Episode 1 Beneath the Lab Coat

Oh, my goodness!

When I was at school, I was quite good at science,

but I didn't really understand how it related to me.

I couldn't see myself working as a scientist, so I dropped it.

But now I've started to realise I was being a little naive.

Science relates to everything.

It's about life - how we look at things, make things,

think about things - and it's also got enormous career potential.

Learning science is not just for people who want to wear a lab

coat to work, so I'm excited to be meeting a bunch of brilliant

people with a whole range of fascinating careers to

see where science plays a part in their job.

When we think of space exploration, we think of America

and the Russians, two superpowers flexing their muscles by being

the first into space, the first to the moon.

But the old order is changing.

In the 21st century, space is going commercial.

It's becoming an industry anyone can work in.

So I'm visiting Europe's premier space company Astrium to meet

one of Britain's brightest stars of space exploration.

Abbie Hutty is a structural engineer,

working on various projects to help us to understand what's out there.

She has a masters in mechanical engineering.

So, Abbie, is this your dream job?

Yeah. Course it is. I mean, I'm in the space industry.

You're a teenager and you think, "Oh, what can I do as a cool job?"

The space industry has got to be one of the most exciting things,

hasn't it? And now I work in it.

I've worked on loads of science satellites - looking at climate

change, the environment, weather forecasting, that kind of thing.

There's a real space industry here in the UK and I had no idea.

There's actually thousands of people in the UK that work in it,

and it's growing as well, even in the kind of tough economic times.

It looks pretty high tech down there. What's going on?

OK, so this is a clean room, so we've got to make sure that there's

no dust and dirt and contaminants and things on our spacecraft

when they go up, because that could cause faults and problems.

So we've got to make sure everything's really, really clean

when we're actually putting it together.

We've got to put jackets and hairnets and things on, so

you'll look pretty funky going down there, but I think we can get in.

Let's do it.

'As a structural engineer, Abbie is responsible for spaceships

'and satellites surviving the stresses

'and strains of getting into and travelling through space.

'As you'd imagine, there's a lot of them.'

One of their projects is a spacecraft called BepiColombo

that is being sent to Mercury.

Abbie is overseeing the construction of its fuel tank.

The tanks are wrapped in what we call MLI,

so it's Multi-Layer Insulation.

-So that's... It looks tin foil.

-It is tin foil, cos..!

It's pretty close.

It's kind of like the kind of thing that you'd wrap

an athlete in at the end of a marathon.

Multi-Layer Insulation reflects heat radiation,

so the fuel stays at the right temperature.

If it's hot outside, as it is during take-off,

that heat is reflected away.

And if it's cold outside, like in space,

the heat is reflected back in.

How long will it take to finish this and get this to Mercury?

Well, the idea is this is going to launch in 2015,

but from launch it's going to take six years to get to Mercury.

Six years to get to Mercury?!

Yeah. Getting to Mercury is a really big problem.

It's really quite difficult to get there. It's really exciting.

You've got to kind of keep it in a box a little bit because

it's not going to get there for six years even after it launches,

-and it's not due to launch for another 18 months.

-Right, OK.

But when it gets there,

I'll be jumping up and down on the sofa, yeah.

Right. Well, you've got six years before that gets to Mercury,

-so are you going to do anything in the meantime?

-Well, yeah.

So I've worked on Bepi, I've worked on the telecom satellites,

but I'm really excited about my next project.

I'm going to be working on the Mars rover.

It's no surprise Abbie is excited. Mars explorations are big news.

They're moments when the whole world turns their eyes to space

and wonders what we'll find.

Right now, NASA are mid-mission with the latest robotic rover

named Curiosity that they landed in August 2012.

Its mission - to explore the Red Planet and search for signs of life.

If all goes to plan, Abbie's rover project will be discovering

things that Curiosity doesn't.

So, Abbie, this is your next project then?

Yes. Welcome to the Mars yard.

This is our current prototype Mars rover, Bruno.

-I like the name.

-Yes.

Yeah. So what's your involvement in this, Abbie?

I'm a structural engineer, so I'm going to make sure that all

the different pieces that we need to build him, the structural

elements, work as we expect them to and are strong enough.

We need to be able to climb over rocks,

see if we can go up slopes and sand, that kind of thing.

One of the best things about Bruno,

one of the biggest technology developments,

is I can give him a goal -

it doesn't even have to be in his field of view -

of where he's got to go to,

and he can look at the terrain in front of him,

make decisions for himself about whether it's safe to drive there

or not, pick the best path through the terrain until he gets

to his goal, and then just call home and say,

"Right, I'm here, what next?"

Do you think we could see him in action?

-Be a shame not to really, wouldn't it?

-Absolutely.

Off you go then, Bruno.

One of the biggest limiting factors of a mission is that you've

got to create all of your energy while you're up there.

So we're going to have solar panels on Bruno.

How much sunlight is there up on Mars?

OK, so it's, it's not actually too bad.

It's about the same as you'd get solar powered...

solar panels on Earth,

-because there's less atmosphere to block the light there.

-OK.

So whilst Mars is further away from the sun,

it gets about the same amount of power down on the ground.

The whole of this mission is powered on less than you'd have

on a standard kettle in your kitchen.

Wow!

So how long is it before Bruno lands on Mars?

Well, Bruno himself won't be the one unfortunately, bless him,

that gets to Mars.

However, the actual mission is meant to go in 2018.

It's going to have its wheels on the sand in another planet

and there's nothing that really compares to that, I don't think.

How exciting is it for you now to be doing your dream job?

Cos looking at it, it's amazing.

It's pretty cool.

I mean, 10 years ago, who would have thought that I,

just doing my GCSEs at school,

was then going to turn out to be

working on the Mars rover?

And did you think at the time science was something you

wanted to do cos you were passionate about it?

When I did my GCSEs, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do.

Um, I toyed with the idea of being a linguist,

I... I really didn't know what I wanted to do at all.

Um, it was just when a careers advisor said to me, "Oh, well,

"you're good at maths and physics, why don't you consider engineering?"

It went on from there.

Would you say you're more passionate about engineering or about space?

Well, the two have to work together to be in this job.

I mean, engineering is great,

you get to find solutions to complex problems that we haven't

solved before, and that's exciting on any level.

But space is cool as well, isn't it?

RANI CHUCKLES

When you combine humankind's desire to explore

with ever-improving technology, it looks like Britain's space

industry will be searching for scientists for years to come.

Of course, if that's you, you might just need to stick on your lab coat!

You may not know it, but right now there's an international race

to be the first to provide space tourism.

Various companies are trying to overcome the two big issues

holding it back - gravity and money.

And there's a chance the solution to breaking out of the atmosphere

without breaking the bank is being held by a British company.

One... zero... and lift off!

To blast out of the atmosphere, rockets

and shuttles need to carry masses of heavy rocket fuel,

usually liquid oxygen and hydrogen, which is carried in tanks.

When it's burnt up, the tanks are jettisoned to save weight, leaving

only part of a launch vehicle making it out of the atmosphere.

This makes putting hardware in space an incredibly expensive business.

It's a problem that has made space tourism out of the question,

and is restricting important space exploration.

But it may soon be a chapter in a history book, thanks to

the work of rocket scientist Dr Helen Webber and the team

at Oxfordshire-based Reaction Engines, as they are attempting to

make the exploration and development of space more affordable.

So, Helen, is it true that you're trying to develop a new

type of engine that will propel us into space in the future?

That's correct. If we had something more like an aircraft, which

we could take off horizontally from a runway, fly into space

and return in one piece, that would make the system far more practical

and the cost of getting stuff into space would be much reduced.

Could you fly up then in a normal aeroplane?

No, you couldn't. An aircraft will take you so far,

but then as you climb up out of the Earth's atmosphere your source of

oxygen is depleting, and that's what a jet engine uses to produce thrust.

Whilst the lack of oxygen in the upper atmosphere stops jet

engines being the complete solution, an air-breathing engine

is at the heart of the plans for their conceptual space plane Skylon.

Helen is a major part of the team developing the revolutionary

new engine that will propel it.

This is a model of, of what we call the SABRE engine.

It stands for Synergetic Air Breathing And Rocket Engine.

It's a combined engine system, a hybrid engine system.

-It's a rocket engine first and foremost.

-Hm-mm.

It's carrying liquid oxygen on board for when it needs it,

for when we're... when we've come out of the Earth's atmosphere and

we need to accelerate that launch vehicle up to orbital velocity.

But the uniqueness of this engine is that, in the early part

of the trajectory, we're using the source of oxygen from

the atmosphere, and that enables us to save weight, not carry as much

oxygen as we need to make it from the ground up to orbital velocity.

-OK.

-It's a rocket engine that can breathe air.

When jets take in oxygen from the atmosphere,

they pressurise it and use it to burn aviation fuel.

The resulting combustion creates enough thrust to propel

an aeroplane through the sky.

In order for Skylon to make full use of its oxygen-breathing phase,

it needs to reach a velocity of over 3,500 miles per hour -

five times the speed of sound -

before reaching the outer atmosphere.

But there's a reason why air-breathing engines don't

already go that fast.

As you fly to faster and faster speeds,

when that air comes into the engine, it's brought basically to a halt.

Now, all that velocity, all that kinetic energy,

is then at that point transformed into pressure and temperature,

and the air is then at a temperature that's over 1,000 degrees Celsius.

The real problem is, we've got an awful lot of air that we need

to cool very, very quickly, so we're talking about

transferring heat equivalent to the cooling of a nuclear reactor.

Without a super sophisticated heat exchanger, the engine would melt.

Heat exchangers are not a new concept,

they're everywhere around us - in computers, fridges,

freezers, and even mounted on our walls in the form of radiators.

So this is just like a radiator in your house, but in reverse.

Hot water normally goes into your radiator, we're going to put

cryogenic liquids through our radiators and cool down the air.

'Simon is a development engineer working alongside Helen.

'Cryogenic liquids are essentially just really cold liquids, and he's

'using nitrogen to demonstrate how the heat exchanger works, because

'it turns from a gas to a liquid

'when below minus 196 degrees Celsius.'

So, as you can see, just in a matter of seconds the air's been cooled

from room temperature right down to sort of sub-zero temperatures.

The heat exchanger is able to cool extreme temperatures quickly

because it's made up of tens of kilometres of tiny tubes,

giving it a massive surface area for the hot air to pass over.

And the more surface area the air passes over,

the quicker it can cool.

It's a very efficient heat exchanger,

all of these compact lightweight tubes,

and the trick is being able to manufacture something like this

at the kind of weight levels that are acceptable for a jet engine.

Right now, Helen and Simon are trying to prove that they can

cool the amount of air they need to to make the engine viable.

And it could be 10 years before it's fully developed.

But then, its effect on our lives could be massive.

It's great to see.

-Obviously, you know, these go faster than normal aeroplanes.

-Hm-mm.

Could these sort of replace aeroplanes?

-Could we travel faster around the world?

-You could.

If there was a market for it,

you could use this type of engine in its air-breathing mode to actually

travel at five times the speed of sound around the world, but first

and foremost, though, it would enable us to have a reusable launch vehicle,

which is absolutely essential if we want to cut the cost of access

to space and actually make getting things into space less wasteful.

Your job title, "rocket scientist" - I think that's really cool.

-Are there lots of women doing your job?

-Well, there are not lots.

Um, I hope there'll be more in the future, but I always wanted

to be an astronaut, so I was always excited by space, and I knew

that I had to study hard at maths and physics to be able to do that.

And I went on to university to do aeronautical engineering.

Is that the same path you took, maths and physics?

I did a BTEC National Diploma. So a bit more hands-on.

Not quite so academic.

I eventually went on and did

a mechanical engineering degree as well.

Um, but I did that in parallel with work experience here.

Well, that's really interesting to hear, cos you don't really

think of doing work experience at somewhere they do space stuff

and, like, rockets.

Yeah. I mean, it's a fantastic opportunity.

I think in your career, to have a project that's innovative

and that's something for the future is really important.

So every day you come into work, you know that you're working

on something that could influence, you know, the future of mankind.

With the UK space sector already one of the fastest growing

industries in the country, the success of the British SABRE engine

could send it into hyper-drive.

If that happens, there'll be more and more opportunities for those

inspired by that great adventure they call space exploration.

There is no denying the popularity of food in this country.

We are fascinated by the restaurants, the recipes

and the chefs that make them.

Which all combines to make it a boom industry to work in.

But have you ever noticed how similar a chef's whites are

to a chemist's lab coat?

I'm in Bristol to meet the country's youngest

Michelin-starred chefs, Jonray and Peter, at their restaurant Casamia.

The brothers have developed a reputation for playing

with their food, and I'm joining them

to discover how important science is in their kitchen.

This is where me and Pete go over all our dishes for the new season

and we just lock ourselves away up here and just have some fun.

What we love at the moment is a bit of liquid nitrogen.

It's the same way they would do it in a chemistry lab,

trying to find ways to change molecules

and structures, you know? That's what we try to do with our cooking.

OK. So were you really good at science in school?

I love science, but I wasn't really good.

-Oh, but that's why...

-But I did enjoy it!

Yeah, but that's the thing, it's about enjoying something.

-Yeah, I enjoyed the whole practical side of it.

-What about you, Jonray?

Obviously I didn't realise how far it would help

in sort of a future career in what I was doing now,

so I think if I could turn back the hands of time, I would have

paid a lot more attention and learnt as much as I could.

Got to admit,

I am desperate to see how the liquid nitrogen is going to work on food.

-Are you going to show me, then?

-Absolutely.

So the nitrogen's kept over here.

First of all, there's essential goggles and gloves.

Do I need to stand back? Ooh, I got really nervous there.

'A gas at room temperature, nitrogen needs to be cooled to

'nearly minus 196 degrees Celsius to turn it to a liquid.'

I feel like I have left a kitchen and I have gone into a science lab.

'Because it's so cold, liquid nitrogen is dangerous

'and must be handled by professionals

'who know how to use it safely.

'For example, it can't be served and ingested in liquid form because

'putting something in your stomach that's so cold could kill you.'

-I'm going to step this side of you!

-All right then,

so what we're going to do is pour the liquid nitrogen into the bowl.

'But it is liquid nitrogen's special cooling properties that make it

'so amazing, as they're going to demonstrate with a banana.'

So we're going to just put that into the liquid nitrogen.

-It's sizzling away.

-Yes.

-It's almost like you're cooking it.

'Like some forms of cooking,

'liquid nitrogen changes an object's temperature via conduction.

'It takes warmth from an object it's in contact with, making it

'warmer and the object colder.

'Its effect on the banana has left it frozen and inedible.'

You can see already it's... it's firmed up quite solid.

It's completely frozen.

You think how quickly that happened as well.

Cos when you first started using it,

did you just experiment with everything?

-Everything.

-Really?

-Everything.

I think there wasn't one thing in the kitchen

-we did not dip into liquid nitrogen.

-Really?

We tried... We, we even went to the point of trying plastic.

Part of liquid nitrogen's usefulness in the professional kitchen is that

it turns back into a gas when it has warmed to above minus 196 degrees.

So whilst changing an object's temperature,

it's vanishing into the air without a trace.

But the trick for any Michelin-starred chef is knowing

how best to use it - like when making a sorbet.

So you take your elderflower water and you put it into the bowl,

and you add liquid nitrogen to it.

You see it boils up like cauldron.

Oooh! You can hear the change in the sound.

Obviously, and what we can do now, if Pete adds some more

elderflower for me, you can just loosen it up slightly as well.

So you can just see now,

there's just this amazing frozen texture and, er, and as you can see,

the gas is, you know,

the liquid nitrogen's burnt back off to a gas.

-Yeah.

-You've ended up with taking its main characteristics

of freezing something...

That's fantastic. Could you really tell the difference

between one made from liquid nitrogen

and one traditionally made in the freezer?

Yeah, there's no doubt about it.

You know, you have the traditional sorbets, and they're fantastic,

you know, we grew up on it, but the, the one thing

we looked at was why it was so sort of grainy and not very smooth.

What it came down to was the speed - the faster the chilling

the liquid down, the ice crystals when they form, they're very,

very small, which means you end up with a very smooth sorbet.

'There you have it. Science once again.

'But its role in the kitchen isn't restricted to cooking techniques.'

When you analyse ingredients and flavours in detail,

they are actually chemical compounds. Cooking these compounds

together creates a chemical reaction and new flavours are formed.

The skill of a chef is understanding what compounds go together -

but I'm not convinced that the lads' next chemical concoction

is going to work - they're making mushroom fudge.

Fudge with chocolate I can handle.

But why are you... why are you ruining it with mushroom?

You guys own a restaurant, don't you want people to eat your food?!

It's a good point.

Me and Pete, we always play around with flavours,

and we're always looking at

different ways of delivering a flavour.

And we found, just by chance, it really works well together.

It sounds unusual.

When we actually ate the finished product,

then we just realised how well together it actually goes.

So do you think this is linked to science, or do you think it's

just pure chance?

We've looked at the way scientists have analysed food -

they realised the same flavour compounds are inside chocolate

-and mushroom, that's why they match so well.

-Hm-mm.

This hasn't happened by chance, this is actually why,

is because they work chemically.

OK, so you put your butter and your chocolate in.

Yeah, we give it a stir

but you've got to be very, very quick with this, OK?

Oh, it's such a shame you're going to ruin it.

Pete, can you do the honours and chuck it in?

'The science of flavour is a brand new field.

'Right now, scientists in labs are analysing the chemical

'make-up of ingredients and discovering that flavours

'that work well together share common patterns of chemicals.

'It's the scientific reason why we love ham and pineapple,

'and maybe in the future, mushroom fudge.'

So now we're just going to pour that into our mould.

So what we do with that now is we just leave it to cool down.

It needs, it realistically needs overnight.

So I've got to come back tomorrow morning to try it?

No, we wouldn't do that to you. We've got some here for you to try.

I feel really terrible - I'm here, you guys are Michelin-star chefs -

and I'm dreading trying your fudge.

And I shouldn't feel like that, I should be going,

"Yay, chocolate fudge!"

Does this actually work? Is it going to be nice?

-Try it and see what you think.

-All right.

It's really good!

It's kind of got a warmth of mushroom.

That's really, really nice.

But you've still got the sweetness after it.

Ooh, I feel like I'm on a cookery show! Ooh!

-Yes!

-Mushroom fudge rocks!

-Mushroom fudge.

How to feed our planet in the future is a question being considered

by PhD student Joanna Scales at Rothampsted Research Station.

With a world facing climate change, Joanna is looking at whether

she can genetically modify crops to yield more at higher temperatures.

GM in the food chain is a highly controversial subject,

but scientists are charged with finding answers,

not deciding what society should do with them,

so it's one of many possible solutions being explored.

So, Joanna, what are you growing here?

So this is wheat.

It's a really important food crop worldwide,

and a fifth of the calories eaten by the global population

actually come from wheat plants.

With climate change, temperature is likely to increase,

so we need wheat plants that can cope well at high temperatures.

Genetic modification is the process of identifying

a characteristic in one plant which you think would be really

positive to have in another plant.

So I'm using genetic modification to test a fact,

to learn more about how plants perform well at high temperatures.

My specific research is in the very early days.

-How long down the line are we talking?

-Three years.

-Really?

-Hm-mm.

Wow! Ah, that's a long time to grow a plant.

'When she has grown her GM wheat, Joanna will use

'a special climate-controlled room

'to find out if the plants cope in a warmer climate.'

Oh, my goodness!

-It's quite bright in here.

-Yeah.

I feel like I need my shades on. But it's not too hot.

No. But I could increase that

and then grow the plants at that higher temperature.

'Joanna is currently working with cotton,

'a plant that yields well in hotter climates.

'She's isolated the gene that allows this to happen.'

Now, she has to add it to a wheat plant's DNA.

How do you take a gene out of a cotton plant

and put it into a wheat plant?

Basically, you've got to shoot the piece of DNA

straight into a cell of wheat.

That piece of DNA combines with the rest of the DNA in the cell.

Right.

And then you can regenerate that cell to produce a whole wheat plant.

So then with this wheat plant, will it readily accept this new gene?

Yeah. So DNA is a universal code, all plants have DNA

and all plants have genes.

So, once I've put that gene in, it's then for the plant to grow

and provide the characteristics based on the DNA that it contains.

So, in effect, I do the complex bit

and then the plant does the easy bit.

I'm imagining things like this can probably go wrong quite

-early on in different stages of the process, yeah?

-Yeah.

Is it really frustrating then, your job, or is it very challenging?

It's frustrating, but then it's really rewarding when it goes right.

So, almost the frustration's worth it when it goes right.

You know, like, people call it "Frankenfood", you know,

what are your thoughts on it?

I think genetic modification as a... as a technique is not bad.

You've got to think about the plants that you get out of it

and research carefully what effects the genetic modification has

had on the individual plants.

But then ultimately it's for society and the public to decide how

they adopt those methods

and what decisions they make to improve crop production.

And all your research - can I ask you? -

-has it made you a really good gardener?

-No!

The several plants in my room

are not looking very happy at the moment.

I think I'm too focused on the research plants,

so all the other plants get forgotten about.

So whether you're interested in helping to feed future

populations or just feeding hungry diners, it's hard to get away

from the fact that understanding science could come in pretty handy.

More than ever before, our jobs are being dictated by what computers

can do, which makes predicting our careers in this digital age

about as tricky as knowing what technology will be capable of.

For years, there's been a technological focus

on virtual reality, 3D and digital environments.

And whilst we've been concentrating on that,

something new has been sneaking up on us.

When Alex Lambert trained as a 3D designer, he had no idea that

one day he would be a pioneer of a brand new form of technology.

It's called "augmented reality".

I'm meeting Alex outside Inition, the design studio he works for.

-Hi, Alex.

-Hello, Rani.

So, tell me, what is augmented reality?

Augmented reality is the process of taking virtual information

such as animation, film, music, sound, er, GPS data,

and putting that into our reality, usually with

the use of certain devices such as smart phones, tablets and cameras.

I'm going to need to see something to help me understand this.

-OK. Come and have a look at my car.

-Your car?!

-My car.

Er, I'm not seeing any car out here, Alex.

I'm just seeing a sort of a picture on the floor.

But wait...

Oh, wow! Oh, my goodness!

I have to say, you drive a very flash car.

I do, I do. I'm a flash kind of guy.

That is unbelievable. Can I move with this, or..?

Yeah, you can explore the whole car.

-Can I go round it?

-Yes, you can.

-So there is no car there.

-There is no car here.

-Just a piece of paper on the floor.

-Yes, just the marker.

-And then... You call it a marker.

-We call it a marker.

And then you go round and I can see what looks like a proper car.

-No, a bit lower.

-Lower, lower.

-There you go. And do the doors open?

-The doors do not open.

-Can I go inside?

-You cannot go inside.

-Can we see it drive?

-It's only a 3D model.

Can you make the wheels go round?

We could, but this wasn't part of the brief.

So is this kind of idea, like sort of try before you buy?

Yeah, it would work, it could work in that way, definitely.

This was used primarily for a designer research team,

but you could use it to see how

a product would look in your home, for example.

I'm decorating my home at the moment,

I'm struggling with a couch - what is going to be too big for my house?

Could I get sort of a tablet and put it there and have a couch

and say, "That would fit there, or fit there, or fit there"?

Yeah, there's no reason that wouldn't work.

As long as I could print out a marker, the right software,

I could get the perfect couch for my house.

-Yeah.

-Oooh, that looks good.

'The potential for this technology is vast.

'Home printed markers that you can try before you buy,

'interactive advertising and museum installations are just

'some of the ways it's already being used.'

Oh no, I've driven over your feet, I'm sorry, Alex!

Let me take a picture of you with your car.

Oh, look at that, it suits you.

'This tech is all about the marker and the software in the tablet.

'When the camera sees patterns and shapes that the software

'recognises, it knows to project the 3D animation.

'And because each little shape in the marker is unique,

'it knows where you are in relation to it.'

What we've got here is a full size model of a human being

with their anatomy all intact, you have all their organs,

their circulatory system, their nervous system, their bones,

their cartilage, their brain, we left out the eyes...

-I can't see any of that.

-You can see for yourself.

Ooh! Oh, my goodness, that's absolutely brilliant.

You can see all the bones, all the sinew, all the veins.

You can see everything.

How do you go about figuring all that out?

-Is this all really scientific, then?

-Er, yes.

And I have to admit, I am not the greatest scientist in the world!

I understand how it works.

I can design these markers, um, and then our actual computer scientists

and our, and our programmers can put that into practice.

The key element that brings design and programming together is

something called the parallax, a traditional physics terms

that's been used for years to measure the distance of stars.

-If you hold your fingers up like that...

-Yeah.

One really close to you and one far away.

Can I put this down on here, is that OK?

Yeah, put it there, yeah. And then... Further, closer.

Yeah, like that, OK.

And then if you move your head side to side, you see that the finger

-in front moves more quickly than the finger behind.

-OK.

-That's parallax. This dot here...

-Yeah.

If I'm standing on this side,

this dot over there is going to move more slowly than that dot over here.

So the computer software

will know what the perspective of the model is.

'Because there are no one-size-fits-all bits of software

'that can make augmented reality work,

'every installation needs its own custom software.

'Alex's speciality is the 3D modelling,

'but it's computer scientists that have the skills to

'make his animations come alive and have such interactive potential.'

This is part of the interactivity you could have in educational space.

This could be your textbook. This is the textbook of the future.

You could do your tests on here.

Now, the technology is a little expensive - that's the only thing

really stopping it from working right now.

'At the moment, the cost is the main thing stopping

'augmented reality being rolled out to everyone.

'But, as with all brand new technologies,

'further development will bring its cost right down

'and then it could become part of our every day lives.'

Let me have a look at the park, the trees.

It's really, really clever. That's fantastic.

-What if you forgot your tablet?

-You forgot your tablet...

Or you just can't be bothered getting it out?

Right now, you'd be in trouble, you know?

Um, but there are technologies being developed which means you can

have something attached to your face, like a pair of glasses

with a lens over your eye which, er, does the same job as a tablet.

Could literally walk around,

the same way you walk around with your map on your phone,

you can navigate using this device which is in front of your eye.

Cos then you could just have them on,

you could be looking around and seeing all this information.

Yeah, I reckon that's going to be really big in the future, really big.

-When you say "the future"..?

-The future, next couple of years.

-Really?

-Yes, yes, there's a couple of big companies that have

a lot of money that are investing heavily in it at the moment.

I can already imagine a world where markers and all the information

they contain are everywhere around us waiting to be accessed.

But the only way it's going to be part of our future is through

a merger between science and design.

Science is not my background.

I studied science up to GCSE, I enjoyed it, but I chose to follow

a more creative path to where I am at the moment.

But the fact that I understand the way these things work means that

I can apply that practically without necessarily knowing all the details.

-Right.

-Or it means that I can relate to people that do know

the details of it and understand what it is they're talking about and

what I would like them to achieve, or what they'd like me to achieve.

If there's people out there thinking,

this industry's going to explode in the future and it's something

I really want to be a part of, what would you say to them, then?

Would you say go down the creative path, or go down the science path?

I'd say do a bit of both.

There's so much that we learn from physics that is useful

in 3D animation in general and in augmented reality,

because we're essentially recreating the real world.

So, in your school, was it kind of encouraging?

Were you encouraged?

Yes, we all grew up on a council estate in Peckham,

and my mum just said, "No, you're not allowed out after 6 o'clock,

"you're being in the house doing work", so that's what we did.

Give it up for Peckham! Yeah!

RANI LAUGHS

Who knows whether augmented reality

will be as big as it potentially seems,

or whether any minute now something new will come along instead?

But despite this uncertainty,

there's one sure way to stay future proof - learn science.

The cosmetics industry is estimated to be worth

4.5 billion in the UK each year.

It's a competitive business that can't afford to stay still.

In its efforts to invent new products, it employs

a variety of scientists with a lot of different skills.

And I hear they don't just wear a lab coat, but goggles too!

I've come to the laboratories of Molton Brown to meet a cosmetic

chemist who's making products that claim to look after our skin.

A love of cosmetics inspired Nirmita Sheth to train as a beauty

therapist, but then she realised that she wanted to make them

herself, so she took a degree in cosmetic science.

So, Nirmita, this is it then?

-Yes, this is it.

-So what kind of things do you do in here?

Um, we formulate everything from skincare to hair care,

body care, pretty much we cover the array of cosmetics.

What I'm really interested in is skincare.

Sure.

OK, cos I'm always thinking eternal youth, but I'm also

thinking how to keep my skin looking healthy and feeling healthy.

I would recommend using moisturiser which has got SPF.

-SPF is..?

-Sun Protection Factor.

Right.

So what that does is it helps to protect your skin

from the harmful rays from the sun.

Those harmful rays are ultraviolet or UV radiation,

and in excess, they can cause sunburn, wrinkles and even cancer.

Traditional sunblocks use a barrier of large molecules that

sit on the surface of the skin and reflect the UV rays away.

But the size of these molecules also makes them greasy,

which isn't ideal in a moisturiser.

Instead, Nirmita is making me a cream using a chemical called

a UV filter, that absorbs the UV rays instead of reflecting them.

The benefit is that their molecules are small enough to be

rubbed into the skin.

Over here you've got your UV filters.

Um, got your ensulizole, octocrylene,

ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate and avobenzone.

OK. So when you were doing science in school...

Hm-mm, these wouldn't have meant a thing to me.

'Then there's hope for me as a chemist's assistant.'

So if you could pass me the ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate, please?

Oh, methal, ethylhexyl methoxy...

SHE CHUCKLES

You've got to be very precise.

Do we know this is definitely going to work?

Well, this particular formulation isn't tried and tested.

-It isn't?

-No.

I'm hoping it will give you an SPF, this is an experiment.

-"I'm hoping"!

-I'm hoping.

'A limited edition formula just for me - I'm going to have to get

'this tested - not that I doubt Nirmita's chemistry skills.'

So when you were a beautician and you were there giving people,

you know, facials, is that when you really thought,

"Ooh, I'd like to know what goes into this moisturiser?"

Absolutely. Working as a beautician, I've used a few products that

I really liked and they really worked for me,

so I thought, "I wonder how this was made.

"I wonder what's in it."

You would not have a clue when you read the back of a moisturiser

and read all these ingredients, you would not know what's...

what's doing what. And that's what I really wanted to find out.

And then how long did it take you to go from a beautician

to a cosmetic scientist?

So the Beauty Therapy Foundation Degree was a two-year course,

and then I did the BSC which was a three-year course.

I see you've stopped asking me to get those things for you!

Was I slowing you down, Nirmita?

Not quite. I just know where they are.

So this is it, then, a one-off cream for me?

-It is indeed.

-Oooh!

Oh, that's looking more like moisturiser.

And if that all goes according to plan, next time you see me,

I shall be looking 10 years younger?

Wishful thinking.

Well, I might look healthier anyway.

-Definitely.

-Thank you.

I've made my cream, but now I've got to test that it works,

which is an area that's been causing controversy for decades.

Fortunately, the question of whether it's morally right to test

cosmetics on animals could soon be a thing of the past,

all because of recent scientific developments.

I've come to commercial research laboratory Evocutis to meet

Anthony Jeremy, a doctor of immunology.

Anthony and his team are using vital new techniques to make

life-like skin in the lab.

So, Anthony, is it true here you make human skin?

Er, yeah, well, yeah, we do.

We produce it, we grow it, um, because it's live and living,

and so we do various testing on it.

I've got some SPF moisturiser and I want to know if you can test it

and find out if it works -

you know, it absorbs all the sun's harmful rays.

Yeah, well, I mean, we can look at this

and we can test this on the actual skin that we grow.

And is this an alternative to testing on animals?

It is. And that's one of the prime purposes, actually.

Well, let's get testing.

'If they're to get valid results when testing Nirmita's moisturiser,

'Anthony's lab-grown skin needs to work

'in the same way that ours does.'

Your skin that you're growing

isn't real skin, it's LIKE real skin?

But is it constantly growing?

Can it do that, can it produce new...

Yes, it's doing that all the time.

You need some of the cells at the bottom to constantly produce

new ones of themselves, and the ones down there are called

the epidermal basal cells,

or often now referred to as epidermal stem cells.

'Stem cells are key to lab-grown skin behaving like the real thing.

'They're the body cells that renew and reproduce all the others,

'which is vital, because the cells of the skin are continuously dying.'

Where do you get the cells from?

They are taken straight from people, looked at, checked for diseases,

grown a little bit, and then we get hold of these.

-So are any of these finished skin?

-Yeah.

So we've gone from the cells right down here, all the way through

and they've grown up, and we've got some finished skin...

-They've grown up!

-That's right, they've grown up.

Like a little baby, they've grown up.

They are. They've grown up, and so if you want to pick out one of these,

use the edge... there we go.

Now where is the skin?

So that's the skin, so you can see the skin surface.

If you want to touch it, you can... you can just prod it a little bit

-and you can see...

-Oooh, yeah. So you could test on that?

And that's exactly what we test on.

Could it be used to replace my skin?

The quick answer is yes.

You can make skin for burns patients.

The whole technology is a really, really useful technology,

and so this can really change lives.

'Lab-grown skin is a massive scientific achievement,

'particularly important for its role in testing SPF products.'

Do we need to massage it in?

We do.

Skin cancer is a serious risk for anyone exposed to too much sun

or UV lights used in tanning booths.

We'll put this straight in to the UV source.

And it's caused by harmful UVB rays.

UVA has a slightly longer wave length

and therefore it goes deeper into your skin.

Whereas UVB is more damaging, but it doesn't penetrate so far.

While we wait for results from the UVB tests, Anthony has

microscope slides from a past SPF trial on his lab grown skin.

The slide on the left was unprotected.

The slide on the right had sun cream.

This one, erm, this is how it should look.

It's healthy, the cells are all nice, and these are the skin cells

from the top surface layer, the epidermis.

Right.

These are your living cells layers and these cells here sit here,

make new ones and then this is your dermis.

This is the spongy area that you might get damaged with UVA.

As you can imagine, if then that makes a really...

This bit all gets damaged and it really caves in,

then you get a big wrinkle on the surface

-and that's why you start looking older.

-Oh, right.

But what you've got here is, you have UVB damage, the cells

of that top layer, these living cells that are making the new cells

from above, they have absorbed all the energy and they have then died.

When that layer of skin is damaged the stem cells can mutate,

which is when abnormalities and skin cancers can form.

Now we talk about UV rays being damaging.

Are we being overly scared, because we have to go out in the sun?

Yeah, I mean, you need the sunlight

and the UV to make vitamin D.

Unfortunately, while SPF creams are good at screening out harmful rays,

they also block the rays which help make vitamin D,

which is essential to our bodies.

So some doctors recommend vitamin D supplements,

plus a frequent exposure to weak sun.

When you were at school were you top of the class

when it was sciences, cos you seem to know your stuff?

I actually struggled with reading and writing.

I was never that quick.

But what I was quick at was understanding things

and seeing things in more of a pictorial sense.

And so I saw things in pictures, like a cartoon in a way,

but that's really useful,

and I found very useful as I went on through my academic career.

After running tests on Nirmita's SPF moisturiser, Anthony concluded that

it offered protection from UV rays and passed it with flying colours.

And something that I've learned is that behind every product

we use, there's a research scientist working hard to make it better.

Each year fashion houses spend millions and millions designing

and manufacturing clothes they hope we'll be wearing next year.

It's an exciting, vibrant industry to work in -

and not just for clothes designers.

Right now the fashion industry is trying to predict

the next revolutionary trend of the future.

But for once, it's not looking at the clothes -

it's looking at technology.

Which means in the future, there'll be more and more

opportunities for people who've studied science.

And that technological revolution is already starting to hit

the high street.

The first person I'm going to meet is Melissa Kao,

a scientist whose reinvention of the shop mirror is

starting to appear in stores.

Her high-tech mirror combines a video camera, motion sensor

and computer to enhance our shopping experience.

As well as inventing the magic mirror,

Melissa has a PhD in pharmacology.

So this is it, this is your baby?

Yes, it is.

How long has it taken you to develop this?

We started five years ago.

Now, it looks just like a normal mirror.

Yes.

It may look like one, but this mirror is far from ordinary.

It starts by taking my photo.

How do I pose from the back?

I don't know! OK, a second pose.

All right, maybe from the side to see how I look.

Yes. That's right.

The mirror now is projecting your images through for you can look at.

Right, so it's no longer a mirror.

-Yes.

-It is now a TV screen?

Yes.

We changed the mirror a bit to become a two-way mirror

so that on one side you will see your own reflection,

as a normal mirror, but when we project something at the back

through a monitor, you can actually see through it.

Using a camera to film you from in front, the computer stops

the mirror being a mirror in the area it wants to project the video.

So you see that instead of your reflection.

And once it's recorded you,

it's time to activate its social media functions.

I can see here "e-mail to self", "post to Facebook",

"share on Twitter", "print photos". I can do all that through this?

That's right.

So I could come in here, try on a dress,

I could even say send it, put it on Facebook and, you know,

send it to some friends and go, "what do you think?"

Or, "you would love this dress", to my sister or something

and share it that way?

This is just the beginning, there's some more futuristic part of

the mirror that is where it allows you to virtually try on something.

Right.

So if you stand in front of it, the mirror actually projects

an image from behind the mirror,

so when you look at your reflection, you see that on top of you.

Right, so now I've got a white dress on, only I can see that.

That's right.

Right, well, I've got a little hand-held camera,

I could show everybody else how this is working.

Yeah.

We use our science knowledge to have an image from the behind the mirror.

First of all we need to understand how the light travels

and how we actually position the shirts

based on the knowledge that we know light travels in a straight line.

It's actually projected in front of me

and I did like before the whole turning round.

Is there a way of taking this forward as well, making 2D into 3D?

That is right. That is what the future will be.

When all the technologies mature, we can actually get

the images of the dress in 3D

and it can actually detect your body shape better,

and it can wrap around your body.

How long will it take to get it to where you want it to be?

A few years because we're also waiting for other technology

to mature.

So it's somebody who could still be at school now,

still studying, could be the person who will take this forward

when technology catches up with your ideas.

Oh, certainly, yes.

Further developments in technology, whoever makes them,

is an exciting prospect, particularly in the field of 3D clothing.

And it isn't just wishful thinking.

Virtual 3D clothing is on the way.

Scientists are currently developing it and when they do,

they could change the face of fashion forever.

In the interest of furthering science, I'm in the digital studio

at the London College of Fashion and I'm about to be digitised.

MACHINE: Adjusting the light level.

We have completed your scan.

I'm here to meet Marta Tomecka, a fashion student,

who is at the cutting edge of digital clothing design.

She is currently doing a PhD in digital fashion.

Those lumps and bumps on the scan are from my clothes,

and they're being tidied up.

Why 3D body scans?

You've got all the exact measurements

and you can dress it in virtual garments.

It's a bit like having a doll?

It is. An avatar.

We're hoping that very soon everyone will be using them,

so you can just go to a virtual shop

and try as many garments as you want.

I've got to say,

I've probably had enough of seeing myself without clothes on.

In that case, I can show you our other model in 3D garment.

OK, sounds good to me.

This is the next stage then?

Yes, it is.

This is the software that lets you stitch garments on to an avatar.

You've made the clothes specially for this avatar model, haven't you.

Yes. They have been scanned in.

You can put it on top of her

and then it stitches all those parts together.

Here you can record her walking.

Oh, right, OK.

So you can see how the garment behaves.

The only thing that you can't do is check how this model looks on

a catwalk with your own measurements, because it's already set.

So even as computers, they won't let people who aren't tall enough on a catwalk!

In the future, do you think we'd be able to shop online like this,

that all clothes could just be sort of fitted on to your size?

Yes, definitely, yes.

I think the whole fashion supply change will be revolutionised

and will be much more sustainable,

because there will be no waste of clothing.

All the garments could be made specially for customers.

When you started out, you started out in fashion, is that right?

Yes, I did, yes.

Then I thought that it would be much more interesting to study

digital fashion and I ended up doing PhD in fashion and technology.

So originally though, is your background in science?

No, unfortunately it's not.

Why unfortunately?

Because it will help me significantly

in finding the best solution for virtual try-on

if I knew more about maths and physics and computer science mainly.

So it's funny cos when you sort of think about fashion and fabric,

I don't automatically think of science.

I think that even it will be very difficult to find

a job in fashion in the future without understanding how it works

and without understanding the 3D garments and 3D stitching.

If this vision of the future proves correct then the next

Stella McCartney could sweep onto the fashion scene with

a degree in computer science and brand new collection in full 3D.

Who said science and art don't mix?!

We've made computers go super-fast,

and created ever more sophisticated technology,

but there's something that's seriously holding it all back - us.

The way humans interface with computers is slowing

technology down.

It's a problem that needs solving,

which to a computer scientist, is music to their ears.

I've come to Reading University to meet a man who's

devoted his life to working on the problem.

One of the world's top cybernetic engineers - Kevin Warwick.

As well as being a university professor,

Kevin holds several higher science doctorates.

A relatively new science, cybernetics is the study

of control and communication in animal and machine.

So do you think then in the future humans will be able to

communicate with computers?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, we do already obviously with typing in keys

and things like that, but the important thing is communicating

directly from our brains and that needs some sort of interface.

We need to get signals from our brains into the computer

and signals from the computer into our brains.

And what I've got here, it's going to be very, very small...

-Let's have a little look.

-There we go.

What is that?

Now that is called a BrainGate. It's very, very small.

It's teeny tiny.

The BrainGate was a momentous breakthrough for cybernetics,

and earned Kevin a nickname, Captain Cyborg.

For three months he was able to control electronics,

like this wheelchair, with the power of his brain.

So this is what I've experimented with in my nervous system.

Surgeons put it in place and they opened up here.

That's where the wires came out,

onto a little connector pad,

and we could link me up there with the computer.

So then how could you or your nervous system communicate with a computer?

Our brains are electrochemical. Our nervous system too.

So our nervous systems operate on electricity.

Computers work with pulses, very similar way.

So when you connect the two together, to be honest,

it's not that difficult.

So that chip was planted into your arm for three months.

-Yes.

-What did you learn?

We learnt that this robot hand here,

if I bring this in, now what I was able to do, when I move MY hand,

because of the implant, I could also operate the robot hand.

So it mimicked my hand movement.

Critical point though, on this hand, if you can see,

there are little touch pads, little sensors on the fingers,

so I could feel how much force this hand was applying.

We learned that it was quite possible to control a robot hand

and feel what the hand was feeling in terms of grip,

by using an implant of this type.

As part of the experiment, I went to New York,

we plugged my nervous system into the internet and linked up to

the robot hand which was back here in Reading, where we are now.

Brilliant.

So I move my hand in New York which moved the robot hand in England,

and then when I gripped something, signals went back to New York so

I could feel how much force the hand was applying on another continent.

That's amazing.

It even fazed me out.

I planned the experiment but when we actually did it,

it freaked me out.

I thought, "Wow! My brain signal is operating this robot!"

But it's not science fiction. That's what's been done.

It's been successful. We have results, papers

and all sorts of things from it.

At the moment maybe it's a bit scary, but in 20 years' time, yeah,

maybe everyone..

"Oh, you've got that chip, have you? Oh, yeah, yeah.

"Where have you been?"

So what will be the first application?

Well, I feel one of the first is to help people with disabilities.

If let's say, you've lost your arm,

this is in fact commercially available now,

so it's the most advanced bionic limb, hand, if you like.

We can see it opening, it's got a thumb and four fingers,

and you can see it has different grips.

This one is operated usually off muscular signals.

In the future,

I'm sure it will be operated directly from the nervous system.

But to control it directly from the brain is still a research project.

You know, there really are exciting research projects that still

need to be sorted out in this area, lots of them.

So for me, it's a tremendously exciting area to be involved in.

And they're not just projects for Kevin.

Our next stop is a paintball warehouse to meet

one of his PhD students, Ian Harrison.

While you don't need to insert metal objects to research this subject,

Ian decided to, and he had magnets surgically implanted.

Back in 2009, I got two magnets implanted in my fingertips

and these enable me to detect or pick up electromagnetic fields.

Ian's magnets are a low-tech version of Kevin's chip.

He had them inserted so he can feel sensations in his fingers

when they're made to vibrate by special gloves.

I've got my glove which has got two electromagnetic coils in the tips.

It means he can have electronic equipment communicating

directly with his body.

And for this experiment, that's an ultrasonic hat to help him

see whilst blindfolded.

You've got your two ultrasonic sensors here,

your microprocessor here, another two ultrasonic sensors

and a couple of power drivers across here.

Are you going wear that hat?

Unfortunately!

There is an immediate application.

For somebody who is blind, for example,

this is looking at sending signals in via a different route.

So instead of having a white stick,

they could have exactly the technology that Ian's got,

a little magnet implanted in his finger, and they would,

using the same technology, be able to detect how far it is to objects.

So, onto the experiment.

Ian will have to navigate the maze of obstructions without

the use of his eyes.

Ian, so I'm going blindfold you,

so you need to put your glove on with the coils in it.

Your magnets are already in the finger.

OK, now you're going put your hat on. It's a very cool hat.

Thank you very much.

He'll use just the sensors in his hat,

communicating with the magnets in his fingertips.

Ian!

OK, yeah, you can come now, Ian.

OK, I'm coming!

He's feeling the sound, effectively.

You know how a bat uses echo location,

when the sound signal hits an object, it bounces back.

The quicker it comes back, the closer the object is.

OK.

And that's really what's happening.

He's got a sensor that's doing that and how quickly it comes back,

that will be how much his magnet gets stimulated.

So as he's getting closer to these tower tyres,

something close and his finger will...

He'll get a ding, ding, ding, ding, so let's move away from it

and then, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, let's move away from that.

So a bit like the sensor when I'm reversing my car.

Oh, yeah, it's exactly that.

Here he comes.

You've done well.

Ian, well done!

Well done, well done. Let's turn you off.

Did you bump into anything?

Only on low level,

so only on the stuff that I couldn't actually detect.

But it's a good point you make,

because you could have further sensors lower down.

Do you love doing what you're doing?

Oh, I absolutely adore what I'm doing.

Looking at the world from a different view,

trying to find insight in every-day life.

But I think one of the biggest things is having

the type of mind that is inquisitive.

I think that's the most critical thing.

It's important to ask the question - is this possible?

Could we do this? Well, try it and find out.

I love it. Thank you so much.

It's been brilliant talking to you both

and good luck with it all.

-Thanks a lot.

-It's been great.

This is proof that we have no idea of what technological

developments are around the corner.

I keep wondering if this field of science is strange

and scary or exciting and innovative.

But one thing's for sure -

scientists will always be pushing those frontiers

of what is humanly possible.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd