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It now seems that our entire universe is living on borrowed time. How long it can survive depends on whether Stephen Hawking’s theory checks out. Special thanks to Ivan Bridgewater for use of footage.

Time is flying by on this busy, crowded planet… as life changes and evolves from second to second.

And yet the arc of human lifespan is getting longer: 65 years is the global average … way up from just 20 in the Stone Age.

Modern science, however, provides a humbling perspective. Our lives… indeed the life span of the human species… is just a blip compared to the age of the universe, at 13.7 billion years and counting.

It now seems that our entire universe is living on borrowed time…

And that even it may be just a blip within the grand sweep of deep time.

Scholars debate whether time is a property of the universe… or a human invention.

What’s certain is that we use the ticking of all kinds of clocks… from the decay of radioactive elements to the oscillation of light beams… to chart and measure a changing universe… to understand how it works and what drives it.
Our own major reference for the passage of time is the 24-hour day… the time it takes the Earth to rotate once. Well, it’s actually 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds… approximately… if you’re judging by the stars, not the sun.
Earth acquired its spin during its birth, from the bombardment of rocks and dust that formed it.
But it’s gradually losing that rotation to drag from the moon’s gravity.
That’s why, in the time of the dinosaurs, a year was 370 days… and why we have to add a leap second to our clocks about every 18 months.
In a few hundred million years, we’ll gain a whole hour.
The day-night cycle is so reliable that it has come to regulate our internal chemistry.
The fading rays of the sun, picked up by the retinas in our eyes, set our so-called “circadian rhythms” in motion.

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Leading scientists use cutting-edge CGI to trace the extraordinary evolutionary path of the turkey, starting with one of the first dinosaurs.

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In a sleepy lagoon off the coast of Japan lies a shocking secret that a few desperate men will stop at nothing to keep hidden from the world. In Taiji, Japan, former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O’Barry who captured and trained the 5 dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation “Flipper.” One fateful day, a heartbroken Barry came to realize that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures must never be subjected to human captivity again. This mission has brought him to Taiji, a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders and mysteries of the sleek, playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast. But in a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and “Keep Out” signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt. The nature of what they do is so chilling and the consequences are so dangerous to human health that they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it.
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We humans seem to run to the beat of time, often without being aware of how this is the case or how our perception of it may differ from another person’s, from nature’s rhythms or from our own internal clock. In the first episode of the series, string theory pioneer Michio Kaku witnesses one of the most extraordinary feats of timing in nature on a remote Californian beach.
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This programme is about how plants gain their sustenance. Sunlight is one of the essential requirements if a seed is to germinate, and Attenborough highlights the cheese plant as an example whose young shoots head for the nearest tree trunk and then climb to the top of the forest canopy, developing its leaves en route. Using sunshine, air, water and a few minerals, the leaves are, in effect, the “factories” that produce food. However, some, such as the begonia, can thrive without much light.

To gain moisture, plants typically use their roots to probe underground. Trees pump water up pipes that run inside their trunks, and Attenborough observes that a sycamore can do this at the rate of 450 litres an hour — in total silence. Too much rainfall can clog up a leaf’s pores, and many have specially designed ‘gutters’ to cope with it. However, their biggest threat is from animals, and some require extreme methods of defence, such as spines, camouflage, or poison.
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The first episode looks at how plants are able to move. The bramble is an aggressive example: it advances forcefully from side to side and, once settled on its course, there is little that can stand in its way. An altogether faster species is the birdcage plant, which inhabits Californian sand dunes. When its location becomes exposed, it shifts at great speed to another one with the assistance of wind — and it is this that allows many forms of vegetation to distribute their seeds. While not strictly a plant, the spores of fungi are also spread in a similar fashion. One of the most successful (and intricate) flowers to use the wind is the dandelion, whose seeds travel with the aid of ‘parachutes’. They are needed to travel miles away from their parents, who are too densely packed to allow any new arrivals. Trees have the advantage of height to send their seeds further, and the cottonwood is shown as a specialist in this regard. The humidity of the tropical rainforest creates transportation problems, and the liana is one plant whose seeds are aerodynamic ‘gliders’. Some, such as those of the sycamore, take the form of ‘helicopters’, while others, such as the squirting cucumber release their seeds by ‘exploding’. Water is also a widely used method of propulsion. However, most plants use living couriers, whether they be dogs, humans and other primates, ants or birds, etc., and to that end, they use colour and smell to signify when they are ripe for picking.
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The Mojave- a landscape of extreme and fragile beauty- will encounter new challenges with the coming climate change. Desert field researchers tell the story in their words and share their experiences with us. Joshua trees, Bighorn sheep, pupfish, desert springs, and even the soil crust itself face new problems.
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The world’s first major documentary about the devastating effect of overfishing premiered at Sundance Film Festival

Imagine an ocean without fish. Imagine your meals without seafood. Imagine the global consequences. This is the future if we do not stop, think and act.

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