Inside Nature's Giants - Season 1

Inside Nature's Giants - Season 1

Season 1

Network
Episodes4
DatesJun 29, 2009 - Jul 20, 2009
Next Season

Episodes

Elephant
Season 1Episode 160 min

Elephant

This programme looks at how evolution has overcome the challenges of being as big as an elephant. Elephants feed on plants with very little nutritional value for 18 hours a day, so evolution has given them vast intestines as well as huge teeth and jaw muscles - and an equally gigantic head. But this produces another problem: how to reach food on the ground. The solution is the most versatile limb on the planet - the trunk. Capable of everything from picking up berries to ripping a tree from the ground, the trunk is a wonder of evolution. It's a Just So Story for the Darwinian age.
Jun 29, 2009
The Whale
Season 1Episode 260 min

The Whale

In this episode experts dissect a 65-foot, 60-ton fin whale - second only in size to its 'cousin' the blue whale - that has died after being stranded off the coast of Ireland. It's a race against time as whale anatomist Joy Reidenberg flies in from New York before the animal's decomposition causes it to explode on the beach. Veterinary scientist Mark Evans helps investigate why the animal died and explores its extraordinary anatomy. Using whale-size machinery, Joy and the team set to work amidst gale force winds, driving rain, blood, intestines, evil smells and freezing conditions. Meanwhile, advancing tides threaten to engulf the whale, as the team struggles to complete the operation. Beneath the blubber, the whale's unique anatomy holds vital clues to its evolution. Using a combination of dissection and computer graphics, the programme discovers an animal whose closest living relative is the hippo. Meanwhile, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explains why the whale's ancestors may have taken to the water and the evolutionary problems that had to be overcome to transform a land-based mammal into an animal that swims among fish.
Jul 6, 2009
The Crocodile
Season 1Episode 360 min

The Crocodile

Veterinary scientist Mark Evans joins experts in anatomy, evolution and behaviour in a bid to get under the skin of the crocodile. Meanwhile evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins explains how little the crocodile has changed since the age of the dinosaurs. The team uncovers the crocodile's incredible jaw muscles, as biologist Simon Watt travels to Florida to test the huge strength of the massive reptile's bite: the most powerful in the animal kingdom. But while crocodiles' spiked teeth are excellent for gripping prey as they plunge into a death roll, they are useless for chewing. So how do these animals manage to digest large chunks of raw meat and bone? As the experts dissect the digestive system and inspect the stomach contents for clues, they reveal the bizarre plumbing between the heart and the stomach that might provide the key to this puzzle. And they also solve the mystery of this crocodile's premature death.
Jul 13, 2009
The Giraffe
Season 1Episode 460 min

The Giraffe

Veterinary scientist Mark Evans acts as guide as a team of experts investigate the giraffe. Creationists question how this extraordinary creature could have evolved such a long neck, but for evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins the anatomy of the world's tallest animal provides some of the best arguments in favour of Darwinian natural selection. For example, one nerve takes a huge detour up and down the long neck, from the voice box to the brain, via the chest - hardly the work of an `Intelligent Designer'. And, despite its length, the neck still only has seven vertebrae - the same number as almost all mammals, from mice to humans and whales. But it's no wonder the giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal; with a heart not much bigger than our own it must pump blood at high pressure around a towering body. It has evolved thick skin that acts as a natural 'G-suit' and a complex circulation system to avoid passing out when raising and lowering its head. And as the dissection team piece together the remarkable evolutionary story of the giraffe, biologist Simon Watt observes them in the field as they eat, forage and fight.
Jul 20, 2009

Recently Updated Shows

Recently updated shows that might be of your interest.
Fightland
Running

Fightland

Fightland follows a disgraced, formerly incarcerated boxing champion who returns to London to seek vengeance against the crime family he thinks betrayed him. With edge-of-seat action and populated by dangerous characters, this is a world of money and power never seen before.

On the night Duke Kilroy becomes world heavyweight champion, a vicious assault leaves his brother, Calvin, dead, causing Duke to snap and results in him spending eight years in a U.S. prison. Upon his release, and after having made a sinister discovery, Duke returns home seeking vengeance against the man he believes set him up -- the criminal kingpin and former promoter, Kingsley Marshall. But Kingsley has vanished, leaving his children and wife, Joy, who happens to be the love of Duke's life, to pick up the pieces.

Working with a cartel desperate to control London's drug market, Duke begins a high-risk game of infiltrating Kingsley's empire to destroy it from within and smoke out his enemy. But amidst a volatile criminal landscape, and competing influences threatening to pull him off course, Duke will need to channel everything that made him a champion fighter into his bloody pursuit to win the ultimate victory - revenge for his brother.

Doc
Running

Doc

Doc centers on the hard-charging, brilliant Dr. Amy Larsen, Chief of Internal and Family Medicine at Westside Hospital in Minneapolis. After a brain injury erases the last eight years of her life, Amy must navigate an unfamiliar world where she has no recollection of patients she's treated, colleagues she's crossed, the soulmate she divorced, the man she now loves and the tragedy that caused her to push everyone away. She can rely only on her estranged 17-year-old daughter, whom she remembers as a 9-year-old, and a handful of devoted friends, as she struggles to continue practicing medicine, despite having lost nearly a decade of knowledge and experience.

Boston Blue
Running

Boston Blue

In Boston Blue, NYPD Detective Danny Reagan takes a position with Boston PD. Once in Boston, he is paired with Detective Lena Silver, the eldest daughter of a prominent law enforcement family.

GenreDrama, Crime
Dark Matter
Running

Dark Matter

Hailed as one of the best sci-fi novels of the decade, Dark Matter is a story about the road not taken. The series follows Jason Dessen, a physicist, professor, and family man who – one night while walking home on the streets of Chicago – is abducted into an alternate version of his life. Wonder quickly turns to nightmare when he tries to return to his reality amid the multiverse of lives he could have lived. In this labyrinth of mind-bending realities, he embarks on a harrowing journey to get back to his true family and save them from the most terrifying, unbeatable foe imaginable: himself.

Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage
Running

Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage

Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage follows Georgie and Mandy as they raise their young family in Texas while navigating the challenges of adulthood, parenting and marriage.