David Attenborough is in the Swiss Jura Mountains to discover the secrets of a giant. Beneath his feet lies a vast network of tunnels and chambers, home to a huge empire of ants. It is believed to be one of the largest animal societies in the world, where over a billion ants from rival colonies live in peace. Their harmonious existence breaks many of the rules for both ants and evolution, and raises some important questions. Through winter, spring and into summer, David turns detective to find the answers.

Broadcasting legend Sir David Attenborough returns with a brand new and exclusive second series of his award-winning David Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities.

Sir David reveals the animals that have intrigued him the most, with each episode of David Attenborough's Natural Curiosities featuring two animals linked together by a distinctive evolutionary quirk.

Birds of paradise are one of David Attenborough's lifelong passions. He was the first to film many of their beautiful and often bizarre displays, and over his lifetime he has tracked them all over the jungles of New Guinea. In this very personal film, he uncovers the remarkable story of how these 'birds from paradise' have captivated explorers, naturalists, artists, film-makers and even royalty. He explores the myths surrounding their discovery 500 years ago, the latest extraordinary behaviour captured on camera and reveals the scientific truth behind their beauty: the evolution of their spectacular appearance has in fact been driven by sex.
And in a final contemporary twist to this story of obsession and royalty, he travels to the desert of Qatar, to a state-of-the-art facility which houses the largest breeding group of these birds in the world - a sheikh's very own private collection. There he has his closest ever encounter with a greater bird of paradise and its dramatic display, reliving the experience that captivated him in the forests of New Guinea more than 50 years ago.
'For me birds of paradise are the most romantic and glamorous birds in the world. And this is a film I have wanted to make for 40 years.' - Sir David Attenborough.

David Attenborough reveals that the animal inhabitants of this vast wilderness are every bit as extraordinary as they are bizarre. Unearthly calls of the notorious Tasmanian devil echo through the land, but following them over the course of a year reveals a surprisingly gentle side. In the dry east, rare white wallabies graze on the plains and jack jumper ants build huge nests – these venomous ants are amongst the most dangerous on earth. In the west, where it can rain nearly every day of the year, caves light up with the magical spectacle of thousands of glow-worms, and the trees are 100-metre towering monsters. Rivers are home to the peculiar platypus, and world’s largest freshwater invertebrate, the Tasmanian giant lobster. Miniature penguins come ashore to breed, and as winter approaches, the southern lights dance in the sky. Tasmania’s isolation and unique climate has created a world that is as weird as it is wonderful.

Nature’s Great Events is a BBC nature documentary series broadcast from 11 February 2009.[1] The British version is narrated by David Attenborough and is being shown on BBC One and BBC HD. It should not be confused with the 1996 Reader's Digest video series of the same name.
In the USA, the series will broadcast on the Discovery Channel under the alternative title Nature’s Most Amazing Events.

Professor Richard Fortey delves into the fascinating and normally-hidden kingdom of fungi. From their spectacular birth, through their secretive underground life to their final explosive death, Richard reveals a remarkable world that few of us understand or even realise exists - yet all life on Earth depends on it.
In a specially-built mushroom lab, with the help of mycologist Dr Patrick Hickey and some state-of-the-art technology, Richard brings to life the secret world of mushrooms as never seen before and reveals the spectacular abilities of fungi to break down waste and sustain new plant life, keeping our planet alive.
Beyond the lab, Richard travels across Britain and beyond to show us the biggest, fastest and most deadly organisms on the planet - all of them fungi. He reveals their almost magical powers that have world-changing potential - opening up new frontiers in science, medicine and technology.

西非撒哈拉沙漠边境，统治族群长达三年之久的黑猩猩戴维面临其他雄性的挑战，为了守住王权，他开始选择结盟。而当遭到围攻后，这位不死的王者又毅然决然踏上夺回王位的复仇之路。南极大陆，数千只帝企鹅爸爸团聚一起，与极其寒冷的永夜作抗争。他们等待新生命的出生，等待 爱人的归来。肯尼亚草原，雌狮查姆竭尽全力守护族群，在巨大的灾难面前，他必须面临生死存亡的考验。津巴布韦国家公园，垂老的三色狼泰特渐感力不从心，她对家族的控制力逐渐减弱，而她的女儿正在崛起，觊觎着母亲的皇位。印度，雌虎拉杰贝拉靠一己之力捕捉猎物，养育四个孩子，但是大自然从不因此对她慈悲半分。

在現存的「無尾目科」物種中，共有超過5,000種不同形狀、顏色和大小的青蛙及蟾蜍。著名英國自然生物學家兼生態紀錄片製作人，人稱「 阿Sir」的大衛．艾登布祿爵士在《阿Sir看蛙蛙》中運用最尖端的科技，配合特殊拍攝手法及角度，對青蛙進行了史無前例的破天荒研究，為我們探索 青蛙的未知領域，揭示牠們生命的各個階段。

大堡礁(英文：The Great Barrier Reef)，是世界最大最长的珊瑚礁群，位于南半球，它纵贯于澳洲的东北沿海，北从托雷斯海峡，南到南回归线以南，绵延伸展共有2011公里，最宽处161公里。有2900个大小珊瑚礁岛，自然景观非常特殊。
大堡礁的南端离海岸最远有241公里，北端较靠近，最近处离海岸仅16公里。在落潮时，部分的珊瑚礁露出水面形成珊瑚岛。
在礁群与海岸之间是一条极方便的交通海路。风平浪静时，游船在此间通过，船下连绵不断的多彩、多形的珊瑚景色，就成为吸引世界各地游客来猎奇观赏的最佳海底奇观。
1981年列入世界自然遗产名录。在60年后，爱登堡爵爷再次到访，利用最新科技的深水潜球探索前人未至的神秘深度。潜艇在幽暗海底和奇妙景观紧密接触，宛如卡梅隆的科幻电影。

Featuring groundbreaking new science, experiments and leading scientists from a variety of disciplines, the series unravels the natural history of the body's largest organ.

简介：时至今日，世界已有数以千亿的飞行动物，除了翱翔天际的雀鸟和流连黑暗的蝙蝠等嵴椎动物外，还有穿梭丛林、属无嵴椎类的飞虫。自然生态纪录片之父大卫爱登堡爵士，会在《征服天空》中走遍世界各地，包括婆罗洲（Borneo）、西班牙等地，进一步解构飞行动物演化的奇妙故事。

2019 will mark the thirtieth year since the fall of the Berlin Wall and, ostensibly, the end of the Cold War. In light of this, Rich Hall embarks on an examination of the relationship between the West and the East, America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
In his unique way Rich will look at the propaganda, ignorance, fear and secrecy and the natural offspring of these, paranoia and how a forty year stand off between superpowers brought both the US and Russia to the verge of nuclear war.
This is a 90-minute documentary that doesn’t just look at the Cold War from an American perspective. Rich Hall will delve into the psyche of those living in the Soviet Union, those who took part in the machinations, the plots and the conspiracies and the ordinary citizens who, like Rich lived through this most tense of times.
The Cold War, Americas obsession with Communism and the Soviet Union isn’t just about the race to produce the atom bomb and the conquest of space. It’s about spying, political scheming, fear from Communism in Hollywood, in literature and on television.
It was science fiction, it went from the absurd to the ridiculous, it even created incredible sporting drama.
Rich, in his usual style, uses the bizarre, extraordinary and untold stories to weave the narrative threads to give us his take on the Cold War and Americas hysterical obsession with the “Red Menace.”

We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They do not care. We say we care, but we do nothing, and nothing ever changes. It is normal. Welcome to the post-truth world. How we got to where we are now…

Forget oil, coal and gas - a new set of materials is shaping our world and they're so bizarre they may as well be alien technology. In the first BBC documentary to be filmed entirely on smartphones, material scientist Prof Mark Miodownik reveals the super elements that underpin our high-tech world. We have become utterly dependent on them, but they are rare and they're already running out. The stuff that makes our smartphones work could be gone in a decade and our ability to feed the world depends mostly on a mineral found in just one country. Mark reveals the magical properties of these extraordinary materials and finds out what we can do to save

鸵鸟、鸸鹋、鹤鸵、鶆 、鹬鸵等「巨鸟」，虽然有密集的羽毛及翅膀，却无法高飞。终究是甚么缘由招致牠们无法飞行?是先天要素?还是大自然的演化?老爵爷与摄制队走遍南美、非洲、澳洲以及新西兰等地，以诙谐的表达手法，讨论这些被视为「异类」的飞行生物不为人知的故事。虽然无法在天际飞翔，但牠们的「行走」速度惊人，以至克制了身体的缺陷，成为陆地上的王者。但是，当这些「巨鸟」当上父母后，又会悉心照料宏大鸟蛋和初生子女，流露温顺一面，令人慨叹造物主的巨大神奇。

A look at the development of British indie music, born in the 1970s when the music industry was controlled by the major record labels and releasing a record independently seemed an impossible dream.

Pain, Pus and Poison tells the extraordinary story of how mankind learnt to look at the world around him and use it to heal his body. Michael Mosley tells the extraordinary story of how the world’s most useful and valuable drugs were created. This BBC series tells of how our search to cure ourselves of anything from the most common, to the most life threatening of ailments, has led to a profound understanding of chemistry, and how we discovered some of the most widely used products on the planet – pharmaceuticals. It's a story of revelation and genius, and a story that ultimately has transformed – and saved - the lives of millions of people across the planet, lives that are now lived longer and healthier than at any time in our history. A BBC Open University Partnership