They are the miracle pills that shouldn’t really work at all. Placebos come in all shapes and sizes, but they contain no active ingredient. Now they are being shown to help treat pain, depression and even alleviate some of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Horizon explores why they work, and how we could all benefit from the hidden power of the placebo.

David Attenborough embarks on an epic 500-million-year journey to unravel the incredible rise of the vertebrates. The evolution of animals with backbones is one of the greatest stories in natural history.

Over 100 years ago, Albert Einstein grappled with the implications of his revolutionary special theory of relativity and came to a startling conclusion: mass and energy are one, related by the formula E = mc2. In “Einstein’s Big Idea,” NOVA dramatizes the remarkable story behind this equation.

In NOVA’s eight-hour series, “Making Stuff,” popular New York Times technology reporter David Pogue takes viewers on a fun-filled tour of the material world we live in, and the one that may lie ahead.

Our solar system was the first to attract humans and filled their souls with awe and fear. At the same time brave minds had been curious about its nature and kept speculating about the universe and its objects. However since the birth of modern science and technology, the true nature of universe has been known and at this point of time, universe is so huge that our hearts are filled with awe and reverence more deeply than our ignorant ancestors felt.

Two-part series in which Professor Jim Al-Khalili shows how, by uncovering its secrets, scientists have used light to reveal almost everything we know about the universe. But in the last 30 years we have discovered that far from seeing everything, we have seen virtually nothing. Our best estimate is that more than 99 per cent of the universe is actually hidden in the dark.

“Earth From Space” is a groundbreaking two-hour special that reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. Produced in extensive consultation with NASA scientists, NOVA takes data from earth-observing satellites and transforms it into dazzling visual sequences, each one exposing the intricate and surprising web of forces that sustains life on earth.

ALL SEASONS

The film consists of a series of travelogue vignettes that provide glimpses into cultural practices around the world with the intention to shock or surprise Western film audiences.

Ten easy steps show you how to make money from drugs, featuring a series of interviews with drug dealers, prison employees, and lobbyists arguing for tougher drug laws.

Documentary presented by Professor Simon Schaffer which charts the amazing and untold story of automata – extraordinary clockwork machines designed hundreds of years ago to mimic and recreate life.

In this two-hour special, NOVA celebrates the story of the father of modern science and his struggle to get Church authorities to accept the truth of his astonishing discoveries.

This series of videos is based on Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space and Cosmos. Excerpts from the audiobook and documentary are edited together with pictures and videos set to a blend of different music.

American filmmaker Vikram Gandhi goes to prove how faith and followers of faith can be created out of nonsense ideas.

Will Machines Surpass Humans? The Fukushima nuclear accident that hit Japan in March 2011 left people powerless. It accelerated efforts to develop robots with human traits. Robots can take over when things become dangerous. This program describes the frontline of robotics development in humanoids, and explores the future… which is fast approaching.

The series consists of three one-hour programmes which explore the concept and definition of freedom, specifically, “how a simplistic model of human beings as self-seeking, almost robotic, creatures led to today’s idea of freedom.”

This is an unknown world. Yet it seems strangely familiar: Deep canyons and cracks scar the landscape, imposing mountain ranges tower over scorched plains, moist jungles and acidic lakes hide creatures unknown to most – ferocious predators, grazing vegetarians, cunning quick-change artists. But this alien planet is not from outer space. This planet is you.

The show criticized proponents of what they perceived as nonsense and dishonesty, often citing ulterior political or financial motives. The stated aim of the show was to apply “critical thinking” to misconceptions and other “bullshit”. As indicated by the show’s title, the program adhered to Penn & Teller’s characteristically blunt, aggressive presentation. The show was nominated for 11 Emmy Awards.

Richard Feynman is one of the most iconic, influential and inspiring scientists of the 20th century. He helped design the atomic bomb, solved the mystery of the Challenger Shuttle catastrophe and won a Nobel Prize. Now, 25 years after his death – in his own words and those of his friends and family – this is the story of the most captivating communicator in the history of science.

Several basic income networks and community organisations in Europe have decided to progress the development of a more social Europe. An unconditional basic income, an addition to other necessary political measures, is an important step in this direction.

He was the visionary scientist who gave birth to the computer age, pioneered artificial intelligence and was the first to investigate the mathematical underpinnings of the living world.

Right now you're hurtling around the Sun at 100,000 kms an hour. Join Kate Humble and Dr Helen Czerski as they explore the relationship between the Earth's orbit and the weather.

Documentary film project about the power of mass collaboration, the government and the Internet.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili explores the true size and shape of the universe and delves into the amazing science behind apparent nothingness.

Waves are not only beautiful but also profoundly important, and there is a surprising connection between the life cycle of waves and the life of human beings.

You may not know it, but fractals, like the air you breathe, are all around you. Their irregular, repeating shapes are found in cloud formations and tree limbs, in stalks of broccoli and craggy mountain ranges, even in the rhythm of the human heart. In this film, NOVA takes viewers on a fascinating quest with a group of maverick mathematicians determined to decipher the rules that govern fractal geometry.

Liz Bonnin delves in to the world of invention, revealing the people and technologies set to transform all our lives. She examines the conditions that are promising to make the 21st century a golden age of innovation and meets some of the world’s foremost visionaries, mavericks and dreamers.

Based on the acclaimed biography by Paul Hoffman, “Wings of Madness” tells the colorful and tragic life of Alberto Santos-Dumont, a brilliant technical improviser who cut an unforgettable figure of high fashion in turn-of-the-century Paris.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the electrifying story of our quest to master nature’s most mysterious force – electricity. Until fairly recently, electricity was seen as a magical power, but it is now the lifeblood of the modern world and underpins every aspect of our technological advancements.

Professor Brian Cox explores the globe to reveal how a few fundamental laws of science gave birth to the most complex and unique feature of the universe – life.

In Transcendent Man, Ptolemy follows Kurzweil around the globe as he presents the daring arguments from his best-selling book, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Kurzweil predicts that with the ever-accelerating rate of technological change, humanity is fast approaching an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly non-biological and millions of times more powerful.

This program is the result of years of research, in which many new and unknown details of of Tesla’s life have been uncovered. The production contains a large and extremely rare collection of photographs documenting Tesla’s life and his inventions.

Marcus Du Sautoy wants to find out how close we are to creating machines that can think like us: robots or computers that have artificial intelligence.

TROM (The Reality of Me) is an unique free online documentary, since no one has thought of such a documentary from our knowledge. We want to show, as well as we can, the whole picture, an insight into our world, a perspective from which you must extract meanings in order to understand, and curiosity to progress, because there is a lot of such information we call “scientific”. Moreover, we present alternative and existing solutions to radically improve every one’s life.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili investigates the important concepts of energy and information.

Inside the Human Body takes us deep under our skin where we are dwarfed by even the smallest cell, where blood vessels become vast cathedrals and the tiniest cluster of cilia becomes an expansive forest.

Michael Mosley embarks on three journeys to understand science’s last great frontier – the human mind – as he traces the history of the attempts to understand and manipulate the brain.

Why does Charles Darwin’s “dangerous idea” matter more today than ever, and how does it explain the past and predict the future of life on Earth? The first show interweaves the drama of Darwin’s life with current documentary sequences, introducing key concepts of evolution.

Horizon follows the cosmologists who are creating the most ambitious map in history – a map of everything in existence. And it is stranger than anyone had imagined – a Universe without end that stretches far beyond what the eye can ever see.

Documentary series which celebrates our planet in all its glory, both its spectacular scenery and its captivating natural history.

The six-part series surveys the natural history of the islands of the South Pacific region, including many of the coral atolls and New Zealand. It was filmed entirely in high-definition.

The seven-part series focuses on life and the environment in both the Arctic and Antarctic. The production team were keen to film a comprehensive record of the natural history of the polar regions, because climate change is affecting landforms such as glaciers, ice shelves, and the extent of sea ice.

All ocean life is here, from dolphin and shark to shrimp and penguin, from the beasts that live on the very fringes of the sea to the monsters that can be only found in the sunless fathoms. And while many of the animals here are familiar, both the locations and the clarity of the camerawork represent foreign territory.

Richard Hammond reveals secret animal abilities from the natural world, and discovers how those same animals have inspired a series of unlikely human inventions at the very frontiers of science.

The series attempts to uncover the secrets of the animals examined. Mark is assisted by evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins and Simon Watt, and comparative anatomist Joy Reidenberg

The story of the discovery that everything is made from atoms, one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history, and the brilliant minds behind it.

National Geographic presents the first accurate non-stop voyage from Earth to the edge of the Universe using a single, unbroken shot through the use of spectacular CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery) technology. Building on images taken from the Hubble telescope,

There are more than 50 different prehistoric species featured, and they and their environments were created entirely as computer-generated images, for around a third of the production cost that was needed a decade earlier for Walking with Dinosaurs.

This documentary details the root causes of the systemic value disorders and detrimental symptoms caused by our current established system. This video presentation advocates a new socio-economic system, which is updated to present-day knowledge, featuring the life-long work of Social Engineer, Futurist, Inventor and Industrial Designer Jacque Fresco, which he calls a Resource-Based Economy.

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage is a thirteen-part television series written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan, and Steven Soter, with Sagan as presenter. It covered a wide range of scientific subjects, including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe.

The Universe is an American documentary television series that features computer-generated imagery and computer graphics of astronomical objects in the universe plus interviews with experts who study in the fields of cosmology, astronomy, and astrophysics.