Season 22

The first episode of SuperQuark opens with a beautiful documentary: the Alps seen from above, as only eagles can see them thanks to a high definition camera mounted on a helicopter, we will have the impression of flying over the peaks, touching the peaks and observing from a completely new perspective vertiginous walls, glaciers, crystalline lakes, but also castles, trenches from the First World War and daredevil skiers who descend almost vertically the mountains between snow and rocks. We see up close the great protagonists of the Alpine chains, such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, but also ibex and climbers. A nature that no one could get close to and that today reveals all its imposing beauty but also, as we will see, its problems. In recent weeks, the 100 years of the Great War have been remembered. A war fought in the trenches, in the mud and in blood. All wars are atrocious, but that of '15-'18 had an additional enemy: bacteria.

The second episode of SuperQuark opens with a very special documentary: it is the story of large animals from the forest or the savannah, seriously injured and saved by doctors and surgeons who rush to their aid. Sometimes it is poachers who, by shooting to capture specimens, leave seriously injured animals on the field. Other times it is traps and snares that crush and tear. But in other cases it is a question of real diseases that require surgical interventions. And so it turns out that animals suffer from exactly the same ailments as us, but that treatments become much more difficult to carry out if you are in isolated places, far from everything. Among the interventions we will see in particular that of a young gorilla, injured by poachers, and a rhinoceros, which is undergoing a skin transplant for the first time, which is not easy in a rhinoceros.

In the third episode of SuperQuark, another documentary from the BBC's Operation Wilde series, we will travel to the most remote places on earth to follow the work of doctors and surgeons who go to the aid of large animals injured by poachers during their hunting trips, or torn apart by deadly traps. This is the case of the giraffe that we will see shortly, which got stuck with a leg in a trap, and destined to die without the necessary care. But chasing and capturing a giraffe without hurting it is difficult and even more difficult is to anesthetize it due to its particular anatomy. We will also see a brain operation on a bear performed in very difficult conditions. This first aid in nature manages to bring suffering animals back to life, but above all represents a way to repair the atrocities committed by other men. It may seem like another planet, yet it is here on Earth, just four hours' flight away from us.

A documentary from the Ushuaia Nature series returns in the fourth episode of Superquark: Crystal Worlds, nature hides secret places of great beauty, inaccessible to us, which require experience, courage and special equipment to be explored. Tonight, with the Ushuaia crew we will enter some of these worlds: inside the Earth's crust, among caves and tunnels and incredible crystals and long underground rivers. For this reason we will descend into the canyons of Mexico, and inside its caves to finally land on a tiny island in Colombia, and witness a spectacular dive into deep waters. On this small island we will meet a rare and fragile animal: the Glass Frog. Scientists and naturalists will accompany Nicolas Hulot on this intriguing journey.\nItalian excellence: at Superquark an out-of-weight and out-of-shape transport engineering company that is one of the four leading companies in the world. Following in the studio with Piero Angela and Paco Lanciano an experiment on the wheel.

In the fifth episode of SuperQuark, another documentary from the Ushuaia nature series. Nicolas Hulot, this time explores, with his well-equipped team, the Mozambique Channel and its surroundings, where several years ago, fishermen off the coast of South Africa found a very strange fish in their nets, with prehistoric features, it was a fish that paleontologists knew well through fossils, but which they thought had been extinct for millions of years: the coelacanth. A real one. We will accompany the Ushuaia crew in these seas, where biologists dive to study this living fossil that inhabits the depths of this sea. But it will also be an opportunity to meet many varieties of sharks that populate these waters, also very ancient animals, dating back to 400 million years ago, long before the appearance of the dinosaurs. And which today are threatened with extinction due to the unbridled fishing that takes place throughout the planet.

In the sixth episode of Superquark, another documentary from the Ushuaia Nature series, which this time will take us to an isolated place in Africa. Africa, as we have seen many times, is a continent full of very different landscapes: forests, savannahs, immense lakes, mountains higher than Mont Blanc, deserts. Today the Ushuaia crew will take us to a little-known area of ​​Namibia: a very strange environment, made up of sand dunes that descend to the sea. And it is here that a rare animal lives: the desert lion. Nicolas Hulot aboard an extravagant flying machine: a unique prototype that allows him to move thanks to the wind, silently and lightly. A journey that will allow us to meet a Himba tribe in one of the most pristine regions of Southern Africa. Cholesterol is essential for our life, but also very dangerous. Barbara Gallavotti and Federica Calvia make the identikit of an insidious molecule with the help of experts.

In the seventh episode of SuperQuark, the latest documentary in the Ushuaia nature series, which will make us meet extraordinary wild birds, griffon vultures, in the open sky of the Pyrenees. Nicolas Hulot, with his crew, flying almost like a bird without an engine or propeller, relying on a few square meters of fabric and sharing with the large griffon vultures the hot air currents that allow them to glide over cliffs and valleys, will be guided towards another treasure, this time underground: one of the most beautiful marine caves on the planet: Pas de Vallgornéra. It was discovered by chance in 1968, while digging the foundations of a now abandoned hotel. 62 kilometers of tunnels, some of which are completely submerged. It is one of the most important underground labyrinths in the world, which can be explored on foot and by swimming. Once upon a time, tumors were classified based on the organ affected, but increasingly today they are considered a set of diseases, often rare.

The eighth episode of Superquark opens with the first documentary in the BBC series dedicated to monsoons. This evening's film shows us the cyclopean force of this natural phenomenon that occurs every year in the southern part of Asia, between India and Australia. For four months of the year in this area it pours, creating major consequences in the lives of animals and humans. It is the time when insects, in just a few days, are everywhere. The great rivers invade roads and territories, bringing with them large quantities of nutrients, and rice crops receive their lifeblood. The film shows us this awakening of nature, but also the wait for the monsoon, which with its possible delays can cause a crisis not only for toads and crabs but also for the New Delhi stock exchange.\nAnorexia has until now been considered a pathology of adolescent and pre-adolescent girls. But this is no longer the case. 20 percent of those affected are now young males.

In the ninth episode of SuperQuark, the second documentary of the BBC series Monsoon Land. Just as the sea continually wets and dries the shore, the monsoon, after having discharged a large quantity of rain, changes direction and brings dry air (and drought) to the same areas. Animals have had to deal with this sometimes sudden change of season for millennia, and the lack of water creates crisis situations every time, where the weakest succumb. But men have also had to adapt to this pendulum for millennia, with their crops and their relationship with nature, and which today clashes with a development that is taking more and more territory away from certain animals threatened with becoming homeless: orangutans and Bengal tigers. Water, the most precious resource, is the molecule of life, but also one of the most critical resources on the planet.

In the tenth episode of SuperQuark, a beautiful BBC documentary, it is a nature classic: the setting is the African savannah and the protagonists are the large predators.