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Catalyst

Catalyst

2014•30m•PG•Documentary•News
Similars

Catalyst is Australia's premier science investigation series. Each week the team brings you stories from Australia and around the world, meeting scientists at the forefront of discovery.

StatusReturning Series
Runtime30m
LanguageEN
First Air DateJan 1, 2014

Episodes

E130m

Jane Goodall

Meet Dr. Jane Goodall DBE, world-renowned primatologist, humanitarian, conservationist and UN Messenger of Peace.

Jan 1, 2014

E230m

Shark Behavior

Do sharks have friends? Watch and see if there is actually anything to study when we look at the "social behavior" of sharks off the coast of New South Wales, Australia!

Jan 1, 2015

E330m

Virtual Universe

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could just sit and watch a movie about the universe and see how everything unfolded? Thanks to a new scientifically accurate computer simulation called the Illustris, which models a part of the universe, a cube 350 million light years across, you can!

Jan 1, 2014

E430m

Polar People

Each year, over 2000 people apply for jobs in Antarctica, but few are successful. What are the physical and psychological attributes required to work in the most remote location on Earth? Could you snag a job in sub-zero temperatures at an Antarctic station?

Jan 1, 2015

E530m

Voyager

Take a look at the Voyager unmanned space probes launched in the 1970's -- and where they are now after 36 years of travel! Voyager I is the furthest travelled man made object in space. What are the missions finding in the distant universe?

Jan 1, 2013

E630m

Wings Of Wonder

Titanium implants are a favorite among surgeons. They're light, durable and strong and readily accepted by the human body. But with each surgery comes a small but potentially deadly risk - infection through the introduction of bacteria. How can they design implants to resist bacterial infection?

Jan 1, 2013

E730m

Sun's Lost Siblings

In a family reunion like no other, astronomers reunite our sun with her long lost sibling. Dr Graham Phillips meets the new relative and explores its similarities with our sun. Could it even have planets, like our solar system, and be another home for life?

Jan 1, 2015

E830m

Super Solar Cells

Dr Graham Phillips investigates new technology that is able to convert more than 40 per cent of the sun's light into electricity. This is more than double the efficiency of today's domestic rooftop solar panels, and could eventually lead to cheaper sources of renewable energy.

Jan 1, 2015

E930m

Our Chemical Lives

Thousands of chemicals are used in everyday products – in our water, our food and in the air we breathe. It’s the chemical soup of modern life and it’s virtually impossible to escape them. Is there adequate regulation and testing, or are we in the midst of an uncontrolled, human experiment?

Jan 1, 2015

E1030m

Antivenom

Good to know as you travel to the Antipodes - Australia has the most venomous snakes and spiders in the world. But, if you’re bitten, can you rely on anti-venom? Dr Graham Phillips investigates the effectiveness of anti-venom.

Jan 1, 2015

E1130m

Powering The Mind

What is memory? How do our memories change from childhood to adulthood? How we can build up greater brain reserves to power our mind into old age? Brain epigenetics, how the expression of our DNA can be changed by our experiences, is an intriguing new area of science with huge health implications.

Jan 1, 2015

E1230m

Alien Technology

Is there anyone out there? Does the popular movie quote 'ET phone home' have any substance? Astronomers have been pointing their radio telescopes at the skies for decades trying to pick up alien signals. Hitch a ride as we join astronomers trawling through the galaxy looking for signs of life.

Jan 1, 2015

E1330m

3D Virus

How can a supercomputer can help researchers to a better understanding of the poliovirus at an atomic level? This has implications for understanding and eradicating deadly diseases worldwide.

Jan 1, 2013

E1430m

Future Cities

It's amazing to think that in the 1900s a mere tenth of the world's population lived and worked in cities. Now it is over half. With soaring populations, how will we keep our cities live-able? And what will the city of tomorrow look like?

Jan 1, 2014

E1530m

Quantum Computing

The promise of quantum computers is that what would otherwise take a billion years to calculate, could be done in a few seconds. First-generation quantum computers have started to appear. Indeed, earlier this year, Google bought one, The D-Wave 2. How will this advance change our future lives?

Jan 1, 2013

E1630m

Peacock Spider

Think spiders aren't beautiful? Then think again! The colorful and beautiful jumping Peacock Spider, native to Australia, will change your mind.

Jan 1, 2013

E1730m

Allergy Pill

In the western world there’s an epidemic of allergies. Could it be that our lifestyles are too clean? And that we’re not exposing ourselves to bugs that help build our immune systems? Is there bacteria that is good for us?

Jan 1, 2014

E1830m

Cardiac Implants

There’s no doubt that cardiac implants or stents save lives. They unblock arteries to prevent heart attacks. But because the body treats stents as foreign, the risk of blood clots is ever present. How can we coat the stents in order to stop the rejections?

Jan 1, 2013

E1930m

Honey Bees

It seems that the bee population crisis is intricately tied to the way we have changed our planet. Catalyst investigates how modern agriculture methods, increasing diseases and the impending threat of the deadly varroa mite could destroy the last safe-haven for bees on the planet, Australia.

Jan 1, 2014

E2030m

Extreme Weather

This special report looks at the domino effect of environmental and atmospheric factors that drive the globe to wetter, hotter, drier and colder extremes.

Jan 1, 2013

E2130m

Fast Food For Hummingbirds

By building see-through flowers, researchers at the University of Connecticut have captured high-speed, high-magnification images of the remarkable tongue of the Hummingbird. And they've revealed that previously held theories about the diminutive birds are wrong!

Jan 1, 2011

E2230m

Ancient Writing

Cuneiform documents in clay cover everything from political affairs to economic practices, from 3400BC right up to the time of Christ. But can modern technology unwrap clay envelopes so that archaeologists can preserve the artifact but see the letter inside? Watch and see!

Jan 1, 2013

E2330m

Tokyo Flood Prevention

Fifty meters beneath the teeming mega-city of Tokyo is an underworld river system - 6.4km of tunnels, colossal water tanks, massive pillars, giant pumps that remove 200 tons of floodwater every second. It’s an engineering marvel built to protect Tokyo against the increasing threat of flooding.

Jan 1, 2014

E2430m

Life Enhancing Drugs

Performance-enhancing drugs aren't limited to just sport and increasing your physical prowess. There are substances that could improve your mind power as well - things like help you learn faster or improve your memory. Do we face a future where we'll be increasingly brain doping?

Jan 1, 2013

E2530m

Bioluminescence

A short video on this phenomenon of nature, particularly evident in deep ocean animals.

Jan 1, 2011

E2630m

Mega-tsunamis

By investigating the tell-tale signs of earthquakes and tsunamis written into the landscape over the last thousand years, Japanese scientists are rewriting the rule books for disaster prevention in the Pacific.

Jan 1, 2014

Recommendations

Frontline
History's Greatest Mysteries
Top Gear
Down to Earth with Zac Efron
The Crocodile Hunter
Natural World
Nature
Earth at Night in Colour
Biography
Planet Earth III
48 Hours
How Do They Do It?
NOVA
Welcome to Earth
30 for 30
American Masters
Marvel's 616
Blue Planet II
Mysteries at the Museum
Prehistoric Planet

Similars

Tales of the Unexpected
Stephen Hawking's Science of the Future
The Unexplained Files
Science Britannica
Uranium: Twisting the Dragon's Tail
Breakthrough
The Body of Coppens
Science And Islam
Wallace & Gromit's World of Invention
NOVA scienceNOW
The Human Body
Fatal Experiments: The Downfall of a Supersurgeon
Richard Hammond's Invisible Worlds
Human 3.0
Body Atlas
Our Fascinating Planet
Sexplora
Testing God
The Search for Solutions
Notre part animale