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Sciences

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What do DNA samples actually reveal? And how realistically are they used in crime drama series where they are often crucial to the plot? Xenius finds out by going to the Institute of Legal Medicine at Cologne University.

Xenius

What do DNA samples actually reveal? And how realistically are they used in crime drama series where they are often crucial to the plot? 

DNA & What it Reveals About Us

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Will Homo Sapiens become a new species with the ongoing technological developments? 

Homo Digitalis

Science, superstition, culture: This animated documentary series delves into various aspects of man's relationship with the Earth's satellite.

The Moon and Us

If life was not difficult enough already, along comes a global pandemic which seems to never end. Anxiety, loss of libido, excessive screen time and a lack of physical contact can all aggravate existing psychological problems. A look at the effects of lockdown on our mental health and what we can do about them.

If life was not difficult enough already, along comes a global pandemic which seems to never end. A look at the effects of lockdown on our mental health and what we can do about them.

Psycho Bugs

Extraordinary and mysterious images, immerse yourself in the unexpected beauty of science.

A closer look

Extraordinary and mysterious images, immerse yourself in the unexpected beauty of science.

Sciencible

Eco-districts are experiments where the urban planning of the future is created.

Ecotopia

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In autoimmune disease cases the immune system attacks the body’s own cells mistaking them for foreign intruders. Xenius meets immunologist Friedemann Paul at Berlin’s Charité hospital to find out the possible causes and the treatments available.

Xenius goes to Berlin’s Charité hospital to find out the possible causes and treatmentsof autoimmune diseases.

Autoimmune Diseases

Social acceptance becomes especially important during adolescence, as teenagers ask themselves am I attractive? Should I lose weight? However, with social media influencers setting the standards, many develop eating disorders in the quest for the perfect body.

With Instagram influencers setting the standards, many young women develop eating disorders in the quest for the perfect body.

Re: Eating Disorders and Social Media

Millions of people worldwide suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), an extreme and persistent exhaustion for which there is no cure. An investigation into a little known illness focusing on the experiences of three individuals suffering from CFS: Ralf, Sonja and Aileen.

 An investigation into little understood illness focusing on the experiences of individuals suffering from ME/CFS.

Living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Our brain is constantly sorting out what it considers relevant or not. The potentially useful information is stored in different areas of the brain and reactivated when needed, while the others are immediately discarded and forgotten. But sometimes we forget the important things too, or misremember them. Why and how does that happen?

Sometimes we forget important things too, or misremember them. Why and how does that happen? 

How to Train Your Memory

Traditional Chinese medicine holds that life-energy or "qi" flows through the body through channels called "meridians". When this flow is interrupted, diseases can arise. With traditional treatments becoming more popular in Europe, Xenius investigates asks whether they really work.

Traditional Chinese medicine holds that life-energy or "qi" flows through the body through channels called "meridians".But does Chinese medecines really work?

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Considered disgusting, moulds excrete toxins that can cause disease and allergic reactions. But it's also a prized method for adding depth and flavour to foods such as cheeses.

The paradox of moulds is that they can seriously harm us, but also seriously enhance our lives

Mould: Friend and Foe

The story of antibiotics, from their accidental discovery by Alexander Fleming in 1928 to today where antibiotic treatment is becoming less effective.

A Medical Revolution

The story of antibiotics, from their accidental discovery by Alexander Fleming in 1928 to the present day. 

Penicillin

Medicine and health

Earth's drinking water resources are dwindling and to avoid shortages, scientists will have to come to the rescue.

Earth's drinking water resources are dwindling

Drinking Water in Danger

A look at innovative green energy solutions around the world: Geothermal waters in Iceland, wind power and hydropower in Madeira, community-owned wind turbines on the Danish island of Samso and wave power is being harnessed on Orkney.

Good News From Our Planet

A look at innovative green energy solutions around the world: Geothermal waters in Iceland, wind power and hydropower on Madeira and wave power on Orkney.

How Green Energy Can Work

Mount Kachkanar in the Urals is home to the only Buddhist monastery in the area, but it's going to be forced to close to make way for an iron mine. Multinational mining firm Evraz is the largest steel producer in the world, so the closure seems like a foregone conclusion: but the monks vow to fight as much as they can. 

ARTE Reportage

This Buddhist monastery is going to be forced to close to make way for an iron mine

Buddha Versus Mining

Lithium is crucial for use in batteries, and as Europe tried to go green and switch to electric cars, demand for this white gold is skyrocketing. The EU imports most of its lithium, but its demand keeps increasing. Mining companies are tempted by the possibility of finding and exploiting reserves right here in Europe. But that would mean sacificing small rural  communities, for 'the greater good'.

Rural mountains in Portugal have vital reserves of lithium. But villagers vow they'll stop any development

The Dirty Truth Behind Green Cars

Saype is a graffiti artist with a difference. He doesn't spray his works on walls but in fields and on grass, using his own biodegradable paint. His huge works of art are best appreciated by drone, where the true scale is revealed. 

Gymnastics

Saype, Green-Fingered Graffitti Artist

Built in 1972, under the military dictatorship, the BR-163 road that crosses Brazil from north to south is both an artery essential to the economic development of the country and a path that threatens to destroy the rainforest.

Brazil: The BR-163 Corridor

For hundreds of years, local farmers have been growing tomatoes on the lake's surface, on well-kept floating gardens nourished by the river mud. The locals live life to the rhythm set by the harvests. But modern pesticides and fertilisers are killing the lake, and killing the locals. But they continue to use the chemicals out of necessity. It's a lethal catch 22.

Myanmar: The Dying Lake

Environment

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Many areas in France and Germany won't have access to 5G as they've not been deemed profitable for operators. In the German village of Brenschede, residents have to climb a hill to make phone calls and receive data. Perhaps getting them better service should be more important than improving the service of users who already have fast connectivity?

Many areas won't have access to 5G as they've not been deemed profitable for operators

5G: Pros and Cons

Eco-neighbourhoods are experiments in how to live together but do they represent the future for our cities?

Cities of the Future

We will be able to upgrade our brains with a microchip, blurring the boundaries between man and machine in a way that we've never seen before. But what will happen to us when our computers become smarter than we are? Helen Fares is on a mission to test the limits of the human brain.

The Upgraded Brain

How can we attract plants and animals onto eco-housing communities built on brownfield sites?

Reinventing Nature

This is neither a bug, nor a UFO: so what is it, then? We'll give you a clue: it's the key to the future of travel.

Bang!

Will human relationships become obsolete in the future, to be replaced by artificial intelligence and virtual reality? Today, researchers can simulate the presence of a loved one. In this episode, Helen Fares finds herself faced with the hologram of her best friend Josy, and explores the nature of friendship in the digital age.

The Perfect Friend

Does living in a digitised world divert sexual pleasure away from other people and towards the screen? A recent study confirms the trend in both Japan and Europe. Since the advent of the smartphone, the amount of sex couples have has decreased. At the same time, sex robots are now a reality. Helen Fares meets one of these lovers of the future.

The Digital Orgasm

Technology and innovation

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The great earthquake of 1999 which caused 18,000 deaths still haunts the memory of the people of Istanbul. The Turkish city of some 15 million souls lies over an active fault line which seismologists believe is due for another earthquake. Is the city on the Bosphorus prepared?

Predicting Earthquakes on the Bosphorus

Trembling Istanbul

Humans are social animals and we need physical contact. We cultivate the language of touch from birth and it is essential for the development of our body and minds. How do different types of touch, and the absence of touch, affect us?

Humans are social animals and we need physical contact. How do different types of touch, and the absence of touch, affect us?

The Power of Touch

ME/CFS – A Misunderstood Illness

 An investigation into little understood illness focusing on the experiences of three individuals suffering from CFS: Ralf, Sonja and Aileen.

Finding pleasure, understanding your body, accepting your fantasies, getting rid of guilt, feeling free in spite of the boundaries imposed by society: Desire is a complex thing. This programme explores desire in its most intimate and its most uninhibited forms, freeing it from the mental prison in which it is sometimes locked.

This programme explores desire in its most intimate and its most uninhibited forms, freeing it from the mental prison in which it is sometimes locked.

Psycho: Sexual Desire

Helen Fares is on a mission to test the limits of the human brain

Have you ever seen a windsurfer who slices through the waves with the help of the breeze, as if flying over water? That's all thanks to the centreboard, and a physical concept: lift. The same force that makes planes fly and propels javelins over long distances.

The Mechanics of Strength

Windsurfing and Lift

The pandemic has provided us with a painful reminder of how important physical contact is for our mental well-being. Individuals share their experiences of physical isolation.

The pandemic has provided us with a painful reminder of how important physical contact is for our mental well-being.

Need a Hug?

 French swimmer Florent Manaudou, German pentathlete Marvin Dogue and French sabre fencer Cécilia Berder all trained hard for the Tokyo Olympics, but the most important part of their training they say is in the mind. Mental conditioning is a growing science designed to get the best out of sports champions at a time when they could crumble under the pressure. At the beginning of World War Two, American airforce pilots struggled to face off against the Japanese fleet. Cue Bud Winter: in peace time, a sports coach, and in war, a mental conditioner who taught the pilots how to keep their head in the game even in life-or-death situations. Gradually, the idea that sportsmen and women were as much mind as they were muscle took hold. 

 For Olympic French swimmer Florent Manaudou, his greatest challenge is mental, not physical

Inside the Heads of Champions

Does it bother you to know that there are a myriad of dust mites in your bed? Professor Mustache talks us through all the bugs that live, eat, and die on your skin.

How to Die Clever

Does it bother you to know that there are a myriad of dust mites in your bed?

The Mighty Mite

Around 16,500 cases of cancer in patients aged 18 to 39 are reported in Germany each year. More than 80% of these can look forward to a full recovery. Much of this is due to new cancer treatments such as immunotherapy and targeted chemotherapy. A focus on some of these new treatments and the patients they are helping.

 A focus on new cancer treatments and the young patients that they are helping.

Young Cancer Patients

Can your love life be more animalistic? But which animal exactly? Choose carefully... Welcome to another mad escapade with the irreverent Professor Mustache. 

Can your love life be more animalistic? But which animal exactly? Choose carefully... 

Animal Love Lives

Stop believing that a gunshot wound is like in the movies! Professor Mustache and Nathanaël prove that a real gunshot wound is very different and far more dangerous, not least because bullets are basically filthy. 

Stop believing that a gunshot wound is like in the movies! 

Do Bullets Hurt?

Since antiquity, scientists have tracked down the principles behind the movements of moving things, from planets to athletes. Running champions make sure of basic principles of physics developed by Newton to improve their performance. We take a look at the maths behind the movement. 

Since antiquity, scientists have tracked down the principles behind the movements of moving things, from planets to athletes

Sprinting and Newton's Law

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Anorexia is the most common eating disorder in France and Germany, and the mental illness with the highest mortality rate. What makes it so dangerous? How do anorexic people perceive their body? And can suffers be helped to overcome the disease?

Anorexia: When Eating Becomes a Problem

If you spin a top, it will continue to rotate on its own for a while. Physicists found the explanation for this phenomenon: inside angular momentum. In sport it is used by trampoliners. They are true masters of the art of turning and can perform up to 50 spins in 20 seconds.

Trampoliners can spin up to 50 times in the space of just 20 seconds

The Trampoline and Kinetic Energy

The pole vault is a discipline is based on the transformation of kinetic energy into elastic energy and then into gravitational energy. Athletes must play with energy, optimise it, transform it, and conserve it.

The Strongest of Them All

Athletes must play with energy, optimise it, transform it, and conserve it

Pole Vaulting: Overcoming Gravity

Where does the Moon come from? Mythology and science have each come to their own conclusions.

The Moon and Us (5/5)

Making Sense of the Moon

Lunar eclipses, super moons or pink moons, our lunar satellite offers us an array of surprising spectacles.

The Moon and Us (4/5)

Admiring the Moon

Humans like to observe and examine the Moon, down to its smallest features. Its seas and craters have all been mapped out and even its mysterious dark side should soon reveal its secrets.

The Moon and Us (3/5)

Observing the Moon

We attribute all sorts of powers to the Moon... And while its influence on our life on Earth is undeniable, its powers are not necessarily the ones we think.

The Moon and Us (2/5)

Living with the Moon

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Mould, Friend and Foe

Many areas in France and Germany won't have access to 5G as they've not been deemed profitable for operators

How can we preserve the natural environment whilst still benefiting from natural resources? In the Republic of the Congo a logging company is committed to sustainable resource management in order to preserve the biodiverse tropical rainforest, home to gorillas and other primates.

How to Preserve Nature

A look at how we are getting better at managing and conserving water supplies in drier parts of our planet like southern Spain, Israel and the desert city of Las Vegas.

Water

 A look at how we are getting better at managing and conserving water supplies in drier parts of our planet like southern Spain, Israel and the desert city of Las Vegas.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, different figures have been pouring in. The number of patients, of deaths, the modes of transmission or the incubation period: what does the data tell us? And what do the numbers really mean for us and our families? We decode the story behind the numbers.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, different figures have been pouring in. But what do they actually mean?

COVID-19 in Numbers

A look at three pioneer eco-districts in Europe, set up between 1995 and 2005, to encourage ecological living..

A look at three pioneer eco-districts in Europe

Pioneering Green Neighbourhoods

Urban eco-neighborhoods are multiplying and becoming increasingly large. But is it possible to remain ecological on such a large scale? The Docks of Saint-Ouen (France), Eikenøtt of Gland (Switzerland) and Scharnhauser Park in Ostfildern (Germany) took up the challenge.

The Docks of Saint-Ouen (France), Eikenøtt of Gland (Switzerland) and Scharnhauser Park in Ostfildern (Germany) each try in their own way foster sustainable living