'115 humpback whales in one day' - ITV News' Polar team inspires the next generation of scientists
ITV News' Martin Stew and members of the British Antarctic Survey fielded questions at the Eureka Museum - whilst on board the RRS Sir David Attenborough.
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Time Out
3 hours ago
- Time Out
Our Story with David Attenborough
The seemingly unstoppable David Attenborough has achieved more since hitting retirement age than most of us - let's be honest, all of us - will achieve in our entire lifetimes. This new immersive film is his second major project since turning 99 in May, following his more traditional documentary Ocean. Produced by Open Planet Studios, Our Story sees the Jerwood Gallery at the Natural History Museum transformed into a smaller version of the Lightroom in King's Cross (a sort of projection-based theatre). While 'immersive' is a word exhausted by overuse, 'immersive documentary' is emerging as a fairly distinct genre with clear hallmarks. As with the Lightroom's shows, Our Story is based around powerful digital projectors beaming the film onto the four walls of the space, wrapping around the surfaces so there are different images whichever direction you look. You are indeed immersed. It's still a narrative documentary film, in which Sir David tells us the story of the planet from fiery, lifeless rock to the advent of mankind to a possible future. Attenborough narrates, and appears at the start and end. There's a fair smattering of expectedly dazzling wildlife footage. But Our Story isn't really a nature doc in the style of Attenborough's most famous works, and rather than painstakingly captured original footage of animals, it uses pre-existing stuff plus heavy use of CGI to supplement its storytelling. Occasionally this feels like a minor letdown: though they're not trying to pretend they're anything else, some very obviously computer generated whales feel a little jarring in a documentary from the literal David Attenborough. For the most part, though, the graphics are used well to create dramatic vistas of space or primaeval Earth, or to offer more prosaic illustrations of Attenborough's words (collages of cave paintings or early depictions of agriculture). It will probably not shock you to learn that you can't tell the entire story of the planet Earth and mankind in any great detail in 50 minutes. But the Att-man knows what he's doing by this stage in his career, and works deftly with the time he has. A visually razzle-dazzly pre-life on Earth section; a gallop through the first four billion years of the planet before establishing that the appearance of man coincided with an unprecedented stable patch in the planet's climate; an explosion of nature footage to illustrate this; bringing himself into it as he describes the world he was born into and how it's changed over his long, long life. Climate change is accepted as a part of the human story rather than laboured over bombastically; which works, because the question of doing something about it is raised not as a hypothetical but an inevitability. And it ends on a hopeful note: the whales are an illustration of how humans can influence the planet for the better, populations of the aquatic giants having bounced back since humanity took concerted action to save them. A projected cityscape of a hypothetical low carbon future London is another dose of optimism. Whether or not Attenborough feels as optimistic about the future as he professes to be here, it's a more inspiring note to end on – particularly for young audiences – than declaring it's too late and we're all doomed. The final image of the show isn't a spectacular vista of space or nature, but a life-size Attenborough, sitting in his study: it looks like he's in the room with us. I wouldn't put it past him to still be presenting documentaries in 10 years' time, but there is something haunting about the sense of his physical presence – the show feels like a time capsule already, wisdom designed to live on after he's gone.
ITV News
a day ago
- ITV News
'115 humpback whales in one day' - ITV News' Polar team inspires the next generation of scientists
ITV News' Martin Stew and members of the British Antarctic Survey fielded questions at the Eureka Museum - whilst on board the RRS Sir David Attenborough.
ITV News
2 days ago
- ITV News
Antarctica's hidden sea life could be used for washing powders and ice creams
ITV News Science Correspondent Martin Stew is the only journalist on board the British research ship the RRS Sir David Attenborough, as it takes part in an expedition deep within the Antarctic Circle. No other British ship has made the journey this far south, this late in winter, since the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated Endurance voyage, when his ship became trapped in the pack ice and sank in 1915. Diving in Antarctica is not for the faint-hearted. First, you often need to chainsaw through the sea ice, then plunge into the dark frozen water. Divers have special equipment from fleece underlayers to dry suits and lobster claw-shaped gloves which seal to the dry suit - even so, your hands still go numb. They have to be tethered at all times to a team above the ice to make sure they don't lose the hole to get back out. There's also the not inconsiderable risk of wildlife, orcas and leopard seals are the Apex predators in the area. But for the British Antarctic Survey marine biologists at Rothera station in Antarctica, the pain is worth it. They're in a race against time to understand and protect the marine life that can cope with sub-zero temperatures, before it disappears. It's estimated there are 20,000 species on the sea bed of the Southern Ocean. More than half of them haven't even been named. Marine biologists are trying to understand more about these weird and wonderful creatures. From brittle stars to colourful urchins and sea spiders up to two feet in diameter, the diversity on the ocean floor is incredible. But these creatures are at risk from climate change. To simulate the warming of the ocean, scientists have fitted heat pads to the seabed. They warmed areas by just a degree or two. Even with that limited rise in temperature, most of the creatures initially saw a growth spurt and then started to die. That's not just an ecological nightmare; it's also a loss of a potential goldmine of biological expertise. These species may hold the key to everything from new medicines to cold water enzymes for washing powders, and even ingredients to prevent ice cream from crystallising. 'If the Earth warms up, the first places to disappear are the cold ones,' Professor Lloyd Peck told me. 'There's no chance of them coming back. You're losing out on potential pharmaceutical discoveries. But don't forget all the animals people care about, the penguins and birds rely on the diverse ecosystem.' There's another challenge. Iceberg carving, where chunks of land ice break off and fall into the ocean, is a natural phenomenon, but it appears to be happening more regularly as the climate warms. As the bergs scour across the seabed, they kill much of the life below. When this happens infrequently, it can have a positive effect, boosting life in the long run in a similar way to a wildfire on land. The worry is, if we see icebergs carving more regularly, will wildlife still have time to recover? 'A little bit of disturbance is good' According to marine biologist Pati Glaz 'because it makes them stronger and grow back in numbers. [But] because it's more frequent they just don't have the time to grow back.' She does though hold out hope that scientists can meet the challenge in time. 'I think slowly piece by piece every single person can make a difference there's loads of researchers across Antarctica and the world that if work together I think we can do it.' She and the team are certainly willing to go to extremes to try.
