Documentary AreaSimply the best Documentaries

Our lifespan is increasing by 2.5 years every decade - and a third of all babies born today can expect to live to 100. But living longer can come at a cost. Old age itself brings with it a range of debilitating illnesses, many of which are the result of accumulating damage during our lifetime. Three diseases in particular have become the main killers in the developed world - cancer, heart disease and dementia. But a revolution in bio-medicine is now offering new hope for the treatment of these ailments, and the potential to extend our lives still further. Methods such as gene editing and stem cell therapies are transforming the way medicine can conquer disease today. "How to Live Longer" counts with the guide of the Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse, for whom the big question isn't just what science can do to fix our bodies and extend our lives, but whether it's right to use all the tools and techniques available.

What if we could explore the vastness of Space? Science fiction has always fed upon our need to explore – to wonder what is out there. Space journeys from Jules Verne’s earliest ideas about attempts to leave our planet, to the Star Wars far away galaxy through to Nichelle Nichols revealing how her groundbreaking role as Lt. Uhura in Star Trek led to her participation in the recruitment of NASA’s astronauts. It explores the deep sea inspiration for Avatar, finds out why Ursula K Le Guin wrote The Left Hand of Darkness and discovers how Stanley Kubrick was able to make 2001: A Space Odyssey seem so believable. In addition, the program looks at the way Dune and The Mars Trilogy embraced the challenge of world building and discusses the appeal of the beaten up ‘dirty space’ of Dark Star and Firefly. From the horrifying scenes of Alien, to the epic spectacle of Star Wars, this is a journey to the stars and the alien encounters that await us there.

Every day of our lives, we are bombarded by thousands of different images, images which affect us in countless different ways. But of all these there's one particular kind of image whose power is uniquely mesmerising, because while it terrifies us somehow it also comforts. But although it can manipulate us, it also reassures, It's the image of death.

Nathan and Angela accelerate their parenting rehearsal with three-year-old, then six-year-old actors portraying their fake son, 'Adam'. Angela refuses to participate in Halloween due to her belief in Satanic conspiracies.
Nathan balances parenting duties with a rehearsal for Patrick, a man who wants to confront his brother over their late grandfather's will, which bans Patrick from inheriting money if he is dating a 'gold digger'. The rehearsal occurs in a replica Raising Cane's restaurant in a warehouse next to the relocated Alligator Lounge. To introduce real emotions to the rehearsal, Nathan stages a scenario to convince Patrick that he could inherit buried gold from the grandfather of Isaac, the actor who plays Patrick's brother. After Patrick has an emotional breakthrough during a rehearsal, he leaves the production and never returns. Nathan narrates that he is envious that self-deception is easy for some people as he ponders his fake family.

Trade, and in particular trade in luxury goods, drove the commerce economies of the Bronze Age. This is the time when the first super powers in history, Egypt and Mesopotamia, emerge and dominate the 'world' stage of the Mediterranean and Aegean seas and surrounding areas.

It all begins as a study on the psychology of prison life led by Stanford psychology professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo. 24 volunteers - 12 guards and 12 prisoners - have agreed to spend the next two weeks recreating life in a correctional facility. Normal people can become monsters, given the right situation, that's the standard narrative of the Stanford Prison Experiment, one of the most famous psychological experiments of all time.
But what if the cause of its participants' cruel behavior wasn't what we've always been told?