Season 18

The first episode of Superquark opens with a magnificent documentary from the USHUAIA series by Nicolas Hulot: a journey of contrasts between an extremely urbanized India and a Nepal where time seems to have stopped. Immersed in the calm of the Himalayan mountains or among the teeming masses of the Indian megalopolises, the “men-nature” seem to live in harmony with the elements. Strange, surprising and colorful. Alberto Angela will guide us on a visit to an unusual museum, the Cesare Lombroso Museum of Criminal Anthropology in Turin. The countless finds, which Prof. Lombroso had collected, belong to criminals and the mentally ill. The professor's scientific theories, later contested, nevertheless laid the foundations of criminology, with the use of analytical and statistical methods that are still current.

In the second episode of Superquark a documentary from the new BBC series Human Planet: Rivers. The rivers of our planet provide many of the essentials for life: fresh water, natural routes of communication and entertainment, but living on a river can be a risk, whether it is the Amazon or the Ganges. The dangerous and incredible life of those who live "of" the river. How many times in the countryside have we seen those extraordinary webs built by spiders in the bushes, to trap insects? Today researchers have understood that spider thread could be a very precious material, for many uses, because it has a resistance that no other material we have built has. It could, for example, replace the cartilage of the knees. And this prospect is now very close to clinical application. In the report by Barbara Bernardini. In less than a century, cyclists' performances have skyrocketed: from 23 km/h in 1914 to 40 km/h in 2009.

In the third episode of Superquark another documentary from the spectacular new BBC series Human Planet: Jungles. Tropical forests cover only 2% of the planet, but half of living species live there. Surviving in this hostile environment requires a deep understanding of jungle ecology. For example, most edibles grow at more than 30 meters above sea level, so getting enough food is a strenuous daily struggle. Almost 3 million Italians have difficulty reading and writing. It is dyslexia, a disorder that is well known today, but which in the past meant that certain children at school were considered lazy, uninterested, or worse, unintelligent. Today we know that this is not the case, and on the other hand, so were Einstein and Kennedy. In the report by Marco Visalberghi.

For the opening documentary of the fourth episode of Superquark, of the BBC Human Planet series: Oceans. The oceans support most of the species on Earth, although humans are not among them, because they cannot drink or breathe salt water. However, they have never stopped using it to their advantage: swimming, fishing, surfing, traveling on the oceans. More than a third of the population lives on the coasts of the ocean and some populations are deeply dependent on it for their subsistence, such as the fishermen of Southeast Asia or the Brazilian lagoon. But the ocean is a capricious mistress: sometimes the height of beauty and calm, other times the deepest terror.Hof ways. But the ocean is a capricious mistress, bountiful one moment and terrifyingly deadly the next. There is a kind of large safe, perhaps more precious than the one that holds the gold of the Bank of Italy.

We can survive weeks without food, but only a few days without water. The eternal struggle for water and the ingenious solutions adopted in the most desert areas of the planet, in the documentary of the fifth episode of Superquark, of the BBC Human Planet series: Deserts. An army of 10 million interviewers for the largest census on the planet. The one that ended a few weeks ago in China. To count what is the largest population in the world and understand its dynamics in an era of colossal changes. In the report by Lorenzo Pinna. After the tragedies of the Heysel Stadium in Brussels and the seizure of the “Achille Lauro”, one of the flagships of the State has taken shape: the Crisis Unit of the Farnesina. A “handful” of officials and operators, working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, prepares emergency and evacuation plans, “shaping” them on all possible scenarios, from natural disasters to health emergencies, to international political revolts. Structure copied by many other countries.

The weather in the mountains can change suddenly and go from sultry heat to arctic cold. The higher you go, the less oxygen you have available. Nonetheless, millions of people around the world choose to live at great heights, compensating for the great difficulties of survival with technology or community spirit. The Himalayan and Andean populations are an example for all. The fascinating landscapes of the high mountains and the people who live there at dizzying altitudes in the extraordinary documentary Mountains from the BBC Human Planet series. The number of nerve cells that make up our brain is equal to that of the stars in the Milky Way: one hundred billion. Today, thanks to research, such as that conducted at the University of California in Los Angeles, it is possible to understand what happens in the brain when you use the many and different drugs, which unfortunately are in circulation.

It is one of the most extreme places on Earth: dark and frozen for months in the winter, without trees or edible plants in the summer. Yet 4 million people have learned to live there thanks to their understanding of the wild nature that surrounds them. It is the Arctic, with its animals such as belugas, narwhals and seals, essential for the survival of men. An extraordinary documentary from the BBC Human Planet series shows its most "secret" and unknown corners. China, a leader in the field of renewable energy? Not much is known about it, but in reality it is on its way to becoming the largest producer of wind and photovoltaic systems, making the USA and the European Union nervous. At the National Museum in Copenhagen, incredibly preserved deceased and funerary objects open up glimpses into the Bronze Age.

Prairies feed the world. Over thousands of years, humans have learned to cultivate prairies and domesticate the animals that live there. The success of this operation has brought the population to the current seven billion. But it has not been all roses and flowers for the men of the prairies. Even if they are less hostile places than glaciers and deserts, living on the steppes of Mongolia or the plains of Kenya is not a walk in the park and still requires skill, a spirit of adaptation and collaboration with other living creatures. Prairies: another extraordinary documentary from the BBC Human Planet series. The Roman civilization has left behind monuments, temples and extraordinary works of engineering. By digging, as from a mine, remarkable finds continue to emerge and sometimes even the remains of monumental complexes.

It is a story that lasts 500 million years and that features some of the most exotic and wonderful marine creatures on earth. Coral is nature's greatest architect and coral reefs have the greatest biodiversity of any ecosystem. Two thousand hours of extraordinary footage to tell the story of the Great Barrier Reef. Nature had anciently arranged for sexual development to occur when young people were ready for reproduction, that is, to have children. Instead, we now enter the reproductive age when the body and mind are still infantile. With the possibility that this modifies, early, not only the voice but also behavior. Precocious puberty in the report by Francesca Marcelli. Nimby, translated: not in my backyard, not in my backyard. It is the position of those who protest against the construction of power plants, railway or highway infrastructure, incinerators or regasification plants, wind generators or high-voltage pylons.

In the tenth episode of Superquark a very curious and funny documentary from the BBC series Seeing the Invisible about Speed ​​Limits. The human eye takes about fifty thousandths of a second to blink, but our brain takes one hundred and fifty thousandths of a second to process what we see. It's very little, but in those few thousandths of a second extraordinary things happen that we don't realize. With the help of the latest generation high-speed cameras, we take a journey beyond the limits of our eye, trying to discover the secrets hidden in every single element of our planet. Wars fought by robots? It seems like a science fiction film, but it will be the reality of the near future. In the report by Lorenzo Pinna. An aneurysm is a congenital weak point in the arteries that, with blood pressure and the passing of the years, swells and risks bursting. If this happens, there is a four in ten chance of dying. More and more often it is resolved with an operation.

The documentary in this episode, Story of a Baboon, tells the story of a young baboon whose father, the dominant male of the group, is deposed following a bloody battle and replaced by a stronger male from another group. The male baboons who have become dominant will kill the offspring of their predecessors. Until weaning, the baby baboon is very vulnerable. Will it survive? By following the life of our young baboon, the documentary reveals behaviors rarely filmed and allows us to better understand the complex society of these intelligent primates. The Atlantic was one of the scenarios of the bloody events of the Second World War: the protagonists were the feared U-Boots, the submarines of the German Navy. Alberto Angela visits two of the three intact U-Boots still existing in the world, in Germany and France: he describes their technical aspects and recalls the state of mind and daily life of the crews, made up of about fifty young people in their early twenties.

To close this year's Superquark series, a very special BBC documentary on the polar bear. Cameras hidden in icebergs, snowballs and more have spied on the life of bears in such a difficult environment and their ability to adapt to the world of ice. Beautiful and funny images. In May 1942, 19 Royal Air Force bombers carried out a very high-risk mission, which cost the lives of 56 English airmen and the loss of eight aircraft. The purpose of the mission: to destroy the dams of the Ruhr mining region, to weaken German production capacity. Alberto Angela retraces the stages of this little-known event of the Second World War. Super megacities with over 25 million inhabitants seem to be the trademark of this century. In 2025, China will have 15 cities with a similar population.