Discovery

Self-Healing Materials

<p>Quentin Cooper takes a look at the new materials that can mend themselves. Researchers are currently developing bacteria in concrete which, once awakened, excrete lime to fill any cracks. In South America you can choose a car paint that heals its own scratches. And there are even gold atoms which can migrate to mend tiny breaks in jet turbine blades.</p><p>Engineers normally design things so the likelihood of breaking is minimised. But by embracing the inevitability of breakage, a new class of materials which can mend cracks and fissures before you can see them may extend the lives of our cars, engines, buildings and aeroplanes far beyond current capability.</p><p>(Image: Presenter, Quentin Cooper, BBC Copyright)</p>

The Power of the Unconscious

<p>We like to think that we are in control of our lives, of what we do, think and feel. But, as Geoff Watts discovers, scientists are now revealing that this is just an illusion. A simple magic trick reveals just how limited our conscious awareness of the world is, and how easy it is to fool us. </p><p>So if our conscious brain can cope with so little, what is responsible for the rest? Science is starting to reveal the crucial role of a silent partner inside our heads, that we are completely unaware of – our unconscious. </p><p>In this programme, Geoff enlists the help of, not just brain scientists but, a conjuror and a musician to reveal the pivotal role the unconscious plays in pretty much everything we do, think and feel. This new-found knowledge is enabling scientists to harness its powers for both medical and military benefit.</p>

Gut Microbiota

<p>The human gut has around 100 trillion bacterial cells from up to 1,000 different species. Every person's microbiota (the body's bacterial make-up) is different as a result of the effects of diet and lifestyle, and the childhood source of bacteria. What is it about the microbes in our guts that can have such an impact on our lives? </p><p>Scientists are learning more and more about the importance of these bacteria, as well as the viruses, fungi and other microbes that live in our gastrointestinal tracts. Without them, our digestion, immune system and overall health would be compromised. </p><p>Adam Hart talks to researchers who are discovering how important a balanced and robust gut microflora is for our health. And he asks how this can be maintained and what happens when things go wrong.</p><p>(Image: Gut Microbiota Copyright: Getty Images)</p>

Nirvana by Numbers

<p>Journalist and numbers obsessive Alex Bellos travels around India to explore the fundamental numerical gifts which early Indian mathematicians gave to the world and asks whether the great religions of ancient India - Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism - had any part in their origins. </p><p>The number system which the world uses today originated in India in the early centuries of the first millennium AD. It is usually called the Arabic numeral system, but in the Middle East the scheme employing the symbols 0 to 9 is correctly referred to as the Indian system. The designation of zero as a number in its own right by South Asian thinkers was arguably the greatest conceptual leap in the history of mathematics. </p><p>During his numerical odyssey, Alex visits a temple in Gwalior, containing the earliest zero in India with a known date. He is also granted an audience with one of Hinduism's most revered gurus, who is also an author of books on numbers. His Holiness, the Shankaracharya of Puri tells Alex that the study of mathematics is a path to Nirvana. </p><p>In conversation with India's most eminent mathematician, Professor SG Dani in Mumbai, Alex hears how early Indian philosophers toyed with numbers far more than the Greeks. Buddhists, for example, mused on a number with 53 zeros and the Jains contemplated various varieties of infinity - something that modern mathematicians do 2000 years later. </p><p>Alex also dips into the current controvesy surrounding so-called Vedic mathematics. This is a collection of speed arithmetic tricks which a great guru of the early 20th Century claimed to have discovered in the Vedas, Hinduism's most sacred scriptures.</p><p>(Image: One of the special zeros in its use in '270'. Credit: Andrew Luck Baker)</p>

Jenny Graves

<p>Australian geneticist Jenny Graves discusses her life pursuing sex genes in her country's weird but wonderful fauna, the end of men and singing to her students in lectures.</p><p>(Image: Jenny Graves, BBC copyright)</p>

Mike Benton

<p>Life on earth has gone through a series of mass extinctions. Mike Benton talks about his fascination with ancient life on the planet and his work on the Bristol Dinosaur Project.</p><p>Image: Mike Benton BBC Copyright</p>

Joanna Haigh

<p>Joanna Haigh, Professor of Atmospheric Physics at Imperial College, London, studies the influence of the sun on the Earth's climate using data collected by satellites. She talks to Jim al-Khalili about how she got started on her career in climate physics: she can trace her interest in it back to her childhood when she built herself a home weather station. </p><p>Jo Haigh explains why we need to know how the sun affects the climate: it's so scientists can work out what contribution to warming is the result of greenhouse gases that humans produce, and what is down to changes in the energy coming from the sun. </p><p>She has sat on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and discusses with Jim how it delivers its reports. And as a prominent scientist who speaks out about the dangers of increasing man made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, she explains how she responds to climate change deniers. Image: Joanna Haigh Credit: BBC</p>

Russell Foster

<p>Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford University, is obsessed with biological clocks. He talks to Jim al-Khalili about how light controls our wellbeing from jet lag to serious mental health problems. Professor Foster explains how he moved from being a poor student at school to the scientist who discovered a new way in which animals detect light. </p><p>Image: Russell Foster Copyright: BBC</p>

Ashes to Ashes

<p>Adam Hart investigates yet another threat to the ash trees of Europe. In the last programme he found out about the latest research developments to save ash trees from ash dieback, a disease that has already devastated trees across Europe, but now it seems that another threat could be on its way from Russia – the emerald ash borer. This beetle already targets ash trees in the USA and kills 99% of the trees it infests. But, what is it, how great is the threat and is there any way to stopping it spreading to Europe?</p><p>Image: Emerald Ash Borer Traces Credit: Cornelia Schaible</p>

Ashes to Ashes

<p>Professor Adam Hart looks at the disease that has devastated ash trees in Europe – ash dieback. Over the last 20 years the fungus that causes ash dieback has been spreading westwards across the continent and last year it was found in the UK for the first time. At the moment there is no cure for the disease and only a tiny fraction of trees seem to be able to survive it. In this programme, he investigates the very latest scientific research into this deadly disease and asks if it will be enough to save this important species.</p><p>(Image: Professor Adam Hart in Trolleholm seed orchard in Sweden where ash dieback has infected many of the trees. Credit: BBC)</p>

Fracking for Shale Gas

<p>Fracking for gas is highly controversial in the US and the UK as it has been accused of contaminating water courses and causing earthquakes. Yet it provides a cheap source of energy. Beneath England there are thought to be considerable amounts of shale gas and the UK government is considering whether to allow fracking in these areas. Already there is opposition from residents, concerned about pollution and earth tremors. Gaia Vince talks to scientists to find out what fracking involves and what impact it has on the environment, and she discovers what other countries can learn from the pioneers of the technology, the United States.</p><p>(Image: Views of the Cuadrilla Fracking Site at Balcombe. Credit: WPA Pool, Getty)</p>

The Future of Navigation

<p>We all rely on GPS – the Global Positioning System network of satellites – whether we want to or not. From shipping to taxis to mobile phones, the goods we consume and the technology with which we run our lives depend upon a low-power, weak and vulnerable signal beamed from a few tonnes of electronics orbiting above our heads. </p><p>This dependence is a new Achilles' heel for the world's financial, commercial and military establishments. From North Korea's concerted disruption of South Korea's maritime and airborne fleet, to white van drivers evading the boss's scrutiny over lunch, this signal is easy to jam - with disastrous consequences. </p><p>Quentin Cooper meets the scientists and engineers developing alternative, resilient navigation systems.</p><p>(Image: Captain David Millar, Senior Master, on the bridge of P&amp;O Ferries’ MS Spirit of Britain. BBC copyright)</p>

Deep Down Inside

<p>Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a brain surgery technique involving electrodes being inserted to reach targets deep inside the brain. Those targets are then stimulated via the electrodes which are connected to a battery powered pacemaker surgically placed under the person's collar bone. </p><p>Geoff Watts finds out how the technique has been used successfully for treating the movement disorders of Parkinson's disease, in patients with severe, intractable depression, in chronic pain and how it's also being trialled to see if it can also be successful in treating obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), Tourette's syndrome and other disorders. </p><p>Geoff meets patients who have had their lives changed by having deep brain stimulation. He also meets the surgeons at the operating table to find out how it works. At the moment no one has all the answers but one psychiatrist he meets says the success of deep brain stimulation means we should radically change the way we understand how the brain works: that the brain is governed by electrical circuitry rather than a chemical soup of neurotransmitters.</p><p>Picture: Functional brain imaging allows scientists to see inside a living, human brain</p>

E-cigarettes

<p>Lorna Stewart reports on the new and growing phenomenon of electronic cigarettes and asks if they really help smokers to stop smoking and if they are as safe as their manufacturers suggest. One billion people smoke worldwide and tobacco shortens the lives of half of all users. With consumption of tobacco products increasing globally, finding a way to help smokers to quit is vital. Electronic cigarettes, which contain nicotine in water vapour, are one new approach, but there is very little research into whether they have any harmful effects. As legislators worldwide start to rule on how to regulate them, there are concerns over who might use e-cigarettes; in some places they are proving popular with young people. Issues surrounding nicotine use and addiction have led regulatory bodies around the globe to act, and e-cigarettes are now banned in Brazil, Canada, Singapore, Panama and Lebanon.</p><p>In this episode of Discovery for the BBC we hear from public health experts, psychologists, and e-cigarette enthusiasts about what e-cigarettes offer and what the risks are.</p><p>Image: Man exhaling fumes. Credit: Atif Tanvir from ukecigstore</p>

Raising Allosaurus

<p>In the 20 years since the release of the film Jurassic Park, DNA cloning technologies have advanced dramatically. Professor Adam Hart asks whether we could and should start bringing extinct animals back from the dead. </p><p>The fossilised remains of dinosaurs are too degraded to hold any viable DNA, so Jurassic Park is unlikely to be a reality. But what about Pleistocene Park? Deep frozen remains of Arctic animals like the woolly mammoth or the Irish elk, have been shown to contain DNA - but is it in a good enough condition to rebuild the genome and attempt cloning these animals which became extinct nearly 4000 years ago? </p><p>Some people think it could work. But should we even be considering it? With so many plants and animals threatened with extinction now, should we be wasting time and resources on bringing back animals that didn't make the cut? </p><p>Adam Hart asks experts in ancient DNA whether the code for life could be resurrected in animals such as the mammoth, the passenger pigeon, the dodo, the marsupial tiger, or the thylacine. And he asks conservationists whether we should be doing it.</p>

CERN and Science in Africa

<p>Earlier this year the BBC organised a ‘science festival’ in Uganda. One of the practical outcomes of this was to put physics teachers in East Africa in touch with physicists involved in the Higgs boson discovery at CERN. As a result, several teachers from the region visited CERN and took part in their international teacher programmes. </p><p>In Discovery this week we look at the impact of their visit and ask how international ‘big science’ projects such as CERN can offer practical development help – especially in sub Saharan Africa.</p>

The Story of SARS, Part Two

<p>Dr Kevin Fong concludes a two-part special looking back at the extraordinary events which unfolded a decade ago when the disease known as SARS first emerged onto an unsuspecting world. </p><p>In a matter of days SARS had travelled around the globe from a hotel room in Hong Kong, and would go on to infect thousands of people, in dozens of countries. But standing between us and the virus were hundreds of healthcare workers who risked their lives to fight against and contain this unknown deadly disease, some of whom paid the ultimate price. Kevin travels to Hong Kong and Toronto to meet the survivors. With concerns rising over H7N9 and MERS, Kevin asks what lessons have we learned since the first SARS outbreak and would those who stepped up to protect us back then, do so again?</p>

The Story of SARS, Part One

<p>Dr Kevin Fong begins a two-part special looking back at the extraordinary events which unfolded a decade ago when the disease known as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) first emerged onto an unsuspecting world.</p><p>In a matter of days SARS had travelled around the globe from a hotel room in Hong Kong - and would go on to infect thousands of people, in dozens of countries. But standing between us and the virus were hundreds of healthcare workers who risked their lives to fight against and contain this unknown deadly disease, some of whom paid the ultimate price. With concerns rising over H7N9 and MERS, Kevin asks what lessons have we learned since the first SARS outbreak and would those who stepped up to protect us back then, do so again?</p><p>(Image: Sign for the accident and emergency unit at the L'Hopital Francais de Hanoi. Credit: BBC copyright)</p>

Crossrail: Tunnelling under London

<p>Tracey Logan goes underground to find out how Crossrail is using the latest engineering techniques to create 26 miles of tunnels below London's tube network, sewers and foundations - and through its erratic, sometimes unpredictable geology. She finds out about the latest science being used in Europe's biggest engineering project. </p><p>London sits on a varied geology of deposits of fine-grained sand, flint gravel beds, mottled clay, shelly beds which are sometimes mixed with pockets of water. This sheer variety has presented a challenge to London's tunnel engineers since the early 1800s. </p><p>Tracey goes on board one of the huge, 150 metre long, 1000 tonne tunnel boring machines as it makes its way beneath London's Oxford Street. At depths of up to 40 metres it can negotiate London's complex geology with incredible precision and can instantly adjust the pressure it applies at the cutting head to ensure there is no ground movement above. </p><p>Its precision engineering means it also follows a route which avoids the many existing foundations, sewers, and the tube network, sometimes travelling just centimetres past the London undergound tunnels. </p><p>Tracey also finds out how unexploded ordnance from World War II still has to be carefully accounted for while digging beneath the capital. </p><p>The tunnel boring machines operate nearly 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and so even has an onboard kitchen and bathroom facilities for the 20 or so operators who make up its 'tunnel gang'.</p>

Oxytocin

<p>The hormone oxytocin is involved in mother and baby bonding and in creating trust. Linda Geddes finds out if taking oxytocin can help people with autism become more sociable. </p><p>Larry Young, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Emory University in Atlanta, talks about the work in voles that demonstrated the role of oxytocin in pair bonding. </p><p>Professor Markus Heinrichs, of Freiburg University in Germany, tells Linda Geddes about doing the first research on oxytocin in human subjects. He was one of the authors of an influential paper on the hormone and trust, published in Nature in 2005. </p><p>As journalists for New Scientist, Linda and her husband, Nic, invited one of the other authors of that paper, Professor Paul Zak of Claremont Graduate University in Califormia, to carry out an oxytocin experiment at their wedding. </p><p>At Cambridge University, Dr Bonnie Auyeung, is currently carrying out studies to find out if giving the hormone to adults with autism can improve their social skills. </p><p>And, Professor Jennifer Bartz, from McGill University in Canada, explains how some research suggests that oxytocin doesn't always make people be more trusting and loving. She says the outcome depends on your previous relationship with the person.</p>

Forecasting Earthquakes

<p>Earthquakes can't be predicted. But millions of dollars are spent trying to forecast them - warning the public which regions are dangerous, what the chances are of a quake in the next number of years and how strong the shaking might be. But following the failures of the Japanese system to identify the danger on the north-east coast, struck by a giant tsunami in 2011, many experts are saying that the dream of hazard assessment is an illusion. We may never know enough about the mechanisms of the Earth to reliably foresee deadly shaking.</p><p>Others maintain it's a matter of knowledge - the more geologists can learn about the history of earthquakes, about the mechanics of plate tectonics, the better society can prepare for when the ground begins to shake.</p><p>Well over half a million have died in earthquakes and their resulting tsunamis in the past decade, so the issue is critical.</p><p>Roland Pease, who reported from Japan in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, speaks to experts on both sides of the argument to find out how deep the crisis is - and what might be done about it.</p>

Plate Tectonics and Life

<p>Earthquakes are feared for their destructive, deadly force. But they are part of a geological process - plate tectonics - that some scientists say is vital for the existence of life itself. Without the ever-changing land surfaces that plate tectonics produces, or the high continental masses raised above sea level by earthquake activity, planet Earth would atrophy into a lifeless mass, like our neighbour Mars. But why is Earth the only planet with plate tectonics? And, when did they start? The clues are so faint, the traces so ephemeral, that researchers are only now beginning to find tentative answers. Extraordinarily, some say that life itself has changed the forces in plate tectonics, and helped to shape the world.</p>

Quorum Sensing

<p>A radically different approach to dealing with bacteria would be to stop them from communicating and coordinating attacks, rather than trying to kill them. The bugs would be rendered harmless and much less likely to develop drug resistance. This is the hope of researchers who are working on an aspect of bacterial life known as Quorum Sensing.</p><p>Medical experts have warned that within 20 years, unless something is done, the spread of antibiotic resistance may have returned us to an almost 19th Century state of medicine. Infections following routine operations will be untreatable and fatal because so many common bacteria will have acquired immunity to all the available antibiotic drugs.</p><p>The vast majority of the antibiotics we rely upon today were developed between the 1940s and 1970s. There has been no new class of antibiotic for 25 years.</p><p>Bacteria may just be single-celled organisms but microbiologists now realise they have a kind of social life. They need to cooperate and coordinate their attacks on the bodies they infect. Many kinds of bacteria only become dangerous to us when they sense that their numbers are high enough. Only when they 'know' that there are enough of them to overwhelm human defences, do they release their toxins and cause illness and death.</p><p>Geoff Watts talks to scientist and doctors who are exploring this phenomenon in disease-causing bacteria. They are trying to devise ways of interfering with microbial communications. </p><p>One line of thinking is the development of drugs which stop the microbes from either 'talking' or 'hearing' the chemical messages. Another more radical idea, is to treat infected patients with doses of the kind of bacteria causing the illness - except that the 'medicinal' bugs would be ones that would subvert the communication system and bring the infection to an end.</p>

Build Me a Brain

<p>When President Obama recently complained, that although "we can identify galaxies light years away, study particles smaller than an atom ... we still haven't unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears" - he called on scientists to unravel the trillions of neural connections inside our brains that make our minds work.</p><p>Some researchers are already doing that - trying to understand the brain by starting to build one. At Reading University, at the newly constructed Brain Embodiment Laboratory, researchers plan to connect cultures of living human neurons to robots - to give meaning to their neural activity. At Georgia Tech, Atlanta, neuroengineer Steve Potter, agrees that cultured neurons not connected to the outside world suffer sensory deprivation. His neural arrays descend into spasms of epileptic activity when left alone. When plugged in, they can control machines across the planet.</p><p>"I believe these cultures are half-way to having a mind," says Potter. "Wired up to listen to their own outputs, they could be self aware."</p><p>Other researchers are building brains from inanimate materials - using tendrils of silver, silicon and sulphur that spring into life like activity when wired up to electricity. At Stanford University, plans are afoot to meld them with living neurons - perhaps to enhance our thought processes.</p><p>These devices can learn, remember and process information - but do they think? Can these scientists really build a brain? And what would it tell us about ours if they could?</p>

Solar Max

<p>As we approach 'solar max', when the sun is at its most active and ferocious, astronomer Lucie Green investigates the hidden dangers our nearest star poses to us on Earth.</p><p>In March 1989, a solar superstorm brought down Quebec's power grid. Six million people were without light and heat, as outside temperatures sank to -15C. After the winter sunrise, subway trains sat still, traffic lights went off and petrol pumps stopped delivering fuel.</p><p>Two days earlier, a giant bubble of plasma had burst from the surface of Sun traveling at millions of miles per hour. It hit the Earth and disrupted our magnetic field, creating electric currents which knocked out power grids in Canada for nine hours and even damaged two transformers here in the UK.</p><p>Now, almost a quarter of a century later, our reliance on technology that's vulnerable to solar attack is even higher, from GPS to satellites. 'Severe space weather' is the newest threat to be added to the UK National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies. The potential impacts of solar superstorm could be far-ranging, causing national blackouts, shutting airspace and interrupting financial transactions.</p><p>Lucie Green looks at what UK industry is doing to minimise the risks from solar superstorms. She visits the newly opened Space Weather Forecasting area at the Met Office and talks to engineers at the National Grid to find out how they are preparing for 'the big one'.</p><p>But with so many national hazards to deal with, from flooding to pandemic flu, how much importance should we place on solar storms?</p><p>Producer: Michelle Martin</p>

Amoret Whitaker

<p>Jim Al-Khalili talks to Amoret Whitaker, an entomologist at the Natural History Museum in London. Her intricate understanding of the life cycles of flies, beetles and the other insects, which feed on decomposing bodies, means she is regularly called by the police to the scene of a crime or a murder investigation. There she collects and analyses any insect evidence to help them pinpoint the most likely time of death. In some instances, this can be accurate to within hours.</p><p>She is one of only a handful of forensic entomologists working in the UK. She talks to Jim about her life as a research scientist, breeding flies in the far flung towers of the Natural History Museum and her work as a forensic expert with police services across the country. Dropping her work at a moment's notice, she can be called any time of day to anywhere in the country to attend a crime scene. She also talks about her regular trips to a research facility at the 'Body Farm' at the University of Tennesee in Knoxville, America, to get a better understanding of how real human bodies decompose. </p><p>Her passion is insects and while our instinctive reaction to flies and maggots may be one of revulsion - when you take time look at them properly and in detail, she says, you can see what truly incredible creatures they are.</p><p>(Image: Amoret Whitaker)</p>

Alan Watson

<p>Professor Alan Watson from the University of Leeds, has spent 40 years trying to unravel a mystery at the frontier of physics. Where do cosmic rays - subatomic particles with the highest known energies in the entire Universe - come from? And which violent astronomical events are producing these hugely energetic jets of particles that travel for light years to reach us? As many as a million of them pass through us every night as we sleep, the equivalent of having 2 chest x rays every year. </p><p>His quest to find the origins of cosmic rays has taken him from the North York Moors to the South Pole and the pampas grasslands of Argentina, where he has been instrumental in creating the largest ever cosmic ray detector, covering an area bigger than Luxembourg. He talks to Jim Al-Khalili about one of physics' fascinating mysteries.</p><p>(Image: Professor Alan Watson)</p>

On The Trail of the American Honeybee

<p>Dr Adam Hart continues his exploration of migratory beekeeping in the United States. Each year the beekeepers of America travel to the annual Almond bloom in California, the largest single pollination event on Earth, a thousand square miles of almond orchards bloom in unison, turning much of California's Central Valley white. Seventy-five per cent of the world's almonds come from these orchards and to ensure successful pollination, farmers need bees - a lot of bees: 1.5 million hives, or over 30 billion bees, swarm over the bloom for three weeks a year. But beekeeping on this scale carries with it a host of threats from diseases, pests, agricultural insecticides and even starvation. </p><p>In this second part of the programme Adam explores the nature of some of those threats, including the mysterious condition known as colony collapse disorder or CCD. He also talks to UK researchers about the latest EU ban on a specific kind of pesticide which could be affecting the ability of bees and other pollinators to collect nectar and navigate.</p>

On the Trail of the American Honeybee 1/2

<p>Dr Adam Hart meets the migratory bee keepers of America as they travel to the annual Almond bloom in California, the largest single pollination event on Earth. Each year, from the end of February to early March, a thousand square miles of almond orchards bloom in unison, turning much of California's Central Valley white. 75 per cent of the world's almonds come from these orchards and to ensure successful pollination, farmers need bees - a lot of bees. Around 1.5 million hives, over 30 billion bees, swarm over the bloom for three weeks a year, before they're packed up and driven on to pastures new, be it Washington Apples, Maine Cranberries or Florida Citrus. Welcome to the extraordinary world of migratory beekeeping. This isn't about the honey, it's about the money. Beset by viral diseases, pesticides, starvation and the ever-present threat of colony collapse disorder or CCD, even a vigilant bee-keeper can expect 20-30 per cent of their hives to die-off in any given year. So why bother? "This is what we do" says John Miller, "I was born to keep bees in a box". Miller's great-grandfather invented migratory beekeeping, which thanks to increasing demands from farmers, can earn even small to medium-sized keepers, millions of dollars just from almonds alone.</p><p>Producer: Rami Tzabar</p>

Deep Sea Vents

<p>The deep sea bed is the last great unexplored realm on our planet. Scientists have begun to find extraordinary ecosystems of creatures down there which exist nowhere else. These develop around submarine hydrothermal vents where mineral-rich water erupts from the seafloor at a temperature of 400 degrees Celsuis. These conditions allow unique and bizzare life forms to thrive but they also create rich mineral resources – such as high concentrations of copper, nickel and gold in the rock. In theory, around the world, trillions of dollars’ worth of metal ores lie on the deep sea bed. That is why a growing number of mining companies are exploring the ocean floor. In Discovery the BBC’s Science Editor David Shukman joins a team of scientists on the British research vessel, the James Cook. They are investigating a newly discovered life- and mineral-rich ecosystem, five kilometres beneath the Caribbean sea with a robotic submarine. </p><p>David talks to some of the mining companies with ambitions to exploit the untapped mineral riches of the deep sea, and to the United Nations organisation which regulates commercial exploration and exploitation of the sea bed. Can deep sea mining be done commercially? What will be the scale of the environmental damage? Should we leave this mysterious region of the Earth untouched when we still know so little about it? </p><p>Producers: Kate Stephens and Andrew Luck-Baker</p>