Richard Rudgley goes in search of evidence of the barbarians of the dark ages, people whose names have for 1500 years been bywords for mindless brutality. The real truth about the barbarians who marched across Europe during the Dark Ages is more shocking than what you may know. Where did they come from? Who are their descendants? Are any of their techniques and inventions still used? Richard discovers the secrets of forgotten empires, and of mighty clashes throughout Europe. The art, society and cultural legacy of the barbarians are shown to have shaped and moulded the destiny of Europe even more than the Roman Empire.
In the first part of the journey through the Dark Ages we will be tracing the legacies of the Huns, Vandals and Goths, to ask whether the 'dark ages' represent a resurfacing of much older tribal lines. Sites in Austria show how sophisticated pre-Roman communities had become with evidence of stunning craftsmanship and sophisticated farming techniques which defy the image of a mindless rabble we have come to accept without challenge.

In the past few decades, scientists have learned that the basis of everything they thought they knew about bird brains—that they were largely comprised of the most primitive and instinctual of brain structures—was wrong. Fully 75 percent of the brains of parrots and thousands of other species of birds is actually made up of a sophisticated information processing system that works much the same way as the locus of human higher-mindedness, the cerebral cortex.
The film shows scientists putting birds to the test. Can they solve problems? Can they cooperate? Do they feel emotion? New research demonstrates just how clever they can be.

The documentary shows the daily activities performed by the local and international staff who lives and works inside the Bear Rescue Center situated in Tam Dao National park, Northern Vietnam. Interviews, original and archive footage are edited to explain life, tasks and achievements of this NGO managed by Animals Asia.
In this natural sanctuary, moon bears and sun bears are rescued, treated, kept safe and nursed: they are now free from the suffering caused by the cruel tortures of bile farming and extraction process. Since thousands of years bear bile products are in use in traditional oriental medicine and even nowadays it generates around two billions dollars of illegal business.
Animals Asia staff is not only assuring better living and relief for rescued bears but promotes educational awareness about the bile farming issues, employees and generates fare trades for a relevant number of people of this rural area of Vietnam.

One of the main battles of the Second World War took place inside the brain of a mathematician called Alan Turing. During the war, the allies' key objective was to crack the German army's encrypted communications code. Without a doubt, the key player in the game was this interdisciplinary scientist and a long-forgotten hero.
Alan Turing's breakthroughs, his story and tragic destiny, gives us a chance to look at the Second World War from a different angle.