Former Conservative MP Michael Portillo pushes his body to the brink of death in an investigation into the science of execution.As the American Supreme Court examines whether the lethal injection is causing prisoners to die in unnecessary pain, Michael sets out to find a solution which is fundamentally humane.Armed with startling new evidence, Michael considers a completely new approach.
In 2007 the BBC documentary film Bulgaria’s Abandoned Children caused an international outcry because the images of neglect were so shocking to witness in a country that had just become a member of the European Union. Viewers were overwhelmed with emotion and anger when they saw Bulgarian children brutalized and dying before their eyes when in State care, having been abandoned by their parents bec
Is it possible to achieve eternal life? Some believe the first children who will live to the age of 1,000 have already been born. To find out how close humanity is to defeating death, we’ll investigate plans to grow replacement body parts in labs, microscopic robots that could wipe out deadly diseases, and the possibility that aging itself can be reversed by taking a page out of one of history’s d
James May commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landings. He meets three of the men who walked on the moon, before experiencing the thrill of weightlessness, and the bone-crushing G forces of a Saturn V rocket launch. Finally, he puts on a space suit and flies to the edge of space in a U2 spy plane, where he looks down at the curvature of the earth and upwards into the black infinit
Fulfilling a life long dream to be an astronaut, James May was given the opportunity to fly to the edge of space in a Lockheed U-2 spy plane. To do this he first had to spend three days training with the United States Air Force at Beale Air Force Base and then learning how to use a space suit correctly. Following this he was taken on a 3 hour flight reaching the edge of space (an altitude of over
For thousands of years the holy lands of the Middle East have run with blood. Here the scars of battle fought between three of the great religions of the world are etched into the earth.But the deepest wound was made by a war between Christians and Muslims, that began in the 11th century and fought for 200 years. At stake: A tiny strip of land just a few hundred miles long, but with the greate
As part of the making of the documentary series A Brief History of Disbelief, Jonathan Miller filmed conversations with some very distinguished minds.In this ground-breaking series, neurologist turned playwright and atheist Jonathan Miller interviewed six of today’s leading men of letters and science.New York Times best-selling author Richard Dawkins, Philosophers Daniel Dennett and Colin McGi
The world is affected by an obesity epidemic, but why is it that not everyone is succumbing?Medical science has been obsessed with this subject and is coming up with some unexpected answers. As it turns out, it is not all about exercise and diet.At the center of this programme is a controversial overeating experiment that aims to identify exactly what it is about some people that makes it hard
This documentary film goes in detail through the untold history of The Project for the New American Century with tons of archival footage and connects it right into the present.It exposes how every major war in US history was based on a complete fraud with video of insiders themselves admitting it. This film shows how the first film theaters in the US were used over a hundred years ago to broa