MilkandCookies - BBC Horizon

Headline Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 228 Comments: 0

BBC Horizon: Sexual Chemistry First aired Thursday 13 February 2002, RT 48:32. The drug Viagra revolutionized the treatment of sexual dysfunction in men on its launch ten years ago. An accidental discovery, the tablet that gave impotent men the chance once more to have natural erections became the fastest selling pill in history and has earned its manufacturer, Pfizer, over $12 billion. The search is now on for a similar drug that could help women. Research is revealing that female sexuality is more complex than expected. For women suffering from a loss of desire many scientists believe that drugs acting on the brain may be the way forward. A pioneering Scottish study may have identified just such a drug and begun testing it scientifically. User: spam_vigilante May 16, 2008 4:12 AM

Headline Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 477 Comments: 0

Horizon: How Much is Your Dead Body Worth? BBC documentary, RT 48:57. When veteran broadcaster Alistair Cooke died in 2004 few suspected that he was yet to uncover his greatest story. What happened to his body as it lay in a funeral home would reveal a story of modern day grave robbery and helped smash a body-snatching ring that had made millions of dollars by chopping up and selling-off over 1000 bodies. Dead bodies have become big business. Each year millions of people's lives are improved by the use of tissue from the dead. Bodies are used to supply spare parts, and for surgeons to practice on. Horizon investigates the medical revolution that has created an almost insatiable demand for body parts and uncovers the growing industry and grisly black market that supplies human bodies for a price. First aired Tuesday 18th March 2008, 9pm, BBC Two User: spam_vigilante May 2, 2008 10:41 AM

Headline Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 1324 Comments: 8

BBC Horizon: Nuclear Fusion In March 2002, the scientific world was rocked by some astonishing news: a distinguished US government scientist claimed he had made nuclear fusion out of sound waves in his laboratory. RT 48:53. Rusi Taleyarkhan's breakthrough was such important news because nuclear fusion is one of the most difficult scientific processes, and also one of the most coveted. It could solve all of our energy problems for ever. In principle, sufficient fuel exists on earth to provide clean, pollution-free energy for billions of people for millions of years. User: spam_vigilante Apr 26, 2008 3:37 AM

Permanent Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 87 Comments: 0

BBC Horizon: God on the Brain First Aired: Thursday April 17, 2003, RT 48:56. Rudi Affolter and Gwen Tighe have both experienced strong religious visions. He is an atheist; she a Christian. He thought he had died; she thought she had given birth to Jesus. Both have temporal lobe epilepsy. Like other forms of epilepsy, the condition causes fitting but it is also associated with religious hallucinations. Research into why people like Rudi and Gwen saw what they did has opened up a whole field of brain science: neurotheology. The connection between the temporal lobes of the brain and religious feeling has led one Canadian scientist to try stimulating them. (They are near your ears.) 80% of Dr Michael Persinger's experimental subjects report that an artificial magnetic field focused on those brain areas gives them a feeling of 'not being alone'. Some of them describe it as a religious sensation. His work raises the prospect that we are programmed to believe in god, that faith is a mental ability humans have developed or been given. And temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) could help unlock the mystery. User: spam_vigilante Apr 2, 2008 11:47 AM

Headline Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 233 Comments: 0

Horizon: Space Tourists More than forty years ago, Man first went into space. Ever since, ‘ordinary’ people have dreamt of getting there themselves. But after several false starts, a group of space-obsessed entrepreneurs believe the first commercial flights into the final frontier are only a few years away. User: White_Wolf Mar 18, 2008 4:52 AM

Headline Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 812 Comments: 0

BBC Horizon: Mad But Glad Is there really such a thing as the mad genius? Can an illness be both a blessing and a curse? First aired Tuesday April 3, 2007. RT 49:00. At seven years old, Nick van Bloss started shaking his head, grinding his teeth and making wild whooping noises. Nick had Tourette's syndrome. No medical intervention helped him. But one activity stopped it all: The moment Nick placed his hands on the piano keys his symptoms vanished. By the age of 20, he was an award winning international pianist. He felt sure that his illness had made him the success he was. But there is a catch. The brain state necessary for his genius can also be dangerously close to mental chaos. Nick's personal journey reveals how close he came to the edge and how determined he is to triumph. User: spam_vigilante Mar 13, 2008 2:10 AM

Headline Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 1680 Comments: 10

BBC Horizon: Total Isolation For the first time in 40 years Horizon re-creates a controversial sensory deprivation experiment. Six ordinary people are taken to a nuclear bunker and left alone for 48 hours. Three subjects are left alone in dark, sound-proofed rooms, while the other three are given goggles and foam cuffs, while white noise is piped into their ears. First aired 22nd January 2008, RT 49:00. The original experiments carried out in the 1950s and 60s by leading psychologist Prof Donald Hebb, was thought by many in the North American political and scientific establishment to be too cruel and were discontinued. Prof Ian Robbins, head of trauma psychology at St George's Hospital, Tooting, has been treating some of the British Guantanamo detainees and the victims of torture who come to the UK from across the world. Now he evaluates the volunteers as their brains undergo strange alterations. User: spam_vigilante Mar 12, 2008 5:12 AM

Headline Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 838 Comments: 1

Horizon: Are We Alone in the Universe? For fifty years, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence has been scanning the galaxy for a message from an alien civilisation. So far to no avail, but a recent breakthrough suggests they may one day succeed. Horizon joins the planet hunters who've discovered a new world called Gliese 581 c. It is the most Earth-like planet yet found around another star and may have habitats capable of supporting life. NASA too hopes to find fifty more Earth-like planets by the end of the decade, all of which dramatically increases the chance that alien life has begun elsewhere in the galaxy. Mar 8, 2008 2:31 AM

Headline Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 599 Comments: 2

Horizon: The Genius Sperm Bank The Genius Sperm Bank was created in the late 1970s by Robert Klark Graham, an American millionaire optometrist. Officially named the Repository for Germinal Choice, its aim was to breed highly intelligent kids in order to save humanity from genetic decline. Graham believed he could achieve this by getting clever men to donate sperm. User: White_Wolf Feb 24, 2008 4:06 AM

Permanent Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 78 Comments: 1

Horizon: How To Live To 101 First aired February 19, 2007. RT 48:57. The highest life expectancies on the planet are found on the remote Japanese island of Okinawa, in the Californian town of Loma Linda and in the mountains of Sardinia. A group of scientists have dedicated their lives to finding out what it is these places have in common. User: spam_vigilante Feb 22, 2008 2:25 AM

Headline Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 673 Comments: 0

Einstein’s Equation of Life and Death In the summer of 1939, Albert Einstein was on holiday in a small resort town on the tip of Long Island. His peaceful summer, however, was about to be shattered by a visit from an old friend and colleague from his years in Berlin. The visitor was the physicist Leo Szilard. He had come to tell Einstein that he feared the Nazis could soon be in possession of a terrible new weapon and that something had to be done. User: White_Wolf Feb 21, 2008 9:16 AM

Headline Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 1142 Comments: 4

Horizon: Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony As Albert Einstein lay on his deathbed, he asked only for his glasses, his writing implements, and his latest equations. He knew he was dying, yet he continued his work. In those final hours of his life, while fading in and out of consciousness, he was working on what he hoped would be his greatest work of all. It was a project of monumental complexity. It was a project that he hoped would unlock the mind of God. User: White_Wolf Feb 21, 2008 9:15 AM

Headline Tag: Twisted Rating: Amazing Hits: 764 Comments: 3

Horizon: Dr. Money & the Boy With No Penis A scientific experiment gone horribly wrong. User: White_Wolf Feb 16, 2008 9:55 AM

Headline Tag: Science Rating: Amazing Hits: 1746 Comments: 10

Horizon: Britain's Most Dangerous Drug So what is Britain's most dangerous drug? User: White_Wolf Feb 9, 2008 4:32 AM

Headline Tag: Television Rating: Amazing Hits: 939 Comments: 2

Horizon: What on Earth is Wrong with Gravity? Particle physicist and ex D:Ream keyboardist Dr. Brian Cox believes that the answer to the meaning of the universe lies in gravity. On a road trip across the USA, Brian fires lasers at the moon in Texas and goes wild in the desert in Arizona. He encounters the bending of space and time at a maximum security military base and tries to detect ripples in our reality in the swamps of Louisiana. Aired: Tuesday 29th January 2008 on BBC2. Feb 4, 2008 12:54 PM