Lead
The impact of the use and abuse of lead on humanity. Read more
now playing
In Their Element
The impact of the use and abuse of lead on humanity.
Phosphorus
How a discovery in boiled urine led to the trade union movement and chemical weapons.
Iodine
Why iodine is essential for our health?
Gold and silver
Science and art of gold and silver
Aluminium and strontium
Science and art of aluminium and strontium
Helium
Science and art of helium
The Evidence: Covid 19: Transmission and South America
How South America is handling the pandemic and a look at disease transmission.
The Evidence: Covid 19: vaccines and after lockdown
The latest on vaccines and how people are behaving after lockdown
Covid-19: Recovery
The latest on how people are recovering from Covid-19
The Origin of Stuff
Toothbrush
Katy Brand investigates the toothbrush from its humble start, as a stick, to the present.
High heel
Katy Brand tracks the extraordinary life of the high heel, from past to the present.
Fork
Katy Brand explores the life of the unsung hero of the cutlery world – the fork.
Wine glass
Katy Brand toasts the wine glass, learning why it became the gargantuan glass it is today
Toilet
Katy Brand reveals how attitudes to the toilet have shaped it's place in history.
Bed
Katy Brand reveals how our attitudes to sleep, sex and status are played out in the bed.
Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall describes her life with the wild chimpanzees of Gombe.
Brian Greene
Brian Greene studies the universe at the largest and smallest scales imaginable.
Human Genome Project's 20th Anniversary
Twenty years of the Human Genome Project
On the menu
Adam Hart explores our relationship with some of the animal kingdom's deadliest predators
Frank Kelly
What difference has lockdown made to our air? Frank Kelly talks to Jim Al-Khalili.
Professor Emma Bunce
Emma Bunce tells Jim Al-Khalili why she is intrigued by the gas giants Jupiter and Neptune
Liz Seward
Jim Al-Khalili talks to Liz Seward, Senior Space Strategist for Airbus Defence and Space.
Return to Mars
How will NASA’s latest robot rover search for life on Mars?
The growling stomach
Why do our tummies rumble - and when they do, does it always mean we are hungry?
The seeded cloud
Can we make it rain?
The Evidence: Covid lessons for safe school reopening
Will schools and colleges reopening fuel Covid-19 spread?
The sting in the tail
What’s the point of wasps?
Megadrought in Chile
Why Chile has a megadrought
The Evidence: Are national lockdowns evidence of policy failure?
Locked in the lockdown cycle – evidence for a more targeted response
Anatomy Of Touch
Touch hunger
Why we’re starved of touch
Unwanted touch
How can we stop unwanted touch?