Animal senses reveal a wealth of information that humans can't access. Birds can see in ultra violet, and some fish can 'feel' electricity. But how do different species sense time?If you've ever tried to swat flies, you'll know that they seem to have super-powered reactions that let them escape before you can blink. Presenter Geoff Marsh asks whether flies have some sort of super-power to see the world in slow motion. Are they watching your hand come down at what might appear a leisurely pace?Science reveals a window into the minds of different species and their temporal perceptions. Some flies have such fast vision that they can see and react to movement at four times the rate you can, and our vision works at more than six times the speed of one species of deep sea fish. This programme delves into each moment of experience to ask 'what is time, biologically?' When birds have to dodge through forests and catch flies on the wing, or when flies have to avoid birds, it would seem that a faster temporal resolution would be a huge advantage. So what is their sense of time?Geoff meets physicist Carlo Rovelli and asks him to jump outside of physics to answer questions on biology and philosophy. Geoff explores the mind of a bat with Professor Yossi Yovel in Israel, and dissects birdsong at super slow speeds with BBC wildlife sound recordist, Chris Watson. Getting deep into the minds of animals he questions whether our seconds feel like swordfish seconds, or a beetles' or birds' or bats..?Presenter: Geoff Marsh
Producer: Rory Galloway
Kultur & GesellschaftTalk
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Folge vom 12.04.2019A Sense of Time
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Folge vom 09.04.2019The Monster DownstairsLife for the child of an alcoholic can be lonely, locked inside a house of secrets.A code of silence means they don't want to talk to friends, or neighbours, or even their brothers and sisters.Journalist Camilla Tominey, whose mother was an alcoholic, hears their stories.Since having her own children, Camilla has longed to travel back in time and ask her, mother to mother: "What made you start drinking before noon?" Here, she and her two brothers sit down for the first time in twenty years to talk about their memories.Alcoholism is by no means a one-size fits all experience. It cuts across class lines and manifests itself in many different forms. We hear stories from people across Britain. How have they been changed by their experience and what has helped get them through?The Monster Downstairs features intimate, wrenching stories - of young people and adults - as they talk about an unpredictable existence.Producer: Caitlin Smith
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Folge vom 02.04.2019A Job for the BoysWomen once made up 80% of the computer industry. They are now less than 20%. Mary Ann Sieghart explores the hidden and disturbing consequences of not having women at the heart of the tech.Who is the in room today when technology is designed determines how society is being shaped. Justine Cassell, from Carnegie Mellon University, says young men in Silicon Valley are told, “Design for you. Design what you would want to use” and so virtual assistants, such as the ever-female Siri, Alexa and Cortana play with “cute talk” and female game characters still have their “tits hanging out of their blouses.”Artificial Intelligence is now making life-changing choices for us - about our health, our loans, even bail. But it isn’t faultless; it is biased. AI is only as good as the data it’s been fed and if it’s learning from prejudice, it will only amplify it.Apps designed by men are overlooking women’s health, algorithms are rejecting women outright and as MIT Professor Catherine Tucker explains, they aren’t even being sent jobs adverts “because their eyeballs are more expensive.”Mary Ann looks at why women left the computer industry and what still deters them today. She hears the challenges that tech entrepreneur Steve Shirley faced in the 1960s are almost identical to those voiced by organisers of the Google walkout last year. Women are harassed, side lined and not taken seriously; they are put off by a cult of genius and techno-chauvinism.But there is hope. Mary Ann meets campaigners trying to regulate AI gender bias and those succeeding in getting more women into tech, finding a small tweak in classroom design or style of university marking can make a real difference.Producer: Sarah Bowen.
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Folge vom 25.03.2019The Puppet Master – Episode 5. EnemiesEffigies, aliases, and a 'golden cage': it all comes down to this in the series finale about Vladislav Surkov, the most powerful man you’ve never heard of. Presented by Gabriel Gatehouse.