How many episodes in 41 season: 13 episodes
Space Tourists Horizon meets the men who are attempting to sell us a return ticket to the stars. From eccentric entrepreneurs to billionaire business men like Richard Branson the race is on to turn space tourism into a reality. Virgin Galactic claims it will be the first company to take paying customers into space in about two years time. It's been tried before and always ended in failure, so how does Branson intend to do what the might of NASA never could - make space travel available to everyone? Since the 1960s, millions of people have been waiting to follow in the footsteps of the astronauts. As early as 1969, when Pan Am Airways started its 'moon flight club', there were indications that commercial space flight wasn't far off. But three decades and several false starts later, space remains the domain of professional astronauts. By 1996 space entrepreneur Peter Diamandis decided that if space tourism was ever going to get off the ground it would need a catalyst. So he established the XPrize; a million dollar prize for the first commercial manned craft to get to sub orbit - 62 miles above the earth - twice in two weeks. The competition produced 26 entrants that ranged from a former real estate developer to a computer games millionaire and one of the world's most prolific aircraft designers. In the end the XPrize did produce a winner but it remains to be seen whether Virgin Galactic will really take its first paying customers to space in 2008.
Horizon follows the emotional story of Rachel, Joanne and Naomi, as they attempt to overcome the odds and give birth to a baby. With a history of heartbreak behind them, these three women are travelling to the largest recurrent miscarriage clinic in Europe, where Professor Lesley Regan offers her patients the hope of a precious new life.
Horizon tells the story of how one of science's greatest theories is facing one of its greatest threats. The theory of evolution is under attack from a controversial new idea called intelligent design, an idea that claims to give an alternative explanation for the origin of life on earth. This new movement claims to be scientific but to many it threatens to replace science with God. Now some of its most high profile critics - Sir David Attenborough and Richard Dawkins amongst them - are speaking out in an attempt to halt the movement's rise and keep religion out of science. Horizon examines the scientific claims for intelligent design and explores a battle that could shape the future of scientific understanding for years to come.
Six months after the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, scientists investigate how New Orleans's flood defences failed to stop it becoming waterlogged. As the city sinks, global sea levels are rising and the coastline that protects it is disappearing - prompting experts to wonder whether it should be rebuilt at all.
Investigating the substances that make up the universe. Only four per cent of matter is recognised by scientists - and while some claim they know what the rest is made of, others believe there is a fundamental problem with the supposedly concrete theories of Newton.
Two thousand years ago a mysterious and little known civilization ruled the northern coast of Peru. Its people were called the Moche. They built huge and bizarre pyramids that still dominate the surrounding countryside; some well over a hundred feet tall. Many are so heavily eroded they look like natural hills; only close up can you see they are made up of millions of mud bricks. Several of the pyramids, known as 'huacas', meaning sacred site in the local Indian dialect, contain rich collections of murals depicting both secular and sacred scenes from the Moche world. Others house the elaborate tombs of Moche leaders. Out in the desert, archaeologists have also found the 2,000-year-old remains of an extensive system of mud brick aqueducts which enabled the Moche to tame their desert environment. Many are still in use today. Indeed there are signs that the Moche irrigated a larger area of land than farmers in Peru do now. But who were the Moche? How did they create such an apparently successful civilization in the middle of the desert, what kind of a society was it, and why did it disappear? For decades it was one of the greatest archaeological riddles in South America. But now at last, scientists are beginning to come up with answers.
On Boxing Day 2004 the world was shocked by one of the worst natural disasters of all time. The cause of so much devastation was the most powerful kind of earthquake on the planet - a megathrust. Megathrust earthquake only occur on a particular kind of fault. Scientists have now discovered that just such a fault could cause a huge megathrust earthquake and tsunami right off the coast of North America.
No public health issue of recent years has attracted such heated debate as the question of whether the MMR vaccine can cause autism. The MMR jab combines three childhood vaccines, against measles, mumps and rubella, into one injection, which is first given to children at around 12-18 months. It has virtually eradicated these diseases from the UK, and throughout the world it has saved hundreds of lives. Recent years, however, have seen the rates of MMR vaccination decline. In some areas of the UK, only 60% of children are receiving MMR. This decline has already let to a rise in the number of measles infections, and there are fears of an epidemic outbreak. The reason for all the concern over MMR is the suggestion that the vaccine might in fact be damaging some of the children it was supposed to protect.
