Between 1968 and 1972, nine American spacecraft voyaged to the Moon, and 12 men walked upon its surface. They remain the only human beings to have stood on another world.

In the Shadow of the Moon brings together for the first, and very possibly the last, time surviving crew members from every single Apollo mission which flew to the Moon, and allows them to tell their story in their own words.

The definitive story of going to the moon, told by those who went. Between 1969 and 1972 an elite group of men achieved an incredible dream. They were, and remain, the only human beings to set foot on a planet other than our own.

These personal testimonies are interwoven with digitally remastered footage from Nasa film archives, much of it previously unseen and all of it hauntingly evocative of a bygone era. The result is an intimate and epic film which vividly communicates the daring and the danger, the pride and the passion, of this band of special young men.

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There’s something very odd going on in space – something that shouldn’t be possible. It is as though vast swathes of the universe are being hoovered up by a vast and unseen celestial vacuum cleaner. Sasha Kaslinsky, the scientist who discovered the phenomenon, is understandably nervous: ‘It left us quite unsettled and jittery’ he says, ‘because this is not something we planned to find’.

The accidental discovery of what is ominously being called ‘dark flow’ not only has implications for the destinies of large numbers of galaxies – it also means that large numbers of scientists might have to find a new way of understanding the universe. Dark flow is the latest in a long line of phenomena that have threatened to re-write the textbooks. Does it herald a new era of understanding, or does it simply mean that everything we know about the universe is wrong?

14 billion years ago there was nothing; then everything exploded into existence and the universe was born, but a new generation of cosmologists are questioning this theory. Cosmologists have created a replica of the universe by using equations; it’s called the standard model of cosmology and it’s the reason behind the Big Bang theory; however, this model is now doubted. Professor Alan Guth’s theory challenges the Big Bang by stating that the universe started out small, allowing the temperature to even out everywhere, before expanding on a massive scale.

Stars nearer the edge of a galaxy move just as fast as those in the centre. This made cosmologists think that galaxies needed more gravity, but the only way to get more gravity was to create it. Astrophysicist Dan Bauer is hunting for dark matter half a mile under the dark plains of Minnesota in order to trace and record it more effectively. The discovery that the universe is speeding up suggests that a new force is powering the universe. This force is known as dark energy, and cosmologists have no idea what it is.

The combination of the standard model, inflation and dark matter has given way to a new theory called dark flow. The nature of this theory could show that our universe isn’t the only one. The standard model of cosmology has withstood much criticism, therefore making the theory stronger; however it could still be totally wrong.

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The Brain is an astonishing voyage of discovery into our last biological frontier. Although today’s computers can make calculations in one-100th of a second and technology can transport us outside the bonds of Earth, only now are we beginning to understand the most complex machine in the universe.

Using simple analogies, real-life case studies, and state-of-the-art CGI, this special shows how the brain works, explains the frequent battle between instinct and reason, and unravels the mysteries of memory and decision-making.

It takes us inside the mind of a soldier under fire to see how decisions are made in extreme situations, examines how an autistic person like Rain Man develops remarkable skills, and takes on the age-old question of what makes one person good and another evil.

Research is rushing forward. We’ve learned more about the workings of the brain in the last five years than in the previous one hundred.

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Second Skin takes an intimate, disturbing look at three sets of computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging genre of computer games called Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs).

World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest allow millions of users to simultaneously interact in virtual spaces.

Second Skin introduces us to couples who have fallen in love without ever meeting, disabled players whose lives have been given new purpose, those struggling with addiction, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, wealthy entrepreneurs and legendary guild leaders–all living within a world that doesn’t quite exist.

Second Skin focuses on a couple who met in a virtual world, an addict whose life was ruined by MMOs, and a group of MMO gamers who spend most of their lives inside virtual worlds.

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Nuclear Nightmares talks about how “radiophobia”, the fear of radioactivity, is widespread and yet not based on scientific evidence. After the Chernobyl accident, a lot of death toll numbers appeared in the news, some close to 400.000 people dead, but the reality is the only 57 (yes, 57) deaths can be directly or indirectly linked to the accident.

It appears that low doses of radiation are not harmful, since the body already has methods of defense. Only after a certain threshold, radiation begins to harm the body. More than that, low doses of radiation seem to start the genes responsible with the protection against cancer, therefore the number of cases of cancer in regions with higher than normal background radiation is actually lower.

Of course, it was normal for people to fear radiation during the Cold War and now, as our fossil fuel reserves are close to depletion, nuclear energy is something desperately needed to compensate. How much of this documentary was actually about dispelling the exaggerated fear of radiation and how much was about promoting nuclear power is for you to decide.

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On January 3, 2004, a compact rover named Spirit, cushioned inside a pyramid of balloons, hurtled through the martian atmosphere and crash-landed on the dusty surface of Mars. Minutes later, Spirit sent its first message home. The elation of the assembled scientists, along with the much more involved engineering story leading up to the landing, were captured by NOVA producer Mark Davis in his popular documentary MARS Dead or Alive. That elation is the starting point for the sequel, Welcome to Mars.

Welcome to Mars follows the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity from the second they crash-land on the planet to many months into their ongoing mission. Davis covered the story from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as it unfolded and provided a unique, behind-the-scenes take on this voyage of discovery, whose primary goal is to find evidence that liquid water once existed on Mars.

The mission has had its share of drama. The first two weeks after Spirit’s landing were euphoric, with fantastic new images arriving every day. But just a few weeks into its mission, Spirit suddenly went silent… and then, inexplicably, started spewing gibberish. For three agonizing days Spirit’s engineers worked around the clock, trying to regain control of the unhinged rover. In the darkest hour, many feared that Spirit was doomed. Then, just hours before Opportunity began its own fiery plunge to the surface of Mars, engineers finally discovered the problem—a simple memory overload—and saved Spirit from an early death.

The unfolding science has been equally compelling. With Spirit back up and running, the scientists turned their attention to the arrival of its twin, Opportunity. After tearing through the martian sky and bouncing on the surface for several minutes, Opportunity rolled into a small, shallow crater at the site called Meridiani. Early the next day, the first color postcard arrived, and the scientists were stunned to see an outcrop of layered bedrock just a few yards away. Bedrock is the holy grail of geologists, holding an unambiguous record of geological history. This was the first martian bedrock ever photographed at close range.

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Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand. It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia – how did we get here?

In this documentary, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to uncover one of the great mysteries of science – how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder? It’s a mind-bending, counterintuitive and for many people a deeply troubling idea.

But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern. And the best thing is that one doesn’t need to be a scientist to understand it.

The natural world is full of awe-inspiring examples of the way nature transforms simplicity into complexity. From trees to clouds to humans – after watching this film you’ll never be able to look at the world in the same way again. Find out more about the secret life of chaos.

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The Pleasure of Finding Things Out was filmed in 1981 and will delight and inspire anyone who would like to share something of the joys of scientific discovery. Feynman is a master storyteller, and his tales – about childhood, Los Alamos, or how he won a Nobel Prize – are a vivid and entertaining insight into the mind of a great scientist at work and play.

In this candid interview Feynman touches on a wide array of topics from the beauty of nature to particle physics. He explains things that are hard to grasp in layman’s terms much like Carl Sagan did in the cosmos series. His explanation of the scientific method covers what we know, why we know it and most importantly, what we don’t know and the pleasure of figuring it out.

While the video quality is less than desirable the content of this program more than makes up for it. Professor Sir Harry Kroto, Nobel Prize for Chemistry said “The 1981 Feynman Horizon is the best science program I have ever seen. This is not just my opinion – it is also the opinion of many of the best scientists that I know who have seen the program… It should be mandatory viewing for all students whether they be science or arts students.”

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In this three-part BBC series, Dr Adam Rutherford tells the extraordinary story of the scientific quest to discover the secrets of the living cell. The first part, The Hidden Kingdom, explores how centuries of scientific and religious dogma were overturned by the earliest discoveries of the existence of cells, and how scientists came to realise that there was, literally, more to life than meets the eye.

The second part, The Chemistry of Life, episode explores how scientists delved ever deeper into the world of the cell, seeking to reveal the magic ingredient that can spark a bundle of chemicals into life. Their discoveries have brought us to the brink of being able to create life for ourselves.

The third and final part, The Spark of Life, reveals how our knowledge of cells has brought us to the brink of one of the most important moments in history. Scientists are close to repeating what has happened only once in four billion years – the creation of a new life form.

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The Hidden Kingdom

The Chemistry of Life

The Spark of Life

An interesting documentary about the future of the human species.

This is a documentary about a controversial theory regarding the mechanism that drove the evolution of humans from primates to modern man; challenging the presently accepted evolutionary premise. It also speculates on humanity’s future evolutionary path.

Homo Futurus is a controversial because it presents a theory regarding the mechanism driving the evolution of humans from primates to modern man that is distinctly non-Darwinian.

The theory being proposed challenges the presently accepted evolutionary premise that genetic mutations and environmental pressures are the prime influences for natural selection. It also speculates on humanity’s long term future evolutionary path. So prepare to take a glimpse at the faces of our descendants.

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