Bbc Cilvilisation

A BBC Learning Zone programme giving tips and guidance on how to learn a new language.

It was the simplest idea but one with enormous potential. If a gene is defective in the human body, just replace it with one that works properly. Gene therapy would mean that genetic disorders would become a thing of the past. Cancer would be cured, as would cystic fibrosis and hundreds of other genetic illnesses. Scientists were justifiably excited about the idea but, this enthusiasm that would end up costing one young man his life.

Particle physicist and ex D:Ream keyboard player Dr Brian Cox wants to know why the Universe is built the way it is. He believes the answers lie in the force of gravity. But Newton thought gravity was powered by God, and even Einstein failed to completely solve it. Heading out with his film crew on a road trip across the USA, Brian fires lasers at the moon in Texas, goes mad in the desert in Arizona, encounters the bending of space and time at a maximum security military base, tries to detect ripples in our reality in the swamps of Louisiana and searches for hidden dimensions just outside Chicago.

It’s one of the greatest stories ever told. The legend of Helen of Troy has enchanted audiences for the last three thousand years. In May this year a Hollywood film staring Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom will be launched in Britain. But is there any reality to the myth? Horizon has unprecedented access to the scientist with the answers. Since 1988 Professor Manfred Korfmann has been excavating the site of Troy. He has never before spoken at this length. He has made amazing discoveries – how large the city was, how well it was defended and, crucially, that there was once a great battle there at precisely the time that experts believe the Trojan war occurred. But who had attacked the city and why? Horizon then follows a trail of clues – the ancient tablets written by a lost civilisation, the sunken ship rich in treasure, and the magnificent golden masks and bronze swords of a warrior people. The film reaches its climax in a tunnel deep beneath Troy, where Korfmann has made a discovery that may reveal, once and for all, the truth behind the myth. The story that emerges is one of great passion – but not, it seems, about love.

When Clement Freud died in April 2009, Britain lost not only one of its best-loved broadcasters but also one of its last great polymaths - a man whose long and varied career encompassed being a Liberal MP, cookery expert, newspaper columnist and author.

David Tennant stars in a film of the Royal Shakespeare Company's award-winning production of Shakespeare's great play. Director Gregory Doran's modern-dress production was hailed by the critics as thrilling, fast-moving and, in parts, very funny. Hamlet must decide whether to avenge his father's murder at the hands of his uncle Claudius (played by Patrick Stewart), who has married his brother's wife - Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. This visually sumptuous screen version was filmed on location with all of the original stage cast.

Путешествие в дикие джунгли - пожалуй, один из самых экстремальных видов отдыха. Несмотря на внешнюю привлекательность этих уголков планеты, не каждый человек осмелится бросить вызов самому себе и, забыв о прелестях цивилизации, погрузиться в чарующий и опасный мир тропических лесов Амазонки, Конго и Борнео.

Christopher Nupen's documentary uses Schubert's own words and music to help us feel closer to a composer who failed to achieve public recognition and financial success in his own lifetime, the first great composer in western music to live by his art alone, without patronage. With Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano), Andreas Schmidt (baritone), Michael Sanderling (cello), Antje Weithaas (violin), the Petersen Quartet and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch.

BBC Motion Gallery is the footage licensing division of BBC Worldwide, offering media professionals in advertising, commercials, television, film, interactive and corporate video production access to over a million hours of motion imagery for licensing worldwide. The organisation originated in London as BBC Library Sales, a division of BBC Worldwide, in 1961. It opened an office in New York in 1993, and in 1994 opened offices in Toronto and Los Angeles. BBC Motion Gallery has since opened additional offices in Hong Kong, Sydney, Mumbai, Tokyo and Paris.

A cold blood creature needs solar power - soaking up the rays but hibernating in winter.We meet frogs that moisturise,jousting tortoises and frozen turtles that return to life. They can be sophisticated creatures like the bubble-massaging saltwater crocodile or the Balearic wall lizard that has a relationship with a flower, but there are the exceptions to the cold-blooded rules such as the teenage tyrannosaurus rex and the largest reptile on earth, the leatherback turtle.