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[Assistant] I've been brought here by Pablo Mora, a teacher at Medellin University and a particular enthusiast for this classic of golden age aviation.


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[Assistant] He sees the work that these hulking great airships and their pilots do as daredevil humanitarian missions for the more remote Colombians. They have an in-flight movie.


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[Assistant] The planes travel with their own mechanic to cobble together anything that might go wrong, and stuff can go wrong. The risk is that we'll be able to land but not take off again. So this guy is our return ticket out of the jungle.


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[Assistant] Our captain is Joaquin San Clemente, something of a legend in these parts, and his co-pilot, Captain Constanza Reyes.


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[Assistant] We have to make one stop on the way to pick up more cargo. Vital cargo, by the way.


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[Assistant] The land we're passing over is beautiful and lush, but the life for those below has been anything but.


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[Assistant] Until recently, most of the news coming out of this part of Colombia was not good. It was a front line in the war on drugs, for lack of a better term, and Colombia's long struggle with the FARC, a Marxist guerrilla force financed by drug trafficking, kidnapping, and covert assistance from Venezuela.


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[Assistant] Fifty years of very dirty war. The stakes not about drugs per se, but about the ability of ordinary Colombians to live without fear.


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[Assistant] We land in the jungle outpost of Miraflores in the southern province of Guaviare in the Amazonian Forest Reserve.


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[Assistant] The heavy presence of army and special police is a result of its strategic location and recent history as a one-time center of coca production.


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[Assistant] Farmers here would grow the stuff and make leaves into paste. Traffickers would come and buy it.


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[Assistant] The FARC had this area under its sphere of influence for years.


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[Assistant] Nine years ago, the government moved to expel the FARC, the traffickers, and any paramilitaries with apparently much success.


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[Assistant] Overnight, however, its population shrank by 85%, and what remains struggles to survive.


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[Assistant] So really, the problems in this country pre-existed in drug trade.


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[Assistant] Julio Cesar Gonzalez is the current mayor of Miraflores, which has seen much better and much worse days.


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[Assistant] So what is the future of this town?


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[Assistant] If crack didn't exist, I would have no- I would absolutely agree with you. But as a former co-kick addict and as a former crackhead,


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[Assistant] Bogota, the country's capital and an almost two mile high city with new lofty food ambitions, where previously a restaurant scene didn't really exist.


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[Assistant] Now young restaurateurs such as musician turned chef Tomas Rueda are beginning to make a name for themselves in Colombia.


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[Assistant] Did I mention that this city is over 8,000 feet up? Hence the altitude sickness I'm feeling. Not good.


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[Assistant] Tomas comes here a few times a week for an early breakfast, which I'm hoping will make me feel better.


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[Assistant] Paulo Que Mato Market has been running in one form or another since the 1940s. This place is huge.


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[Assistant] First hour is killing me. But you have a better face. I didn't think I was gonna make it out of the airport.


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[Assistant] We're talking beef short ribs simmered in an oily broth with potatoes, salt, and scallions.


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[Assistant] Thomas swears by this stuff. A traditional breakfast soup from the Andean region.


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[Assistant] Bogota. Back in the 90s, a very dangerous and violent place to be. Today, not so much. Today, in my repeated experiences here, kind of awesome.


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[Assistant] Macandalaria is the recently renovated old city, where I meet up with Hector Abad, distinguished author and one of the most important and supremely talented writers in Latin America.


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[Assistant] Hector's recent work, a memoir called Oblivion, is about his father, who was killed for his outspoken attempts to change things for the better.


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[Assistant] The tamales here are made with chicken and pork belly combined with vegetables, rice and masa wrapped in a banana leaf and slow cooked for hours.


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[Assistant] Bogota is the largest city in Colombia and the economic heart of the country. About a fifth of the population lives here, many of them very well, but some not so well.


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[Assistant] It's a city with a marked north-south divide. Chef Tomas Rueda's Tabula and Donostia restaurants sit side by side in the Macarena neighborhood, where the city center meets the north.


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[Assistant] If there's a theme here, it's that ingredients this good, meticulously prepared, are the essence of great eating.


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[Assistant] Nobody cooks at home. Maybe their cook does, so they eat out a lot.


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[Assistant] Thin sheets of handmade pasta are filled with labnet cheese and finished with a chorizo sauce.


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[Assistant] I see why that's so popular. Good stuff. Thank you Tony.


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[Assistant] Tomas's take on asobuko uses beef shank instead of veal, which is braised overnight with vegetables, wine, and broth in a wood-fired oven.


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[Assistant] Santiago de Cali, or just Cali as everybody calls it in these parts, is a city in the southwest of Colombia known for its proximity to the Pacific coast and its semi-tropical temperatures. But I'm not really here for the climate. I'm here for Tejo.


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[Assistant] It involves alcohol and explosives.


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[Assistant] Colombian Mario Galeno, expat Will Holland and their bandmates are to be my guides to this ancient and traditional Colombian sport.


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[Assistant] Teja is hungry work, but the kitchen here is up to the challenge. Making a Colombian picada.


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[Assistant] If Bogota is Colombia's financial heart, then Cali is its shaking hips. People here like their music.


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[Assistant] My Tejo buddies, Mario and Will, are the founders of a collective called Onda Tropica. Their idea was to reinterpret the tropical music heritage of Colombia.


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[Assistant] Kumbia draws on the music of the African, indigenous, and European mix that makes up the country. So Will and Mario created something a long way from the pop music that's a staple here.


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[Assistant] As if the impressive amount of fried meat we ate at the Tejo Quartz wasn't enough, we go for dinner at one of the band's favorite spots.


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[Assistant] Native to the mangroves of the Pacific coast, the piangwa mollusk is a staple used in everything from tamales to stews.


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[Assistant] Look, the country is beautiful. We know this, okay? But most Americans, they're afraid to come.


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[Assistant] I mean, there's a lot of heart here. People feel very, very deeply.


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[Assistant] About things. It is the most welcoming country in Latin America that I've been.


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[Assistant] I leave the subtropics for more extreme climbs. Rioacha is a city 600 miles northeast of Cali on Columbia's Caribbean Sea.


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[Assistant] The Guajira is the most northern part of South America and borders Venezuela in the east.


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[Assistant] It's home to the native, semi-nomadic people of Columbia called the Wai'u.


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[Assistant] The Wai'u are a tough, autonomous tribe who've never taken sides with either the government, the FARC, or the paramilitaries. As a result, they remain independent politically and live pretty much by their own code.


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[Assistant] Tribal members of the YU have dual citizenship and could cross the border into Venezuela to live or trade there whenever they need to.


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[Assistant] Luckily for us, it means that cheap gas is easy to come by in these parts. There are no stations as such, you just keep an eye out for the cans.


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[Assistant] Having taken on as much gas as can be mouth-siphoned in one sitting, we're off again.


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[Assistant] It's hot out here. Desert hot. And we planned to ride three hours along the coast to our lunch spot. And I ate salty goat innards for breakfast and I refused to wear a helmet or sunblock.


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[Assistant] We avoid wild donkeys and goats and get lost more than a few times.


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[Assistant] So a little heat stroke leads to a lot of forcing around and we decide to open these puppies up.


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[Assistant] Well a momentary concussion is seldom a good thing. Waking up in Colombia on a beach almost always is.


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[Assistant] Having abandoned the epic ride, we're back where we started, at Mayapal, in the Guajira, at the Blue Sea Restaurant.


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[Assistant] I changed. You brought a change of clothes. Yes. I'm hurting up. I'm feeling it every minute, every hour, every month and year of my age. So you're ready for some casuela? Yes. And I, I trust it will make me feel all much better.


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[Assistant] Oh man, you can't ask for better scenery. It's beautiful here. A beer?


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[Assistant] I need a bath. Very clear sky for the Caribbean.


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[Assistant] They face problems more extreme and seemingly more intractable than many of us can imagine. And yet every time I come here, it gets better.


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[Assistant] I come back to my own country from Colombia and I think if they can fix that, if they can make things better, then surely there's nothing we can't do.


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[Assistant] For now, however, I'll settle for fixing my headache.


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[Assistant] Earlier it was believed that turtles mistakenly identified plastic bags for jellyfish.


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[Assistant] But this hypothesis was discarded when turtles were found to ingest plastic debris. Which had no resemblance to jellyfish.


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[Assistant] Also, turtles were found entangled in large mats of plastic debris. Which had no visual resemblance to jellyfish.


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[Assistant] In the study, it was found that these turtles were responding to airborne odorants from biofouled plastic. Now this response was very similar to the way turtles responded to odorants from food.


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[Assistant] Researchers believe that dimethyl sulfide, a volatile odorant, might be responsible for such behavior from turtles.


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[Assistant] What if plastic was never invented? No problemo. Instead of plastic, people will use armastic. Stop it AumSum.


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[Assistant] Plastic is not biodegradable. As compared to organic waste, it takes hundreds of years to decompose. No plastic means land and water pollution would be reduced by a great extent.


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[Assistant] Electronics industry would greatly suffer as plastic is widely used everywhere. From computers to smartphones. To conclude, instead of banning plastic altogether. Banning the use of single use plastic seems like a solution the world is waiting for.


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[Assistant] What if we accidentally eat plastic? No plastic, no pollution is the AumSum mantra.


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[Assistant] Wow, um, some. Firstly, plastic is not biodegradable.


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[Assistant] Why are fish eating plastic? Huh? Every year, about 8 million metric tons of plastic waste is dumped into our oceans. Hence, in some parts of the oceans, there is more plastic than planktons and krills, which are a source of food for many fish.


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[Assistant] Now, according to a research, fish eat plastic because it breaks down into smaller fragments which are similar to the size of planktons. In addition to this, the plastic fragments present in salty seas or oceans release odor similar to that given off by plankton.


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[Assistant] Besides this, some of these fish even reach our table as seafood. If we eat such fish, it can cause severe health problems. Hence, it is very important to recycle plastic and use eco-friendly products like paper bags.


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[Assistant] Topic, electric charge. Huh?


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[Assistant] Okay, let us try. Take a plastic comb and bring it close to some pieces of paper.


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[Assistant] No, the reason behind this is electric charge.


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[Assistant] Hence, it did not have the ability to exert a force and attract the pieces of paper. So, after rubbing the plastic comb on our dry hair, why was it able to attract the pieces of paper? I will tell you why.


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[Assistant] This charge is called as static electricity. However, do you think, like a plastic comb, a metallic comb would also attract the pieces of paper?


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[Assistant] As a result, the charge is built in the plastic comb. Making it electrically charged and enabling it to attract the pieces of paper.


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[Assistant] Maybe we should test it one more time.


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[Assistant] This is serious. We'd better go right away. Yuck!


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[Assistant] Forest fires always do, Grubby. It's lucky no one was hurt.


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[Assistant] Now I know you're all angry, but revenge isn't the answer. Please look around you.


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[Assistant] Anger caused this damage. Tweak didn't start the fire. You started it with your fighting!


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[Assistant] I don't know gimmick. We'll just have to wait and see.


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[Assistant] Other than maybe blurry cell phone videos, old black and white newsreels from World War II.


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[Assistant] Myanmar, after 50 years of nightmare, something unexpected is happening here, and it's pretty incredible.


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[Assistant] In Yangon, capital city of Myanmar, it's dark. Blackouts are frequent with the ancient power grid.


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[Assistant] What sources of light there are in the street cast an eerie yellow-orange hue.


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[Assistant] For almost 100 years under British rule, this was Rangoon. In 1948, after helping the British fight off the Japanese, and with a new taste for self-determination, the country gained independence.


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[Assistant] After a decade of instability, however, the military consolidated power and never let go.


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[Assistant] Elections, they came and went. The results ignored, opposition punished, or silenced entirely.


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[Assistant] Burma, now Myanmar, where Orwell had once served as a colonial policeman, where he'd first grown to despise the apparatus of a security state, became more Orwellian than even he could have imagined. A nation, or even having an opinion, could be dangerous.


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[Assistant] To nearly everyone's surprise, there have been some huge changes in recent months.


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[Assistant] Nobel Prize winning democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi, for nearly 15 years under house arrest, was released, and has now taken an active role in politics.


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[Assistant] Just as the door is opening, my crew and I are among the first to record what has been unseen for decades by most of the world.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, this Southeast Asian country of 80 million people is collectively holding its breath, waiting to see what's next. And will this loosening of government grip last?


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[Assistant] Strong, less strong, everybody's got a preference, everybody's got a preferred tea shop, where they know, presumably, how you like yours.


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[Assistant] For 50 years of paranoia and repression, teahouses were also the main forum for guarded and not so guarded discussions of the daily news. Where you tried to piece together the real stories behind the ludicrously chopped and censored newspapers.


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[Assistant] In the back a cauldron of salty little fish bubble over hardwood coals. Fingers work mountains of sweet bean


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[Assistant] In another corner, the heartening slap of fresh bread pressed against the clay wall of a tandoori. And of course, eggs bob and spit in the magical hell broth of fish, spice, and herb.


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[Assistant] In Yangon, motorbikes are outlawed. Why is a matter of much rumor and speculation. So it's the bus for me.


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[Assistant] Not too long ago, even filming here, officially as an open professional western film crew, would have been unthinkable.


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[Assistant] Be seen talking to anybody with a camera and there would likely be a knock on your door in the middle of the night.


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[Assistant] Yet so far, confronted with our cameras, a few smiles, and mostly indifference at worst. Shocking considering how recently the government has started to relax its grip.


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[Assistant] This is Ma Thenggy, a famous and very controversial figure in public life. Myanmar or Burma?


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[Assistant] Marthingi, like Uti Asaw, has also spent time in prison. But on emerging after three years, she became in the minds of many an apologist for the regime. Fairly or not, I leave to others.


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[Assistant] But her many well-known books on the culinary traditions of Myanmar make her a compelling advocate for Burmese cuisine.


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[Assistant] There's pig head salad with kaffir lime leaf, long bean salad with sesame and fish sauce, penny leaf salad, even this salad of India style samosa. Everything's out there at the same time.


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[Assistant] Cash machines? Uh-uh. Wi-Fi? Internet? Rare.


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[Assistant] Min Lane is a big, noisy seafood house where fish is prepared in the style of Yakine, the coastal province to the west named for the Yakine people, one of over 135 distinct ethnic groups around here.


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[Assistant] Rise up the last remnants of empire. Faded, often crumbling, but still there after all these years. These are the offices, businesses, and public buildings of the British Colonials.


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[Assistant] A century ago when Kipling's poem Mandalay was beckoning the overheated imaginations of a generation of young Englishmen, here you could buy fine Egyptian cigarettes, French liqueurs. The floor tiles were shipped over from Manchester. Now, people live here.


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[Assistant] A half century as a pariah state has left very few of these buildings in good repair. And there are divergent views on whether to preserve them. For many, a reminder of colonial subjugation. For others, a vestige of a golden time.


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[Assistant] These days in Myanmar, in the streets, on the docks, it's all about moving forward. In an economy ripe to explode if things continue trending in their current direction, the busy hustle and bustle of Yangon's port appears even busier today as workers prepare for the oncoming holiday.


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[Assistant] Cotton candy, trinkets, tube socks, just like a New York street fair, but with infinitely better food.


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[Assistant] Okay, it's a ferris wheel, but the power source, not unusual for these parts, is not electric. It ain't gas. Oh man, are you kidding me?


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[Assistant] And it's not just this one. Every couple of blocks, bigger and bigger Ferris wheels, each one with its own troop of acrobatic spinners.


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[Assistant] We're at the streets of Yangon. What's happening is probably pretty similar.


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[Assistant] But it's also three days of merit accruing. The practice of performing charitable or otherwise good works in the hopes of jacking up your karma.


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[Assistant] Money trees are paraded around pinned with cash donations for months. Free banquets and feasts are held. And many moments of spiritual reflection.


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[Assistant] The Morningstar Tea House, where I've come, well, for a couple of reasons. Reason one, the must-have, bone-deep, old-school favorite around here, Lapet Tok, a salad of fermented tea leaves. I know, that does not sound good, but you'd be wrong to think that.


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[Assistant] Meet Burmese punk rockers Side Effect and lead singer Darko.


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[Assistant] Six hundred kilometers of what will turn out to be kidney softening travel by rail.


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[Assistant] So really the question on this end of the journey is come back on the train or flying coffin.


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[Assistant] Heading north, the scenery opens up. The space between things gets wider, more pastoral, and more beautiful.


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[Assistant] Looking around at my fellow passengers, it could be hard to distinguish between the 135 plus ethnic groups that make up the Burmese population.


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[Assistant] The very name, Burma, refers actually to only one of these groups.


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[Assistant] It's ubiquitous here. At first jarring to see, it quickly becomes something you get used to and take for granted.


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[Assistant] And derailments or rail slips as they are referred to here, a somewhat more benign sounding occurrence, let's say rolling off the tracks into a rice paddy, are not uncommon.


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[Assistant] Out the window the modern world seems to fade away, then disappear altogether. Like the last century never happened, or even the century before that.


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[Assistant] Simply put, there is shit going on they do not want you to see.


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[Assistant] A low intensity conflict with the ethnic Kachin tribe would be one of them. A wave of persecution and deaths in Yakine state.


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[Assistant] The country may be opening up at its center, but all along the edges it's waging a desperate war to hang on to the status quo.


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[Assistant] Needless to say, the status quo is not good.


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[Assistant] A thousand years ago, Bagan was the capital for a long line of Bama kings.


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[Assistant] It's the sort of place where the old coexists with the even older.


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[Assistant] As elsewhere in this part of the world, in many of the Buddhist temples here, far older, animist, spirit-based beliefs coexist with more recent Buddhism.


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[Assistant] And in Myanmar, worship of the Nats is widespread. Nats, as I understand it, are more like Greek gods, former humans, demigods, spirits, often with very human qualities and failings.


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[Assistant] Dance performances pay homage to the individual gnats, performers claiming to actually channel them, bringing about, one hopes, a beneficial spiritual possession.


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[Assistant] But I'm not just here for a not play. I have a list.


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[Assistant] Things to eat in Myanmar. And this is one of them. Chicken curry.


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[Assistant] You'd expect this, an ancient city of nearly unparalleled size and beauty, to be overrun with tourists, souvenir shops, snack bars, tours on tape. But no. Oh, this is stunning.


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[Assistant] You'll encounter some western travelers at Bagan's temple sites for sure, but generally speaking, they're a hearty bunch. Even the bus tours here are not for the faint of heart or the weak of spirit.


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[Assistant] But for the most part, you're far more likely to bump into a goat than a foreigner.


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[Assistant] I'm thinking, you build this many temples, thousands of them.


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[Assistant] A millennia ago, in a period of just under 250 years, over 4,000 structures like this were built here.


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[Assistant] They say that Abhama King Anurata began this project after a conversion to Theravada-style Buddhism.


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[Assistant] Over 3,000 pagodas, temples and monasteries remain today. Inside almost every one of them, a Buddha figure. Each one, different.


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[Assistant] Funny you should mention that. People used to live here, but the government came along in the 80s, I believe, and relocated. It was a mass relocation project. So any homes, anything that was understood, this is a good


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[Assistant] We don't pay the price for that show. Uh, everybody who helped us could very well pay that price. It should be pointed out that a lot of people


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[Assistant] Did not. A lot of people were very nice to us, but said, look, I just, I've already been in jail. You know, I don't, I really don't want to go back. Uhm, it's a very real concern. What happens to the people we leave behind? You know, one would think that you can't, one's freedom, you know, they've tasted freedom, you know. Well, uh, you know, you can put the toothpaste back in the tube. You know, there's no doubt about that.


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[Assistant] But for the moment at least, things seem to be moving in the right direction.


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[Assistant] A country closed off to most for so long. Sleeping. A 50-year nightmare for many of its citizens. Finally, maybe, waking up. To what? Time will tell.


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[Assistant] His Majesty and I are proud to have you as our honored guest.


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[Assistant] Make sure our troops are ready. I expect a signal at any moment. Yes, commander! There it is! The signal we've been waiting for!


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[Assistant] Time for the surprise attack! Kutangs! To your flying machine!


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[Assistant] It had already happened. I asked the price of the car, but they had already sold it.


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[Assistant] I asked the price of the car, but they had already sold it.


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[Assistant] I ran to the platform quickly, but the train had already left.


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[Assistant] I ran to the platform quickly, but the train had already left. He gave us our exercise books after he had corrected them.


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[Assistant] He gave us our exercise books after he had corrected them.


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[Assistant] She had finished the housework before she went out.


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[Assistant] She had finished the housework before she went out. We had had dinner before they arrived.


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[Assistant] I reckon I've eaten about a million dumplings, but I think I've probably only made a couple of hundred, uhm, and in nine years as well, so, I mean, he's got it on me, that's for sure.


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[Assistant] I'm making a mint and lime salad. The secret is that it's actually a dessert. It's got a sorbet hidden underneath all the foliage.


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[Assistant] My dish is inspired by Thai flavors. It should be quite cold and sweet and sour and really hot at the same time. I have made this before, yeah. It's a really nice little palate cleanser or actually a really nice way to kind of enter into another savory course as well.


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[Assistant] I know that with this dish I'm taking quite a massive risk. It's either gonna be loved by the judges or it's gonna be a massive flop.


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[Assistant] The dish that I'm cooking is mint and lime salad. A little under the pump, but I think I've got it together. I think I'm gonna get there.


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[Assistant] Because this dish is so simple, I really do want to pack as much flavour in as possible. So I really want to do a little fried choux pastry. Give it a little bit more texture and roll it through some sugar and some zest of lime and ginger.


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[Assistant] It is just a salad, but I feel like the flavours should be enough to carry me through.


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[Assistant] Feels terrible to have to go into the pressure test tomorrow. I'm really scared to see what they have hidden from us in the pressure test.


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[Assistant] A lantern! I'll wager he's planning to signal the gatangs to resume their attack! Come, there's not a moment to lose!


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[Assistant] Keep it up, Thweeze, you're on a roll! Too bad it's all downhill.


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[Assistant] Not yet. I must water the garden first.


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[Assistant] That was a pleasant surprise. It means I can have tea instead.


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[Assistant] Not yet. I must water the garden first.


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[Assistant] I'm afraid I must. Look at it. It's terribly dry. What a nuisance. Last summer it was very dry too. Don't you remember? I had to water it every day.


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[Assistant] That was a pleasant surprise. It means I can have tea instead.


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[Assistant] Just loops it all together. Absolutely delicious. You should be really really proud. Tati, well done.


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[Assistant] Caffeine. Over there it's got the fruit on it as well, so you can use the zest, the leaves.


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[Assistant] Cooks a few of these in your time. Ah, a few. A couple of whiting. A few weigh in.


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[Assistant] I'm loving the fact that we've got two dishes from opposite sides of the globe. Time will tell. 30 minutes to go.


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[Assistant] Alright Tati, final touches, make it beautiful, you've worked hard, you've got a minute to go.


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[Assistant] No. Did you have fun? Always. Always have an absolute blast. Unfortunately didn't get the outcome. But, you know, it's all stepping stones. We'll get there.


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[Assistant] Where are you going to spend your holidays this year, Gary? We may go abroad. I'm not sure. My wife wants to go to Egypt. I'd like to go there too. We can't make up our minds. Will you travel by sea or by air? We may travel by sea. It's cheaper, isn't it? It may be cheaper, but it takes a long time.


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[Assistant] I'm sure you'll enjoy yourselves. Don't be so sure. We might not go anywhere. My wife always worries too much. Who's going to look after the dog? Who's going to look after the house? Who's going to look after the garden? We have this problem every year.


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[Assistant] In the end, we stay at home and look after everything.


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[Assistant] Where are you going to spend your holidays this year, Gary? We may go abroad. I'm not sure. My wife wants to go to Egypt. I'd like to go there too. We can't make up our minds. Will you travel by sea or by air? We may travel by sea. It's cheaper, isn't it? It may be cheaper, but it takes a long time.


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[Assistant] I'm sure you'll enjoy yourselves. Don't be so sure. We might not go anywhere. My wife always worries too much. Who's going to look after the dog? Who's going to look after the house? Who's going to look after the garden? We have this problem every year.


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[Assistant] In the end, we stay at home and look after everything.


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[Assistant] Tomorrow.


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[Assistant] race


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[Assistant] study


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[Assistant] young, young,


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[Assistant] child


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[Assistant] children


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[Assistant] wish wish


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[Assistant] Steve


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[Assistant] Journey to the West, Chapter 1, The Monkey.


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[Assistant] The sun, the moon, heaven and earth all work their magic on the rock. One day the rock split open.


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[Assistant] For a moment the light reached the cloud palace in heaven. The Jade Emperor, ruler of heaven, sat up.


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[Assistant] He turned to one of his captains who was standing nearby.


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[Assistant] He looked out the southern gate of heaven and saw the monkey on earth below. The light was gone, but the captain had magical sight. He could see everything that had just happened.


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[Assistant] He became friends with all the other monkeys and apes. At night he slept under a cliff.


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[Assistant] All the monkeys and apes looked at one another. They shook their heads.


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[Assistant] I'm not going to try, said a tall monkey.


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[Assistant] Monkey splashed through the waterfall and landed in a large cave.


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[Assistant] The cave was filled with bamboo, trees and beautiful flowers.


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[Assistant] I was saying to the others, to see things that were recorded 20 years ago, you know, I had no recollection of anyone having a camera back then. It is a really strange sensation.


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[Assistant] He's our best friend and a musical genius and he never stops surprising you.


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[Assistant] He has a relentless and infectious energy for music and for life and it's incredible to have shared a journey because we're very different people.


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[Assistant] Chris always has a very clear idea about where he wants to be, what he wants to be doing next.


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[Assistant] So Phil Harvey was our first manager. He paid for us to record our first EP.


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[Assistant] The difference between having four people and having five people in a democracy is actually crucial, because someone will win, don't get a stay.


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[Assistant] It's difficult because we work so hard on keeping each other happy, the four of us. But sometimes things do need to be said, and I've learned over the years that that has to be me. Sort of unofficial spanner in the works, thrower.


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[Assistant] Supergrass. I remember it very well, the feeling of, we have something now.


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[Assistant] Musically, in the past, I think we felt a lot of pressure to have everything come from the four of us. We started collaborating with people just because it opened up a new way of making music.


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[Assistant] It was kind of like the darkest, worst point in our time together. The excitement, everything we've done was focused on getting signed. And we got signed, oh god. Yea, what are we doing now?


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[Assistant] And we did some auditions.


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[Assistant] It's telling that where I went was to go and hang out with the band. You know, went up to their flat and told them what was going on.


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[Assistant] I didn't really have any kind of tools to deal with it. I think I just threw myself into this extraordinary new life that I had.


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[Assistant] She died in May of 2000, and our album was released in July of that year.


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[Assistant] Chris has done nothing but think about the album for seven months. Striving for absolute perfection. He doesn't sleep really.


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[Assistant] Especially when we're mixing and you have to listen to the same song 80 times in a day, by then it all just, it all sounds exactly the same.


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[Assistant] Generally that's how it worked. Normally either ideas or sort of fully formed songs always came from Chris. Most often he played to Johnny first.


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[Assistant] For one album, and that was when we sorely missed him. We made decisions that weren't as good as they could have been.


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[Assistant] In general, the bigger you get as a band, all the kind of machinery around you gets bigger and bigger and there's more things to get in the way of just four people playing music together.


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[Assistant] In the early days, I think there used to be a lot more arguments, particularly between Chris and myself.


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[Assistant] Chris definitely wears his heart on his sleeve. Will and Johnny and myself are much more guarded emotionally. And that's probably why so many bands have split up, because they haven't.


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[Assistant] We finally got a band home that really brought everything back into focus. You know, it was our own studio, our own HQ.


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[Assistant] It's new territory for us, we don't really know how to behave. I think we wanted a producer to give us some ideas about how we can present the next phase of our band.


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[Assistant] It was evident that things were very difficult for Chris and that he was unhappy.


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[Assistant] Yeah, we definitely felt very protective towards him. Chris's life is different from mine, you know. He has very much a public life. People know what's going on, or like to think they know.


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[Assistant] So, we were worried about him letting people in too far, but this was what he wanted to do.


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[Assistant] What's still the same is our passion to make music together. I wouldn't want to do what I do if I wasn't with my friends, you know? I think the gang mentality is still definitely there, but it's just the gang's got a little bit bigger.


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[Assistant] As recently as 50,000 years ago, there were probably four different kinds of humans living at the same time. Yet today we are a species alone.


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[Assistant] Homo sapiens is the most adaptable species in the human career, meaning that no matter what happens in the world, we have a way of adapting to it. Today, that way is called culture.


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[Assistant] If glaciers came to Arizona where I live, we wouldn't be growing thick fur and thick skin. We would be building more fireplaces and heating systems.


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[Assistant] Don't let it stand in our way. Cause my head just aches.


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[Assistant] Where do you think you are? On a race track?


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[Assistant] That's why I didn't see the sign. Let me see your driving license. I won't charge you this time, but you'd better not do it again.


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[Assistant] Where do you think you are? On a race track?


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[Assistant] That's why I didn't see the sign. Let me see your driving license. I won't charge you this time, but you'd better not do it again.


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[Assistant] We couldn't believe it, but we started getting pieces of ribs. These were the parts of Homo erectus that nobody actually knew about, nobody had ever seen before. So every bone that came out of the ground was something brand new to science and we were looking at these things and it was really amazing.


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[Assistant] You can answer questions like, did the boy grow up like a modern human? Or did he grow up more like an ape?


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[Assistant] It's very unusual to get a skeleton because normally these things are eaten by carnivores.


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[Assistant] And in this case, it seems that the boy's body was washed into a swamp, and so the carnivores never saw it and never destroyed it. And it gradually decomposed, and as the rivers flooded, brought in more sediment, buried it.


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[Assistant] And you could see footprints of hippos that had walked all over the bones and, and some of the ribs and things were standing vertically instead of lying flat on the ground. You could sort of reconstruct the situation and how, how the boy, what had happened after he died and, and why he was complete. It was just, it really was, it was an amazing experience to see it.


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[Assistant] We don't see any evidence that plant protein was at all important in their diet. And it doesn't look like they had marine food at all. They were hunting large herbivores like bison or reindeer and things like that.


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[Assistant] So far we've measured the type specimen from Germany, the Neanderthals from Sklidina, Neanderthals from France and Croatia, over about 100,000 years. And in every case, in all these different environments, the Neanderthals do the same thing.


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[Assistant] And this one is freshwater shrimp dashi. Made of taro root and freshwater shrimp.


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[Assistant] This is a soup made of hen, with peanuts, and corn, and it's called inchicapi.


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[Assistant] This is called Patarashka. They season the fish, they put it on a leaf and they cook it. The fish is catfish. In the Amazon we have like 200 types of catfish.


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[Assistant] And here we have a paiche, it's the second biggest freshwater fish in the world. Underneath you have a puree of a guaje, that is a palm fruit. And the sauce is a reduction of fermented wild manioc or yuca. Fermented? Yea, this is, how do you say, toxic or poisonous.


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[Assistant] While we were excavating, more or less in this area you can see over here, we found a chunk of ochre.


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[Assistant] And when we brushed up the surface of the ochre,


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[Assistant] Uh, we realized that there was actually a design on the one side. And once we looked at it in more detail, held it up to the light, uh, we could see a crosshatched pattern that


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[Assistant] And also headlines across the top, through the middle, and along the bottom.


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[Assistant] And you can imagine there was enormous excitement because...


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[Assistant] We did not expect to find, uhm, something that might represent a symbolic image.


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[Assistant] Uh, in these 75,000 year old levels. So, uh, this really was an enormous, enormous surprise for us.


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[Assistant] For me, what is really important is here for the first time really ever.


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[Assistant] We have evidence that people can store information outside of the human brain.


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[Assistant] Humans. Without a doubt the smartest animal on earth.


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[Assistant] Yet we're unmistakably tied to our ape origins.


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[Assistant] More than six million years ago, we took that first step to separate from the apes.


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[Assistant] And three million years ago, we see the roots of our big brain begin to take hold in a tiny creature more like a chimp than a human.


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[Assistant] We all know that for millions of years, many different human-like species lived together on the planet. Until one day, there was only us.


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[Assistant] Homo sapiens, the most complex adaptable animal on earth. So how did we get this way and why?


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[Assistant] A radical new theory reveals how episodes of cataclysmic change forced our ancestors to adapt or die.


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[Assistant] So get ready for a ride through millions of years of our history. It's the story of becoming human. Our story, right now, on Nova.


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[Assistant] Millions of years ago, on the plains of Africa, a momentous event took place.


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[Assistant] Apes that had walked on four legs, stood up and walked on two.


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[Assistant] Eventually, this change in posture would be followed by a change in their brains.


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[Assistant] In the Sahara Desert, a 6 million year old fossil called Tumai may hold the secret of how we first walked upright.


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[Assistant] And the fossilized bones of a child from three and a half million years ago.


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[Assistant] We're discovering how many different human species lived on Earth at the same time, and why all but one died out.


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[Assistant] Scientists are scouring the most remote parts of Africa for clues.


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[Assistant] The search for answers begins here in the Afar, Northeastern Ethiopia.


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[Assistant] It's part of the Great Rift Valley, a deep cut in the earth where geologic forces are ripping Africa apart.


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[Assistant] Millions of years of history are brought to the surface in layers of exposed rock.


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[Assistant] The fossil bones of animals like antelopes, elephants, and pigs are abundant.


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[Assistant] Then, in a stroke of luck, Zerai makes the find of a lifetime.


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[Assistant] It was a face so tiny, it had to be a baby.


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[Assistant] But not a baby chimp. He could tell that from its shape.


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[Assistant] The skull was embedded in sandstone, but as Arai turned it over, he could see more bones inside.


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[Assistant] Clues to the age of the fossil came from a distinctive feature in the landscape.


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[Assistant] If the volcanic ash is 3.4 million years old, Zirai's fossil, which was lying just above it, must be younger.


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[Assistant] It was a child from the dawn of human evolution, about 3.3 million years ago.


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[Assistant] Zerai called the baby, Salam. The Ethiopian word for peace.


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[Assistant] Then he set off on a quest to unravel her many mysteries.


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[Assistant] Her journey began a very, very long time ago.


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[Assistant] Imagine the entire span of recorded human history taking us back to the Egyptian pyramids about 5,000 years, double it 10,000 years ago.


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[Assistant] When plants were domesticated and agriculture begins. Double it again.


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[Assistant] To the time when Ice Age hunters paint stunning images on cave walls.


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[Assistant] And keep doubling. Six more times.


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[Assistant] Taking us back 1.3 million years.


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[Assistant] When the first creature who really looked like us hunted on the plains of Africa.


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[Assistant] And then keep traveling back another two million years. And only then do we arrive in the time when Salam lived in Ethiopia nearly three and a half million years ago.


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[Assistant] What were Salam and her family like? What kind of world did they live in? The answers are hidden in their fossil bones.


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[Assistant] He's one of a whole new generation of African scientists trying to unravel the mysteries of human origins.


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[Assistant] Zerai has brought his precious fossil here to the National Museum.


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[Assistant] His challenge is to release her from the tomb of sandstone in which her bones are encased.


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[Assistant] She's from a species considered by most scientists to be an ancient ancestor.


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[Assistant] Australopithecus afarensis, a small chimp-like creature who walked on two legs.


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[Assistant] This is the same species as the famous Lucy, discovered in the 1970s by Don Johansson.


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[Assistant] But seeing evolution in the making will take some work. Salam's fossilized bones are solid rock, held together by a mesh of soft sandstone.


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[Assistant] He's been at it for eight long years, but the payoff has been amazing.


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[Assistant] As the work progressed, Zerai revealed an almost complete skull.


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[Assistant] Never before had a child's skeleton been found so ancient and so complete.


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[Assistant] Her bones would fit in a shoebox, but they speak volumes about her life.


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[Assistant] For example, to find out how old she was when she died, Zerai looked at her teeth, but not the baby teeth visible in her jaw, the adult teeth growing inside the bone as seen in a CT scan.


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[Assistant] From that, we know Salam died at age 3.


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[Assistant] Unlike apes, these creatures walked upright.


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[Assistant] As the first fossil Don Johansson found clearly revealed.


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[Assistant] Other bones confirm that Lucy walked on two legs, like us.


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[Assistant] From the waist down, Lucy was like us. From the waist up, she and her kind were all eight.


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[Assistant] With chimp-like shoulder blades giving her the range of motion needed for climbing and swinging.


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[Assistant] These ancient creatures must have spent time in the trees.


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[Assistant] Possibly sleeping there at night to keep away from predators. But walking upright on the ground during the day. They were at home in two worlds.


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[Assistant] Across the border in Kenya is one of the hottest and most barren places on earth.


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[Assistant] A vast expanse of volcanic rock and burning desert.


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[Assistant] But there's good evidence that for most of its history, it was very different.


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[Assistant] Researchers braving temperatures over 100 degrees are seeing signs of a dramatic transformation here in the Saguta Valley.


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[Assistant] In fact, the entire African continent used to be a lot wetter than it is today.


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[Assistant] Many millions of years ago, long before Salam and Lucy, Africa was a wet tropical environment covered with rainforest.


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[Assistant] But then, Africa started to gradually dry out.


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[Assistant] By Salaam's time, three to four million years ago, the Great Rift Valley was a mosaic of different environments.


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[Assistant] The fossils tell the story of a vanished landscape.


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[Assistant] Three million years ago, the Rift Valley was a patchwork of grassy plains, scattered woodlands, lakes and rivers.


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[Assistant] As their environment changed, scientists believe our ancestors changed too.


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[Assistant] They had been creatures who spent most of their time in trees, like chimps and orangutans today.


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[Assistant] But as their forests shrank, some of them developed the trait that we take for granted.


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[Assistant] This is one of the defining characteristics of humans.


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[Assistant] But how did bipedalism develop, and why?


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[Assistant] Because it's unique, it's hard to figure out why it happened. There are a lot of theories.


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[Assistant] Let's go back to the dense forest, home to our ancient ape ancestors 10 million years ago.


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[Assistant] Like many apes today, they were perfectly suited to a life in the trees.


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[Assistant] But energy demands would change as the force started to disappear.


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[Assistant] He believes that walking on two legs evolved because it saved energy.


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[Assistant] Whether it walks on four legs or two, a chimp can't compete with a human gait.


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[Assistant] According to Lieberman, small anatomical differences created large energy savings.


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[Assistant] Setting our ancestors on the path to bipedalism. A path that would eventually lead to us.


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[Assistant] When Lucy's kind were first discovered, many people thought they were the so-called missing link between apes and humans.


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[Assistant] But the science of genetics has transformed our understanding with a technique called the molecular clock.


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[Assistant] Today, scientists can compare DNA from closely related species to find out how long ago they split from a common ancestor.


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[Assistant] Living forms evolve because DNA sometimes spontaneously changes as it copies itself.


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[Assistant] These changes happen at a surprisingly regular rate.


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[Assistant] By counting the differences between the genetic code of chimps and humans.


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[Assistant] Here was proof that humans diverged from the apes much earlier than we thought. About six million years ago.


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[Assistant] It shows Lucy and Salam weren't one step removed from chimps, but many.


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[Assistant] They may even be closer to us than to the first human ancestor. So what came before Lucy and Salam?


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[Assistant] Until the 1990s, the fossil record was blank.


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[Assistant] Fossil hunters combed East Africa's Great Rift Valley, but could only find small fragments older than four million years.


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[Assistant] Then, in 1997, a French anthropologist called Michel Brunet decided to look somewhere else.


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[Assistant] Michelle was looking in a place where the few animal fossils he turned up were all around 6 million years old.


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[Assistant] Michelle was not to be deterred. He was stubborn. Many thought to the point of madness.


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[Assistant] He and his team spent years searching the desert for signs of our ancestors. And year after year they came up empty.


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[Assistant] Then, on their 26th expedition in 2001, they found a smashed, misshapen skull.


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[Assistant] They called it Sahelanthropus Chidensis. There were no bones apart from the skull.


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[Assistant] His first step was to take the skull, now nicknamed Tumai, to a particle accelerator in Grenoble, France, to use its powerful x-ray scanner.


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[Assistant] Over a thousand pictures of the fossil were taken to build a 3D image of the crushed skull.


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[Assistant] Using the virtual image, the skull could be restored to its original shape.


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[Assistant] It was then reproduced by a type of 3D printer equipped with lasers which hardened plastic.


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[Assistant] When it finally rose from its bath, the cast of Tumai's skull was ready for detailed study.


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[Assistant] Did this ancient creature walk on two legs millions of years before Lucy or Salam?


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[Assistant] It's how the skull connects to the spine that provides the vital clue.


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[Assistant] If Tumai's skull is set on the neck of an ape that walks on all fours, his eyes point downward. That can't be right.


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[Assistant] Set on the upright spine of a biped, his eyes point straight ahead.


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[Assistant] For Michelle, this proved to my walked upright.


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[Assistant] Some scientists still question whether Tumai was really a biped.


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[Assistant] But if Michelle is right, his six million year old fossil is a good candidate for the first human ancestor.


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[Assistant] Discoveries like this are changing the way we see human evolution.


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[Assistant] The growth of open grasslands forced our ancestors out of the trees. They became bipeds and in short order, brain size increased. Human evolution took off. We were on our way to becoming human.


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[Assistant] But walking upright may not have automatically led to big grains at all.


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[Assistant] From Tumai to Salam, both bipeds brains stayed small and they weren't the only ones.


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[Assistant] Over millions of years, there was a profusion of upright walkers with complicated names and chimp sized brains. Like Auroran Tuganensis.


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[Assistant] One key difference between humans and apes is the length of childhood.


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[Assistant] But what do we know about the childhood of our early ancestors?


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[Assistant] The brains of baby chimps have an early growth spurt. They're almost fully formed by age three. In humans, that growth spurt is slower.


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[Assistant] And it takes nearly two decades for our brains to fully mature.


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[Assistant] So Zerai could calculate how much of her brain was already formed by age three when she died.


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[Assistant] But Salam's brain was only around 75% of its adult size, suggesting it was growing up slower.


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[Assistant] To learn the survival strategies her family group needed to live in a dangerous world.


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[Assistant] Perhaps this set the stage for our longer human childhood when culture is handed down.


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[Assistant] But is there any other evidence Salam's brain was becoming more human and less ape?


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[Assistant] To find out, compare a human brain to a chips.


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[Assistant] The lunate sulcus is a deep furrow in a primate's brain.


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[Assistant] It divides parts of the brain related to vision from the rest of the neocortex, which is where more complex thought happens.


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[Assistant] The human brain doesn't have this deep furrow, and the neocortex is bigger than the vision structures, which have moved far to the back.


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[Assistant] So did Salam have the deep furrow and small neocortex of a chimp? Or had something changed?


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[Assistant] Brains don't fossilize, but her remarkably complete skull provides a way to see some of the different structures of her brain.


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[Assistant] A cast of the brain case called an endocast preserves the impression of the brain's surface.


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[Assistant] Ralph Holloway has a collection of 300 brain endocasts from many of our ancestors.


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[Assistant] Ralph claims that as chimp-like ancestors evolved into creatures like Salam and Lucy, the lunate sulcus, the furrow marking the vision structures, moved back, making room for a larger neocortex, the thinking part of the brain.


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[Assistant] If that's the case, although still the size of a chimps, Salam's brain had been rewired.


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[Assistant] She and her kind were still very ape-like.


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[Assistant] It would take another million years for the seeds of humanity contained in Salam's tiny frame to bear fruit.


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[Assistant] For almost half a million years, the fossil record is virtually silent.


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[Assistant] But in this blank period, something is happening.


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[Assistant] In two and a half million year old layers, scientists begin to find something new.


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[Assistant] We might be tempted to call them rocks, but someone was shaping them. They are the first stone tools.


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[Assistant] It's considered unlikely they were made by Australopithecus, Lucy's god.


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[Assistant] But that's not surprising. Tools preserve easily. Bones much less so.


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[Assistant] Finally, the skulls of a new creature begin to turn up. Is this the toolmaker? The skulls are different from what came before.


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[Assistant] They represent the dawn of a new era, beginning around two million years ago.


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[Assistant] The first fossil to be called Homo habilis included 21 bones of the hand and was nicknamed Handyman.


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[Assistant] With newly dexterous hands, this creature could make better tools.


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[Assistant] The few skeletal bones that have been found indicate a creature much smaller than us, about the same size as Lucy and Salam's kind, Australopithecus, three to four feet tall.


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[Assistant] Homo habilis was still ape-like in many ways, but with a critical difference.


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[Assistant] It was an expansion equivalent to a doubling of brain volume.


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[Assistant] And along with his bigger brain, Homo habilis was starting to look a lot more human.


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[Assistant] The contours of fossil skulls allow reconstructionist Victor Dieck to reveal the faces of early human beings.


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[Assistant] Gone is the projecting snout of an ape. In Homo habilis, the face of humanity is emerging.


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[Assistant] Why, after millions of years of flatlining, did brain size and mental capacities suddenly take off?


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[Assistant] Two million years ago, what jump started human evolution?


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[Assistant] Here in Kenya they found some. At the southern end of the Great Rift Valley. It's a hotbed of tectonic activity.


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[Assistant] Ten million years ago, Africa was a much wetter place.


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[Assistant] A tropical jungle which has been slowly drying out ever since.


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[Assistant] But these rocks in Kenya show that Africa's gradual drying trend was punctuated by bursts of wild climate fluctuation. Rick Potts is an expert in reading the rocks.


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[Assistant] With his trained eye, Rick could see some layers were once lake beds, others desert sands.


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[Assistant] Still others came from volcanic eruptions, a snapshot of a million years of climate history.


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[Assistant] Rapid change as a catalyst for our evolution.


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[Assistant] Could it be that the need to survive violent swings of climate made our ancestors more adaptable?


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[Assistant] A group of scientists has come here from Germany to find out just how radical these swings of climate really were.


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[Assistant] It's hard to believe, but these huge rock formations are made of the shells of tiny one-celled organisms called diatoms.


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[Assistant] There are many different kinds, but they all live in water.


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[Assistant] Their shells collect in layers of rock that pile up over millions of years, proving that this whole valley was once a giant lake.


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[Assistant] Annette Junginger analyzes these rock samples under the microscope.


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[Assistant] But between the white layers, she also finds other species of diatoms which only live in shallow water.


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[Assistant] It means that in this spot, a massive lake appeared and disappeared and reappeared.


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[Assistant] Against the backdrop of a slow drying trend, Africa was periodically pulsing with climate change. Wet, dry, then wet again, sometimes in the space of a thousand years.


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[Assistant] Rivers and forests sprang up, then turned to dry grassland, all in the evolutionary blink of an eye.


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[Assistant] Could these periods of climate instability be the key to understanding the evolutionary leap from small bipedal apes to the larger brained toolmaker, Homo habilis?


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[Assistant] To know that, scientists needed a detailed record that went back further than the diatoms.


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[Assistant] Way back to the time when Homo habilis was evolving two million years ago. That's only found in one place, under the ocean.


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[Assistant] Layers of deep sea sentiment tell a story that goes back millions of years. They have to be drilled from the ocean floor.


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[Assistant] At his laboratory in upstate New York, Peter Domenical keeps thousands of columns of sand, silt, and rock. A library of ocean cores.


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[Assistant] Each three foot long core holds a continuous record of dust carried on the wind from Africa into the ocean where it now sits on the bottom.


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[Assistant] An expert eye can detect distinct layers, thick in dry years when the dust is easily picked up by the wind, thin in wet years.


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[Assistant] They can tell when the climate was wet or dry.


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[Assistant] To make sense of all this dirt, they have to know when it blew into the ocean.


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[Assistant] Peter took this finely detailed climate diary and compared it to the grand arc of our human evolution.


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[Assistant] For the three million years between Thumai and Salaam, when brain size was flatlining, African climate was stable, dry, getting a little drier.


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[Assistant] Then came 200,000 years of wildly varying climates.


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[Assistant] Careening unpredictably between wet and dry.


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[Assistant] During that time, stone tools appeared, along with the larger brained creatures that made them.


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[Assistant] Africa was also home to many other human like species. Climate instability put pressure on all of them.


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[Assistant] Those that couldn't adapt died out, like Salam and Lucy's kind.


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[Assistant] Better problem solvers, like homo habilis, survive.


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[Assistant] The new discoveries about ancient climate upheavals in Africa have led Rick Potts to formulate a bold theory of human evolution.


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[Assistant] Human evolution is nature's experiment with versatility.


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[Assistant] We're not adapted to any one environment or climate, but to many. We are creatures of climate change.


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[Assistant] Today, climate change seems to threaten our survival.


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[Assistant] But it may have held the keys to the astonishing story of how we became who we are. Because it didn't stop two million years ago.


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[Assistant] These dramatic upheavals would continue for another million and a half years.


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[Assistant] Propelling our ancestors down a road, leading ultimately to the smartest creature the world has ever known.


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[Assistant] And the first thing that was spotted was a cheek bone of the face.


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[Assistant] Everything was crushed against the base of the skull and completely covered by a sandstone block.


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[Assistant] I think specimens like Salam and Lucy are extraordinary simply because you can look at them and see evolution in the making.


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[Assistant] You spend hours and hours and days and years and years and that removes the sand grains, grain by grain, working every day.


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[Assistant] This is a canine of a hippopotamus. So this is probably a skeleton of a hippopotamus. How can one find a hippo in this type of environment? In nice antelope.


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[Assistant] We know all about the adult individuals, but we didn't know much about the children.


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[Assistant] By age three, a chimpanzee would have over 90% of the brain formed.


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[Assistant] Bipedalism is such an unusual trait. There's no other mammal that habitually walks on two legs like we do.


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[Assistant] Cool more efficiently so that we don't have as much sun being on so much of our body.


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[Assistant] The way we know this is a tool instead of just a broken rock is that it's broken in a very particular way. Breaking a flake off this way, that way, this way.


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[Assistant] Back and forth. So there is a method behind how this rock was broken in order to make it into a tool. And it's not a random method.


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[Assistant] Australopithecus was around for a couple of million years and did not make stone tools.


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[Assistant] We definitely have evidence that the stone tools were being used to


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[Assistant] To break the long bones in order to get to the marrow inside the long bones, there were clear cut marks on the bones of turtles, crocodiles, big antelopes, little antelopes, even hippos, really big animals like hippos. So we know that meat had become a new important part of the diet of homo habilis.


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[Assistant] What we see in the evolution of Homo habilis is an expansion in the brain size compared to Australopithecus. So here is the skull of Australopithecus and it has no forehead, it just has a straight slope behind the orbits. Whereas here in Homo habilis you see a sloping elevated forehead.


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[Assistant] Dreams are a representation of our unconscious desires, thoughts, etc. Each image in a dream has some meaning.


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[Assistant] During REM stage of sleep, certain circuits in the brain get activated.


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[Assistant] When the brain tries to synthesize and make sense of these signals, it results in dreams. Are you afraid of heights?


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[Assistant] Why are fish eating plastic? Huh? Every year, about 8 million metric tons of plastic waste is dumped into our oceans. Hence, in some parts of the oceans, there is more plastic than plankton and krills, which are a source of food for many fish.


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[Assistant] Now, according to a research, fish eat plastic because it breaks down into smaller fragments which are similar to the size of planktons. In addition to this, the plastic fragments present in salty seas or oceans release odor similar to that given off by planktons.


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[Assistant] Hence, fish mistakenly assume the plastic fragments to be planktons and thus eat them. As a result, many of them die.


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[Assistant] Besides this, some of these fish even reach our table as seafood. If we eat such fish, it can cause severe health problems. Hence, it is very important to recycle plastic and use eco-friendly products like paper bags. Why is it hard to cure cancer?


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[Assistant] Cancer usually begins when there is a sudden change or mutation in the genes present in our cells. This leads to uncontrolled cell division.


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[Assistant] Now, it is hard to cure cancer because every cancer is caused by a different set of genetic mutations in different types of cells. Hence, it is a different disease each time due to which a treatment which works for an individual doesn't necessarily work for the other.


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[Assistant] Now, cancer cells can be killed with treatments like chemotherapy or radiation. However, sometimes these treatments may not kill all the cancer cells, risking a cancer relapse. Moreover, such treatments even harm healthy cells of our body.


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[Assistant] Cancer cells can even metastasize. That is, they can spread to different body parts and start growing there. Thus making it difficult to eradicate cancer completely.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately just closed. They closed for business. The pandemic really affected them. And when I went the last time before they closed,


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[Assistant] And yes, so I won't go into too much detail about that, but that section of my bookshelves, my dad actually built me those, and that's where I keep my Pan Macmillans, as well as over here, these are my other Pan Macmillans. And they will get their own video, so no worries about that.


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[Assistant] Over here we have another few more contemporary favorites. Also Frederick Bachman, he's one of my favorite authors, he is over there. And then we have the start of a somewhat of a rainbow, and that is more of my contemporary fiction, new fiction.


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[Assistant] And then we have the story of my penguins, vintage penguins,


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[Assistant] And then if we go over here, so we have a stack of Ernest Hemingway books and then F. Scott Fitzgerald and then we have more classics.


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[Assistant] But as you can see, starting from left to right, we just have children's picture books. A lot of these I read when I was younger. And then also we have Shel Silverstein. I will go into much more detail eventually, but yea. So these are my children's books. And then if we move to the right,


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[Assistant] I just put them in a very subtle rainbow. Starting with these ones, it goes into books that are in a series that I want to keep together, so that is Ash, Chains, and Forge. I haven't read those books, but my roommate from college gave them to me because she had a different collection of them. I haven't read them yet, but she loves them, so.


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[Assistant] Middle grade I read a bit more than YA, which is kind of ironic or just funny. Uhm, but yes. And then we have some Brian Selznick books, which are very distinctive. You can see he's one of my favorite illustrators. I love his work so much and his books are incredible. And then we have


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[Assistant] Pages and Co, and then Matt Haig books. So we have Matt Haig's Christmas series, which are these three, and then we also have How to Stop Time, because I wanted to keep his books together. And then next to that we have The Giver by Lois Lowry, which is a quartet, so a series of four books.


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[Assistant] Those are the books that really got me into reading and they have a very very special place in my heart so I just love those.


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[Assistant] So that's why I have my classics near the bottom because I reach for those pretty much every day. So then we have Heartstopper and Alice Oseman's other books and then we have other books that I want to keep together that I want to keep the authors together like Sally Rooney and Andre Aciman and then other


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[Assistant] Books that I really love that are some of my favorites like Tin Man by Sarah Winman and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.


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[Assistant] And like I said, call me by your name, and of course, Sally Rooney's books.


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[Assistant] I kept up with the show because I wanted to read the books first, but anyway, that's Outlander. And then to the right, you can see my obsession with the Frederick Bachman's books, in particular Beartown and Us Against You.


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[Assistant] I have them in hardback, paperback, and the original Swedish versions. Can you tell? I love Bear Down and Us Against You. And then we have some of his other paperback books. I just hit the camera. And then we have some of his other hardbacks to the right, but they're smaller.


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[Assistant] Love her older books, but I do love her newer books. In particular, The Nightingale and The Great Alone are both amazing. I haven't read her newest book, The Four Winds, but I am really excited to.


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[Assistant] And then we have some more paperback and hardback, just contemporary fiction. Kind of in a rainbow, but sort of not really.


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[Assistant] Okay, so I brought the camera out a little bit just so you can see how the rainbow works. So we have the pinks into reds. It's kind of a backwards rainbow for this shelf. And then we go into the darker books and then the lighter books.


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[Assistant] That are also contemporary and then the ones that are stacked on top of each other are my nature writing and nonfiction environmental books.


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[Assistant] Really, really love the natural world and nature and wildlife. And one of my favorite writers is Robert McFarlane, which you can see I have two of his books on that stack.


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[Assistant] And he is just an amazing writer and I have another one of his books in my poetry section. I love learning about nature through writing and I just think it's a wonderful way to connect with the natural world through writing. And then on top of that stack I have a pinecone.


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[Assistant] It's a little token from one of my favorite places, which I love to read at the beach. And then to the right we have a little collection called The Joy of Walking, which is a collection of


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[Assistant] Stack of mass market paperbacks which I just think that they look cute all stacked up one on top of the other and I like having them there so it doesn't really


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[Assistant] I have a specific reason, just the fact that I like how it looks. So this is my Children's Classic section. I just have them in height order and then we have the stack of the Anne of Green Gables books.


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[Assistant] From the Metropolitan Opera, which I went to see the Ballet of Jane Eyre, and it was amazing and in their gift shop I saw this wind-up Shakespeare that I just thought was the cutest thing. And I also have a little card.


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[Assistant] Phantom Mask, because I just felt like it belonged in the drama section, so that's why that's there. That is from when I went to see it on Broadway.


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[Assistant] And brought me there for my birthday, so I saw it on Broadway in the city and it was absolutely amazing. I, I love having that little memory and that token on my bookshelf.


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[Assistant] Now here we have my beautiful collection of my Pan Macmillan Collector's Library. I am in love with these books. They are just beautifully, beautifully made and then if you can see on the top


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[Assistant] Over here, those are how they used to look. The older designs have a little selection of those and then the newer ones which are the gold and the blue. Those are the ones that are also with the underneath the fiction sign.


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[Assistant] And my author portraits, but yes, I love these. They are so great and travel friendly because they're small and I have an obsession with small books. I just, I love them. I think they're adorable and beautiful. And these are some of my favourite collections. So here we have my Penguin Little Black Classics, as well as some of the Vintage Penguins, as well as a little ornament. It's actually an ornament of


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[Assistant] And then I also have a magnet over here. It says, I am silently judging your grammar, which my sister actually got me for Christmas one year, and it is from the Strand Bookstore in New York City.


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[Assistant] Now to the right of my teal penguin moderns we have


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[Assistant] Two Persephone books, which I just absolutely love those. So those are two Persephonies. And then I have some vintage classics from the publisher Vintage, which these are the Red Spines. And then we have more penguins. These are all of the Vintage Penguins that aren't published anymore, like they're the, uhm,


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[Assistant] The older styles, I just love them so much. I think they're gorgeous and again, I love how they're stacked with the same height. And then I have a little dried flower which is actually from Palm Leaves. And this my friend got me from Spain. And I just have those there because I think they're beautiful.


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[Assistant] I adore these books. I don't buy them all the time. It's really only when I read a classic and I fall in love with it and it becomes a favorite, I kind of get it as a little treat for myself. And I absolutely adore my collection.


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[Assistant] And I love watching it slowly grow. I think it makes it even more special whenever I get a new one.


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[Assistant] And then I also have two of my author portraits, so there's Alexander Pushkin and then Leo Tolstoy, which I love, both of them, two of my favorite writers.


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[Assistant] Now this is my collection, the rest of my collection of Penguin English Library books, which again, I love.


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[Assistant] Gorgeously illustrated, and I love having my collection grow little by little, so I love this section of my bookshelves. It is gorgeous, in my opinion.


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[Assistant] Logo of the man running with either the lightning bolt or I think the flame.


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[Assistant] And those are some of my favorites as well, I just really like how they look all next to each other and


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[Assistant] I really, really love antiquarian books. I have a dream to have a whole library that just looks like it belongs in the 1800s in the Victorian period and I, yes, that is, that is my goal.


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[Assistant] Your mood, obviously, but also just reading in general. I think it makes it super cozy. So then I have some more of my modern library books, like I said, and then some other antiquarian books.


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[Assistant] And then to the right I have Lost Illusions by Henri de Balzac and then we also have My Little Collection.


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[Assistant] Which I hope to keep growing of my Virginia Woolf books. So now these are underneath, obviously you can see my penguin cloth bounds. To the left I have my stack of Ernest Hemingway books. As you can see, I am an Ernest Hemingway fan. Just a slight one.


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[Assistant] So that is why it is in the front. And then I have a dry rose with a little dry piece of baby's breath flower. And I just think that they add a little delicacy.


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[Assistant] My Everyman Libraries, which I think are beautiful, they're the hardbacks and I definitely want to have a collection of those one day, just grow it a little bit bigger. Uhm, some of my favourite classics, they are just


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[Assistant] So we have one German book, All Quiet on the Western Front, which is an amazing book, and then we have my Russian literature collection, which starts over here with Woe from Wit and goes into Alexander Pushkin, and then to the right we have


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[Assistant] A few different random collections. Uhm, basically books that I really don't know where else to put. So I kind of put them in height order and then to the right we have uhm, some of my art history books. I really really love these. I think they're pronounced Tashin, but I


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[Assistant] Probably saying that wrong. I really really love these. Uhm, I went to art school and I love art history. I actually just did a video. I recommended you books based on your favorite paintings.


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[Assistant] Penguin book, classics book, which is just a book all about penguin classics starting from the older vintage penguins up until the now printed penguins and then to the next book we have


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[Assistant] Classic Penguin, which is the penguin like covers, penguin cover to cover. It's inspired by


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[Assistant] The penguin deluxe editions, which are


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[Assistant] Fit in so tightly, but this is actually from a subscriber that sent to my P.O. box. It is a Russian edition of Anna Karenina.


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[Assistant] I can't believe I have this. I love it with my whole heart. I would put it with my Russian literature section, but I like having it with the bigger books.


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[Assistant] Christmas books that is filled with short stories, poetry, and Christmassy stories, and then we have the start of my Every Man's Pocket Poets, which I really love, and then my


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[Assistant] Walt Whitman books, and then my Mary Oliver books, and then The Lost Spells was actually the other book that I was referencing before that was written by Robert McFarlane and also illustrated by Jackie Morris, who again, is another illustrator that is such an inspiration to me.


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[Assistant] We also have some Rilke and a few other poets and then we have a collection of rocks and stones and also Emily Dickinson because she has to be with the poetry collection, the poetry section.


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[Assistant] Mainly from my local beach, which I love going to and reading at. That's also where I got the pine cone. Uhm, but yes, let's move to the right and I will show you the rest of my poetry books. Alright, so this is my last section of my bookshelves. This is all the way to the bottom right, and we have a mug of


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[Assistant] And then this is just more poetry books and also the Iliad and the Odyssey and then we have Shakespeare's sonnets as well as a Norton anthology of poetry which I had from university. That is what I used for my poetry classes. So that is it. That is the end of my bookshelves.


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[Assistant] Why do we faint? I don't know. Alright, I'll explain. Our brain keeps us conscious and focused.


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[Assistant] However, to do so, our brain continuously requires oxygen which is applied to it through blood.


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[Assistant] High electricity bills. No. A heart attack or myocardial infarction is the complete blockage of blood flow to a part of the heart. Causing its muscle cells to die. Oh, so sad.


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[Assistant] However, due to bad lifestyle choices and stress, cholesterol and fats start building in these arteries, reducing blood flow to the muscle cells. This buildup is called plaque. Plaque is the main culprit behind most heart attacks.


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[Assistant] So, shall we put plaque in jail? Oh, just listen.


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[Assistant] Why can't you use phones on planes? Cause phones can fall out of the window. Nah.


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[Assistant] These signals can interfere with the flight controls. They may also disrupt the communication with the air traffic controllers on the ground. Besides this, cellular towers are miles below the airplane. Hence, cell phones try to emit a stronger radio signal to detect the network.


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[Assistant] Why is snow white? Cause it applies fairness cream. No.


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[Assistant] Sunlight or white light is a combination of all visible colors of light. When light falls on an object, it may absorb some colors of light and reflect the remaining colors. The colors which are reflected by an object make up its color.


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[Assistant] For example, when light falls on an apple, it absorbs all other colors except red. Apple reflects red color, making it appear red.


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[Assistant] Hence, Cole appears black to us. Really? I didn't know that.


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[Assistant] Now, snow does not absorb any colors of light and reflects all of them equally. As the combination of all colors of light is white light, snow appears white to us.


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[Assistant] Nah. Growling sound is produced mostly due to movement of gas in the digestive tract. Especially in the intestines. Now gas can either enter or be produced in the intestines. But how?


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[Assistant] Unit five. Sitcom. Situation comedy. News. Soap opera. Educational. Plan. Hope.


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[Assistant] Hope Find out Find out Discussion Discussion Stand Stand Happen Happen May May Expect Expect Joke Joke


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[Assistant] comedy, comedy, meaningless, meaningless, action, action, action movie, action movie, cartoon, cartoon, culture, culture, famous, famous,


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[Assistant] common film unlucky lose girlfriend ready be ready to


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[Assistant] character simple dress up take somebody's place army do a good job Sarah


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[Assistant] Sarah Walt Disney Minnie Mickey Mouse Steamboat Willie Hollywood The Hollywood Walk of Fame


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[Assistant] And today's lesson is not really a lesson because we're doing something a little bit different. We're having an interview with someone I know who has come to the UK from another country and is living and working here. So, I'd like to introduce Camilla.


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[Assistant] And we're going to ask her some questions about her experience of coming to the UK and living here. So, let's get started.


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[Assistant] So, Camilla, thank you for coming. It's lovely to see you. You're very welcome. Thank you. And so, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from, how you came to


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, decide to come to the UK.


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[Assistant] Oh, that's good. So, lovely. So, FinTech, that means financial... And technology. Finance and technology.


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[Assistant] Yes, I think I experienced the same when I was at school. A lot of it was based on written and reading and writing. Yes, exactly. And exams, writing exams and tests.


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[Assistant] Was it when you came to the UK that you started getting more practice at speaking?


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[Assistant] So, so did you ever come to the UK for a holiday before you came to live here?


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[Assistant] Yes, yes, being the capital city and, and the, the way you come from, you're not from Warsaw originally, I don't think, so a smaller place.


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[Assistant] Yes, yes, they're very popular souvenirs in the gift shops.


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[Assistant] Wow, and so when you came to London at the age of 11, did you hear people talking and did you understand what people were saying?


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[Assistant] Right, and I think between German and English, there are some similarities in vocabulary, there are similar words, so the German probably helps.


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[Assistant] Yes, yes, that's right. And it's a very gradual building process, isn't it? With language, just building vocabulary, understanding grammar, all of that. And then speaking.