Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK - causing more deaths in this group than car accidents, and even more than cancer. This means that the most likely thing to kill Dr Xand Van Tulleken is himself. And he wants to know why.
In this sensitive film, Xand finds out what we know about why people develop suicidal thoughts, and whether there is anything that we ca...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bcmjht/horizon-2018-4-spina-bifida-me
One in every 1,000 pregnancies in Britain has a spine or brain defect like spina bifida. Thirty years ago, actress Ruth Madeley was one of them. Despite having spina bifida herself, it is a condition she doesn't fully understand. In this programme, Ruth sets out to discover why she has it, whether it ...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bb33ht/horizon-2018-3-how-to-build-a-time-machine
Time travel is not forbidden by the laws of nature, but to build a time machine, we would need to understand more about those laws and how to subvert them than we do now. And every day, science does learn more. In this film Horizon meets the scientists working on the cutting edge of discov...
Facebook is a company that has grown from nothing to be worth half a trillion dollars in just 15 years. Today nearly a third of all humans are using it, and yet we rarely get to see the people actually in charge of the biggest social network in the world.
The company has suffered a series of deepening scandals and intense media scrutiny. In 2018, their mission - to connect ever...
Drones are transforming our world. We use them to deliver our medicines, clean our skyscrapers and even fight fires. But there is a dark side to this airborne revolution, from a shocking rise in drone-plane near misses above our heads to last year's sustained drone disruption at Gatwick – Britain's second largest airport – that ruined the Christmas plans of 140,000 people and c...
Tony Slattery was one of the most gifted TV comedians of the late 80s and early 90s. One of the Cambridge Footlight set that included Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson, he became a household name on Whose Line is it Anyway? Then in 1996, amidst rumours of a massive breakdown, he seemed to vanish from our screens overnight.
Now as he approaches 60, Tony has been touring...
Is your smart phone making you stupid? Can you make yourself cleverer? The Great British Intelligence Test measures the brainpower of the nation in one of the largest intelligence experiments of its kind.
Devised with leading scientists at Imperial College, London, over 250,000 people around the nation have taken part so far - revealing important new science about the nation’s ...
According to the UN, it is predicted that the human population could reach ten billion people by the year 2050. For broadcaster and naturalist Chris Packham, who has dedicated his life to championing the natural world, the subject of our growing population and the impact it is having on our planet is one of the most vital – and often overlooked – topics of discussion in an era ...
In America it’s an epidemic. Now new evidence raises concern about the UK’s use of prescription opioids. Michael Mosley goes on an immersive journey to ask what can be done about it.
The opioid epidemic has devastated America. But what’s the situation here? A new report from Public Health England raises serious concerns about Britain's own relationship with painkillers. Dr Mich...
A revealing and personal profile of Grammy Award–winning composer and producer David Foster, with interviews from the artists who know the music legend best, including Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, and Michael Bublé.
One of the most successful record producers and songwriters of the past half century, David Foster has worked on countless chart-topp...
People's Hospital No. 6 is one of the largest in Shanghai. Here, medical staff, patients and families with disrupted lives rub shoulders. Through intersecting stories, a portrait of today's China emerges between capitalism and traditional culture. Faced with the vagaries of life and unequal access to healthcare, Chinese tenderness and a sense of humor emerge when we least expec...
Tells the story of the last months of the 20-year war in Afghanistan through the intimate relationship between American Green Berets and the Afghan officers they trained.
The pressure to achieve more, do more, and be more is part of being human - and in the age of Adderall and Ritalin, achieving that can be as close as the local pharmacy. No longer just "a cure for excitable kids," prescription stimulants are in college classrooms, on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley...any place "the need to succeed" slams into "not enough hours in the day." But t...
In April 2013, chaos erupted in Boston near the finish line of one of the world's oldest and most prestigious marathons. It was the worst terrorist attack on the United States since 9/11 and led to one of the most extensive and public manhunts in American history. Now, as the one-year anniversary approaches, National Geographic Channel presents a special two-hour event, Inside ...
A documentary that tackles the ideological conflicts surrounding the December 21 election in the country, to the push for sovereignty and subsequent parliamentary declaration of independence and the aftermath.