Alun Lewis investigates how car manufacturers are designing vehicles that can warn drivers when something is wrong, take action - and even call the emergency services.




With the closure of many UK coalfields in recent years, emissions of iron-rich water from flooded coal mines have become a growing problem, leading to subsidence and contamination of rivers.

Alun Lewis discovers how geologists and technologists are devising new methods to predict where rising mine water will emerge and a new scheme to render the water safe.


Alun Lewis meets the technologists who are filling in the gaps in the virtual-reality world - a domain in which the stimulation of sight and sound is possible, but the senses of touch and smell remain largely unengaged.


Alun Lewis talks to biometrics engineers who are developing security systems based on factors such as the way we walk and our fingerprints, and asks how accurate this technology really is.


For over 2000 years mankind has sought ways of moving boats up and down hills.

Alun Lewis examines the construction of a new rotating boat lift, the Falkirk Wheel, which is designed to reconnect the Forth and Clyde and Union canals between Edinburgh and Glasgow.


As the search for new oil sites across the globe becomes increasingly challenging, Alun Lewis visits the Gulf of Mexico where a new floating rig is leading the way.

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`Plastics for Everything - Including TV Screens'.

In the first of a ten-part series, Vanessa Collingridge explores the technologies that will shape our future.


Vanessa Collingridge explores the technologies that will shape our future.


Vanessa Collingridge explores the technologies that shape our lives.


As the teams make their final preparations before the first Formula One Grand Prix in Australia, Vanessa Collingridge takes a look at the technology which could make any car a potential winner.


Vanessa Collingridge visits Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco, to find out what makes it the hottest hotbed of new technology in the world.

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How much renewable energy can we generate in the United Kingdom? Alun Lewis visits buildings which use the latest technology to harness the power of the sun, wind and water.

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`Hothouse Flowers'.

Alun Lewis discovers how high technology is the secret of creating the perfect bouquet of flowers at whatever time it is needed, anywhere in the world.


The operating theatre of the future, teeming with robots in place of doctors and nurses, is no longer the realm of science fiction.

Within weeks surgeons hope to conduct the UK's first coronary bypass operation using a robot.

Alun Lewis follows their preparations.

What impact will robots have on medicine, and what are the advantages for the patient and the surgeon?


Alun Lewis looks at how the human immune system is helping scientists to develop the next generation of defences against computer viruses.


The first of two programmes on the rebuilding of Kosovo.

As winter approaches, the immediate concern is to house returning refugees.

Alun Lewis is in Pristina, where engineers, working in difficult and hazardous circumstances, are busy trying to restore water, electricity and sewage facilities.


Alun Lewis presents the second of two programmes on the rebuilding of Kosovo.

He travels to Pristina University Hospital to see how doctors, nurses and engineers are restarting essential services for the returning Kosovar population.


The control of the Panama Canal was handed over to Panama on 31 December 1999.

Alun Lewis examines the major programme of modernisation to re-engineer the canal for the 21st century.


Electric implants may one day help paraplegics to walk again.

Alun Lewis looks at the challenges facing scientists as they try to restore function to muscles paralysed by injury or disease.


Alun Lewis reports from a former tar works in Liverpool on a clean-up project involving thousands of bacteria that are turning a brownfield site into a greenfield one.


Alun Lewis reports on technology around the world, from the re-engineering of the Panama Canal the to stewardship of nuclear weapons.


Alun Lewis examines how scientists are trying to predict the effects that ageing may have on weapons materials, for while the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty's halting of nuclear testing effectively ends the development of new weapons, countries remain reluctant to dispose of their existing arsenals.


Alun Lewis explores developments in robotics, discovers that the age of the autonomous free-thinking robot is a long way off, and looks at a project which puts the human back into the system.