4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 30 May 2023
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological revolution is starting to profoundly change not only how we interact with the world around us, but is allowing us to see, hear, smell, taste and even touch things we never imagined possible before.
An Artificial Intelligence revolution is super-charging sensing technology, promising us eyes with laser precision, ears that can distinguish every sound in a mile's radius and noses than can sniff out the early signs of forest fires before the first flame forms.
Evolutionary biologist and broadcaster Prof. Ben Garrod, is off to meet some of these sensory innovators and technological pioneers. The archaeologists, ecologists and medics, who are turning our world upside down and inside out.
In episode one, Ben tries seeing further. The visible world to us is tiny, and we are able to detect just a fraction of the light spectrum that is out there. But new technology is pushing the boundary of what is visible. Ground penetrating LIDAR arrays are helping us to peel back the layers of planet Earth, and see the remains of ancient civilisations, previously invisible to us. The same technology is being used on the moons of Jupiter to provide 3D maps of the craters of faraway worlds. In the forests of west Africa, we meet the psychologists using infrared to monitor the stress levels of silverback gorillas being returned to the wild. And in a lab in central London, we meet the extraordinary animals that see hidden patterns in the natural world and perhaps even fields that are entirely invisible to us.
Could these new technologies be redefining what it is to see, hear, smell, and feel? Ben takes us through the amazing adaptations and development under the bonnet, and speculates where else these all seeing eyes may yet gaze.
Produced by Robbie Wojciechowski Presented by Professor Ben Garrod
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
0:35.0 | BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
0:39.0 | Come on in and get comfy. |
0:41.0 | This is seriously from BBC Radio 4 and I'm Vanessa Casile |
0:47.0 | this podcast brings you true stories for curious minds and wild imaginations |
0:52.0 | here comes something unusual, charming and seriously fascinating. Gilly this is amazing we've just traveled for hours down this very long but |
1:08.1 | very beautiful river in Gabon in West Africa and it's just glorious. It's beautiful fast-flowing quite wide river. |
1:19.2 | There's vegetation everywhere there's lush trees and there's so many million shades of green everywhere. |
1:27.0 | It's just amazing. |
1:29.0 | But the reason I'm so excited right now |
1:32.0 | because we've just mored up in this little boat opposite a little island |
1:36.0 | and there's sweet gorillas just opposite us |
1:39.6 | Our planet is a vibrant busy beautiful place and there's always something to see. |
1:45.0 | Our senses allow us to perceive and interact with the world, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.