Superquark Season 20, Episode 5: Episode 5

Episode 1

The first episode opens with a documentary from the series ‘Ushuaia’: Nicolas Hulot leads viewers, on foot, on horseback and by electric paraglider, in the Mozambique Channel, between Africa and Madagascar. And again, in just over a decade, road accident deaths have almost halved. And the goal is to halve them again in the coming years. This is discussed in the report made by Lorenzo Pinna and Andrea Pasquini. Next, Alberto Angela accompanies you to the archaeological park of Vulci, during the excavations that brought to light two tombs from over 2600 years ago, which have remained untouched over the centuries. Or also to Comacchio, where a Roman merchant ship sank in the Adriatic a short distance from the Po Delta, with a very singular cargo. An appointment with the in-depth columns is not to be missed. The guest of Come si fa in studio with Piero Angela will be the young student Emanuele Ceccarelli, the only Italian admitted to MIT in Boston next year.

120 min

Episode 2

In the second episode, we will go with the Ushuaia crew to the Sahara, following a nomadic tribe that has adapted well to the extreme conditions of the desert. It will be above all an opportunity to understand how this part of the world has changed over the course of a few millennia. In fact, where today there is only sand, rocks and arid landscapes, there were once lakes, savannahs and large animals. New interesting studies on plants and their “behavior” through extraordinary high-speed filming, made at the plant neurobiology center in Florence. In the report by Barbara Bernardini and Marco Visalberghi. The new headquarters of the Exploratorium, one of the most famous science museums in the world, has just been inaugurated in San Francisco. Lorenzo Pinna and the Superquark crew visited the new installations, thus creating an opportunity to remember the history of this extraordinary museum.

Episode 3

Third appointment with ‘Superquark’, the popular television magazine about science, nature and technology, created and hosted by Piero Angela. At the opening, with Nicolas Hulot’s crew we will go to the extreme tip of Siberia, Kamchatka, to meet the Evenio, nomadic reindeer herders and to discover a wild nature, where ice and the fire of volcanoes coexist. And then the bears, rarely filmed so close up. Next, we will talk about lotteries: the winners’ lives are often literally ruined by the enormous fortune that falls from the sky. Lorenzo Pinna went to Vanderbilt University in Neshville – where 35,000 Florida lottery winners studied – and then for Superquark he interviewed some of these “lucky/unlucky”. Alberto Angela will instead take viewers to Comacchio, where a Roman merchant ship sank in the Adriatic a short distance from the Po Delta, with a very singular cargo. And by going back to the cargo itself, the history of the ship will be reconstructed.

119 min

Episode 4

The fourth episode, airs exceptionally on Saturday. This time the Ushuaia crew will show us areas near us, in particular the hidden beauties of the island of Mallorca and the Pyrenees. But also, and above all, Nicolas Hulot will make us fly in the sky with the griffons. Caltech, or California Institute of Technology, the private university in Pasadena founded in 1891. One of the most awarded universities in the field of research. 2200 students, 300 professors united by a passion for study and strict rules of honor, are the protagonists of one of the most elite universities in America, which has counted among its professors great names such as Albert Einstein and which has produced, to date, 31 Nobel Prize winners. In the report by Barbara Bernardini and Marco Visalberghi. The arrival of microelectronics has coincided with the birth of a large market: the enormous increase in elderly people.

114 min

Episode 6

In this new episode, an extraordinary BBC documentary on penguins. With some cameras hidden inside fake penguins and fake eggs, it was possible to film unusual scenes up close. The BBC documentary makers faced, like the penguins, bad weather and storms, gusts of freezing winds at 150 km per hour. And they were able to film them in completely different environments and climates: in Antarctica, in the Atacama Desert in Peru and in the Falkland Islands. Afterwards, Lorenzo Pinna with Andrea Pasquini, went to investigate the phenomenon of fires - which every year affects thousands of hectares of forest - to try to understand who the arsonists are and why they do it. We will then move on to video games, whose industry knows no crisis, especially when it offers games inspired by wars and assassinations.

117 min

Episode 7

At Superquark we return to explore, with the technique of espionage, the three colonies of penguins filmed at close range thanks to hidden cameras. Observing these colonies right at the moment of the hatching of the eggs, we better understand the efforts that the penguins must face to grow and defend the chicks. The curious story of a mechanic from Buenos Aires, who invented a device to deliver babies, which could replace the forceps and avoid many caesarean sections. Giovanni Carrada went to see. A group of Italian researchers has discovered how South American capuchins possess abilities comparable to those of African chimpanzees. The beginnings of the upright position, the enhancement of manual skills, and a sophisticated use of tools. Therefore, capuchins, like chimpanzees, would be a case of parallel convergence. That is, they would have developed in a completely independent way the characteristics fundamental to the appearance of the human species. By Marco Visalberghi.

117 min

Episode 8

In this episode, an interesting BBC documentary on the Ganges River. Descending from the glaciers of the Himalayas, it crosses much of India until it flows into the Bay of Bengal, the largest in the world. Its path is a treatise on natural history: following it you cross climates, landscapes, ecosystems populated by a great variety of vegetation and animals. But it is also, and above all, a river linked to the great Hindu religion, which considers its waters sacred. Next - in the report by Barbara Gallavotti and Federica Calvia - we will talk about puberty which, in the life of a woman, marks a very important turning point: it makes her capable of bearing children. In the women's watch, the hands, in recent decades, have gone back as much as five years. Why? And with what consequences? Another topic is Nature, a precious source of inspiration for creating the materials of the future.

117 min

Episode 9

An interesting film about the Thar Desert will be shown. Due to the temperatures it reaches and its aridity, it has been nicknamed “the region of death” by the Indians. Here, temperatures often exceed 50 degrees and the amount of rain that falls over the course of the entire year does not reach 5 centimeters. Despite the lack of water and food, there are creatures – including humans – that manage to resist in this extreme environment. Another topic is water in Pompeii. Alberto Angela will follow its flow over the centuries, among the ruins, in the underground, in the aqueduct, in the watersheds, in short in all its paths. Then, we will talk about a small particle accelerator that has come into operation in Pavia to treat tumors in a new and effective way. Barbara Gallavotti, with Francesca Marcelli, went to see how it works and what results it can achieve.

119 min

Episode 10

This time the Superquark Documentary is by David Attenbourgh, the famous documentary maker who has been making some of the best BBC programs for decades. With him we will discover the secret world of plants: plants seem still, unable to defend themselves, to communicate with each other: but research is showing us that they can actually do truly surprising things. With Alberto Angela in a surprising Roman Assisi. Under the town square are the remains of the ancient Roman Forum. For Come si fa in studio con Piero Angela the neuroscientist Piergiorgio Strata, will talk about oxytocin and ... fidelity. Is it possible that music taught to young children stimulates their brain in a particular way? Some research seems to indicate that the effects of music learned as children are still visible in adults and even in the elderly. Lorenzo Pinna went to the United States to follow this research on music and the brain.

121 min