Secret Hanger Stores Humanity's Incredible Creations | Greatest Inventions | Spark

welcome to one of the most extraordinary locations in the country this is the science museum stores and for one night only we have exclusive access to britain's best kept secret this place is packed to the rafters with tens of thousands of amazing inventions and we are taking you behind these doors for a one-off special event [Music] nick knowles explores the british foundations of an invention that built the modern world david harewood welcomes us to the jet set with a creation that shrinks the globe angela scanlon reveals the one invention that we just can't live without charles corrin opens the door on one of britain's coolest inventions [Music] angela rippon reveals the invention that saved her life and len goodman steams ahead with an antique invention that still powers our lives today now these hangers are a complete treasure trove of amazing objects so you have here some horse drawn carriages that one there's called the growler you have a car here from 1903 in the back there you've got a hydrofoil which was built by a chap called brian when he was in school 40 years ago you also have some of the first satellites autopsy tables and enormous objects like this one here now hiding behind the corner we have jessica who works with the collection at the science museum jessica what is this so this 140-ton printing press was used in london at northcliffe house to print millions of editions of the daily mail and the london evening standard and it's just one example of the science museum's extraordinary collection and these aren't just objects they're our shared history they're things that we made and used and things that completely changed our lives and this place is a time capsule of ingenuity full of things that we're preserving for generations to come one of the very special inventions hidden here in the heart of the archives is a device that has changed the world completely to explore how a simple box of wires can alter the human race is legendary broadcaster trevor mcdonald standing at the heart of our living rooms is the most powerful invention ever created it's one that we might be inclined to take for granted but it's one which has transformed the world changed our preoccupations and our perceptions as people we will spend the decade of our lives watching it whether from the comfort of our sofas or increasingly on the move and right now you are under its spell it is of course television the unique power of television is its ability to bring the world to us i remember watching neil armstrong take his first steps on the moon what was amazing to me was not only the fact that we'd gone to another part of the universe but that i was able to sit in my home in trinidad and watch those pictures live this is the first tv picture ever seen by the public in 1926 thanks to an unlikely inventor john loggie baird he created a mechanical television that scanned an image into light and dark sections and transmitted them to a receiver which replayed them success but rival british company marconi emi were hot on his tail both wanted to be chosen by the bbc for the world's first television service from alexandra palace baird's grandson ian is showing me where the ensuing competition took place this is where the television service began in november 2nd 1936 that evening baird and emi transmitted their pictures in succession from neighboring studios emi's electronic system was more efficient and therefore victorious was your grandfather heartbroken with these disappointments the story goes that he was um at the alexander palace opening ceremony for the alexander palace studios yeah but he wasn't invited to go on to the stage it was important government people and executives and he was left to sit in the rank and file the person who first made television work and he thought he was sort of angry and disgusted and he thought thus his pioneer work recognized i must have been very sore about that reality is that he knew he'd put television on the map and it's true of all well a lot of inventions that the person who does it first doesn't necessarily reap the rewards baird might have missed his crowning moment but his legacy remains a global hit today one channel is exploded into many more and there are over 1 000 in the uk alone you couldn't watch most of them without this sky-high landmark london's bt tower 95 percent of britain's tv passes through here as it's distributed from the broadcaster to your home looking at these screens behind me what strikes you is the sheer volume of television the good the bad and the downright indifferent every one of us watches about three and a half hours of television every day from 24-hour news to box sets big sporting events to natural disasters television has given us more memories emotions opinions and decisions than anything else television is undoubtedly the greatest invention of all because other inventions can change the world television can change you this gorgeous television is one of the very original designs by logee baird from the 1930s there was only one problem if you wanted to appear on a television around that time you had to look like this uh ellie curator of televisions why have i got bad clown makeup on well hannah believe it or not this television set is actually quite a sophisticated bit of kit for the 1930s and before these sorts of sets there was even lower definition which meant that presenters on the night on television in the 1930s had to go under extremely hot lights um and they were completely blown out so they put on this kind of makeup to carve out your face to create that contrast so why is it colors though i mean why have i got green down my nose and sort of blue on my cheeks why not black and white well one of the reasons is that color reflects the light better it gives more shape it doesn't create a kind of flat look and you might have noticed that the colors are not just colorful but quite unusual it's greens it's purple not various skin like colors exactly and part of the reason for that is that red and warm colors didn't play so well with the television cameras in the early days so while you look the part your hair might well have been a problem looking bored actually what would it look like on camera well it probably just wouldn't have created the right contrast and they say that uh red didn't play well with the cameras okay well there we go i'm no good for television in the 1930s and on that no i think i'm going to go and take this makeup off from a device that can power our minds to the ultimate in powering our lives broadcaster len goodman will explore a key invention found here that has built our modern world invention catapulted britain into the modern world it fueled the industrial revolution and today it powers your entire life eighty percent of the world's electricity is generated by it and without it we'd all still be living in the dark ages [Applause] [Music] you don't have to be a genius to know that my invention is the steam engine and i'm not just talking about fabulous old locomotives like this there's so many things ships went faster mining went deeper tens of thousands of factories worked on steve and i'll tell you this steve but the great in great trip i love it [Music] for the last 300 years the world has been powered by steam engines of all shapes and sizes all of them are british to the core the first man to crack it was thomas savory in 1698 he created an invention that would harness steam to power a machine the steam engine was born savary's invention was a revelation using steam to power pumping engines taking industry from being animal driven to new heights of power over the next 200 years a string of british engineers improved upon his original design one of these evolutions affected us profoundly as a nation built in 1904 breed waterworks used the steam engine to pump 16 million liters of water a day out of the ground and up to the purifier so effective it continued pumping until the 1960s steam giants this is a giant as well it's massive these engines lift the water from two wells one at either end of the building the wells are about 270 feet deep and the engines do two things they pick the water up from deep underground it's then sent off for treatment once it's been treated there's a set of pumps under the floor big ram pumps right push it out into the pipe and they send it 500 feet in the air to the reservoir which is about six miles away really so it meant that clean water was available for all and so we're curing things like cholera typhoid hepatitis all those things that are caused by dirty water what is the advent of this machinery done for us as a nation clean water supply has been the number one human endeavor for thousands of years and this is the thing that britain exported all over the world this technology cures disease but because it increases the life expectancy and grows the population it gives us economies yeah it gives us trading power as a nation and this this is the magic word this is powered by steam it is indeed what is it that is so lovely about them it whispers like it's got a heartbeat doesn't it and it's got a nice little bump it's so great boom yeah i love it you could sort of dance got like a rhythm to it you know i feel a foxtrot coming on any minute now it's just great as well as killing disease and powering us as a nation the steam engines impact doesn't end there listen i know what you're thinking you're thinking oh yes then steam trains and all that 150 years old it's all a relic i'm telling you what it's not everything that's around us is reliant on steam yeah the television your iphones the internet is powered by steam eighty percent of the world's electricity is generated by the ultimate form of steam engine the steam turbine developed in 1884 by charles parsons this turns steam power into rotational energy rather than piston power today they are used in almost every fuel power station in the world big small nuclear or coal they all rely on the descendant of the humble steam engine to create electricity this is rhythm.biomass facility one of britain's newest power stations where they generate their steam using wood plant manager patrick fergul is showing me around can i do anything quite mechanically can i touch this press a button please don't okay i won't touch anything well hold my arm and we'll go and do it come on 180 lovers worth of waste would arrive here each week before being burned in a giant incinerator this heats up water to produce enough steam to power 50 000 homes across britain shut up oh this is great can i hold that knob that is fantastic you can feel it even through here once the steam reaches 460 degrees it's sent to a turbine this is the turbine this is where the steam comes in within this casing the superheated steam continuously turns a set of blades which spin a dynamo to create electricity so without steam and without this you wouldn't have an electric light bulb well you could have a light bulb but it would not be shining then it wouldn't be working without the steam engine the world would be a dark place the descendants of this amazing british invention are as important today as when it was first invented centuries ago we have so much to thank the extraordinary multi-talented steam engine for it illuminates our cities it gives us clean water the thing is this has to be our greatest invention it's not just the power behind a load of machinery it's the power behind our entire civilization itself well this is quite a strange smelling room matt what's uh what's going on in here this is our hemp creek museum store hemp yeah we've made this building out of hemp and lime why have you used hemp for this well we've used hemp because it's really it's a really interesting construction material in that it absorbs and dissolves moisture and that helps us manage the environment for these extremely specialist objects that need a very very stable environment to keep them in good condition so is that why they're in here then so there's no changes in moisture levels yeah these are some of our most sensitive uh objects that we've got in the collection so what would happen if they weren't in here then well things like the leather and the woods and some of the paint finishes may start corroding buckling cracking and we just need to keep them very very stable in order to preserve objects that can't be replaced okay tell me what you've got then what's this thing well this is really interesting this is a a a benz this is the first petrol car gorgeous this is extremely beautiful piece did you used to ride facing back which way does it go that way you'd ride city the driver would sit in the seat facing forwards and you might have someone sitting in a dicky suitcase what's that i quite like this one here what's this one yeah that's a lovely french uh 18th century horse-drawn cart and you can imagine some beautifully made-up woman sitting in there being carted around i like it i i think i'll have that one that one's mine put my name on what about this one uh this is a broom another another horse-drawn carriage again um quite a beautiful piece lots of different types of uh materials within it that need need extra levels of protection you've got these little baby ones here as well what about those yeah these are funny these for infants and and children they were they were originally pulled by dogs a dog yeah i guess you can't really get horses that small unfortunately um but so the objects that you have in in this in this room here then how many of these sort of stores have you built we've built this one building within one of our hangars um and we've done it specifically using science and technology and engineering to try and solve some of the science museum problems with conserving these objects in the long term now on to our next invention and one that is so integral to our lives today i know i rely on it and that nomophobia yes that's a genuine word is the fear of being without it my invention can create governments and topple them it can remake whole industries conjuring a 60 billion dollar company like cab firm uber from nothing and it has changed how our entire species communicates this is the mobile phone an invention so successful it outnumbers humans on planet earth put simply the mobile phone is the most desired invention of our lifetime and without it we'd be completely lost i am of course talking about the mobile in its latest and greatest incarnation the smartphone a miraculous device now deeply embedded in our lives us owners swipe and pinch them hundreds of times a day and use them to replace an astonishing range of real devices landlines of course but also cameras and clocks maps torches the radio money not to mention the computer because mobiles now outsell pcs by four to one and drive the majority of global internet traffic now i know what you're thinking the mobile phone isn't solely a british invention but nor is it solely an american or a japanese invention in fact its existence is due to the great minds from a whole host of countries but the most brilliant most decisive contributions all came from brits so what were the amazing conflicts of technologies and who were the melting pots of minds that came together to create this mobile miracle the modern mobile builds on the principles of three great british inventions the telephone invented by scotsman alexander graham bell the programmable computer devised by charles babbage and the web created by tim berners-lee but the magic final ingredient is far less well known designed in 1985 by cambridge's acorn computers the tiny arm processor its ultra low power consumption made this chip perfect for portable battery powered phones today its offspring are in 98 of mobile devices putting the world at our fingertips what other little nugget of joy can possess so much information and make life so easy thank you bye-bye by being pocket-sized the mobile is the first truly personal computer with us whenever we need it this one little device is thousands of times more powerful than all of the computers used to send man to the moon in the 60s get your head around that but is having the power of this super computer in our hands a good thing helping me find out is dr elizabeth bruton from the science museum an expert on the mobile phone's impact on society because we always have an honest we take for granted really what the possibilities are but actually there's a real power in that device to do good and not just spend time chatting yeah so we see a teenager walking down the street we might assume they're snapchatting their best friend about something quite shallow and and utterly inconsequential but actually they'll be doing all sorts of interesting things on their phone they could be encouraging people to go out to vote they could be very much involved in political activism and engaging with the news and what's going on in the world around them the mobile phone is a tool for good and bad and equal measure it's how we choose to use it previously we would have you know we might have read interviews with politicians or celebrities in magazines and newspapers but now there's a much more immediate relationship we can tweet them we can follow them on social media there's much more a sense of accountability but also maybe a flattened hierarchy so it feels like the mobile phone has almost made the world shrink for better and for worse we have a much more intimate much closer much more immediate sense of communication with our friends and our loved ones sometimes it can feel inescapable you know i'm sure you know about irish mommies that i do for all the mobile's world-changing power this thing is the best-selling gadget of all time because it makes our everyday lives easier performing tasks that just a few years ago would have sounded like science fiction one of the most mind-blowing things about this piece of technology is that it's making us all multilingual or at least that's the idea okay so apparently this place serves crabs white clams near the clams specifically thanks to the mobile i can choose with confidence from any menu in the world but could the mobile also satisfy a deeper hunger neuroscientist sir colin blakemore believes this thing actually improves our personal relationships we know that one of the biggest problems that society faces is the prospect of lonely old people isolated think of present young middle-aged people are so familiar with using a phone they're going to get old one day think of the new potential they're going to have to stay in touch stay in contact tell people when they have a problem get help but what about the actual intimacy of relationships depends what you mean by intimacy i mean the word itself means being physically very close but i think what matters about being close in the past was that it was very easy to communicate with someone to exchange ideas quickly and easily with them the phone gets a lot of bad press but that feels now unfounded yes well lots of new technologies got bad press in the early days i mean look at the way people reacted to books a lot of people were very suspicious about the danger of people having access to knowledge and then also the concern that we'd lose our memories if we didn't have to remember chunks of material by by rote these concerns were really expressed in the early days of printing but where would the world be without books by putting the power of a super computer in our pocket the mobile phone has changed our world in double quick time and the change will keep coming from holographic displays to health apps augmented reality to educating our kids there's even talk of mobile phones gaining artificial intelligence to become mobile friends this has got to be the greatest invention because like it or not this tiny device is changing us faster and more profoundly than anything in human history now for every nice slightly crazy invention that they have here in the collection they also have other much more sinister objects like this guy here it's called blue steel and this is effectively a nuclear bomb up until 1970 this nuclear missile is how britain would deliver its nuclear payloads until it was replaced by this guy here which some of you may recognize as a big image of the cold war this here is the polaris missile the nukes would go in the nose just there these various sections would break off as it entered into space but conflict is a big driver of innovation because if it wasn't for the navigation system that was designed for this missile you wouldn't have gps today to discover more about another high-speed invention that has changed our world is actor david harwood [Music] i want to tell you about the greatest british invention of all an incredible piece of engineering a synergy of power metal and physics that has had the astonishing effect of shrinking the world it has opened the door to adventure and incredible memories and right now it's keeping up to a million people up in the air ladies and gentlemen fasten your seat belts it's the jet engine [Music] you know the jet has radically changed my life without it my world would be completely different my mother and father are from barbados but you know i also have family in america without the jet engine it would be extremely difficult for any of us to ever be physically in the same room together [Music] this genius invention was the brainchild of visionary raf cadet frank whittle in 1937. whittle wanted to find a way for aircraft to fly faster than the preceding propeller engine plane whose speed was limited by the amount of thrust a set of propeller blades could create after 10 long years he created a machine that used an internal gas turbine to produce jet propulsion and push planes faster than ever before today there's one british company that have pushed whittle's invention to new boundaries engineering lovers of the world stand by this is the rolls-royce test facility and yes i'm allowed inside this place is the beating heart of jet development and it's the perfect setting to show off this fantastic invention [Music] look at this oh rolls-royce aren't just known for cars they were pioneers in creating the jet engine and to this day lead the way head engineer simon burr is introducing me to their latest creation god look at the size of that that's enormous this this engine is the rolls-royce trent xwb engine next xwb stands for extra wide body and it goes on this enormous airbus aircraft which seats up to 370 passengers and this amazing machine can keep that aircraft in the air for 19 hours straight hours yeah this engine when we deliver it today it will fly for 25 years 25 years yeah wow give me the basic principles of technically what happens to get this thing up in the air right so the pilot moves forward the throttle the fan will accelerate and go faster draw air in huge amounts of air and gradually get squeezed and compressed where we spray the fuel in ignite it the fuel then burns at very high temperature and exits so it's the effect of that fuel that energy you're putting in accelerates the fan and the fan provides enormous amounts of thrust there are huge forces in a jet engine each one of those fan blades 90 tons of force on each one to take off but we know how to do it because we've been working on this for years and years and years and obviously all tested to within an inch of its yes this engine during development we tested it for four years it went through nearly 15 000 simulated flights to make sure it was secure and reliable within the rigorous testing period these british-made engines are pushed to their limits in specially designed locations tests include firing up the engine in minus 40 degrees putting all 38 000 parts through severe crosswinds and spraying 30 000 gallons of water straight into the engine all to make sure this method of travel remains the safest on earth the vast power of the jet engine has driven everything from land speed cars to military aircraft but the world truly changed when multiple engines were combined in one aircraft to allow us all to take flight the jet liner brought together multiple jet engines into one craft able to take large numbers of passengers at dizzying heights and speeds the power of the jet engine was now open to us all alastair david hello there good to see you good to see you too oh aleister tell me a little bit about the first experience what it would have been like flying on the first jet airliner it would have been completely different from what anybody had ever encountered before when the comet came along it was completely different in jet engines it could fly higher than anything else it could fly faster it was smooth it was quiet there was no vibration it was just absolute luxury as well as transforming the way we traveled it also increased our appetite for foreign climbs everybody wanted to fly jets it wasn't long before it became accessible with the rise of the package holiday industry in the 1960s people were flying on their holidays on jet aircraft today it's something like 3.8 billion passenger journeys are made every year and of course it's not just people that's transported by the jet right no not just people at all no 35 percent of the world's trade by value is flown on the jet aircraft that's about 6.4 trillion dollars worth of cargo but that's a phenomenal figure for world trade all carried by jet aircraft well today the jet flies 37 billion kilometers a year the equivalent of 120 trips to mars it has transformed our taste buds opened our eyes to countless cultures and made explorers of millions of us it has quite literally brought humankind closer together [Music] everywhere you look in here you will find another first now this plane here is just behind the main stage is the lockheed constellation the very first pressurized air carrier and this one also just happens to be the rolling stones tour plane in the 1970s i think you can imagine the kind of stories that happened in there this gondola here was attached to an enormous balloon and this became the first manned object to reach 50 000 feet in 1932 and in an earlier attempt at the world record the two scientists that were squished in size that pressurized blue noticed a leak on the way up and had to plug it with vaseline and bits of cotton they don't make scientists like that anymore the inventions in these archives cover a vast array of areas from cars to steam engines and things much more domestic food critic charles curran has been investigating a device hidden here that touches all our lives but that most of us don't even notice there's one invention none of us could live without and almost all of you have one in your home it's the unsung hero of the modern world and globally we buy 100 million a year as a restaurant critic i tend to think that the key to comfort happiness and pleasure lies in our food and drink in the little things we take for granted like a splash of fresh milk in our morning tea or delicious fruit all year round to an ice cold lager at the end of a hard day and for all these things we have one extraordinary invention to thank a big ugly lump of technology that lurks in the corner of pretty much every house bar restaurant and pub in the country without it yes we'd have no bananas no flowers on mother's day and eating leftovers could mean a trip to the morgue it is the fridge in my 1970s suburban childhood home the fridge was basically king of the house everything went in there not just meat fish and dairy but bread potatoes i think my mum even kept her in there [Music] you open your fridge around 20 times a day and it's impacted your life immeasurably but where did it come from it wasn't until very recently that i learned that the history of the fridge begins with a printing press and very possibly the only truly useful thing a journalist has ever done the hack in question was a glaswegian called james harrison and one evening about 150 years ago he was watching the press being cleaned with sulfuric ether and he noticed an extraordinary thing which was when the ether evaporated the metal became freezing cold and he realized in that moment that if he could replicate the process time after time he'd have a machine that could keep anything cold following huge industrial uptake the manufacturing of domestic fridges was in full swing by the 1930s three decades on and the fridge's continued popularity had a surprising impact the 1960s were a time of radical change thanks in no small part to the fridge by the end of the decade the majority of british households had one and this fridge revolution brought with it an unexpected result the liberation of women i'm meeting a world leading authority on feminist history oxford university's dr ruth percy to discover more so can you give me a picture of what a woman's life was like before the advent of the refrigerator so for many women you would be shopping daily so that's a lot of time then coming home preparing food cooking the food and having to do that every single day because you can't store leftovers safely for long periods of time before you get the fridge the fridge was marketed as a revolutionary time-saving appliance and miraculous preserver of food but no one could have foreseen its unexpected social effect the fridge does not strike me as a very likely image of liberation how does it work it's through the way in which they reconfigure women's time that they allow women to uh do other things with their time including going out to work well she looks over the moon about she looks absolutely thrilled about her stacked fridge i think i would be flirted if i threw a french look like that actually from that moment on women's employment rose five percent every decade thanks in part to this humble invention as well as this unexpectedly liberating side effect the power of refrigeration has had a profound impact on the way we eat its capacity to preserve means it's a crucial cog in the global food industry and it keeps this supermarket distribution center alive this eight and a half acre fridge in peterborough transports two million cases of food to 200 stores every week i'm wondering if the fridge has even transformed us as a species so sarah i'd really like to make a case in my championing of refrigeration and fridges to say that the fresh food that it's given us actually enabled us to fulfill our potential as humans is that is that possible yes it is because nutrition has trained dramatically the fridge is a big part of that story by about 1900 britain is getting half of food from overseas which a large proportion of that is meat and dairy produce it's been particularly that increase in meat and dairy that probably has affected stature but we're a lot shorter than today how short is 168 centimeters on average so if i went back to 1900 the height i am now i would have been 10 centimeters taller than average yes yes what about other things about mentally people have certainly argued that cause better nutrition gives you better cognitive ability you can learn more this is true for children in schools i mean you you your kids are getting smarter thanks to fridges well hopefully so there you have it the fridge gave us better nutrition and in return we're taller stronger smarter but the magic of the fridge doesn't end there it's essential for the safe transportation of life-saving vaccines around the world it makes sperm banks possible extending human fertility in the world's biggest fridge the large hadron collider they're using it to uncover the secrets of the origins of the universe and by keeping vast sea banks in freezes we may just be safeguarding the future food supply of the human race itself that's some invention now here at the stores they have a rather unusual use for the humble fridge freezer that requires this very attractive outfit and it is revealed in here where matt is hiding hang on here we go matt why on earth do you have an enormous freezer this size here well our conservation team have to do a sterling job getting rid of any pests or bugs that we might find in any of the objects so that's why you bring them into the freezer yeah bring them in here a good really good example is we bought a telephone box from cameroon we brought it into here froze it and when we came in to look at it we found there were lizards and spiders and other creepy crawlies all dead by the way so what's this thing here so this is a cheese press it's a device for making cheese and you want to make sure there's no bugs lingering on it i absolutely want to make sure there's nothing in it before it goes into storage but you i mean you can fit all sorts of things in here though like do you bring in carriages that kind of thing yeah bring all our objects that might have the the risk of harboring some kind of insect life or another type of uh animal like a moth or a worm anything like that yeah so woodworm is a really good example and a clothes moss which might destroy the fabric a sort of non-chemical way of making sure that you killed it absolutely and really doesn't harm the object either well there you go well over 100 years since the invention of the fridge and they are still finding new and interesting uses for it alongside the mechanical inventions within these archives are also an amazing array of medical discoveries and one in particular has affected millions of lives broadcaster angela rippon has been discovering more this invention is a magic bullet it's made childbirth 35 times safer it saved 200 million lives without it you would probably be dead it's antibiotics antibiotics are quite simply bacteria killers munching up the microbes that cause deadly infectious diseases like cholera typhoid and tb now you may think this wonder drug more discovery than invention but let me convince you otherwise the story begins in 1928 when scientist alexander fleming forgot to clean up a petri dish full of bacteria a week later he noticed some mold had grown up killing the bacteria fleming had accidentally discovered penicillin but he had little clue what to do with his freak find or how to reproduce it the real piece of inventive genius took place 10 years later here in oxford behind this door is the original lab of the pioneering oxford scientist howard flory and it was in here that a team of brilliant minds turned fleming's rather unexpected discovery into a miracle cure this is the room where antibiotics were truly invented at the dawn of the second world war the team invented a way to purify the mold juice by combining it with ether and alkalines that drew away the harmful elements creating an antibiotic pure enough for humans to take scientist and historian dr eric sidebottom was a pupil of the men involved clearly if it was going to do any good at all to the masses it had to be mass produced so were they able to develop penicillin here in great britain yes to some extent they were but florey was always worried that he couldn't really persuade the british pharmaceutical industry to get involved they were already committed to the the war effort so flory made this difficult decision to take the problem to america and the americans did help they increased production very considerably they found a better strain of penicillium on a local melon in the market they also managed to get it growing in a huge suspension tank in a big tank whereas in oxford we've grown it in bed patterns penicillin soon arrived on the battlefront and in 1943 proved itself as a wonder drug saving soldiers from the worst of war wounds as well as treating other ailments it's also there's a funny offshoot of that story for some army doctor discovered that penicillin was also extremely good effective at treating the club gonorrhea that then posed a moral dilemma because they didn't have enough penicillin to treat everyone do you treat the badly injured honorable soldiers or the rather naughty boys who've got self-inflicted clap the rumor is that the decision went all the way up to churchill and churchill said that this most valuable new substance must be used to the best war interest which actually meant treating the guys with clap because they could be back on the front line within days since the discovery of penicillin more than a hundred new antibiotics have been created each capable of fighting a whole host of bacterial infections in britain 34 million are prescribed each year but there's a problem the trouble is the more antibiotics we take the more the bacteria are becoming resistant to them it's why we're being told that we could be on the verge of a superbug pandemic and there would be nothing that our wonder drug can do to stop it antibiotics are under threat but salvation may again lie with a team of british scientists who are working to invent a brand new antibiotic using south american ants these ants live in underground nests for food they grow a fungus garden made from rotting leaves and flowers to keep their food clean they use an antibiotic to kill any germs sometimes you get a contaminant and of course the ants need to get rid of that because it'll just start destroying their food source so what is it that you've discovered about what they're doing that's so exciting what's been found is that the um the worker ants actually have a bacteria that they grow on their backs and these this bacteria has very very powerful antimicrobial properties so when the ants discover there's a contaminant in their fungus garden they can actually smear some of this bacteria onto the unwanted bacteria and and kill it off so by isolating that bacteria that's on their backs this has potential for controlling all sorts of problems that we now face for instance the bacteria can control mrsa so are we looking here at something that could give us the first new antibiotic in what the best part of 40 years quite possibly and it also opens up a lot of new avenues for research antibiotics are one of the greatest medical advancements in human history they've saved bacteria-ravaged populations and enabled our world-leading nhs to perform life-saving miracles this wonder drug may be under threat but thanks to groundbreaking research this british invention will hopefully continue to save lives for generations to come there is one invention within these archives that more than any other has built our modern world it's all around us but most of us don't even think about it tv presenter nick knowles has been investigating my invention is an unsung hero ubiquitous but overlooked unloved but steadfast in its service to us all many would argue that man's best friend is the dog i would argue that humanity's best friend is all around us it's strong it's dependable and always there to support us welcome to the wonderful world of concrete concrete is the building block of our civilization this stuff builds our schools and our hospitals and all of our major infrastructure tunnels and railways bridges and flood defenses docks and airports power stations and even sewers some 70 of the world live in concrete homes and most of the rest of us have concrete foundations the result is the most used man-made material on earth so where did it all start some of you might think it's the romans and you're right kinda but that's only half the story because concrete as we know it the stuff that built our world is a british invention to unravel the howls and the wise i'm meeting a leading expert on the grey stuff civil engineer dr wendell sebastian i recognize this stuff i've used bags and bags of it in my time building and it's made all over the world so what makes concrete british the fact that a key component of concrete is this material that we see here portland cement concrete is a composite material it is made by combining cement which is a key ingredient with water sand and gravel when you mix those four materials together the water engages with the cement as a binder around the sand and the gravel and that is essentially what gives concrete its structural integrity so it's cement that's the magic ingredient in concrete that binds it together and cement is at the center of the british story yes it is very much so [Music] this all-important concrete glue portland cement is what makes modern concrete a british invention before the brits got involved the romans had used a form of ancient concrete gravel bound together with volcanic ash useful but only if you've got a volcano next door fast forward to the 19th century leeds home to a builder named joseph aspin who wanted to mass produce concrete but for that he would need a new concrete glue well the romans had volcanic ash we don't have volcanoes but we do have clay and we do have a limestone and what mr joseph aspidin did in 1824 was to develop a process in which the limestone which you see here was ground into a very fine powder and mixed with clay which was also very finely ground and he heated them up to a very high temperature the end result of all of that is cement aspin quickly patented his miracle binding agent calling it portland cement because it looked like fashionable portland stone this was the moment when concrete as we know it was born almost immediately concrete use took off enabling construction on a previously unimaginable scale from building the london underground to lining the panama canal today concrete is still made with portland cement and is used more than ever so here comes your concrete delivery yeah the concrete's just turning up now so that will be doing two of the male c compiles to show what makes concrete so special i've come to west london this building site is part of an extraordinary 4.2 billion pound project the construction of a super sewer beneath the capital running this site is john corcoran how about how big is this tunnel that when you stand in it yeah it's huge three double deckers uh it's 7.2 meters diameter wow 40 kilometers long how difficult to imagine using any other kind of material for that and this is all to keep sewerage raw sewage out of the out of the thames yes every year overflow sewers dump up to 40 million tons of untreated sewage into the thames this super sewer will intercept these overflows and send them for treatment in east london all built with 1.8 million tons of concrete molded sprayed and poured into every shape imaginable it's the fact it's so fluid that makes it such a miracle material isn't it oh it is it's so adaptable as well i mean one minute it's the liquid and then it's a structurally strong building block but it will take the shape of whatever you want it to be this one project is a massive example of how important concrete is in modern civilization i mean it's part of the tunnels it's part of the shafts it's part of the the support for the gas and the electric it's going to be diverting sewage away from our rivers it's making a healthier environment where we can all live happily and longer by the way without this material we wouldn't have the society in which we live it just wouldn't exist these science museum archives contain a dazzling array of creations both big and small from the mechanical to the beautiful the outrageous to the essential they show how over the centuries humans have pushed the boundaries of what is possible a unique time capsule that preserves and stores the remarkable and inspiring creations that have built our modern world

Channel: Spark

Views: 153,042

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary

Id: NjiomTyN3uQ

Length: 51min 46sec (3106 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 18 2021