Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Could we get all our energy needs from sea water and the salt it contains? Are we to witness a time when salt will power our engines and factories, and light up our cities? Could this be the final curtain not only for shale gas and oil, but also the burning of fossil fuels and the beginning of a gentler form of energy that is definitely renewable? This documentary explores the latest research on sea water and the way scientists all over the world are working on 'Blue Energy'. This research could bring about a major change in our time.

Why were the most fearsome warriors our planet has ever known stopped by a flaming light in the sky? How did Columbus use secret knowledge of the heavens to cheat death in the New World? Our ancestors saw a universe filled with bad omens. The film examines the interpretations by ancient peoples of celestial phenomena as bad omens, and the impact that the perceived omens may have had on history.

Take another walk on the wild side with our favourite pets. Extraordinary photography reveals their hidden senses and secret communication skills. Dogs take a car trip through Paris, using their legendary sense of smell to show us a very different city. A hamster uses his remarkable senses to stage a great escape and then deploys more navigational talents to find his way home. Cats become intoxicated on the scent of a plant and suffer the consequences. A budgie shows his hidden charms to his mate as, under UV light, his crown and cheeks positively glow. Goldfish reveal secret senses that can detect the slightest water movement. A guinea pig gives birth and the newborns receive surprising care from their father. In South America, where guinea pigs have lived with people for 7,000 years, they express the true meaning of their entertaining calls. When we groom a horse we speak their language, but horses use ears to communicate in ways that we are rarely aware of. In Japan cats show their secret messages and in Peru dogs reveal the hidden signs that allow them to communicate across a city. Packed with extraordinary facts and wild behaviour - you'll never look at your pet in the same way again

By the time he died in 1931, Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most famous men in the world. The holder of more patents than any other inventor in history, Edison had achieved glory as the genius behind such revolutionary inventions as sound recording, motion pictures, and electric light. Edison's curiosity led him to its cutting edge. With just three months of formal schooling, he took on one seemingly impossible technical challenge after another, and through intuition, persistence, and a unique team approach to innovation, invariably solved it." Driven and intensely competitive, Edison was often neglectful in his private life and could be ruthless in business. Challenged by competition in the industry he'd founded, Edison launched an ugly propaganda campaign against his rivals, and used his credibility as an electrical expert to help ensure that high-voltage electrocution became a form of capital punishment. Edison explores the complex alchemy that accounts for the enduring celebrity of America's most famous inventor, offering new perspectives on the man and his milieu, and illuminating not only the true nature of invention, but its role in turn-of-the-century America's rush into the future.

Annalisa Piras and former editor of The Economist Bill Emmott, which explores the crisis facing Europe. Through case studies of citizens in different countries, the film explores a range of factors that have led to the present crisis, economic and identity challenges across Europe. High-level experts analyse how and why things are going so wrong. The film includes fictional scenes, set in a post-EU future, which feature archaeologist Charles Granda (played by Angus Deayton) travelling on a flight through a menacing storm, explaining to a child passenger what the EU was. Sombre, thought-provoking and witty, the film frames Europe through the eyes of those who have most at stake - the Europeans themselves.

Go with us on a mathematical mystery tour, a provocative exploration of math's astonishing power across the centuries. We discover math's signature in the swirl of a nautilus shell, the whirlpool of a galaxy, and the spiral in the center of a sunflower. Math was essential to everything from the first wireless radio transmissions to the successful landing of rovers on Mars. But where does math get its power?" Astrophysicist and writer Mario Livio, along with a colorful cast of mathematicians, physicists, and engineers, follow math from Pythagoras to Einstein and beyond, all leading to the ultimate riddle: Is math an invention or a discovery? Humankind's clever trick, or the language of the universe? Whether we think we're good with numbers or not, we all use math in our daily lives. The Great Math Mystery sheds fascinating light on how math works in our brains and ponders the ultimate mystery of why it works so well when decoding the universe.