affiliates. There was an accompanying book of the same title.

Like the other Walking with… documentaries, Walking with Cavemen is made in the style of a wildlife documentary, featuring a voice-over narrator (Robert Winston in the British release, Alec Baldwin in the North American release) who describes the recreations of the prehistoric past as if they were real. As with the predecessors, this approach necessitated the presentation of speculation as if it were fact, and some of the statements made about the behaviour of the creatures are more open to question than the documentary may indicate.

Each segment takes the form of a short drama featuring a group of the particular hominid in question going about their daily lives (the search for food, protecting territory, and caring for the sick and injured). The intent is to get the human viewer to feel for the creatures being examined, almost to imagine being one of them (a trait that the documentary links to the modern human brain).

The documentary was produced largely by the same team who produced the award-winning Walking with… documentary series, though the original series’ director, Tim Haines, was not involved.

In the previous Walking with… documentaries, extinct animals were recreated with CGI and animatronics. For Walking with Cavemen, a slightly different approach was taken. While most of the animals depicted were still computer generated or animatronic, the human ancestors were portrayed by actors wearing makeup and prosthetics, giving them a more realistic look and permitting the actors to give the creatures a human quality.

episodes:

01. First Ancestors

It’s 3.5 million years ago and in East Africa a remarkable species of ape roams the land. Australopithecus afarensis has taken the first tentative steps towards humanity by standing and walking on two legs.

Just a few million years previously, Africa was covered, almost edge-to-edge, with dense rain forest. Our ancestors almost certainly used all four limbs to move and live and hunt in their tree-top homes. But massive geological turmoil changed their destiny.

The rift valley was forming, and the rain forests dying as Africa dried out – turning the landscape into a mosaic of scattered trees and grass. In this new environment afarensis found it more efficient to move about on two legs rather than four.

This film follows a close-knit troop of afarensis, and in particular, Lucy and her young infant. Led by a strong alpha male, there is harmony in their lives. They sleep high in the trees and spend most of the day foraging for food. But then tragedy strikes. While drinking from a nearby river, a lone crocodile sneaks in unnoticed and catches the alpha male unawares.

Now leaderless, a dispute for dominance between the two secondary males unsettles the troupe. Added to that, a rival troupe invades Lucy’s territory. While not uncommon in their chimp-like lifestyles, the resultant turf war is both violent and extreme and has devastating consequences.

As the troop’s life moves on, ‘First Ancestors’ shows how although bi-pedalism offers only slight advantages to the afarensis, it opens the door to an astonishing set of new skills and abilities that will change the shape of human life on Earth forever.

02. Blood Brothers

The Africa of two million years ago is a crossroads in human evolution. Half a dozen or more different species of ape-men exist alongside one another. Each of them has exploited the environment in a different way and has developed their own strategy for survival.

Blood Brothers’ follows the lives of two species, Paranthropus boisei and Homo habilis who embody two alternative ways of ape-man life. Although heavyset, with distinctive gorilla-like faces, the boiseiare gentle characters. They live within a strict social structure and are led by a dominant male whose strength and power holds the group together.

They are adapted brilliantly to the tough conditions in this dry arid land. Their huge teeth, four times the size of our own, and strong jaws mean they can eat the toughest vegetation. For them dried tubers and reed roots are rich pickings.

The habilis have taken a different approach to survival. They don’t have the specialisms of the boisei but instead have developed into the archetypal jack-of-all-trades, inquisitive scavengers prepared to try almost anything to survive. Tough, active, gregarious and noisy, they are always on the move and always alert to the possibility of a meal. But in the near drought of the dry season the habilis are struggling. It seems as if their way of life cannot help them when conditions are tough.

However habilis have a secret weapon. They have come to use brainpower rather than brawn. They’ve learnt to work together to scare other predators away from food. They scavenge for meat and, perhaps most importantly, make basic stone tools – equipping themselves through their own efforts with the kind of specialist eating equipment creatures like the boisei have by nature.

But which strategy for survival will win out? Which of these ways of living is still present in us? As is often the case in our story, nature has a say: Massive geological turmoil means the habilis and boisei environments continue to change. The boisei‘s specialisms have locked them into one way of living, and when their niche no longer exists, neither can they. But the habilis can adapt to a changing world – their generalist trait lives on in us.

03. Savage Family

The Africa of two million years ago is a crossroads in human evolution. Half a dozen or more different species of ape-men exist alongside one another. Each of them has exploited the environment in a different way and has developed their own survival strategy .

One and a half million years ago, a new breed of ape-man walks the land. In southern Africa, Homo ergaster has taken the next step to becoming human. They have long, modern looking noses, which cool air as they breathe.

Their hairless bodies, with millions of tiny sweat glands, mean they don’t pant anymore to control their temperature – they sweat. And, above all, they have big brains – nearly two-thirds the size of ours.

Savage Family follows the lives of a close-knit group of ergaster on a hunt and discovers how they use are their big brains. They are the first ape-men to have our complex understanding of the natural world, and can recognise and follow the footprints left behind by many different animals. They are expert toolmakers and use a highly refined stone hand axe. But the most important things they use are their big brains for understanding others in their group.

Ergaster live in large social groups and spend their time getting along with each other. Their society is held together not by a dominant male, but by the bonds of family and friends. For the first time, hunters will bring back meat to people left behind from a hunt, using it to forge alliances and reinforce relationships. Their extraordinary social world has led to a new phenomenon in our human story – couples living together monogamously, at least for a time.

Their new found social bonds and understanding of the world has equipped them with skills that enable them to move away from their ancestral home in Africa. Over thousands of years they spread throughout the Middle East and Asia, reaching as far as China and are now known in their new Asian home as – Homo erectus.

But for all their sophistication, these ancestors are still very different from us. Jump forward one million years and they are still around, and so too are their stone axes. Nothing about their exceptional tool has changed. In a million years they have made no technological advancements. Compare this with Homo sapiens who have gone from the Steam Age to the Space Age in under 100 years.

Their brains simply do not work in the flexible way ours do. For them to become like us requires a major change in thinking. It could be we know what triggered this dramatic change. Towards the end of ergaster‘s time there is evidence that they learnt to control and work with fire as a weapon, for warmth and as a tool.

For the first time in our history the night no longer brought danger, but warmth, security and time for the mind to wander and perhaps time for the mind to change. Fire certainly revolutionised the way our ancestors lived – perhaps it did the same for their thoughts.

04. The Survivors

Nearly half a million years ago, the most advanced human yet roams Europe. Strong and powerful, Homo heidelbergensis are fierce hunters, use sophisticated tools and live in close-knit family groups.

They look and behave in a very human way – yet something is missing. In ‘The Survivors’, the final programme in the series, we follow three brothers on a hunt. When one brother is injured his distraught family spend most of the night trying to keep him alive.

Yet in the morning, the hunter is dead and his family have gone, leaving him where he died. There is no ceremony and no looking back. Heidelbergensis can only see the world as it is. They cannot, for example, think of a life after death, for they lack the one thing that makes us human – a modern imagination.

Heidelbergensis are the departure point for the last leg of the journey towards modern humans. Over 200,000 years they become split into two populations by extremes of weather and environment and evolve separately into two very different species.

In the North are the Neanderthals, whose physical power and resilience is the key to surviving in ice age Northern Europe. In one of the most inhospitable environments ever, a small group of Neanderthal are finding things tough.

The leader’s partner is expecting her first child, and the men must travel far to find food. If they’re unsuccessful, the group will have to move on – a perilous journey for the near full-term mum. In their world, being strong and tough is the key to survival. If the going gets tough, they just fight back harder.

In the South the other descendants of heidelbergensis, are finding the going even harder. About 140,000 years ago, Africa is in the grip of a devastating drought, and something remarkable has happened to the descendants of heidelbergensis who live there. The combination of environment and chance has bred in them a unique ability that will change the course of human history.

They have developed a mind capable of imagination. For the first time on E arth there is a creature capable of understanding and anticipating possibilities, with the gift of abstract thought. It very possibly saves them from the brink of extinction.

Although the Neanderthals were unbeatable for a quarter of a million years, it will be this small band of southern survivors, perhaps numbering just a few tens of thousands, who will come to dominate the world and be known as Homo sapiens.

SIMILAR TITLES:

The Incredible Human JourneyAlien from EarthHow Earth Made UsDawn of HumanityCosmos: Possible WorldsGreat Human Odyssey

#homoErectus #homoSapiens #humanHistory

The Incredible Human Journey

Favorite trailer magnet YEAR: 2009 | LENGTH: 5 parts (60 minutes each)  |  SOURCE: BBC description: The Incredible Human Journey …

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2018-11-03 00:15:06

The Day the Dinosaurs Died

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https://videos.trom.tf/videos/embed/1F1tiZnZ6xAVHAEuiTCskT?autoplay=0&title=0&warningTitle=0&peertubeLink=0


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YEAR: 2018 | LENGTH: 1 part (60 minutes) | SOURCE: BBC

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The Day the Dinosaurs Died investigates the greatest vanishing act in the history of our planet – the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

Experts suspect that the dinosaurs were wiped out after a city-sized asteroid smashed into the Gulf of Mexico causing a huge crater. But until now, they haven’t had any proof. In a world first, evolutionary biologist Ben Garrod joins a multimillion-pound drilling expedition into the exact spot the asteroid hit to get hard evidence of the link. The team overcomes huge obstacles as it attempts to drill 1,500 metres beneath sea level to pull up rock from the Chicxulub crater.

Meanwhile, paleopathologist Professor Alice Roberts travels the globe meeting top scientists and gaining exclusive access to a mass fossil graveyard in New Jersey – believed to date from the same time the asteroid hit. Alice also treks by horseback across the remote plains of Patagonia, to see if the effects of the asteroid impact could have wiped out dinosaurs across the world – almost immediately.

Alice and Ben’s investigations reveal startling new evidence of a link between the asteroid and the death of the dinosaurs, presenting a vivid picture of the most dramatic 24 hours in our planet’s history. They illustrate what happened in the seconds and hours after the impact, revealing that had the huge asteroid struck the Earth a moment earlier, or later, the destruction might not have been total for the dinosaurs. And if they still roamed the world, we humans may never have come to rule the planet.

SIMILAR TITLES:

The Incredible Human JourneyDinosaurs: The Hunt for LifeHow Earth Made UsPrehistoric PlanetRise of the MammalsThe Lost Tribes of Humanity

BBC Two - The Day the Dinosaurs Died

Ben Garrod and Alice Roberts investigate the sudden disappearance of the dinosaurs.

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