Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

For thousands of years, humans have believed that there were once flying monsters. But did they really exist beyond our nightmares? 220 million years ago dinosaurs were beginning their domination of Earth. But another group of reptiles was about to make an extraordinary leap: pterosaurs were taking control of the skies. The story of how and why these mysterious creatures took to the air is more fantastical than any fiction. In Flying Monsters 3D, David Attenborough the worlds leading naturalist, sets out to uncover the truth about the enigmatic pterosaurs, whose wingspans of up to 40 feet were equal to that of a modern day jet plane. Attenborough works with scientists to understand the incredible story of the evolution of the pterosaurs, a story that unfolds in such stunning locations as New Mexico, the Jurassic Coast of Lyme Regis in Britain, an ancient pterosaur landing site in Southern France and a fossil pit in Germany where near perfect pterosaur specimens have been found. The central question and one of the greatest mysteries in palaeontology is: how and why did pterosaurs fly? How did lizards the size of giraffes defy gravity and soar through prehistoric skies? Driven by the information he finds as he attempts to answer these questions, Attenborough starts to unravel one of sciences more enduring mysteries, discovering that the marvel of pterosaur flight has evolutionary echoes that resonate even today. Flying Monsters 3D is a groundbreaking film that uses cutting-edge 3D technology and CGI to bring the story of giant flying monsters and their prehistoric world to life. Audiences of all ages will be in awe as they enter the world and experience, as never before, REAL Flying Monsters in 3D.

Sir David Attenborough takes a breath-taking journey through the vast and diverse continent of Africa as it's never been seen before. From the richness of the Cape of Good Hope to blizzards in the high Atlas Mountains, from the brooding jungles of the Congo to the steaming swamps and misty savannahs, Africa explores the whole continent. An astonishing array of previously unknown places are revealed along with bizarre new creatures and extraordinary behaviours. Using the latest in filming technology including remote HD cameras, BBC One takes an animal's eye view of the action. The journey begins in the Kalahari, Africa's ancient southwest corner, where two extraordinary deserts sit side by side and even the most familiar of its creatures have developed ingenious survival techniques. Black rhinos reveal a lighter side to their character as they gather around a secret waterhole. Springbok celebrate the arrival of rains with a display of 'pronking'. Bull desert giraffes endure ferocious battles for territory in a dry river bed.

Ant colonies are one of the wonders of nature - complex, organised and mysterious. This programme reveals the secret, underground world of the ant colony in a way that's never been seen before. At its heart is a massive, full-scale ant nest, specially designed and built to allow cameras to see its inner workings. The nest is a new home for a million-strong colony of leafcutter ants from Trinidad. For a month, entomologist Dr George McGavin and leafcutter expert Professor Adam Hart capture every aspect of the life of the colony, using time-lapse cameras, microscopes, microphones and radio tracking technology.

Is there anyone out there? Astronomers have been pointing their radio telescopes at the skies for decades trying to pick up alien signals, so far without success. But now there's a new way of looking for aliens. Hitch a ride with Dr Graham Philips as he joins astronomers trawling through the galaxy looking for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence.

The car has shrunk the world, increased personal freedom and in so many ways expanded our horizons, but there is a flipside. Fumes from car exhausts have helped to destroy our environment, poisoned the air we breathe and killed us in far more straightforward ways. But all that is going to change. Enter a world where cars can drive themselves, a world where we are simply passengers, ferried about by wholesome green compassionate technology which will never ever go wrong. And it is almost here. Explore the artificial intelligence required to replace human drivers for cars themselves, peers into the future driverless world and discovers that, despite the glossy driverless PR (and assuming that they really can be made to work reliably), the reality is that it might not be all good news. From the ethics of driverless car crashes to the impact on jobs, it might be that cars are about to rise up against us in ways that none of us are expecting.

Eternal life is humanity’s oldest dream. It may be finally coming true. Today, at least in the West, the quest for immortality has shifted from the metaphysical to the technical and the scientific. In this film we will investigate the advancement of this research in laboratories around the world. With cryonics technology improving, human cloning now possible, mind uploading and digital brain simulation thriving, reversing the aging of cells and organs feasible, immortality may seem right around the corner. In some countries, such as the US, Russia and Europe, private companies are financing and promoting the promise of immortality or at least a longer life expectancy. Are they selling a reality or utopia? We will meet scientists, neurophysiologists, computer specialists, geneticists, and biologists, and also hopefuls of immortal life, futurists, sociologists and businessmen. We will film different research laboratories and cities built for the aging; we will interview the experts as well as the anonymous men and women who speak about their relationship with life and death and those who simply embody it.