Wonders of the Solar System: Aliens

This week, Professor Brian Cox descends to the bottom of the Pacific in a submarine to witness the extraordinary life forms that survive in the cold, black waters. All life on Earth needs water so the search for aliens in the Solar System has followed the search for water.

Soaring above the dramatic Scablands of the United States, Brian discovers how the same landscape has been found on Mars. And it was all carved out in a geological heart-beat by a monumental flood.

Armed with a gas mask, Brian enters a cave in Mexico where bacteria breath toxic gas and leak concentrated acid. Yet relatives of these creatures could be surviving in newly-discovered caves on Mars.

But Brian’s 6th Wonder isn’t a planet at all. Jupiter’s moon Europa is a dazzling ball of ice etched with strange cracks. The patterns in the ice reveal that, far below, there is an ocean with more potentially life-giving water than all the oceans on Earth.

Of all the Wonders of the Solar System forged by the laws of nature, there is one that stands out. In the final episode of this series, Brian reveals the greatest Wonder of them all.

Written & Produced by Michael Lachmann
Assistant Producer: Laura Mulholland
Series Producer: Danielle Peck
Exec Producer: Andrew Cohen

for further details, please visit programme link below
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rtg5k

Here's a hilarious spoof of the opening titles to the series... (contains swearing)

BBC Wildlife Photography Masterclasses

For photography masterclasses on everything from mammal portraits to capturing birds in flight visit the BBC Wildlife Magazine website

Nature by Numbers - a short film

Nature by Numbers from Cristóbal Vila

For more information go to http://www.etereaestudios.com/ This film is inspired and based on theories anc concepts such as Fibonacci, Golden Ratio, Delaunay, Voronoi… The website also has stills and screenshots showing the development of the film. Plus free training materials and 3D workshops.

Get ready to Go WILD with the BBC Wildlife Fund 2010

To get involved visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/wild/

Tiger Tracking: Poo, Pee & Pugmarks

From www.ironammonite.com

Mandanna Dilan shows me the signs to look out for when tracking Tigers in South India.
(Read my live report from the field: July 2009)



Directed by Kalyan Varma, Filmed by David Heath 

Wonders of the Solar System: Dead or Alive

In the penultimate programme in this spell-binding series, Professor Brian Cox visits some of the most dramatic locations on Earth to explain how the laws of nature create astonishing natural wonders across the Solar System.

The worlds that surround our planet are all made of rock, but there the similarity ends. Some have a beating geological heart, others are frozen in time. In this episode Brian travels to the tallest mountain on Earth, the volcano Mauna Kea on Hawaii, to show how something as basic as a planet’s size can make the difference between life and death. Even on the summit of this volcano, Brian would stand in the shade of the tallest mountain in the Solar System, an extinct volcano on Mars called Olympus Mons, which rises up 27kms.

Yet the fifth Wonder in the series isn’t on a planet at all. It’s on a tiny moon of Jupiter. The discoveries made on Io have been astonishing. This fragment of rock should be cold and dead, yet, with the volcanic landscape of Eastern Ethiopia as a backdrop, Brian reveals why Io is home to extraodinary lakes of lava and giant volcanic plumes that erupt 500kms into the sky.

Written & Directed by Paul Olding
Assistant Producer: Ben Finney
Series Producer: Danielle Peck
Exec Producer: Andrew Cohen

for further details, please visit programme link below
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rtg5k

Human Planet sneak preview

The Human Planet team (from the BBC Natural History Unit) have just launched their programme website - www.bbc.co.uk/humanplanet

Each month they will be uploading new content and launching one of the eight episodes - they've started with Arctic, including two great videos about Greenland dogs and camping on the ice, plus Norwegian yoiks (have to be heard to be believed). There are also interviews with award winning musician Nitin Sawhney who's composing the music for the series and photographer Tim Allen.

Next month, Jungles!

Please take a look at the website - also see the blogs - the amazing photos of Tim Allen, and the fascinating stories from the team.

The series is due to be broadcast this Autumn on BBC1.

Rare EarthTones: free endangered species ringtones

The eerie warble of the Puerto Rican crested toad, the siren song of the Okinawa dugong and the call of a relatively pint-sized elephant seal pup as it cries for its mother. All these and many more are now available as free endangered species ringtones

View and download all available ringtones

The Center for Biological Diversity offers you free endangered species ringtones and phone wallpapers — a collection of high-quality, authentic sounds and images of some of the world’s most threatened birds, owls, frogs, toads and marine mammals.

Whether the cry of the Mexican gray wolf or the underwater warbles of the beluga whale, these ringtones provide a great starting point for talking about the plight of threatened species worldwide.
The Center for Biological Diversity

VIDEO: Watched by a protective elephant & calf, South India

From www.ironammonite.com

Shortly before our BIG elephant encounter (See: July 2009 - King of the Road Elephant Encounter video coming soon) Kalyan and I met a mother and calf in the forest - although she kept an keen eye on us it was a much tamer experience which allowed us to discuss these wonderful animals - and move on before she became too stressed by our presence.

This was filmed at Biligirirangan Hills Wildlife Sanctuary, Karnataka.



Visit Kalyan Varma's website and photo-journal

Wonders of the Solar System: Thin Blue Line

Sunday March 21st 9pm, BBC2

This week Professor Brian Cox reveals how something as flimsy as an envelope of gas - an atmosphere - can create some of the most wondrous sights in the Solar System.

Brian takes a ride in a English Electric Lightning and flies 18kms up to the top of Earth’s atmosphere, where he sees the darkness of space above and the thin blue line of our atmosphere below. In the Namib desert in south-west Africa, he tells the story of Mercury. This tiny planet was stripped naked of its early atmosphere and is fully exposed to the ferocity of space.

But it’s against the stunning backdrop of the glaciers of Alaska, that Brian reveals his fourth Wonder. Saturn’s moon Titan is shrouded by a murky, thick atmosphere. In this episode Brian reveals that below the clouds lies a magical world. Titan is the only place beyond Earth where we’ve found liquid pooling on the surface in vast lakes, as big as the Caspian Sea. But the lakes of Titan are filled with a mysterious liquid, and are quite unlike anything on Earth.

Written & Directed by Chris Holt
Assistant Producer Tom Ranson
Series Producer Danielle Peck
Exec Producer: Andrew Cohen

For further details, please visit programme link below
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rmpqh