Nature Medicine Sptember 2018

Set against the harsh backdrop of the Arctic, Snow Bears is a dramatized story based on the extraordinary adventures and life-changing journey of newborn polar bear cubs as they leave the safety of their den for the first time. Bravely led by their mother, the cubs must make the perilous 400-mile trek to the sea to feed. Encountering many dangers and adventures along the way - marauding male bears ready to kill, extreme weather, Arctic foxes, Walruses, Narwhal whales, snowdrifts, and ice cracks - they undertake an epic survival challenge. These cubs are rarely seen in their natural habitat, and this is a unique glimpse into their world.

Nature to Nations explores the rise of great American nations, from dynastic monarchies to participatory democracies. What lies behind these diverse and sophisticated governments? Answers emerge from an archaeologist excavating America’s oldest temple in the Peruvian Andes, a tribe initiating a new chief at a ceremony surrounded by cedar totem poles in the Pacific Northwest, an expert reading ancient hieroglyphs from a sarcophagus to tell a forgotten history of Maya kings, and the return of an ancient shell wampum belt to the birthplace of democracy near Syracuse, New York.

"From the very beginning - the irresistible invocation to “Roll Up, Roll Up” I feel as if i am about to be entertained, amused, and maybe fleeced too - if not physically harmed! With typical Clatch invention, both musical and lyrical, the show unfolds before our very ears. There are scary moments, inspiring and poignant moments, and, finally, we feel as if we have cheated death and have been cured - though cured of what, with what, by whom, we may never know! By the end of my visit, i felt dizzy, disgustipated, a little hysterical and very relieved - of my ills - and my cash" - Gary Grainger, DJ on the Award Winning Blues Show on Bishop FM

In the final Episode 3, Chasing the Wind, Thompson takes viewers to meet some of the most fascinating and unlikely of the world’s 400 horse breeds. He meets the Yakutian, at home in the coldest inhabited place on Earth (Siberia). He meets the Arab, a spirited horse at home on the scorching sands of the Arabian Desert. And he encounters the most valuable horses on Earth: elite Thoroughbreds, a breed of super-specialized sprinters, descended from one of three 18th-century stallions. Hard to believe, but there are still a handful of wild horses. On Canada’s Sable Island, Thompson visits the only truly wild horses on Earth, now evolving in unexpected ways in their completely human-free world.

The domestication of the horse has been a mystery of science for generations. In Episode 2, First Riders, Thompson travels to Kazakhstan to witness the groundbreaking discovery of a skeleton from the earliest culture ever to tame horses. In this episode, viewers get a set of genuine science scoops: we are the first to learn that our ancestors domesticated the horse twice and that early riders carried the world’s first pandemic of plague to Europe.