Suppressed Science - Season 1

In this exploration of machines becoming more human and humans becoming more like machines Athena links herself to a robot hand endowed with a delicate sense of touch and gets a sneak peak at unreleased consumer products which promise to optimize our brainwaves.

Why do governments around the world outlaw a class of substances which have been used safely by humans for thousands of years and which may have played a key role in early developments in human culture spirituality and creativity?

The concept of race was invented during colonial and imperialist eras as a means to reify political power structures. It went on to be backed by generations of pseudoscience which became deeply ingrained in our cultural understanding of ourselves.

Human interference with the environment has led us to the brink of an extinction-level climate-change crisis. But perhaps the solution is not to interfere less with the environment but actually to learn how to completely control it.

From a cutting-edge science-based gym & spa to a medical clinic that offers direct ultrasound brain stimulation designed to increase mental performance and even a lab doing research on how science can do in minutes what monks train their entire lives to achieve.

The discovery of CRISPR Cas-9 in 2012 opened up seemingly limitless potential in the field of genetic editing. But what scientists have found in the years since is that having an omnipotent pair of genetic scissors is not much use if you don't know where to cut.

In one form or another energy makes the world go round. In this installment Athena decodes some of the difficulties faced by the scientists & environmentalists looking to fundamentally change our relationship with energy. Where we get it. How we use it. Where it is stored transmitted and beyond.

Over the centuries scientific theories have emerged that rival religious cosmology in terms of ambition and scope. But can science ever truly explain everything?