Nature
16 episodes
Antarctica
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of Antarctica: its geology and physical geography and the story of human exploration of the continent.
24 June 2010
Featuring: Jane Francis, Julian Dowdeswell, David Walton
Behavioural ecology
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss behavioural ecology, the scientific study of animal behaviour in light of Darwin's theory of evolution.
11 December 2014
Featuring: Steve Jones, Rebecca Kilner, John Krebs
Bird migration
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why some birds migrate and similar ones do not, whether the benefits outweigh the risks and how they navigate across oceans.
6 July 2017
Featuring: Barbara Helm, Tim Guilford, Richard Holland
Climate change
Melvyn Bragg examines predictions and solutions for climate change and discusses whether the effects of global warming are already upon us, and if so, how we can really hope to stop them.
6 January 2000
Featuring: John Houghton, George Monbiot
Corals
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the simple animals which informed Charles Darwin's first book and form the reefs now threatened by climate change.
28 October 2021
Featuring: Steve Jones, Nicola Foster, Gareth Williams
Doggerland
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the growing understanding of the humans, plants and animals once living on land now under the North Sea, submerged in the Stone Age.
27 June 2019
Featuring: Vincent Gaffney, Carol Cotterill, Rachel Bynoe
Ice ages
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ice ages, periods when the temperature of the Earth has dropped to low levels.
14 February 2013
Featuring: Jane Francis, Richard Corfield, Carrie Lear
Oceanography
Melvyn Bragg discusses the science of Oceanography which has attempted to unmask the enigma of the oceans and seas.
22 November 2001
Featuring: Margaret Deacon, Tony Rice, Simon Schaffer
Seashells
Misha Glenny and guests discuss how the hard exoskeletons of marine life have fascinated humans throughout history and provide an insight into the ecology of the oceans.
2 July 2026
Featuring: Suzanne Williams, Liz Harper, Helen Scales
The Challenger Expedition 1872-1876
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the remarkable Victorian scientific voyage around the world and its mission to explore the ocean depths and search for new life.
24 November 2022
Featuring: Erika Jones, Sam Robinson, Giles Miller
The Evolution of Crocodiles
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the extraordinary variety of the animals that dominated life on land before the dinosaurs and why crocodiles should never be called 'living fossils'.
16 September 2021
Featuring: Anjali Goswami, Philip Mannion, Stephen L. Brusatte
The Evolution of Horses
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins of horses, the extinction of those in the New World in the Ice Age, and their domestication after crossing the land bridge into Asia.
27 February 2020
Featuring: Alan Outram, Christine Janis, John Hutchinson
The Evolution of Lungs
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the diverse ways animals extract oxygen from air, from the highly tuned lungs that enabled dinosaurs to grow tall and birds to fly high, to buccal pumping.
12 June 2025
Featuring: Steve Brusatte, Emily Rayfield, Jonathan Codd
The Evolution of Teeth
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas about the origins of teeth, their link to hard scales on fish such as sharks and why some species regenerate theirs but humans do not.
11 April 2019
Featuring: Gareth Fraser, Zerina Johanson, Philip Donoghue
The Evolution of Trees
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the earliest trees and how, as species disappear over time, new trees can evolve even from species better known as house plants or vegetables.
4 June 2026
Featuring: Jenny McElwain, Christopher Berry, Bill Baker
The Whale - A History
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolutionary history of the whale, examining how this leviathan of the deep evolved from a small land-based mammal with cloven hoofs.
21 May 2009
Featuring: Steve Jones, Eleanor Weston, Bill Amos
