Brave New World with Stephen Hawking (2011–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - Environment - full transcript

Science is on the brink of
changing your life.

Right now, men and women
around the world

are making amazing breakthroughs.

This is incredible.

Wow!

Our team of leading scientists
have chosen the discoveries

they think matter most.

Whoa!

An almost limitless supply
of clean energy.

It's these which are the basis
of one of the most important

of all conservation enterprises.



From the car you'll drive...

Aah!

...to medical advances
that could save your life.

This miracle means that
we can replace surgery.

On a journey that spans
the jungles of Africa...

I'm here to join the hunt

to find one of the biggest threats
to human survival.

..to the quads of Oxford.

This is arguably the most
complicated thing in the universe.

We will show you how science
is a force for good.

Prepare to see your future.

This is the beginning
of that brave new world.

Tonight, we want to tell you

how science is fighting
to save our world.



Finding new ways to create energy,

clear pollution,

prevent solar disasters

and preserve animal species
in the twenty first century Noah's Ark.

These are the discoveries that could
secure the future of our planet.

Recently... this elephant
made headline news!

She was been kept in horrific
circumstances, in a circus,

but then...
she was rescued,

and now, well... she's old
and she's arthritic,

but she's in much better, happier
conditions here in Longleat Park.

So, how old is she?

It's between 57 and 60-years-old.

I mean, elephants... you know, they have
the same kind of life span as we have.

We think she's probably
the oldest elephant in Europe.

Was she born in captivity?

- No, she's actually from Sir Lanka...
- Aha!

I think there were about 15 of them
brought over from Sir Lanka...

back in the '50s, and she's
the last surviving one.

'Anne's health
has improved immensely.

'She is safer here than an old elephant
could ever been in the wild.'

I've been lucky enough during my life

to spend quite some time
watching and filming elephants...

and I find it appalling to think
that there might be a time coming

when nobody will be able to see
wild elephant.

The fact of the matter is that
this majestic wonderful creatures

are fast disappearing from the Earth.

Hello!

Yes, yes. Hello.

It's a lot more solid actually
on her foot.

The cuticles are looking better as well.
So already come away.

That's right. Good girl!

OK, good girl.

A vet is now taking a blood sample
from this lovely old creature.

It will preserve genetic information

that could last for hundreds,
if not thousands of years.

It's all part of a project
to save the genome

of our most endangered creatures.

Part of a project called
The Frozen Ark.

'Once the blood is taken,

'it must be processed,
refrigerated quickly,

'before it starts to clot.

'Contained within every one of
the thousands of the blood cells here,

'is the entire blueprint for this
ancient elephant species.'

As a particularly interesting animal,
in my opinion, just because

she's an Asian elephant,
she's endangered,

but we know she was wild caught
in what was then Ceylon,

over 50 years ago and so...

the genetic provenance, if you like,
is extremely good.

She is good material?!

Absolutely. I think she's fantastic,
I mean I think...

Asian elephants, as a species,
are very important to the Ark,

and very unusual to come across

wild elephant, that was wild caught...
we know exactly where she came from.

Well, she's a lovely animal.

The sample is whisked to London,
and The Frozen Ark stores

in the Natural History Museum.

But as quickly samples
are collected

more species join the list
of those in danger.

Extinction is a natural process.

99% of the species that have ever
lived on Earth are now extinct.

But never before,
in the history of life,

has just one species been responsible
for the extension of so many others,

or in such a short period of time!

It was the threat of extinction
that inspired the Frozen Ark.

In the 1960s, Ann Clarke went to the
sud sea islands to study snails.

Over 30 years, she saw over
a hundred species disappear,

so, she set up this vital gene bank
to tackle the problem.

The Frozen Ark has started.

What are your targets?

10,000 species or so are going to be
extinct in the next 30 to 50 years,

and so, I suppose...
one could say that

our targets are those 10.000.

But we are starting with the
most endangered groups,

which are extinct in the wild.

Which, I suppose, is practical,
but in an ideal world,...

we would ask biologists,
everywhere, to do this tomorrow.
- Absolutely!

So, we hope that this will become

really a sort of last resort
conservation effort.

If species extinction continues
at its current rate,

the work of the Frozen Ark
will be even more critical.

The only link future generations
may have to our reach diversity

could be DNA preserved
in liquid nitrogen.

And although science isn't yet capable

of resurrecting an extinct species
from frozen DNA,

the possibility is not that remote.

Deep in the basement of the museum,

the Ark's bio banks
await the next delivery.

It's here that I add
an other vital sample.

So now, the DNA from that
lovely elephant

is safely preserved here

where it will remain
undamaged for centuries,

if not thousands of years.

Our ever growing population places
great demands on the planet.

But scientist work in to
meet those demands,

creating new ways
to feed the world.

Like millions of farm animals
around the world,

these pigs exist
for only one purpose.

For us to eat them!

Around the globe,
human beings consume

around 250 million tons
of meat a year

and that could double by 2050.

All this meat-eating means livestock

is quite literally
taking over the planet.

Currently, we use around
a third of the world's land

for livestock production.

We're exhausting our resources
trying to produce meat,

and it's only getting worse!

So imagine for a moment a world
in which meat is produced

without having to breed it,
rear it, feed it, or kill it.

A world in which meat is produced

in tiny little plastic dishes.

Science fiction?
Maybe not!

I'm Mark Evans,
and as a vet,

I've done a lot of work
on animal welfare.

So the idea of lab-grown, or
"in vitro meat", is intriguing.

And it's been around
start of the last century.

Winston Churchill boldly
predicted in 1931

that science would soon be able
to create a chicken breast,...

without a chicken.

And when we got into space,

NASA persuade the idea
of artificial meat

as a way of feeding astronauts,
on long missions.

Now it's scientists here in Holland

who are leading the
all meat revolution

with nothing more than a few cells,

collagen, and squares of Velcro.

I'm meeting the man at the frontier
at this new science, Doctor Mark Post,

A specialist in tissue engineering
at Maastricht University.

The process of creating in vitro meat,
starts with a small biopsy

taken from a live animal.

The cells are tiny, and they need
to grow up this muscle cells,

so you need to cut it first,
in very small pieces.

Then treat it with an enzyme, so that
the texture even become looser,

and you can let the cells grow out.

These are the cells that if
we have an injury of a muscle,

will actually repair it.

And that principle we use
to grow muscle in the lab.

What you're doing is damaging
the muscle fiber cells

to start the stem cells
doing their work,

and they will then grow new muscle
fiber cells, out of the damaged one.

Exactly.

The cells are then cultured by
adding them to a medium of nutrients,

amino acids and lipids,
that kick-starts their growth.

Each cell doubles every 18 hours,

and after two weeks,
the results are pretty impressive.

This dark outline here is
the original muscle fiber cell.

Right.

And they've now divided into
everyone of this structures here

This is a separate cell?

Yeah.

Right now, we can make them
to double twenty times,

which means that one cell
becomes a million cells.

- Wow!
- Right.

And if we improve that,...

theoretically we can go
up to fifty times.

or maybe even higher...

And then you can create
an enormous amount of cells

from one single cell.

At this stage, though, the cells
aren't formed together like meat.

The next step in the process
is to seed them in a collagen gel

which should cause the cells
to organize into muscle fiber.

Or that's the theory.

This Petri dish has just came out
of the incubator at 37?C degrees.

And when it went in,
each one of the six wells in it

contained a million
chaotically organized stem cells.

I've been promised that
there is now a dramatic change.

So I'm gone lower power
at the moment,...

but if you wind the power up,
this is when it gets exciting.

Wow! That's incredible!

That,... that's incredible!

What's happened is that these
chaotic organized cells...

have somehow managed
to align themselves up,

so they're kind of running
parallel now,

and they're starting to produce

muscle fiber cells,

muscle that's been nowhere near
a form,

it's been created by stem cells,

in a Petri dish.

It's not clear why the cells
are organizing themselves like this,

but it seems to be with the way
they behind to the collagen -

similar to the way that
fresh scar tissue shrinks.

That is really remarkable.

It's definitely meat,...

but no as we know it!

This product could play a huge
part in satisfying our hunger

for more and more meat.

That's if we actually
eat it, of course.

These small pieces of tissue
we can already make right now,

as it has already an animal
protein content, that is 70%,

which is more than the regular
sausage that we buy,

so this can be processed
in to processed meat.

Have you tried it?

I haven't tried it, but a russian
reporter who came by

a couple of months ago tried it,

and he confirmed that
it doesn?t taste like meat yet.

Are you not tempted to try it?

Not really. I mean...

This is... This whole process
is still in a scientific phase.

Right?

And this are experiments,...

and people work hard on getting
scientific questions answered

through these experiments.

So then, I'm going to eat it
for no particular reason,

other than to...

satisfy my very simple non scientific
curiosity of how does it taste.

But it's a critical factor that,
isn't it?

This is gonna go nowhere, and all will
just become a piece of scientific history,

unless, actually,
that thing has...

the flavor, the texture, the taste,
the market demands.

There is very little known about
what defines the taste of meat.

So that's one of the scientific
outcomes, if you wish,

of this project,...

that we can, step by step,
define

what determines the taste
of this meat product.

One way Dr Post is looking at
to improve taste

is to add fat and iron.

Another challenge he faces
is bringing down the cost

of production. It's still
very expensive.

But one wealthy American businessman
has seen the potential

and is investing
in the next leap forward.

Next year we are going to try
making a hamburger.

And it's going to be a
250.000 euro hamburger.

(LAUGHS)

How confident are you that's
possible to get from here

to a recognizable hamburger,

that presumably tastes
like a hamburger in 12 months?

I'm reasonably confident!

And,... apparently convincingly enough
to get financing for it.

Scientists here in Holland
seem pretty confident

that sooner or later,
possibly sooner,

they will be able to grow burgers,
sausages, even chops and steaks.

That are hard if note impossible
to tell from the real thing.

It may be controversial,
but in vitro meat

certainly has the potential to make
the world a better, healthier place,

and it could happen if billions
of as could be tempted to eat it.

The challenges facing us
often seem daunting.

But scientist constantly searching
for ways to overcome them.

Next, a story of how we may be
closer then ever to create

a new source of energy.

One that has the power of the stars.

Our modern world
lust for energy.

We're consuming more and more
each year!

and the amount we're gobbling up
is due to double by 2050.

We are burning our way
through fossil fuels,

renewable energy looks like
it's not going to fill the gap

and nuclear energy is once again
under the spot light,

after recent events in Japan.

It all seems a bit hopeless.

But as a physicist, I know
there is an alternative,

an almost limitless supply
of clean energy,

almost no pollution!

Too good to be true?

Well,... I believe
it's not that far off.

Since the 1930s, we've been trying
to unlock the hidden energy

bound up in the nuclea of atoms.

After the development
of the atomic bomb,

scientists worked to harness nuclear
energy in a more controlled way.

(TELEVISION) A new landmark
rises at Pleasanton!

It's the nation's first privately financed
and operated atomic power plant.

Just behind me is the site of one of
the earliest nuclear power plants.

It's decommissioned now,
but when it operated

it was on exactly the same principles

as every other nuclear power plant
working today.

And that's something called
"nuclear fission".

Now, this is a tremendously
brilliant source of energy,

but it does have its drawbacks.

It relies on burning
heavy metals like uranium,

which are in limited supply
and won't last forever.

And it produces dangerous radioactive
waste that needs to be dealt with,

or at least buried in the ground
for a very long time,...

and of course, if released,
can be deadly.

But there's another way of unlocking
the energy trapped in the atom,

and is called "nuclear fusion".

Unlike in fission where we split the
nuclei of the very heaviest atoms

like uranium, in fusion we combine
the nuclei of the lightest atoms,

like hydrogen.

This takes incredible temperatures
and pressures,

but when it works, it releases
far more energy that we put in,

much more even
than in nuclear fission.

The thing is,... it's going on,
above our heads, every single day.

Because it's fusion
that powers the sun.

For decades physicists
have been trying to create

controlled and sustained
nuclear fusion.

Just down the road from here,

I'm going to visit a group of
men and women,

who think they might be
close to cracking it.

This is the
National Ignition Facility

at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
in California.

Home to what I think,

is one of the most important
scientific endeavors in the world.

They've a rather nifty piece
of equipment on their disposal.

The world's largest laser.

That laser begins life as a tiny
beam, the thickness of a human hair.

Then over the course
of three football pitches

it becomes amplified in power
a thousand trillion times.

It's then divided up into
192 separate beams,

which are then
brought back in focus

onto a pellet of fuel
the size of a grain of sugar.

Bruno Van Wonterghem
is the operations manager.

This is the core of the facility.

Here is where all the action starts.

- This where the laser itself begins?
- Yeah!

Typically in this room is where
the laser pulses are born.

Believe it or not,

the only laser in this facility
is located right here,

behind that panel.

- This that initial tiny laser...
- Yes.

This tiny laser beam is split

and amplified through almost
a mile's worth of lenses.

The end result, not one,
but 192 giant lasers.

These are the world's largest lasers,

and it's also the world's
largest optical instrument!

These laser beams
travel inside this tubes.

Each of these neat laser beams
looks like this, 40 by 40 cm.

We have 192 of these beams.

Each of these beams is the world's
most powerful laser by itself.

Each of these laser is destined
to fire onto a tiny fuel pellet,

with two types of hydrogen
isotopes at its heart.

These pellets are prepared on site.

It's painstaking,
precision engineering!

Even a flake of human skin
could spoil the process.

So I've got to suit up.

Let me show you the capsule,
here,... it's right over here.

So, that's the capsule,
here at the end.

- It's about...
- Ah, right!

..two millimeter diameter capsule.

- You wanna hold it?
- I'd love to hold it, yeah.

It's incredible to contrast the size
of the facilities with the lasers,

- Yeah!
- Everything focusing down to this tiny little sphere!...

The fuel pellet is tiny,
but his home is huge.

This 130 tone structure is at
the heart of the experiment.

It's a structure that's like a temple
to the power of the atom.

It's the target chamber.

OK? We'll go right inside
to the target frame.

Wow.

So this is it?
This is your star chamber?

This is it! This is the target chamber
we're right in the center.

We create a little star...

when we illuminate a little
fuel pallet, by 192 laser beams.

This is the most beautiful machine,
I think I ever seen, in my life.

You know,...
that's three stories high,

just the blue target chamber itself!

And, then you've got these massive
arms feeding in the lasers.

Can we get to look
inside the chamber?

Yes, the viewing window allows us
to look inside the vacuum chamber.

So, here inside the chamber
is where it all happens!

Here's where we have the target,

right in the centre of this
one meter diameter sphere.

The green light is beautiful.

It just makes it seem so,... as
is magic going on inside there!

The fuel pellet has to be placed

in the dead centre
target chamber.

Caught in the crosshairs
of the lasers,

the capsule
and the hydrogen atoms implode

in 20 billionths of a second,

releasing a vast wave of energy.

OK. Let me give you some numbers.

Over a trillion watts of power
will be focused on the tiny pellet.

The pressure will be under
100 billion atmospheres.

When the hydrogen fuel
within the pellet

reaches a density 10 times
the density of lead,

and its temperature,
50 million degrees,

that's five times hotter
than the core of the sun,

that's when the fuel ignites.

Fusion is initiated, and the energy
within the nucleus will be released.

The team have achieved
the first target:

firing the lasers,
and hitting the pellet.

Now they face the big challenge,

generating a fusion burn
that releases more energy

than it takes to set it off.

To do this, they need to get
the pressure and temperature,

high enough to cause the nuclei
of the atoms inside the pellet

to fuse and released their energy.

It's a tall order, but they hope
to achieved it, in the next year.

Ed Moses is the principal associate
director of this ambitious project.

If you found a way

to make widespread,
economical fusion energy,

it changes everything.

What is your fuel?
The fuel is the water in the ocean?

How much do you need?

A million people need
a few hundred gallon per year.

And, the fuel you're using has no
carbon in it, so it's not polluting.

It has no fission activity, so
there's no long term waste.

And you are actually,...

your by-product is helium.

A very small amount,
but that's it!

You don't have geopolitics,
because,...

you know, all your energy,
everyone can have it!...

It's not a proliferate technology,

you can give it to everyone,
they can use it,

and it does baseload electricity.
You know!...

it will run,... it will provide
power for billions.

The way we live our lives,
work and play,

depends on us producing
enough energy.

Although we don't like to admit it,
we living on borrow time.

We're consuming more energy,
our supplies are running out.

Our whole way of life
is under threat.

Well, nuclear fusion
could change all that!

We have seen how science is tackling
some of the man made problems

that face our planet.

There are also natural forces
that threaten our existence.

Next is a story of how scientists

are battling to protect us

from the destructive forces
of our sun.

Above the relative calm
of our atmosphere,

there is trouble brewing.

An almighty clash,
when the solar winds

interact with the Earth's magnetic field,

bringing as storm of electric matter,

radiation, and fast-moving
high energies particles.

All that activity is known
as "space weather".

And, as a space scientist,

I know how volatile
and dangerous it can be,

especially when an event
like a solar maximum occurs.

That's when massive eruptions
from the sun surface

send billions of charged particles
into space,

some of which reach the Earth.

Events like this don't happen
all the time,

but solar scientists say, there's
one just around the corner,

and it poses a major threat.

In previous centuries,
great storms far above our heads

didn't matter much.

But now, we are very vulnerable.

Our world is dependent on a
complex electrical network

that could be devastated
by a surge from space.

I'm Maggie Aderin-Pocock.

I build telescopes and satellites

so I'm fascinated by what we can do
to stop a solar disaster from happening.

I'm here to see someone from
Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Do you know where
you're heading to?

- I think so.
- Have a good day.

Thank you.

That's why I've come here,
to NASA's Guard Space Lab,

where scientists are working
to predict the next big event,

and to protect us from its effects.

Place one between the oscillator and...

They're getting data from
a special satellite, launch in 2010.

It provides a constant stream of data,

including the most extraordinary
images of the sun, we've ever seen.

These are images of the sun
in multiple wave lengths of light.

Starting over here,
we have visible light...

That looks familiar.

This is the sun
you are familiar with.

It's just basically a boring yellow ball,
with some dark patches here,

which are sun spots.

And then as we move this way,
we go to ultraviolet light.

You see a bit more structure...
Above we'll move up to...

...while is slightly higher.
- Yeah!

So, this is extreme ultraviolet.

This is the first of the extreme
ultraviolet wave lengths.

Now we see the dark areas before
are bright!

Yeah!

Because now these areas are
hotter than the rest of the sun.

NASA's satellite has allowed scientist here

to view solar activity
in remarkable detail.

OK, so what I want to show you now

is a really amazing event that happen,
not to long ago, June 7th.

Whoa!

That's pretty amazing.

- That's quite scary.
- Isn't it? So...

If that's the sun,
how big is that?

Well, if you put a quarter right by it,

it's a little bit bigger
than the Earth,

but that's about
the size of the Earth.

- So that's the Earth?
- That's the Earth.

And so the matter throwing out
is many times bigger than the Earth?

Many times bigger. Yeah.

Even though a lot of that material
fall back on the surface,

a good portion of it
also escape into space.

These events are known
as "coronal mass ejections".

When material from such an event
hits the Earth,

the consequences can be dramatic.

In a worst-case scenario,

electromagnetic radiation
will disable satellites.

The knock-on effect, disruption
to crucial communication

and navigation systems.

Electrical surges along power lines
would melt transformers.

Cities would be plunged
into darkness.

What you see here is an animation
of actual space...

Fortunately there are NASA scientists

like Antti Pulkkinen protecting us.

His analysis of coronal mass ejections

provides an early-warning system.

So we can have a projection that
there's a major coronal mass ejection,

velocity say 2.000km per second,

And our estimation is that
he would impact the Earth,

in 1.5 days from now. OK?

We feed this information
for our industry and friends,

and of course, if you don't deliver
electricity in the power thread,

there will be no impact.

So if you switch the system off,

while the coronal mass ejection
passes you are OK.

Ejections happen more frequently
during the solar maximum.

The next one is predicted for 2013.

No-one knows just how disruptive
it might be.

That's why NASA's research into
how to forecast these events

is so vital.

Some experts suggest that the damage
caused by a major solar event

could cost the global economy
two trillion dollars.

Now I don't believe we will ever be
able to tame the power of the sun,

and stop these events
in their tracks.

But by using science to understand
and predict them,

we can at least prepare
for the worst.

And hopefully stop
a global catastrophe.

We are a planet addicted to oil.

In our search for new sources,
we take risks that can lead to disaster

So science is using the natural
world to fight back,

when a catastrophe strikes.

I'm here in the Louisiana marshes

on the edge of the gulf of Mexico,

and it was here where one
of the large oil spills in history,

spout out almost
five million barrels of oil.

The oil flowed for months
before was stopped,

by which time, of course, it had caused
untold damage to this part of the world.

The scale of the pollution was vast,

as oil pumped directly
from a pipe on the sea bed.

Then, when it was time for the clear-up,
the environment was hit again.

Over a million gallons of
controversial chemical dispersants

were used to break up
slicks at sea.

On shore,...

they had to remove the oil
by digging up vast tracts of land.

Is this as bad as it gets?

So this is definitely
one of the hardest hit.

You can see the anchoring plants,
the tings that provide

the foundation for the ecosystem,
is dying and dark.

Dr Michael Blum and Bree Bernick
are biologist how've monitored

the after effects of the disaster.

I see there are all these air guns
lined up along the shore,

to scare away the birds.

That's right. Those propane cannons
are supposed to keep the birds

out of this entire area.

Have you seen an
improvement that this

is somehow trying to recover
from the devastation?

You can see in certain areas
that plants are regenerating.

It's hard to know if those roots
are penetrating past

any residual oil in the soil.

Which is still there.

In some place it is still there. Yes.

We'll have to wait and see what
on long term ecosystem effects are

of introducing that much chemical
dispersant into the Gulf of Mexico.

The threat of more oil spills
hasn't gone away,

but when the next one happens,

science may have a new way
to confront the disaster.

Here in New Orleans, scientists have
found a way of tackling the pollution

by exploiting the behavior
of tiny life forms,...

invisible to the naked eye, that
have been around on our planet

for billions of years.

Professor Somasundaran is obsessed
with surfactants.

Compounds that are the most important
parts of any cleaning agent.

They help break down, separate
and disperse fats and oils.

So, they are un important component
of the chemical dispersants

used to clean up spills.

He was convinced that he could
find a surfactant made by nature,

that would be kinder
to the environment.

So he started looking at microbes.

I am a believer that the mother
nature does it best,

And that is done,
you think biosurfactants.

They are produced by microbes.

So the question was can we
use this biosurfactants

that are natural and benign.

Is that essentially the advantage
of using this biosurfactants,

that they are biodegradable?

Biodegradable and environmentally
compatible, with the surroundings.

So Somasundaran and his team
started the search.

After hours and hours looking
down the microscope

they made a discovery.

One particular microbe
called the "cillus subtilis",

did something very special.

It produced an incredibly
effective surfactant,

a protein that form a very tough film
around the oil droplets,

and kept them apart.

So inside all of these droplets
is oil?

Absolutely.

Exactly what's needed
to break-up an oil spill.

We were really surprised
to discover that this shell

that it forms, is so robust.

So that it will prevent merger
of droplets with each other,

and so dispersion will be stable
for a long time

so that the microbes, and so on,
can do their job.

Micro-organisms have been keeping
life going on this planet

for billions of years.

And some of our greatest
scientific achievements

have come from our manipulation
of these tiny and tireless creatures.

They've cured us of disease,
they provided us with fuel,

and now, for as long as
we depend on oil,

armies of these one-cell wonders

could be released to help
clean up the mess

we always seem
to leave behind.

At the start,
we showed you how science

is fighting to preserve the future
of endangered animals.

Now a story of how we are defending
an other part of our natural world.

I grew up in the Midlands,
in Leicester,

and I learnt, as a boy, a lot about
insects and birds, and plants,

from hedgerows and meadows,
just like this.

But today, much has changed.

The meadows have been
swallowed up by the city

as population growth
caused it to expand.

The hedgerows have been torn up
as agricultural practices have changed.

And in the world at large,...

global warming is beginning
to bring in changes.

And all that means is that
plants are in great danger.

In fact, in Britain

it's now estimated that
one species in five of plants

is now in danger of extinction,

and that applies worldwide.

But part of the solution to
this terrible problem,

is provided by plants themselves.

Seeds,... when you
come to think about it,

are truly extraordinary objects.

They're tiny capsules that enable
a plant to travel through time.

Some,...
exactly like these,

which come from a plant
called "leukos spermum",

an African pincushion plant,

were found in the Tower of London,
and brought here.

And when they came here,
they were watered, treated properly,

and after two or three hundred years,
suddenly they sprouted.

And it's these
which are the basis,

of what seems to me

one of the most important
of all conservation enterprises,

the Millennium Seed Bank.

So far, the seed bank
has collected

nearly two billion seeds,

saving more than 30.000 species.

Many come here, to this
state-of-the-art facilities

at Wakehurst Place
in the south of England.

Paul Smith is the director of this
ambitious but vital project.

We try to collect right
across the spectrum,

but we prioritize the most
endangered species,

the rarest species, and those that
we think are the most useful to people.

Seeds come in almost daily,

but there's lots to do
before they are stored!

Today, a large shipment of seeds
has arrived from Madagascar,

First, they're cleaned

and dried for up to six months.

A sample is then X-rayed

to check the seeds are properly
formed, and contain an embryo.

Those damaged by insects
are discarded,

..and the healthy ones are finally
stored in glass containers,

at minus 20?Celsius.

In this one room,
there are a billion seeds.

The amount of the variety
of plants represented here

is quite extraordinary.

But is this treatment working?

Will these seeds be kept alive
by this conditions?

The plain fact is that
nobody really knows.

It's a gamble.

But by testing the gases
given off by the seeds,

the seed bank can check
that they're still alive.

The seeds that survive all this,

will only be of use
if they can germinate.

So the bank is creating
a set of growing instructions,

for future generations.

These are the Mongongo,

which is a ten-meter tree

from southern Africa,
from the Kalahari desert.

And they're very like an almond.

They're a bit larger than an almond,

but inside, the kernel is very high
in protein content and oil content,

very nutritious,

so people make it into a porridge.

So what's the problem?

The problem is, how
do you germinate it?

If you just pop it in the soil, and
you add water, nothing happens.

This species has evolved
to gain a competitive advantage

by shooting up
immediately after fire goes through,

and the trigger for that is smoke.

So we have to break the nut,
recoup the seed,

and we have to smoke-treat it.

And the way that we do that
is we use a smoke solution.

You can smell it.
Smells of smoke.

(SNIFFS) Yeah!

And we pop the nut in a...

in a flask, and that
will soak for 24 hours,

and the chemicals in the smoke

will break the dormancy,
and trigger germination.

Wonderful. Really wonderful.

'It's possible that several
hundred years from now,

'someone will germinate
one of this Mongongo seeds,

'and once again it will provide
a vital food source.

The seed bank is only here

because we have destroyed
so much of the natural world.

Part of me hopes that
we will never need it.

But another part is thankful

that it's here as the last resort.

The human species
has conquered Earth.

But success has come at a price.

Our demands on the planet

have created problems
for generations to come.

As we have seen,
science does have solutions.

We are in a race to
ensure our future.

Next time: Biology,
and the power of life.

How bacteria is creating fuel?

This is a biodiesel produced
from Ecolab,...

..the power of regeneration...

I see it moving now.
That's pretty impressive!

..and unlocking the secrets
of a long and healthy life.

Just by tweaking a few genes, we can
really influence the aging process.