Episode 2 Richard Hammond's Miracles of Nature

'Animals are amazing.'

That's astonishing.

'And the more we find out about them, the more amazing they seem.'

That feels pretty harsh.

'That's why scientists all over the world

'are trying their best to copy them.'

This is the future!

'Making brand-new inventions...'

Tomato juice.

'..Based on what animals can do.

'Some are astounding...'

We've just dived under the sea.

'..Some bizarre.'

This is not at all pleasant.

Yes! It's gone!

'But they're all inspired by the miracles of nature.'

Episode two - how we can help jet pilots do this

by studying giraffes.

Jet fighter planes get faster and more agile almost every year.

But they all suffer from one big problem - gravity.

Because as pilots throw their planes through ever more violent twists

and turns, it's as if the force of gravity becomes magnified.

Magnified to such an extent that it pulls all the blood

away from their head and they lose consciousness.

But giraffes hold a secret that might just be the key

to the pilot's life-or-death problem.

And it's a secret that's hidden in that long neck.

Because, by rights, when the giraffe lowers its head down to take

a drink, the consequences should be catastrophic.

As I shall now demonstrate with this giraffe.

The important thing is, this represents the heart.

There's actually a pump in there

that is going to pump this, representing the blood,

along these arteries all the way up to the giraffe's head there.

But the giraffe's head is so high,

that it takes an awful lot of pressure to get it up there.

That was a human's blood pressure. Straight past that.

In fact, the giraffe has roughly twice our blood pressure.

It's the highest blood pressure of any living thing.

But that high blood pressure is only down by the heart,

where the pump is working furiously.

Up at the head, the pressure is much the same as ours.

And that is how it stays.

Until it decides to lower its head to have a drink,

then everything changes.

Let's give it a go.

As I turn the handle,

all that blood starts going down towards the ground -

just like with the jet pilots.

Straight away, watching my meter I can see the blood pressure

is rising back up again.

Quite quickly. And now it is rising more because now the head

is getting lower than the heart,

and suddenly, everything has changed.

It's not pumping all the way up there any more, gravity is helping

and it's flooding down to the head.

That blood pressure is going way past

what it should be, and now it's into the danger zone for our giraffe.

And things are looking bad. Very bad.

Obviously, its head doesn't really fly off.

In reality, as the blood pressure rises, the head comes down

and gravity steps in, a giraffe's head would...

Well, it would explode.

But they don't explode every time they come to drink, otherwise

this place who be littered with bits of them.

So, what's happening?

It turns out that valves in the giraffe's neck

stop the blood being pulled down by gravity.

To see how effective this is, this giraffe has been fitted

with pressure sensors at its head and its heart,

just like my model.

But what will happen to the readings

when the giraffe bends down to drink?

As soon as the head lowers,

the giraffe's arteries constrict automatically.

And though the pressure continues to rise, the giraffe's blood

doesn't suddenly rush to the head but stays where it's needed...

..leaving the patient completely unharmed.

Which takes us back to jets.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting for one moment

that giraffes would make good fighter pilots.

But they are, as we have seen, very good at controlling

blood pressure and distribution of blood around the body,

and that's very important in here.

Because this capsule is designed to recreate the forces

that a fighter pilot experiences whilst flying.

And those forces are immense.

The faster they accelerate, brake or turn,

the greater the effect of G-force on the body.

At 2G, double the force of gravity,

you feel you weigh twice as much as normal.

At 3G, the effects are tripled,

and blood starts to struggle to get to your brain.

Go further,

and you lose your peripheral vision,

Finally, around 4 or 5G, you lose consciousness.

Today, in here, using technology that mirrors very closely

what happens in a giraffe's neck, we're hoping to see 9G.

Five seconds of that is enough to go through all of those stages

to unconsciousness.

And I'm not doing it.

I'm getting out.

Instead this man, Ralph, has been chosen to be the guinea pig

for a completely new form of flying suit.

It's called the G-raff. Get it?

A series of valves and chambers stop the blood

pooling by compressing the body,

just like the constrictions in the giraffe's neck.

They've made the tubes and valves so small

that they're now almost invisible.

In fact, the only way you can tell this is a G-raff suit

is the small plastic animal attached to the zip.

But will giraffe technology be enough to stop Ralph losing consciousness?

To find out, we're putting him inside the world's most powerful centrifuge,

a spinning pod that can recreate huge amounts of G-force.

What I've been told is Ralph, who's in the pod,

is going to fly himself with the joystick

and he'll subject himself to 9G.

That's nine times the force of gravity.

-Are you ready?

-Yes, I am.

We'll be fine.

I'm glad he's confident, because he's launching himself into unknown territory.

3, 2, 1, go.

Right now as he slowly increases and tightens the turn,

the blood is having a harder and harder time getting up to his head.

Now I'm going up to 4G.

A little bit more, 5G.

Six.

Now we have seven.

8G.

Now moving up to 9G.

9G.

He just did 9, whilst chatting.

But the test isn't over.

With Ralph still at 9G, Andreas takes the controls.

And decides to push it just that little bit further.

It feels fine.

Not only is Ralph not struggling, he appears to be enjoying it.

Wow! Whoa! Nice!

So much so, that he has a little surprise for us.

SPEECH MUFFLED BY NOISE

His face might be ending up stretched over his knees

but he's managing to do a Rubik's cube at 9G.

I can't do those at 1G.

Thank you. It's finished.

THEY LAUGH

I mean, giraffes don't do this.

But it is linked directly to how giraffes' necks work.

HE SPEAKS GERMAN

Who knew? Who'd have thought?

A plane suit based on a giraffe's neck -

that's got to be one of the miracles of nature.