Today on Discovery Enterprise we join Dr Michio Kaku in another exciting instalment of Sci Fi Science. Can science save us from a potential celestial 9/11 impact event?
Ninety percent of the rocks in space are big enough to destroy civilization. And it's not a question of if they'll hit - it's a question of when. Dr Michio Kaku is on a mission to save planetEarth.
The first and second seasons of Sci Fi Science, hosted
by Dr. Michio Kaku is a available on DVD from the Discovery Channel’s onlinestore.
Today marks the seventy second anniversary of Orson Welles’ infamous “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast that panicked America and it is only fitting that we at Discovery Enterprise mark the occasion. What if alien’s really were intent on invading and subjecting our planet. What can we possibly do? Here to provide the answer is maverick physicist Dr. Michio Kaku.
The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming! It's the cry at the heart of hundreds of Sci Fi movies what can we possibly do if a hostile alien force were really intent on invading Earth? We must be prepared for this onslaught and Dr. Michio Kaku has a plan.
The first and second seasons of Sci Fi Science, hosted
by Dr. Michio Kaku is a available on DVD from the Discovery Channel’s onlinestore.
It gives great pleasure to announce that this autumn an episode of Naked Science entitled “City Under the Sea” will be premiering Thursday, November 11 at 10PM on the National Geographic Channel. This documentary will feature our good friend Dennis Chamberland and the Atlantica Expeditions, First Undersea Colony Project.
The oceans cover 70 percent of our planet. Although science fiction writers and ordinary mortals have long dreamed of life under the sea, no human has ever lived there permanently. But with the planet becoming increasingly populated, can we afford to leave such a vast space unoccupied? What if we gave ourselves 10 years to create an undersea colony where 100 families could live? How would we do it? Where would we go? In this program we develop a step-by-step approach for setting up such an undersea colony. We meet experts who believe such a bold undertaking is possible and are already developing the technology that could make it a reality.
Coming this Fall Naked Science - City Under the Sea
Today on Discovery Enterprise we set forth on an odyssey that will take us towards the heart of the solar system and visit the inferno worlds of Mercury and Venus. Scorched by their proximity to the sun, Mercury and Venus are hostile worlds; one gouged with craters from cosmic collisions and the other a vortex of sulphur, carbon dioxide and acid rain.
Prime examples of planets gone awry, do they serve as a warning for ominous scenarios that might someday threaten Earth?
The Universe is available on DVD from Amazon.com and the History Channel’s
online store.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present another exciting episode from season one of the acclaimed documentary series – The Universe, and revisit the whole topic of stellar evolution and our cosmic legacy.
Ignited by the power of the atom, burning with light, heat and wrath, stars are anything but peaceful. They collide, devour each other, and explode in enormous supernovas–the biggest explosions in the Universe.
The Universe is available on DVD from Amazon.com and the History Channel’s
online store.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we are going to embark on a voyage to the center of the Earth. Two thousand miles below the Earth’s surface, there is a vast ocean of molten iron. Learn about a proposed mission to the centre of the earth to find some answers. What would it be like to travel to the center of the Earth?
It’s a place of unimaginable heat and pressure, where no life can survive. Yet without it we would perish—for it holds the key to our existence on this planet. Thousands of miles below the surface, the Earth’s core generates a protective magnetic shield around the planet. Now, scientists have uncovered evidence that this armor could be fading. Are weak spots in the Earth’s shield a sign that our planet’s magnetic poles are on the verge of flipping? Naked Science challenges our traditional geological models and takes you deep to the center of Earth.
A recent entrant into this emerging field is NanoLauncher. The startup will rely on decommissioned military jets outfitted with a rocket to send relatively tiny payloads into suborbital and orbital flight paths.
The venture will initially operate out of the United States at established spaceports, such as NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Fla., Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia and Vandenberg Air Force Base in Calif.
NanoLauncher plans to use existing technologies rather than create its own rocket or satellite deployment systems, said A.C. Charania, president of SpaceWorks Commercial, based in Washington, D.C. His company is working with three Japanese firms – IHI Aerospace, the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer, and CSP Japan, Inc. – to get NanoLauncher off the ground.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the fourth episode of the highly acclaimed documentary series “Walking with Dinosaurs” entitled “Giant of the Skies”.
In this instalment we voyage back in time one hundred and twenty seven million years to the Early Cretaceous and visit Brazil, North America, England and Spain.
The largest animals ever to fly were pterosaurs. With wingspans of up to 12m, they could be as big as a small modern glider. Pterosaurs were, to our eyes, a peculiar mixture of bird and bat. Their long beaks remind us of birds, but they had membranous wings like bats.
These were attached to their legs and they walked on all fours, with an erect, rather than sprawling posture. Although not necessarily very speedy on land, they were competent, especially the tailless ones. Their tracks have been found in rocks around the world.
There are actually two kinds of pterosaurs, ones with and others without tails. The tailed pterosaurs lived from the Late Triassic period to the Late Jurassic period, when they were replaced by the tailless ones. It is this second group, including Ornithocheirus, which grew to great sizes.
Our story begins with a male Ornithocheirus dead on a beach. It then goes back six months to Brazil, where the Ornithocheirus flies off for Cantabria among a colony of Tapejara. He flies past a migrating column of Iguanodon and a Polacanthus. He reaches the southern tip of North America, where he is forced to shelter from a storm. To pass the time, he grooms himself, ridding his body of Saurophthirus. Then he sets off across the Atlantic, which was then only 300 kilometres wide and, after a whole day on the wing, reaches the westernmost of the European islands. He does not rest here, as a pack of Utahraptor are hunting Iguanodon. He flies to the outskirts of a forest, but is driven away by Iberomesornis. He reaches Cantabria, but was delayed by the storm and cannot reach the centre of the many grounded male Ornithocheirus. Consequently, he does not mate and dies from exhaustion.
The Early Cretaceous period was a time of great change in animal life on land - new types of dinosaurs were appearing that would later be some of the most numerous on land - the ornithopods.
Small versions of these dinosaurs had actually been around since the Early Jurassic period, but only now did they come into their own. Iguanodon was one of the earliest of these large plant eating ornithopods; there were several species in Europe, Asia and North America.
Walking With Dinosaurs - Episode 4: Giant of the Skies
Today on Discovery Enterprise we take a look at the future from the perspective of the 1964 -1965 World’s Fair.
In 1964, Arthur C. Clarke made some very interesting predictions about the future world we are currently living in now from the 1964 New York World's Fair General Motors Futurama exhibit.
Today’s video clip of Arthur C Clarke comes from the highly acclaimed BBC documentary series Horizon from the episode "The Knowledge Explosion" first broadcast on 21st September, 1964.
General Motors was a pioneer exhibitor and with the technical assistance of Walt Disney's Imagineers created Futurama.
Futurama was a ride at the New York World's Fair in 1939 and was updated for the 1964 fair which offered its riders a glimpse into what life in the year 2024 would be like. The second video feature for today is promotional film by General Motors follows a young boy as he explores a lunar base of operation, an Antarctic weather forecasting center, undersea exploration and the typical positive 1960s thinking about the future of American design and living. The ride itself was one of the most popular attractions at the fair with over 25 million passengers during the 6 months it was open and the building which housed it was one of the largest buildings ever built for the 1964 New York World's Fair.
How ironic that this optimistic vision of tomorrow would be marred just a decade later by the energy crisis and mounting concerns over environmental degradation.
BBC Horizon - 1964 - Arthur C Clarke imagines life in the year 2000
1964-1965 New York World's Fair FUTURAMA Ride Video
Today on Discovery Enterprise we will discovery why diamonds are far more than a girl's best friend. This allotropic form of carbon has many technological applications that are revolutionizing science and industry.
Diamond is the hardest substance found on planet earth and for many centuries it has been one of the most revered and sought after materials by humankind. For years these precious gems have been admired as a thing of ultimate beauty and a sign of supreme wealth, steeped in mythology and deeply rooted in ancient legends, but today in the hands of modern day alchemists these precious stones are taking on a whole new value. In this program Naked Science examines the history of diamonds, and sheds light on how they may change the future. We meet scientists across three continents who are currently unlocking the secrets of diamonds and we find that what they are discovering may have the potential to revolutionize technology. As a gemstone we know that diamonds are costly, but as a raw material technologically advanced super diamonds are priceless.
t is an "opportunity for the future": an intentional crash landing onto a permanently shadowed crater on the Moon has produced evidence of large deposits of water. And that's not all. The water is accompanied by other volatile materials like ammonia, formaldehyde, and mercury. It is most likely held within a "fluffy" lunar soil that would be easy for future explorers to dig into. And these deposits probably extend beyond the Moon's permanently shadowed spots into "permafrost" deposits in sunlit regions that would be much more benign environments for exploration by robots or humans than the cold, shadowed places. All in all, the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) has both achieved its goal of confirming the long-theorized presence of water at the lunar poles and revealed the polar regions to be enticing prospects for both human exploration and scientific discovery.
The importance of this discovery can not be understated. We now know the Moon has life giving water and carbon and nitrogen compounds to manufacture fertilizer. Its seems a permanent colony can be established as long as a way can be found to extract the elements without getting stuck in the mud.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we are going to take a grand tour of the Outer Planets of our solar system. Our video feature for today is episode eleven of the first season of the History Channel’s outstanding documentary series – The Universe.
In this instalment of “The Universe” look at the solar system's most distant worlds – Uranus, a gas giant with the most extreme axial tilt of any known planet and its wildly orbiting moon Triton; its near-twin Neptune and its moons; and finally, distant Pluto which orbits the sun every 248 years. New discoveries regarding the Outer Planets are creating a fundamental rethinking of our solar system. Uranus is a toxic combination of hydrogen, helium and methane. Scientists speculate that the planet was knocked on its side.
This happened after colliding with another body. Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, is cold and barren, but some scientists speculate that liquid water might exist under Triton’s icy surface. If this is proven true, Triton could be the home to one of the biggest discoveries of all time. Cold and inhospitable, Pluto completes one orbit around the solar system every 248 years. Cutting-edge computer graphics are used to bring the universe down to earth to show what life would be like on other planets, and to imagine what kind of life forms might evolve in alien atmospheres.
The Universe is available on DVD from Amazon.com and the History Channel’s
online store.
The Universe: The Outer Planets
The Universe is available on DVD from Amazon.com and the History Channel’s online store.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we are going to take a voyage into space in search of Cosmic Monsters.
What begins as a star’s cataclysmic explosion in a violent supernova results in one of the most mysterious phenomena in our universe: a black hole. Black holes are the makings of science fiction, with fantasies of tunnel passageways that travel through space and time dominating the imagination.
Nothing survives a black hole; it’s gravitational pull twists space and time into a furious knot so strong that not even light can escape, making the likelihood of locating a passageway inside almost impossible. Are black holes a rare freak of nature or does the universe hide many of these mysterious phenomena? 125 billion galaxies make up the visible universe, with every major galaxy housing a black hole. Indeed, even our own Milky Way harbours a super-massive black hole, 50 million kilometres wide at the very centre of the galaxy. What role do black holes play in attracting matter together within the spider’s web of gas and galaxies? And, with their voracious appetites, what’s to prevent a black hole from wiping out solar systems like our own?
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the third episode of the highly acclaimed documentary series “Walking with Dinosaurs” entitled “The Cruel Sea”. In this installment we voyage back in time one Hundred and forty nine million years to the Late Jurassic to Oxfordshire, England. The Ophthalmosaurus breeding ceremony is the main event of the episode, but sharks and other predators, including Liopleurodon are on the hunt.
Was one of the greatest scientific and technological achievements of our age just an elaborate hoax? Was Neil Armstrong’s one small step just that- a small step in a studio in Area 51?
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present “The Truth behind the Moon Landings” a documentary that debunks the assorted Moon hoax conspiracy theories that have been circulating for the past decade.
Bill Kaysing the former head of technical publications for Rocketdyne is considered, by many, to be the father of moon conspiracy theorists.
Contradicting shadows in photographs, moon walk was a slow motion film, no stars in night sky, flag fluttering in a breeze, lack of Computing power to land the lunar module, can’t manipulate camera to take photographs, dust below lunar module should have been disturbed, film would be damaged by radiation… etc.
The Truth Behind The Moon Landingsalso on Google Video
Today on Discovery Enterprise we join Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, the hosts of Discovery Channel’s hit television series “MythBusters”, in laying to rest the myth that the Apollo moon landings were a staged hoax.
The MythBusters chose Marshall as one of several NASA locations for an episode to debunk the notion that NASA never landed on the moon. The cast conducted tests involving a feather, a weight, a lunar soil boot print, and a flag in a vacuum. A team of Marshall scientists helped with the tests.
The MythBusters built a small scale replica of the lunar landing site with a flat surface and a single distant spotlight to represent the Sun. They took a photo and all the shadows in the photo were parallel, as the myth proposed. They then adjusted the topography of the model surface to include a slight hill around the location of the near rocks so the shadows fell on a slope instead of a flat surface. The resulting photograph had the same shadow directions as the original NASA photograph from Apollo 14.
To test this, they built a much larger scale (1:6) replica of the landing site, including a dust surface with a colour and albedo similar to lunar soil.
The MythBusters then took a photograph which was nearly identical to the original NASA photo from Apollo 11. The MythBusters explained that the astronaut was visible because of light being reflected off the Moon’s surface.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we are proud to present the documentary “For All Mankind” the story of the Apollo voyages to the Moon.
For All Mankind tells the true story of the twenty-four men who travelled to the moon as the entire world watched in awe.
During the Apollo lunar missions from 1968 to 1972, those onboard were given 16mm cameras and told to film anything and everything they could, in space, in orbit, and on the surface of the moon itself.
Two decades later, filmmaker Al Reinert went into the NASA vaults to create this extraordinary compendium of their journeys and experiences.
Assembled from hundreds of hours of the astronauts’ own footage, with a soundtrack made up of their memories and a specially composed score by Brian Eno, the film takes the form of one journey to the moon and back again, building with elegant simplicity and exquisite construction to create an overpowering vision of human endeavour and miraculous experience.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we join Dr. Michio Kaku as he embarks on his most ambitious plan to date – the creation of a new solar system tailored made for humanity’s long term survival.
In this second season instalment of Sci Fi Science, Dr. Michio Kaku meets extra solar planet hunter Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution who identifies 47 Ursae Majoris as our nearest suitable star as the site for this massive astro-engineering enterprise.
But with no Earth like planets in orbit around 47 Ursae Majoris, it surely does not feel anything close to home. Gravity could be used to manipulate a moon into an Earth like position. But Dr. Kaku's thinking bigger than that. If he's building a whole new solar system for humanity, surely he should be able to harness the entire power output of our new sun. So he comes up with an incredible plan to completely encircle the sun with his own version of a Dyson sphere, which will act as a huge energy collector. What's more, once it starts spinning we'll be able to settle on the inside and become a truly stellar civilization.
The first and second seasons of Sci Fi Science, hosted
by Dr. Michio Kaku is a available on DVD from the Discovery Channel’s onlinestore.
Sci-Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible - A New Solar System
Today on Discovery Enterprise we join Dr. Michio Kaku for another exciting first season episode of Sci Fi Science as he theorizes how a powerful force field could be generated to protect future Starships.
Every Starship needs armour to protect it from asteroids and enemy attack- Dr. Michio Kaku reveals how cutting edge science could be used to create force fields that might one day save our space craft from an alien onslaught.
The first and second seasons of Sci Fi Science, hosted
by Dr. Michio Kaku is a available on DVD from the Discovery Channel’s online store.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the second episode of a new series that has recently begun airing on the Science Channel entitled “Phil Plait’s Bad Universe” hosted by noted Astronomer and skeptic, Phil Plait, who runs the website BadAstronomy.com.
In the second instalment of this exciting new series Dr. Phil Plait explores what it would take for a deadly alien visitation to happen on Earth, as well as answer that age old question: Are we alone?
Bad Universe is now available on DVD from the Discovery Channel’s online store and Amazon.com.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we embark on another time odyssey to the year 152, 000, 000 BC in Late Jurassic Colorado in the second instalment of the exciting documentary series “Walking With Dinosaurs”.
This episode follows the life of a young female Diplodocus. After hatching at the forest edge, she and her siblings retreat to the safety of the denser trees. As they grow, they face many dangers, including predation by Ornitholestes and Allosaurus, and a Stegosaurus, which kills one while swinging its tail. Close to adulthood, the group of young Diplodocus are nearly all killed by a huge forest fire and fire storm that night, leaving three, then two survivors including the female. They are driven out onto the open plains, where they find a herd. The protagonist female mates, but not long afterwards is attacked by a bull Allosaurus. She is saved when another Diplodocus strikes the Allosaurus with its tail.
Walking With Dinosaurs - Episode Two: "Time of the Titans"
If you could take the train journey from New York to London in less than an hour, would you do it? What if you had to make the journey through a tunnel 150 feet under the Atlantic Ocean? And on a magnetically levitated train traveling at 5,000 mph?
Today on Discovery Enterprise we are going to look at a mega-scale extreme engineering project that may see fruition in the early Twenty-second century.
The transatlantic tunnel is a theoretical tunnel which would span the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe and would carry mass transit of some type—trains are envisioned in most proposals. Using advanced technologies, speeds of 500 to 8,000 kilometres per hour (310 to 5,000 mph) are envisaged.
Plans for such a tunnel have not progressed beyond the conceptual stage, and no one is actively pursuing such a project. Most conceptions of the tunnel have it between the United States and the United Kingdom, or more specifically, New York City and London. The main barriers to constructing such a tunnel are cost— between $175 billion to $12 trillion and the limits of current materials science.
Thus far the transatlantic tunnel has only come to fruition in the works of speculative fiction.
The first suggestion for a transatlantic tunnel can be traced back to Michel Verne, the son of Jules Verne, who wrote about it in 1888 in a story Un Express de l'avenir (An Express of the Future). This story was published in English in Strand Magazine in 1895, where it was incorrectly attributed to Jules Verne, a mistake frequently repeated today.
In 1913, the novel Der Tunnel was published by German author Bernhard Kellermann, which inspired four films of the same name: one in 1914 by William Wauer, and separate German, French, and English versions released in 1933 and 1935. The German and French versions were by Curtis Bernhardt and the English was written in part by science fiction writer Curt Siodmak. Suggesting contemporary interest, an original poster for the English version was estimated at auction for $2,000–3,000.[5]
Robert H. Goddard, the father of rocketry, was issued two of his 214 patents for the idea. The late Arthur C. Clarke, mentions intercontinental tunnels in his 1956 novel, The City and the Stars.
The best depiction of this massive engieering undertaking remains by far the 1975 novel, A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!, by Harry Harrison which describes a vacuum/maglev system on the ocean floor. The April 2004 issue of Popular Science suggests a transatlantic tunnel is more feasible than previously thought and without major engineering challenges. It compares it favourably with laying transatlantic pipes and cables, but with costs ranging from 88 to 175 billion dollars.
Will such a tunnel ever actually be built? If suborbital transoceanic sub-orbital space-planes, such as Skylon or the Orient Express (the Rockwell X-30) become a reality, it is doubtful if the Transatlantic Tunnel and the staggering costs associated with its construction can ever become economically viable or justifiable.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present “Black Holes: The Other Side Of Infinity” and together we will take a voyage to the far side of forever deep into the belly of the Gravitational Beast - a Supermassive Black hole with Academy-Award nominated actor Liam Neeson.
This cutting-edge production was produced by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in association with NOVA. It features high-resolution visualizations of black holes and other cosmic phenomena based on data generated by telescope observations and ultra-high end computer simulations.
So buckle up your seat belts and prepare yourself for a breathtaking odyssey through space and time, with striking immersive animations of the formation of the early universe, star birth and death, the collision of giant galaxies, and a simulated flight to the super-massive black hole lurking at the centre of our own Milky Way Galaxy.
How does one go about building a real bona fide flying saucer? Is such a feat possible when so many other professional and amateur engineers have failed? An article I stumbled upon recently has inspired me to look at what scientists and engineers have to say about actually building this fascinating futuristic technology.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we ask the question - Is it real? Is there any real compelling proof that some time in the ancient past alien beings visited our planet?
And, in the course of their visit did these extraterrestrials mate with or genetically alter early protohumans and create our species - homo sapiens. Did these ancient astronauts teach early humans the rudiments of civilization and eventually build the pyramids and other glorious monuments of the ancient past?
Swiss author, Erich von Däniken, made such claims of extraterrestrial influences on early human culture, in books such as "Chariots of the Gods?", published in 1968. Däniken is one of the main figures responsible for popularizing the paleocontact and ancient astronaut hypotheses. Over a century’s worth of archaeological can easily discredit many of von Däniken’s claims.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the second part of the BBC Horizon documentary series which explores the mystery of whether the civilisation of Atlantis really existed - "Atlantis Reborn Again".
Horizon puts Graham Hancock's controversial theories about the past to the test, dissecting his evidence for a lost civilisation.
Although scientists believe they have categorically disproved the myth of Atlantis, the idea is more popular now than ever before. The latest exponent of the theory of a single lost source for all civilisations, is Graham Hancock. Although he does not call it Atlantis, his compelling ideas about a sophisticated society destroyed in a flood twelve thousand years ago seem to be based on a reworking of the original Atlantis myth, whose survivors brought culture, religion, monument building and civilisation to the rest of the world.
Graham Hancock offers various pieces of evidence to support his theory. He claims that the mysterious lost civilisation left its mark in ancient monuments, which he calculates were built to mirror certain constellations of stars. His hugely popular ideas have attracted such a wide audience that they stand to replace the conventional view of the past, which is based on scientific evidence that the civilisations of the ancient world were developed independently, by different peoples, on different continents.
Horizon journeys across the world to examine Hancock's evidence for a lost civilisation and puts his theory to the test.
Using modern astronomy, Hancock and his followers claim they can find messages from a lost society in the patterns of some of the greatest ancient monuments of the world. One colleague in particular, the author Robert Bauval, believes that the Giza pyramids in Egypt were built to mirror the stars of Orion's belt.
Hancock also believes that the great temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia mirror the constellation Draco as it would have appeared 12,000 years ago - at a time when the world was in the Stone Age. They see this as evidence that a great civilisation existed at this time, and later conveyed its wisdom to the peoples of the ancient world, before disappearing without trace from the archaeological record.
Astronomers, archaeologists and geologists study this evidence. Dr. Ed Krupp of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, is troubled by Bauval's claims.
Horizon further examines Hancock's claims that the Sphinx and the mysterious ancient city of Tihuanacu in Bolivia were built twelve thousand years ago by survivors of the lost civilisation itself.
It considers the idea that either Antarctica or an extraordinary underwater site at Yonaguni, in Japan was the original home of these vanished people. In a film full of contentious debate and powerful arguments, Graham Hancock's claims are pitted against cutting edge scientific analysis to discover whether his popular theory could be true.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present the first of a two part BBC Horizon special entitled “Atlantis Uncovered” which explores the mystery of whether the civilisation of Atlantis really did exist. Was there really, twelve thousand years ago, a fabulous city whose people had already evolved all the trappings of civilisation - sophisticated culture and society, writing, astronomy, religion, monument building while everyone else was still living in the Stone Age?
Ever since Plato first alluded to the mysterious city of Atlantis, destroyed in a terrible flood, the notion of an ancient, lost civilisation has been a compelling myth. The idea was revived in the nineteenth century to explain the tantalising similarities amongst different far-flung ancient cultures that had no connection with each other - why did so many ancient peoples build pyramids? Why did they write in hieroglyphs? Why was their understanding of astronomy and religion apparently so similar? The popular explanation was that Atlantis was the common source for all civilisation, that after their homeland was destroyed in a catastrophic flood, some twelve thousand years ago, the survivors of this super-race then travelled the world, spreading their knowledge to all. But if this theory is right, the whole of human history will have to be rewritten.
Jacqueline Smith's film explores whether this popular, yet controversial idea could be true. It examines the mysterious similarities between ancient cultures, and traces the fascinating scientific evidence that shows why the theory of Atlantis has been rejected by mainstream science. 'You could summarise it by saying it's a load of codswallop', says Professor Colin Renfrew. Cutting edge archaeology, geophysics, chemistry, and carbon dating show that there was no single source for all civilisations - that civilisations evolved independently, in many different places, at different times throughout history. Horizon reveals compelling research that traces the true origins of these far-flung cultures, and explains the apparent coincidences that so intrigue us all.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we begin a time odyssey of sorts to an age before the advent of the human species when monsters ruled the world with a land mark television - Walking With Dinosaurs.
Walking with Dinosaurs is a six-part documentary television mini-series that was produced by the BBC, narrated by Kenneth Branagh, and first aired in the UK in 1999. The series was subsequently aired in North America on the Discovery Channel in 2000, with Branagh's voice replaced with that of Avery Brooks. It is the first entry of the Walking with... series and used computer-generated imagery and animatronics to recreate the life of the Mesozoic, showing dinosaurs in a way that previously had only been seen in feature films. The programme's aim was to simulate the style of a nature documentary and therefore does not include "talking head" interviews. The series used palaeontologists such as Peter Dodson, Peter Larson and James Farlow as advisors (their influence in the filming process can be seen in the documentary The Making of Walking with Dinosaurs).
In the first instalment "New Blood" we go back in time two hundred and twenty million years to prehistoric Arizona during the Late Triassic and follow a female Coelophysis as she tried to survive in the dry season. The Coelophysis was shown hunting a herd of Placerias, looking for weak members to prey upon. Early pterosaurs (specifically Peteinosaurus) are featured, depicted in this first episode cooling themselves in what little water was present during the drought.
Map of the Earth During the Late Triassic 220 Million Years Ago
About 20 million years before the appearance of the first dinosaurs, the biggest extinction the world had ever known had occurred. Over ninety per cent of all plant and animal species then alive on land and in the sea had died out at this time. This Mass extinction gives the dinosaurs a chance to establish themselves. Even in the Late Triassic the world was still recovering and there was not the usual variety of life normally found on earth.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we present a science fiction motion picture classic – “Colossus: The Forbin Project” based on the 1966 novel Colossus, by Dennis Feltham Jones, about a massive American defense computer, named Colossus, becoming sentient and deciding to assume control of the world.
Dr. Charles A. Forbin is the chief designer of a secret government project. He and his team have built an advanced supercomputer, called "Colossus", to control all of the United States and Allied nuclear weapons systems.
Colossus is built to be impervious to any attack, encased within a mountain and powered by its own nuclear reactor. When it is activated, the President of the United States announces its existence, proudly proclaiming it a perfect defense system that will ensure peace. But, at what price?
Today on Discovery Enterprise we explore the question – Who built Stonehenge?
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about 3.2 kilometres west of Amesbury and 13 kilometres north of Salisbury.
Stonehenge is one of the most famous Neolithic sites in the world composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. It is at the centre of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds.
From Terminator to Star Wars, no Sci Fi block buster motion picture would be complete without a shape shifting intelligent robot.
Today on Discovery Enterprise we join theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku, as he reveals how such an artificial shape shifting intelligence could be created.
The first and second seasons of Sci Fi Science, hosted
by Dr. Michio Kaku is a available on DVD from the Discovery Channel’s online store.
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