Season 13

1992-02-12

Plastic bottles, cans and milk cartons fly about as enthusiastic young engineers from Europe, USA and Japan are challenged to design and build robotic rubbish collectors from a box of bits and pieces. This hilarious international competition has a serious purpose. The young designers face the same problems, frustrations and failures as they will do in the real engineering world - it is a battle with time, materials, language and unrelenting competitors. The machines are remarkably varied. Ingenious problem-solving leads to cunning contraptions of wheels, belts and spinning limbs, in the shapes of cows, sharks and fierce toasters. The programme demonstrates the possibility of international co-operation between engineers and gives an insight into how design engineers think.

1992-02-19

In her infancy, 16-year-old Laura had an operation to correct her cleft palate. Now, she has a misshapen face. To test whether early surgery was the cause of such growth problems, Michael Mars of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital visited Sri Lanka in 1984 to examine untreated adults. He discovered that, although they had normal growth, they suffered almost unintelligible speech. The nature and timing of the surgery need to be established to minimise both these problems, and Mars has since returned to Sri Lanka with a surgical team of volunteers to search for a compromise.

1992-02-26

How do flies crawl up smooth surfaces and why do bats not fall from their perches when sleeping? Finding out how animals perform their amazing gripping feats has occupied Dr Graham Walker for 20 years. By contrast, Professor Tony Kinloch has devoted his life to developing glues for human use. In this lighthearted comparison between animal and human gripping technologies, these experts find out if man can beat nature when it comes to holding on.

1992-03-04

Can training children in sports from an early age produce super-athletes? A Californian coach, Marv Marinovich, believes it does. He has developed a highly successful training technique which he perfected by using his own children as guinea pigs. It has turned his 21-year-old son Todd into one of the hottest properties in American football with a career that could make him a millionaire. Although his eldest daughter dropped out of the intensive training regime when she was 14, Marv has started again on his younger son, [text removed], aged 3. A former professional footballer, Marv says: "As far as I am concerned, performance is not about winning or losing but about the quality of the outcome." Producer Christopher Tau, himself the father of a young family, commends the loving and caring relationship Marv has with his children but says, "I am an athlete too, but I would never do that to my child."

1992-03-11

Chris Brotherton is 46 when he is told he only has a few months to live. For Chris, his wife Annette, and their 10-year-old son [text removed], the following weeks are full of emotion as they cope with his illness and the strains it produces. A brain tumour affects his speech and family roles change as communication becomes difficult. But Chris fights back and they go on a last holiday. Acceptance of death is an issue we all have to face. Chris and his family made this film in the hope that it would help others in a similiar position.

1992-03-18

Could there be a miracle cure-all wonder drug? In a kitchen at the back of a trailer in the Arizona desert a Swiss bio-chemist has developed a herbal "cure-all" medicine, using traditional native American plants. He claims his miracle elixir has successfully treated diverse conditions from cancer and chronic fatigue to ulcers and baldness. And he says that he has the patients to prove it. When documentary film-maker Henry Murray had a lump in his neck diagnosed as being a potentially malignant tumour, he decided to try alternative medicine rather than risk a dangerous six-hour operation. He spent a month in the desert trying the medicine for himself, helping in its manufacture and meeting people who believed they had been cured.

1992-03-25

"He's like a Jekyll and Hyde, an angel one moment and a monster the next," says the distraught mother of a 7-year-old. Most children can be little monsters at times but there are some who seem to be permanently uncontrollable whatever their parents do. Hyperactivity is one of the most controversial conditions in child psychiatry. In older children it can lead to vandalism and serious crime. Is it due to food additives, brain damage or just bad parenting? Tonight's programme reports on new research which has produced surprising answers, bringing hope for at least some of the little monsters.

1992-04-01

For veterans of any war, going back to the battle fields is always a moving experience. For Simon Weston , whose body was 45 per cent burned on the Sir Galahad when it was bombed, going back was an attempt to conquer his recurrent nightmares. Tonight's programme follows Weston and two other British veterans, John Meredith and Gary Tytler , on a remarkable journey. They travel first to the Falklands where they revisit the battle sites and memorials and then to Argentina where they meet some of the men against whom they had fought. In Buenos Aires, Simon Weston meets the pilot who bombed the Sir Galahad "I want to look into his eyes and see what's there," says Weston "to find out if there is a human being inside."

1992-04-08

Why does the famous tower lean? Why is the lean accelerating? And can anything be done to stop it? QED examines one theory - that the tilt is caused by the sun; as it rises it warms the marble which expands causing the tower to move in the opposite direction to the sun. But whatever the reason, a solution doesn't seem to be any closer. Every year hundreds of remedies are put forward but so far bureaucratic delays have prevented any of them being put into practice. Time is running out. The rate of tilt has doubled in the last 50 years and just this winter it moved more in four months than in the whole of the previous year. Two years ago it was closed to the public. Now some predict its collapse may be imminent.

1992-04-15

One in 50 adults in Britain has their sleep invaded by dreadful attacks of night terrors. They wake up screaming, with overwhelming feelings of horror. This is the personal story of three people who have each suffered for more than 20 years. Rosemary and Clyde nearly killed themselves by sleepwalking through windows. Moya was misdiagnosed as epileptic. What lies behind their mysterious attacks? What kind of medicine will help