Frontiers
  
"Frontiers has taken me to some extraordinary places - physically and intellectually. 
We've hunted fundamental particles in a Canadian nickel mine, heard how all Chinese folk have perfect pitch 
and seen how the New World was once populated by Monster Wombats and Mega-Wolves. What fascinates 
me about this series, though, is the scientists themselves creatively reaching into the mists of unexplored fields, 
sometimes coming up with some frankly wacky ideas that turn out to be sensible and revolutionary. 
It's sharp end science at the very apex."

Peter Evans
	
.


Frontiers - 021002 - How Intelligent Are Birds
******When zoologists at Oxford University recently observed a Caledonian Crow 
bending a piece of wire into a hook so it could extract food from a bucket, it raised 
a number of challenging questions about birds' problem-solving abilities. 
Perhaps birds aren't as bird-brained as we primates like to believe. 


Frontiers - 030416 - Alzheimers Disease
******Alzheimer’s Disease is one of the commonest degenerative mental illnesses. 
It’s estimated that up to 700,000 in the UK suffer from it, and as the population ages, 
the figure is expected to rise to about 850,000 by 2020. Caring for people with Alzheimer’s 
Disease costs the UK over £1billion a year. 


Frontiers - 030423 - Gravity Probe B
******In 1916 Einstein first put forward his general theory of relativity. Now, nearly 
90 years later, physicists are finally getting ready to put Einstein to the test. Gravity 
Probe B is a satellite containing some of the most precise measuring devices ever 
built. It has been more than 40 years in the making, cost over 600 million dollars, and 
has needed to invent a dozen completely new technologies in order to make it happen.


Frontiers - 030430 - Dinobirds
******For over 100 years the idea's been growing that birds are directly descended from 
dinosaurs. And today, most palaeontologists subscribe to that notion.
But there are dissenting voices taking issue with the prevailing orthodoxy. 
Do they have a point?
Well, there's no better place to settle the argument than Liaoning Province in 
North East China where an extraordinary series of wonderful fossil discoveries has been made. 



Frontiers - 030507 - Self-Organization
******Although almost blind, army ants deploy pheromones so they can establish traffic 
lanes. Laden ants returning to the nest occupy the central lane while the ants setting out 
use the two outer lanes.
Peter Evans talks to Professor Nigel Franks from Bristol University and Dr Iain Couzin 
from Princeton University. Their research shows ants are making decisions collectively: 
individual decision-making has become secondary to the welfare of the colony as a whole.



Frontiers - 030514 - Malaria
******Malaria is responsible for over a million deaths every year.
Genetic Mutation
About 6,000 years ago humans gained some immunity to the disease through 
genetic mutations.
During the same era, the mosquito population soared.  Mosquitos carry the parasite that 
causes malaria.
Could the two events be linked?
Yes, says Professor Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Maryland.



Frontiers - 030521 - Global Warming
******Manmade greenhouse gases affect global warming - a well known fact.
But how much does the Sun contribute to this effect?
Solar activity
The Sun's activity varies according to many different cycles.
The longest cycles are on a millennial scale and account for events such as ice ages 
and the extinction of the dinosaurs. 
Cosmic rays
The Sun releases electrically charged particles which blow cosmic rays away from the Earth.
When solar activity is low, fewer particles are released and more cosmic rays reach the Earth.



Frontiers - 031029 - Musical Cavemen
******Recent discoveries of bone flutes suggest that man was making music forty 
thousand years ago.
Cavemen
Peter Evans visits a Palaeolithic cave to see evidence of our ancestors' musicality. 
Even playing stalactites came into their repertoire!
But could man's musical abilities have developed much earlier than this - 
more than two hundred thousand years ago?




Frontiers - 031029 - Optical Twezers
******magine being able to pick up and move a single molecule....
Let there be light
Without light, we'd be in darkness - obvious enough. But scientists are realising that 
light has other useful properties.
Nano
At the nano-scale - a billionth of a metre - light can perform a handy task. It can grab and hold tiny particles.
Forces
In a concentrated beam of laser light there are attractive and repulsive forces.  These are 
strong enought to manipulate molecules.
Optical Tweezers
The laser beams or 'tools' are known as ‘optical tweezers’ or ‘optical traps’




Frontiers - 031112 - Blue Whale
******We know less about the blue whale then we do about the dinosaurs. And it's the 
largest creature to have ever lived on the planet.
The colossal squid is the largest living mollusc.  Yet until April this year a complete 
specimen had never been seen.
Peter Evans talks to the scientists who are studying these giant sea monsters.  
Food and oxygen
He discovers why the largest creatures on the planet live in the ocean - how they are able to sustain their huge size 
in often food and oxygen poor environments, and why we know so little about them.
Something bigger?
And if scientists are still only estimating the true size of the colossal squid, could there be something even bigger 
lurking down in the abyss? 



Frontiers - 031119 - Galaxies
******If you’re lucky enough to be out on a clear and very dark night, miles away from 
any city and look up, you’re greeted by one of space’s most awesome sights.
A long band of apparent haze, spanning like a winding stream from one corner of your 
view to another: our Milky Way. It’s one of many galaxies littering the cosmos - one of 
many collections of stars that form the building blocks of the universe.
In Frontiers Peter Evans explores one of the greatest challenges facing astronomers today - how do galaxies form? 
                                   Why aren’t the stars wandering around the universe by themselves? 



David Vetter, the boy with SCID whose fate was dramatized in the 1970s by a documentary 
film, with his mother, Carol Ann Vetter. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>. 
Frontiers -  031126 - Gene Therapy
******When doctors in France announced in April 2000 that they had carried out the first 
successful human gene therapy trial, the news was hailed as a medical breakthrough. 
But, three years on, problems began to emerge.
In this week's Frontiers, Peter Evans assesses the current state of gene therapy, and asks 
if it's living up to its original promise.
"Bubble Babies"
Gene therapy was first used in Britain and France to treat young children born without 
functioning immune systems, a condition known as Severe Combined 
Immunodeficiency (SCID).These children were previously forced to 
                                   live in sealed, sterilized environments.




Frontiers - 031203 - Interference
******In this flower a gene that controls the production of the purple pigment was 
deactivated while the flower was growing. Flower cells that developed after this are 
white because purple pigments were no longer produced.
In just a few short years,  a bizarre discovery made in petunia plants is now being 
heralded as a potential cure for diseases such as AIDs and even Cancer. 
RNA Interference is potentially able to switch off any gene in our cells that we'd like 
it to in an amazingly accurate and specific way. 
Turning Genes Off
So, in theory,  scientists could programme a molecule to switch off the genes of a 
virus such as HIV, or even switch off faulty cancer causing genes, leaving healthy genes intact.  
                      And so far the results look very promising.



Frontiers - 040331 - A Global Epidemic
******The World Health Organisation has labelled it a global epidemic. 1 in 3 British 
Adults suffers from this condition and the numbers in children are rising at an 
alarming rate. It's estimated by the year 2020 this will be the single biggest killer on 
the planet.  This is no killer virus, or pathological bacteria, this  terrifying phenomenon 
which is causing widespread alarm among the medical community, is Obesity. 






Frontiers - 040407 - Archaea
******Most people have never even heard of the Archaea, and yet these tiny microscopic 
organisms account for a fifth of all life and can be found in just about every habitat on 
earth.These extraordinary life forms have been found in volcanic craters and hot springs, 
underneath the ice sheets of Antarctica and even round the thermal vents at the bottom of 
the ocean. It seems no environment is too tough, too hot, too cold or too acidic for these 
hardy creatures. 




Frontiers - 040414 - Predicting Behavior
******How do we understand each other? How and why do we care about others? 
In Frontiers this week, Peter Evans examines ground breaking research that is shedding 
new light on our unique ability to predict, explain and be sensitive to other people’s 
behaviour.The extent to which we put our selves into other people’s shoes when trying 
to work out another person’s intentions, has long remained a mystery. But with the advent 
of new brain scanning technology, scientists for the first time are getting a new window 
onto the human ability to mentalize and also seeing how this skill develops in the young infant.





Frontiers -  040505 - Before the Big Bang
******This week, Frontiers explores a new cosmological theory 
teetering on the very edge of science and encroaching on the 
territory we normally associate with philosophy, metaphysics, 
even religion.
Peter Evans look at a new narrative about the birth of the cosmos 
that breaks with the conventional description and harks back to an 
idea that was popular amongst the Ancients.
A Cyclical Universe
The hypothesis, put forward by Neil Turok of Cambridge and Paul Steinhardt of Princeton is 
that the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning of time and space but merely a cataclysmic event – 
one of perhaps millions – that takes place from time to time in our universe.





Frontiers - 041103 - Memory Enhancement
******Memory loss happens for all sorts of reasons, and its impact can be 
devastating. In this week's Frontiers, Peter Evans asks if new insights into brain 
chemistry might eventually enable us to reinstate memory processes when they fail.
Brain Chemistry
When Professor Eric Kandel from Columbia University in New York identified a 
protein that played a crucial role in the development of long-term memories, 
neuroscientists began to wonder if boosting that protein might help people with 
memory loss to recover their ability to remember. 






Frontiers -  041110 - Ionic Liquids
******You probably haven’t heard of ionic liquids, but these remarkable substances 
could be the lubricant for a veritable revolution in chemical engineering.
Ionic liquids are solvents consisting of electrically charged particles - or ions - which 
could be positive or negative. They're not flammable; they release no fumes; and they 
can make chemical reactions faster and cheaper.
There are potentially as many of these intriguing liquids as you could ever want. They increase yield – and profit - 
for manufacturers, reduce the amount of malodorous, toxic waste in the environment and make the workplace much safer.
Green chemistry
Ionic liquids could be the answer to making the chemical industry turn its back for good on the dirty, contaminating 
practices of old and embrace instead ‘green chemistry’.




Frontiers -  041117 - Atmospheric Dust
******It’s estimated that at any one time, there are millions of tons of dust suspended 
in the atmosphere, but scientists are a long way from understanding its impact on the 
Earth’s climate and weather systems.
Last year, scientists at Columbia University’s Earth Institute showed for the first time 
that dust from the Taklamakan Desert in China had been deposited in the French Alps, 
                                  more than 20,000 kilometres away.





Frontiers -  041124 - Influenza
******Peter Evans examines the very real threat of a major global catastrophe.
This threat doesn't come from War or terrorism, but a very wiley virus that nearly 
all of us are familiar with- influenza. In the Far East, a battle has been waged on 
the flu virus infecting huge populations of domestic birds.
Making the Jump
What's causing wide scale concern amongst scientists around the globe, is that 
this virus has already made the jump from birds to humans - killing nearly two-thirds 
of the people who have been infected. Could this incredibly clever and resistant 
virus mutate to be able to jump from human to human?
And if it does, can we do anything about it, and prevent the many millions of deaths 
that such a pandemic is predicted to cause. 




Frontiers -  050406 - Reconstructing the Earth's Core
******In the first of a new series of Frontiers, Peter Evans examines new insights into the 
earth's core - the most powerful dynamo imaginable that produces a giant magnetic field 
that keeps earth a living planet and protects us from deadly radiation sweeping through 
the solar system.
There's a region of our planet that no human has ever visited, yet what happens within and 
around it affects all of us- it's the earth's molten core 2000 miles beneath our feet.
Here, a vast ocean of liquid iron generates an invisible magnetic force which not only makes 
our compasses point north, but creates a magnetic cocoon around our earth that protects us 
from deadly solar radiation.




Frontiers -  050413 - Neuroprostetics
******People with nerve or limb injuries may one day be able to command wheelchairs, 
prosthetics and even paralysed arms and legs by "thinking them through" the motions.
As researchers overcome the technical and biological hurdles to begin the first human 
trials, Peter Evans examines how capturing brain output could allow fully paralysed 
patients to interact with the world.
Harnessing the brain's power
The idea behind the research is to insert a computer between pathways in the brain 
and the world outside, which have been broken due to neurological injuries or diseases.
At Duke University's Center for Neuroengineering in North Carolina, Professor 
Miguel Nicolelis has created an artificial bypass to carry brain signals to an activator, 
which produces the movement the person is thinking about.




Frontiers -  050420 - Risk
******Risk has played a key role in psychological research throughout the last century.
Psychoanalysis defined habitual risk-takers as products of a 'deceased' mind since 
taking risks is all about overcoming, or ignoring, fears.
Since it was deemed irrational to ignore fear, psychoanalysis took a very dim views 
of those who deliberately put themselves into dangerous situations when there was no 
obvious advantage (such as self-protection). Mountaineers and gentlemen explorers 
were considered pathological.
In evolutionary terms, risk-taking could be said to have arisen, in humans at least, as a 
response to the harsh environment - an ice age for instance. Species that took risks in 
hard times, survived to propagate. More recently, risk has been associated with 
reproductive strategies - the peacock's tail and so on, where an animal trades speed or 
agility for some sign of sexual fitness. It was thought for a long time than humans were the 
only creatures capable of acting irrationally - But research has shown that animals act 
irrationally as well.




Frontiers -  050427 - Acid Oceans
******Peter Evans this week investigates the effect greenhouse gases are having on 
our oceans.Recent research shows that oceans will become more acidic and that will 
threaten many species, from plankton to whales, as well as coral reefs, with extinction - 
not in a thousand years but possibly within the next century.
Our oceans are doubly besieged. The same pollution that is heating the world's oceans 
through global warming is also altering their chemical balance. 




Frontiers -  050504 - Human Evolution
******Some scientists now believe that human evolution has ceased, we are as advanced 
as we're ever going to get. We have become so clever at adapting our environment to 
suit our needs that we no longer need to evolve; we simply invent tools to do new tasks 
for us.However this is not the only view. Others point out that there are many parts of the 
world where man cannot fully control external influences. The most noticeable of these is 
disease pandemics such as plague or malaria.
Over millennia humans have adapted to disease and genetic resistance has appeared in 
some populations. Perhaps the most well known is the genetic mutation which confers 
resistance to malaria but also leads to sickle cell anaemia.





Frontiers -  050511 - A Theory of Everything
******The history of science is littered with occasions when the scientific community felt 
it was on the verge of completing the big picture; One theory that could explain 
all physical phenomena.
Perhaps this hope was the truly lasting contribution of Newton's great work. Whilst his 
specific equations have been largely superseded, the audacious idea of presenting a 
handful of axioms and principles from which the whole dynamic universe could be 
determined has been the goal of the many scientifically realist physicists and 
cosmologists ever since.
Frontiers this week looks at the latest candidates for a "Theory of Everything" (TOE).
Einstein spent the second half of his career trying to unify the forces of nature into one 
comprehensible system. At that time the known forces of nature that he regarded as 
fundamental were electromagnetism and gravity. He was unsuccessful in his quest, but 
could he have succeeded if he had started with today's knowledge?




Frontiers -  051109 - The Nature of Frontiers
******Frontiers returns for a new series this week and celebrates its 100th edition with a look 
at just what makes a true scientific frontier.
Over the years Frontiers has questioned, challenged and explored some of the most cutting 
edge science, and cutting edge scientists working on everything from stem cells, gene therapy 
and the race to stop avian flu in it's tracks, to the birth of the universe, the mysterious god particle, 
and the Grand Theory of Everything.
In a special programme, Peter Evans explores how scientific frontiers are born, and the scientists 
who create them.
He'll be talking to some of the leading researchers who themselves have pushed science to its limits 
in a bid to answer some of the greatest scientific mysteries of all times.
Many of these unsolved questions are as old as humans themselves: what is the universe made of, 
where and how did life begin, and are we alone in the universe?




Frontiers -  040421 - Future Ocean
******The Great Rift Valley is a huge gash cut into East Africa, extending 3000 Km 
from Malawi in the South to the Red Sea in the North. It’s wonderful scenery. But for 
anyone with a geological turn of mind, the fascination of the African Rift Valley is what’s 
going on beneath it.It could be that this is where the next new ocean on the earth is 
forming.In Frontiers this week Peter Evans meets the geologists who are getting 
underneath this part of Africa to learn how new seas appear. 




Frontiers -  040428 - Wellbeing
******Until recently, ‘wellbeing’ was a phrase you’d be most likely to see in the pages of 
women’s magazines and self-help books - a highly desirable commodity, but not one that 
was easy to define, let alone one that was subject to scientific analysis.
In recent years, this has changed. Wellbeing has become an area of serious research for 
many scientists who believe that discovering the essence and effects of wellbeing may be 
at least as important to public health than focusing on specific problems and diseases.
What is it about some people that enables them to live long, happy lives while others struggle? 
What gives these lucky individuals the resilience to bounce back from life’s inevitable slings 
and arrows? If the answers to questions like these can be uncovered, it could be life-enhancing 
news for all of us…




Frontiers -  040512 - Sports Doping
******Cheating in sport is not a new phenomenon. What is new is the lengths that some 
athletes will go to win a medal.
Recent doping scandals have highlighted the sophistication and scientific know-how 
that is now going into illicit drug making, and the win-at-any-cost philosophy.
From designer steroids to the threat of genetic therapy to improve muscle mass - some 
athletes will go to terrifying lengths to beat the system and win the money and the glory.
But behind every sport doping scandal lies a team of dedicated and resolute scientists 
who are determined to catch the cheats.



Frontiers -  041020 - Inflamation
******As medical researchers delve deeper into the causes of major diseases as diverse 
as heart attacks, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimers disease and cancer, they are beginning 
to see the same biological signature turn up again and again: inflammation.
Could this pave the way to a radical new approach to the treatment of chronic diseases? 
Own Goal
The familiar immune response that causes the redness swelling and pain if you cut a 
finger, is a vital process in the first line of defence against disease .
But as Peter Evans discovers in the first of a new series of Frontiers, when this 
inflammatory process gets out of control, it enables disease to persist indefinitely – 
and could be an underlying cause of many diseases in diverse parts of the body.
Why is it for instance, that half of all heart attacks occur in people with normal cholesterol 
levels? It's an extraordinary little publicised statistic. But as Paul Ridker's research at 
Harvard reveals, in many cases inflammation is at the root cause of triggering blood clots 
that cut off the coronary 
blood supply. 



Frontiers -  041027 - The Moon
******How did the moon form? The most favoured theory - of a cataclysmic impact on 
our planet - that's dominated scientific thinking for over a quarter of a century has always 
had its critics.But the final piece of the jigsaw may just be in place. Frontiers weighs up 
new research which could offer the complete picture into the dramatic events that led to 
the creation of our nearest neighbour.
Well Mapped
The moon is one of the most studied regions of near space - it is, after all, the only place 
in the solar system that man has set foot on beyond our own planet. Yet how the moon 
formed has continued to mystify.Analysis of moon rocks following the Apollo missions in 
the 1970's laid weight to a newly emerging theory that a Mars sized body in the early days 
of the solar system crashed into the young earth, melting the Earth's crust and from the 
resulting shattered remains, emerged the moon.But when did this exactly happen? And how 
could a planet that shared the same orbit as the earth, grow as big as Mars, without being 
swallowed up by the Earth...only to then impact on our home planet? 




Frontiers -  051116 - Cilia
******In 1898 KW Zimmermann reported in a German microscopy journal seeing fine hair-like 
structures on the surface of the cells which form the tubes in kidneys. These are the cilia 
(from the Latin for eyelash) that protrude from the surface of many types of cell.
Most cilia beat in a waving chorus, but on many cells one in particular (the primary cilium) 
stays firm, poking out into its surroundings without moving. For almost a century its purpose 
was unknown, and it was thought that it was probably a vestige of cell evolution - no longer of 
any consequence to human function. But the last ten years of research has changed that.
"Medical Revolution"
In this week's Frontiers, Peter Evans looks at these microscopic attachments that have suddenly 
                                 taken centre stage. 



Frontiers -  051123 - Synthetic Life
******The field of genetic engineering has been around for nearly three decades but biologists 
and engineers are now beginning to take the research a stage further. They're trying to 
programme cells like tiny computers, to carry out a range of roles such as detecting toxic 
substances or even repairing our bodies' tissues.
This new, yet controversial field of synthetic biology appears to offer huge potential. As this 
week's Frontiers suggests, scientists may well be able to create totally new life forms of artificial 
life in the lab through this new technology.
Echoes of Frankenstein
Echoes of Frankenstein perhaps? Or a force for human health and welfare?
Peter Evans meets the researchers who are designing bacterial cells to carry out a raft of unique functions. 



Frontiers -  060524 - The Solar System
******It's been 33 years since the last moon missions, when scientists last got their hands 
on solid samples from space - until now.
In this episode of Frontiers Peter Evans looks at the extraordinary new space missions 
that have collected particles from the sun, and from a comet at the far reaches of our solar 
system. The last time actual solid samples were brought back to Earth was from the Moon 
with the 1972 Apollo mission and the Russian expedition shortly afterwards.
But NASA has now managed to retrieve samples from the sun with a mission called Genesis and 
from a comet at the far reaches of the solar system with the Stardust mission.
In general terms, we know quite a bit about the evolution of our sun and planets.
But, with the Stardust mission to the comet Wild 2, scientists hope that many of the fine details will be 
filled in, as well as providing information about other stars and their planets.
The sample-return capsule landed in Utah in Juanary this year, it allowed NASA's scientists to handle the 
material that streams out of comets for the first time in human history. 



Frontiers -  060531 - Anthropagethic Climate Change
******In this week's episode of Frontiers, Peter Evans meets climatologist Professor 
Bill Ruddiman whose views about climate change have divided scientific opinion.
Bill's argument is that 8000 years ago, Neolithic farming produced major emissions of 
carbon dioxide and methane. Land clearance and rice cultivation led to such large 
amounts of carbon dioxide and methane being released into the atmosphere that they 
countered the natural decreases that would otherwise have happened.
Controversially, Bill suggests that these emissions averted natural global cooling and 
prevented an Ice Age in the northern hemisphere.
Bill's hypothesis relies on climate information gleaned from ice deposits in and around 
Lake Vostok. He argues that if we compare our own interglacial period with similar 
periods up to 800,000 years ago, we find that carbon dioxide and methane trends 
in the late-Holocene were rising when they should have been falling. Bill suggests 
that these anomalous rises can only be explained by man's farming activities.



Frontiers -  060607 - Stem Cells
******In this week's programme, Peter Evans investigates the current state of 
stem cell research.
Promoted as a way of treating a wide variety of degenerative conditions, stem cell 
therapy works by renewing damaged or destroyed tissue.
Theoretically, stem cells can be persuaded to develop into different types of human tissue.
Through their use, researchers hope to find new ways of treating some devastating 
conditions which include Alzheimer's Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, 
heart conditions and osteoarthritis.
If scientists can culture stem cells derived from the patient's own cells, there's much less 
chance of those cells being rejected when they are transplanted back into the patient's body.
Peter reports from Bristol, where a medical team led by Professor Anthony Hollander are 
using stem cells to grow cartilage to treat patients suffering from osteoarthritis. Stem cells 
are taken from the patient's bone marrow and are given chemical signals that persuade 
them to become cartilage cells. The cells are then attached to a biodegradable scaffold 
and implanted back into the damaged joint. 



Frontiers -  060614 - Clean Coal
******In this episode of Frontiers, Peter Evans asks whether coal can ever be a clean 
fuel.At a time when we're increasingly concerned about the effects of carbon dioxide 
emissions on global climate change, it might seem strange to be thinking seriously 
about coal as a major energy source.
But coal is the fuel of choice for many nations, developed and developing, not least 
America and China.
It's been estimated that at current levels of usage, global coal reserves will last for more than 150 years.
However, if large amounts of coal are be to be burnt, science and technology need to come up with ways 
of making coal a more efficient, and less polluting, energy source. To learn more about how a conventional 
coal-fired power station works, Peter goes to Nottinghamshire to visit the coal-fired power station at 
Ratcliffe-on-Soar. The power station, run by E.ON UK, burns 812 tonnes of coal an hour, and provides 
electricity for about two million people.Peter talks to engineers at E.ON's research facility, 
Power Technology. They are developing new technologies that will burn coal more efficiently 
and, at the same time, make it easier to capture and store carbon dioxide. These include coal 
gasification and oxyfuel combustion.



Frontiers -  061115 - Vegetative State
******In the first of a new series of Frontiers, Peter Evans discusses new research into 
vegetative state. Scientists at Cambridge University recently published a paper suggesting 
that there were “islands” of brain function in the brain of a patient in a vegetative state.
Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the researchers have shown that the patient’s brain 
apparently responded to spoken instructions.
In one dramatic example, the woman was asked to imagine a game of tennis, and scientists 
were able to detect significant activity in the motor areas of her brain.



Frontiers -  061122 - Mars Rovers
******In this edition of Frontiers, Peter Evans meets the pioneering duo who have 
surpassed all of NASA’s expectations in our quest to find life on Mars.
The Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are about to celebrate their 
third anniversary on the martian surface, which is remarkable given the fact they 
were only expected to last three months.
Now well into middle age, and feeling a little bit arthritic, they are still providing 
scientists on Earth with extraordinary insights into the Martian environment and 
providing clues that may finally answer the question of whether life exists on Mars.
Peter also talks to the scientists who are designing the robot explorers of the future 
and have been inspired by Spirit and Opportunity's incredible success.





Frontiers -  061129 - Dinosaurs
******This week on Frontiers, Peter Evans steps back in time, and talks to the dinosaur 
hunters who claim we are entering a golden age of dinosaur discovery.
A new study suggests that we have only uncovered a small percentage of the different 
types of dinosaurs that once roamed the earth, so if this is true, how come we've uncovered 
so few, and where are they all hiding?
Could digging up new and previously undiscovered species shed light on some of the big 
unanswered dinosaur questions, not just on how they lived, but also how and why they died? 




                                                                                        It looks like this>>>>>>>>>>>>>>             
Frontiers -  061206 - Invisibility Cloak                                                                
******Harry Potter has one, so does the Starship Enterprise, and now scientists in the UK and the USA 
claim that you could have one too.
The invisibility cloak is no longer stuck in the realm of fantasy, but is soon to become a reality.
Peter Evans talks to the researchers who have engineered an entirely new material that can make 
objects virtually undetectable, and looks at the extraordinary possibilities that this kind of invisibility might offer.



Frontiers -  061213 - Amusia
******When we listen to music, do we all hear the same thing?
The answer, according to some neuroscientists and psychologists, is no.
Amusia is a little-known phenomenon that changes people’s perception of music and 
affects up to one in 20 people.
“It’s been compared to colourblindess,” says Lauren Stewart, a psychologist from Goldsmith’s 
College. “Just as people with colourblindness might see reds, pinks and oranges as the same, 
amusic people have a very coarse representation of the notes of the musical scale.”
This week Peter Evans meets people with amusia and finds out what’s happening in their brains, 
and asks whether the cause is nature or nurture.




Frontiers -  061220 - Geoengineering
******The recent Stern Review painted a disturbing picture of the Earth in the grip of 
climate change. Rising sea levels could displace 200 million people and up to 40% 
of species may face extinction. A number of prominent scientists and economists fear 
that we won’t be able to cut carbon emissions quickly enough to avert catastrophe. 
Now some are considering a radical alternative - re-engineering our planet.
In this week’s Frontiers, Peter Evans meets the engineers and scientists devising 
schemes to rebalance the Earth’s climate. Collectively termed ‘geo-engineering’, these ideas range from 
sending a giant sunshade into space, to making seaclouds shinier. So would these projects work, and 
should we consider messing with the world’s climate even further? 



Frontiers -  070509 -  Longevity
******In the first of a new series of Frontiers, Peter Evans discusses new research into the 
study of ageing and longevity which could have profound implications for human life and health.
Researchers have shown that simple genes control ageing in organisms like fruit flies and 
nematode worms. They can be switched on or off to increase their lifespan by as much as 
six times. Similar genes are also found in humans.
Ageing is the biggest risk factor for many major diseases: cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s 
and neurodegeneration. Could it be that instead of being separate diseases, they are all 
manifestations of a single ageing process controlled by our genes?
Peter Evans hears from the researchers who are unlocking the genetic routes to ageing to 
develop drugs which can mimic their life extending properties or block their disease causing affects.




Frontiers -  070516 - High Energy Universe
******A revolution has been taking place in the world of cosmology.
Cosmic rays bombard the earth every day, but until now, where the 
enigmatic particles come from and what causes them remained if 
not a exactly a mystery, then mainly theoretical. In this week’s Frontiers, 
Peter Evans travels to the famous old town of Heidelberg to meet the physicists 
who have opened up the wild west of astrophysics by building their own 
telescope and getting results most scientists can only dream of.



Frontiers -   070523 - Linnaeus
******Peter Evans celebrates the 300th anniversary of Carl Linnaeus, the 
Swedish Natural Historian, who gave us many of the names of plants and 
animals we still use today.
300 years on, Frontiers examines how this great and complicated man has 
influenced modern day biologists.
Today’s taxonomists are now more familiar with a bewildering array of high 
tech microscopes and gene sequencing instruments, rather than the traditional 
collecting jar and butterfly net.Linnaeus, of course, knew nothing of genes, but 
what would he have made of these new methods of identifying creatures, looking 
not just at their physical appearance and behaviour, but also at their 
DNA to unravel clues about our evolutionary tree.




Frontiers -   070530 - Super Conductivity
******20 years ago, the discovery of materials that conduct electricity without loss at 
relatively high temperatures caused a revolution in physics.
A Nobel Prize went to the scientists who made the discovery and technological advances 
such as high speed levitating trains and super efficient power generators were promised.
Peter Evans finds out what happened once the excitement died down and asks if these high 
temperature superconductors are living up to expectations.
Peter travels to the University of Zurich to meet the scientists who started this revolution – Dr Georg Bednorz and 
Professor Alex Mueller.They recall how they did the ground breaking work – on borrowed equipment and in the 
evenings. And they kept their results secret until they were absolutely sure they were correct. Their superconductor 
was a mixture of lanthanum, barium, copper and oxygen.



Frontiers -  070606 - Mind Reading
******What if it was possible to read someone’s mind, their exact thoughts, by looking at their 
patterns of brain activity?
In this edition of Frontiers,Peter Evans explores how rapid advances in brain scanning 
technology have started to get a window on some of our innermost thoughts; from 
predicting our intentions to interpreting the meaning of exactly what we’re thinking about, 
or even if we’re lying or telling the truth.
What sounds like a science fiction scenario is becoming closer to reality.
Peter Evans finds out exactly what can be learned from this expanding window on the brain, he talks 
to the scientists using these techniques as well as the commercial companies exploiting the technology 
for marketing and lie detection. 



Frontiers -  070613 - Climate Change
******Politicians and policy makers around the world seem to have woken up to the 
fact that global warming is going on, so you might think that the scientists’ work is done.
But as Peter Evans learns, the scientists think they’ve still much research to do.
He looks back to the early 1980s when climate change first made its way onto the 
political agenda, and asks why it took so long to become the global issue it is today. 
Sir Crispin Tickell remembers how, as Permanent Secretary of the Official 
Development Assistance, he advised Margaret Thatcher to raise the then little-known issue of climate change at the 
1984 G7 meeting.  The former Prime Minister's background as a scientist meant she was one of the 
few international leaders who recognised the problem and she was determined to bring it to global prominence.




Frontiers -  071121 - Neanderthal DNA
******In the first programme in a new series of Frontiers, Andrew Luck-Baker meets 
geneticists who are trying to extract nuclear DNA from Neanderthal bones. Within the 
next year, they hope to have sequenced the entire Neanderthal genome.
Sequencing ancient DNA is technically very challenging. Not only is the DNA degraded 
by time, but it’s also been contaminated by fungi and animal residues.
Human contamination is also a big problem. Simply touching a bone will leave fragments 
of modern DNA on it, and that makes the extraction of Neanderthal DNA even more difficult.
But if the genome can be sequenced, it’s possible that we might eventually be able to answer all sorts 
of tantalising questions. Why, for instance, did modern humans survive, and Neanderthals become extinct? 
During the ten thousand years that Neanderthals and modern humans were both living in Europe, 
is there any evidence of interbreeding? 




Frontiers -  071128 - Digital Medicine
******Science journalist Philip Ball looks at the dawn of a brave new era of medical 
technology that promises to revolutionise the way we receive health care.
Digital medicine aims to take health care out of the hospital and into the home using 
simple devices found in our mobile phones and home computers.
Philip visits Imperial College in London to talk to Professor Chris Toumazou and his 
colleagues at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering.  Professor Toumazou is using 
wireless technology to monitor and treat patients without them having to set foot in a 
hospital.One of these devices is a digital plaster that will allow doctors to monitor their patients' vital signs 
any time and from anywhere in the world.  He’s also working on an artificial pancreas that can 
monitor and supply insulin to someone with diabetes, in exactly the same way a healthy pancreas 
would, without the need for daily monitoring and uncomfortable injections. 
The true frontier, however, is to combine a computer chip with DNA to create the ultimate in 
personalised healthcare, drugs that are designed and prescribed specifically to your body's needs.
Philip Ball talks to the team at Imperial and discovers whether a visit to the GP’s surgery or hospital 
is about to become a thing of the past





Frontiers -   071205 - Hubble Space Technology
******In this week’s Frontiers, Andrew Luck-Baker goes to NASA’s Goddard Space 
Flight Centre to report on preparations for the fourth - and final - Servicing Mission to 
the Hubble Space Telescope.Since its launch in 1990, Hubble has revolutionised our 
understanding of deep space and the universe. Its high quality images have captured 
the imagination of the world. But the telescope is beginning to show its age, and NASA 
has announced an ambitious Servicing Mission to refurbish and upgrade Hubble.
As well as replacing batteries and gyroscopes, the astronauts will repair two instruments that have 
stopped working.
The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) failed in 2004. The spectrograph separates light 
into its component colours. This allows scientists to examine a distant planet’s temperature, chemical 
composition, density and motion.
The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) stopped working in 2007. The ACS is a wide field camera 
and is able to conduct broad surveys of the universe. A million second exposure on this camera produced 
the Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image, NASA's deepest view of the cosmos.
The astronauts will also install two new instruments. A more powerful wide field camera, 
Wide Field Camera 3, will carry out wide field imaging across the whole spectral range, from ultraviolet 
to infrared. A new spectrograph, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), will improve Hubble's 
sensitivity to the spectrum.




Frontiers -   071212 - Shipping Emissions
******Shipping has a reputation for being green – carrying vast quantities of goods around 
the world with a minimum of energy.
But that reputation is coming under ever closer scrutiny as the international fleet swells to 
meet the growing demands of international trade.
Indeed the CO2 emissions from shipping match those of Germany, itself one of the major 
greenhouse polluters in the world.
Of even more concern to some experts are the other pollutants put into the air – sulphur dioxide, 
nitrogen oxide and particulates – responsible, it’s recently been estimated, for 60,000 deaths 
worldwide every year, set to rise beyond 80,000 by 2012.
Technology journalist Gareth Mitchell meets the activists and engineers who hope to make 
shipping change course.




Frontiers -  071219 - Science and the Law
******There’s no doubt that scientific techniques like DNA profiling, microscopic 
textiles analysis and even shoeprints can be incredibly powerful tools.  But could 
the public’s misunderstanding of the very nature of scientific evidence be perverting 
the course of justice? It’s too easy perhaps to be seduced by the apparent ability 
of scientific techniques to deliver definitive answers.  How far is scientific evidence 
a matter of cool, incontrovertible fact and how far a matter of professional opinion?
Peter Evans is joined by four people who care deeply about the way science is represented and 
sometimes misrepresented in the courts: Helena Kennedy QC; Director of LGC Forensics Angela 
Gallop; Lecturer in Law at Leeds University Dr Carole McCartney and Chief Constable Tony Lake.





Frontiers -  071226 - Science of Disgust
******Claudia Hammond explores new research into the science of disgust. It is a unique 
emotion that has evolved to control our gut reactions to bodily fluids and prevent us from 
coming in contact with disease.
Claudia Hammond visits a children’s nursery to find out when 2 – 3 year olds begin to 
experience disgust. The Freudian view has been that disgust begins with potty training, 
but contemporary scientists dispute this and believe it comes when children are 
old enough to choose their own food.
Animals do not have the disgust response, as Harvard Professor Marc Hauser has 
discovered in his work with primates.
THE PHYSIOLOGY OF DISGUST
At the University of Virginia, Professor John Haidt has monitored the heart rates of people when 
they are disgusted and found that it slows as opposed to when subjects are frightened, when it goes up. 




Frontiers -  080505 - Mission to Mars
******Space science has traditionally been one of Russia’s strongest scientific sectors. 
After the turmoil of the 1990s, when political and economic upheaval made it difficult for 
scientists to get adequate funding, a more confident Russia is now looking ahead to new 
space challenges.In this week’s Frontiers, Richard Hollingham reports from the Institute 
of Biomedical Problems in Moscow. Drawing on their expertise in space endurance, 
scientists at the Institute are planning to simulate a mission to Mars.
Early next year, six cosmonauts will enter a simulated spacecraft and stay there for 500 days. 
Called Mars-500, scientists hope that the simulation will provide them with valuable psychological 
and physiological information about how a crew might withstand the rigours of such a long space flight.
Richard is given a guided tour of the simulation. He meets Sergey Ryazinskiy, a young Russian 
cosmonaut who hopes to be on that first manned mission to Mars.
He also meets Inessa Kozlovskaya, one of the world’s leading authorities on the physiological effects 
of weightlessness. Under Inessa’s watchful eye, Richard is strapped into a horizontal treadmill. Without 
regular load-bearing exercise in space, cosmonauts’ bodies are unable to withstand the stress of 
returning to Earth’s gravity after prolonged weightlessness.





Frontiers -  080512 - Energy Harvesting
******Imagine a heart pacemaker powered by the heart it monitors, or a mobile phone 
powered by the flexing of a knee.
In this week’s Frontiers, Gareth Mitchell meets scientists who are developing ways of 
generating small amounts of electricity from human and mechanical vibration.
The research field is known as “energy harvesting”. Harnessing vibration to generate 
electricity means that devices no longer have to rely on mains electricity or batteries 
for power.Scientists in the Electronic Systems Design Research Group at 
Southampton University are developing a range of sensors that draw their energy 
from mechanical vibration.Small amounts of energy harvested in this way can be used 
to power sensors that monitor the performance of the machine that’s vibrating. Some 
of these devices are now being developed commercially by a University spin-off company, Perpetuum. 




Frontiers -  080519 - Antarctica
******Antarctica can be hostile, remote and inaccessible, but it holds some of the clues 
to the future of our changing planet.
In Frontiers this week Gabrielle Walker reports from this vast, frozen continent.
She joins scientists on a mountain top on the Antarctic Peninsula, drilling an ice core to 
recover the climate record over the last thirty thousand years.
In all the models of climate change, this is the brightest ‘hot spot’ for global warming. Already, 
vast ice shelves are breaking away from the continent nearby.
Further south and more worrying, the biggest glacier in Antarctica is accelerating at an alarming rate. 
But is this the result of natural cycles or a consequence of global warming that could lead to a 
catastrophic rise in world sea level?




Frontiers -  080526 - Coral Reef Restoration
******Andrew Luck-Baker sets sail for the Pacific island archipelago of Palau to witness 
one of nature’s greatest spectacles: the mass spawning of the coral reefs. Palau is home 
to one of the most diverse and spectacular coral reef systems on the planet.
Each year, by the light of the spring full moon, the corals release their eggs and sperm into 
the warm tropical water, in their bid to reproduce. What makes this event so amazing is that 
they do it on nearly the same night each year, and almost all at exactly at the same time.
The reefs of Palau are in fairly good shape, for the time being.  However, the same cannot be 
said for many coral reefs around the world.
Climate change, pollution from the land, and intensive and destructive fishing practices have 
left many coral reefs severely damaged and in grave danger.
Andrew joins Andrew Heyward from the Australian Institute of Marine Science and 
James Guest from the University of Newcastle, as well as researchers from the Philippines, 
California and Palau itself, in their bid to try and restore some of our most threatened coral reefs.
Using the mass spawning event in Palau, their research is looking at ways of collecting the eggs 
and sperm released, cultivating the larvae, and then literally “seeding” degraded reefs.
Their hope is to give these wonderful ecosystems a better chance to re-grow and replenish, 
but with the growing threat of climate change, will their efforts simply be too little too late?


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Frontiers -   080602 - Children's Medicines
******Many of the medicines that children take have never been properly tested on them 
to make sure they are safe and effective.
Doctors often have to make do with drugs designed for adults and just scale down the dose.
This can lead to dosing errors, and adverse events can occur as children’s bodies handle 
some medicines differently to adults. 
Graham Easton shows how new European legislation is about to change this.
Children are at last finding their voice in the corridors of big pharma, and any medicine that 
could benefit children will have to be properly tested and designed with children in mind.
The UK government has spent £20 million on the Medicines for Children Research Network to 
help researchers and drug companies meet the challenge of trialling medicines in children.
Graham Easton reveals why medicines for children lag behind adults, and looks at the practical 
and ethical challenges that the trials pose. 




Frontiers -  080609 - Amphibian Collapse
******One third of amphibians globally are threatened with extinction.
In this week’s Frontiers Sue Broom investigates the mysterious disease that's killing frogs, 
newts and salamanders.
Scientists believe they know what’s responsible for the deaths of amphibians across 
the world - a waterborne fungus called chytrid.
But why has it started to kill frogs only recently and what is it about amphibians that makes 
them so susceptible?
Sue Broom travels to Sardinia to meet the team of scientists who are part of a global effort to 
tackle the mass extinction.
They are monitoring the local species of Sardinian Brook Newt and the Sardinian Painted Frog.
Are they now threatened with extinction? And what does this means for species world wide? Are 
frogs acting like the canary in the coalmine, senstiitve to a variety of environmental changes?
Sue Broom investigates one of the biggest animal extinctions in human memory.





Frontiers -  081020 - Nanofoods
******Imagine a drink that looks like water but can be whatever taste and colour 
you want. At the press of a microwave button, miniscule capsules carrying the 
ingredients of your choice release their contents into the drink, while the others 
remain intact.
It sounds like the stuff of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, but something 
approaching this drink is reputedly in development.
Food scientists are tinkering with foods at the ‘nano’ scale, changing the way they 
taste and feel, and even improving their nutritional content. Low salt and low fat 
products that taste like their higher salt and fat counterparts are already being 
taste tested.
In this week’s Frontiers, Sue Broom asks the food industry and researchers why 
they are making use of the quirky physical laws of the extremely small to create these 'nano' foods.




Frontiers -  081027 - The First Forests
******One of the greatest events in Earth history was the evolution of the first forests 
on the planet, three hundred and eighty million years ago.
Recent fossil discoveries in the United States have revealed how strange these 
earliest stands of trees were. 
Andrew Luck-Baker explores these primeval forest ecosystems and their profound 
impact on the Earth’s atmosphere and climate, and the course of animal evolution… 
producing three foot dragonflies and coaxing our own distant ancestors out of the water.




Frontiers -  081103 - Transient Lunar Phenomena
******To some, they are signs that something stirs beneath the Moon’s dead face. 
To the majority of lunar scientists, they are merely tricks of the light and imagination.
Transient lunar phenomena, or TLPs, is the name given to the spots and patches of 
brightness or red colour occasionally reported by people looking at the moon through 
telescopes. They usually disappear within about fifteen minutes.
There’s a record of about two thousand sightings, stretching back over four centuries.
Famous TLP witnesses include Sir Patrick Moore and the crew of Apollo 11.
In this episode of Frontiers, Andrew Luck-Baker explores the debate about the real 
nature of TLPs and the latest research to resolve the controversy. 





Frontiers -  081110 - SESAME
******With war and conflict sometimes seeming to be an inevitable part of life in the 
Middle East, it’s hard to imagine ministers from Israel and Palestine, Iran and Pakistan, 
Turkey and Cyprus sitting side by side, co-operating on a joint project.
Yet that is precisely what has been happening in Amman, the capital of Jordan, where 
scientists and politicians from across the region, are working together to build a scientific 
experiment they hope will foster peace in this troubled region.
In this episode of Frontiers, Adam Hart-Davis reports from SESAME, the largest scientific 
facility to be attempted in the Middle East, where it’s hoped the common language of science 
will heal old, deep-rooted political wounds.




Frontiers -  081117 - Desalination
******Gareth Mitchell visits two new desalination plants, one in Barcelona, the other 
on the Thames Estuary.
Both plants use a process called “reverse osmosis” to remove the salt.  Water is forced 
through a membrane at high pressure, separating water molecules from mineral contaminants.
Critics of desalination point to the need for high energy levels to force the water through 
the membrane.
Gareth talks to Agua Via, an American company who are developing an atomic-scale 
membrane that works at atmospheric pressure.  The membrane is still being developed 
and has not yet been tested on site, but if it works, the force of gravity would be sufficient 
to drive the water through the membrane.
Finding new sources of clean water is only one part of the solution.  In the UK, leakage from 
pipes currently runs at billions of litres a day.
Gareth watches a demonstration where small rubber bungs called “platelets” are able to 
stop leaks. The technology is being developed by Brinker Technology.



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