David Attenborough Research Articles

An innovative ‘flat-pack’ wharf: overcoming construction challenges in Antarctica

A new longer and deeper wharf was completed in 2020 for the UK’s largest Antarctic research station. The £40 million structure replaced the life-expired wharf at Rothera Point on Adelaide Island and enables the station to accommodate British Antarctic Survey’s new polar research and supply vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough. Design and construction at this remote and environmentally extreme location presented many challenges, leading to the development of an innovative ‘flat-pack’ modular solution. This paper describes how the new 74 m long wharf was designed, manufactured, delivered and built in just two short austral summers.

Taxonomic Chauvinism in Pesticide Ecotoxicology.

Taxonomic Chauvinism in Pesticide Ecotoxicology.

Graham Serjeant, Sickle Cell, Jamaica and Beyond: A Life, Ian Randle Publishers (Kingston and Miami), 2021

Graham Serjeant, Sickle Cell, Jamaica and Beyond: A Life, Ian Randle Publishers (Kingston and Miami), 2021

Bird-watching TV: getting intimate with wildlife on Planet Earth II

On a cold, remote island, a huge colony of chinstrap penguins makes its home at the foot of an active volcano. As seen on television in Planet Earth II (BBC, 2016), the dramatic scenery appears treacherous and intimidating, but every day chinstrap parents must venture out into the surrounding water to gather food for their young. From over a million of these penguins, the television camera eventually narrows its focus to one family. While the father is out hunting, the mother penguin stays at the nest, bravely sheltering two chicks from marauding predators. But the chicks need food. In a tight close-up shot, one of the penguin hatchlings looks up at its mother, vulnerable and hungry. ‘Everything will be fine’, presenter David Attenborough portentously narrates, ‘as long as their father comes back soon’. On television, animals act out melodramas that are recognizably human.1 And like melodrama, wildlife documentaries make...

Martin McAinsh.

Martin McAinsh.

There's no business like drone business [drone light shows

The display seen across London on the New Year's Eve used 300 drones to "paint" the sky with tributes to NHS staff and notable figures from 2020. A turtle was displayed which was accompanied with a voice message from Sir David Attenborough about saving our planet. Drone light shows are now an essential part of any high-profile outdoor event. So how do they work? Designing drones shows is a new discipline that requires new tools. So how does an artist put metaphorical pen to paper, when the canvas is several hundred spots of light that can be arbitrarily arranged in the sky? For both SkyMagic's software and Dobrovolskiy's Drone Show Software , the process begins in Blender. This is an open-source modelling package that is used across the visual effects industry to make 3D models for everything from video games to Hollywood movies. The artist can use Blender to do the creative work of designing the animation, dragging, and dropping the on-screen drones to where in the sky they need to be, in 3D space. And they can play back the animation at will, tweaking it to make sure everything is where it needs to be.

Solution not pollution!

Public awareness of environmental issues has been increasing over recent years. While this has always been an important topic for discussion, the warnings of climate change have been catapulted into the spotlight with famous environmental activists such as David Attenborough. In the NHS, there have been efforts to tackle a climate ‘health emergency’ for several years. Currently, the NHS produces much higher emissions for healthcare than the global average. It therefore comes as no surprise that something has to change. This change began with a nationwide NHS initiative to tackle the climate emergency and reduce the environmental footprint of the NHS. This paper discusses the current issues of environmental waste in the NHS as well as ways to reduce its impact on the planet.

The Dawkins effect? Celebrity scientists, (non)religious publics and changed attitudes to evolution.

The role of science popularization remains relatively under-explored in research on contemporary public acceptance of evolution. In this study, we analyse national survey data to interrogate the role Britain’s best-known celebrity scientists David Attenborough, Brian Cox, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking may have played in changing public views of evolution, as well as the role of two creationists: Ken Ham and Harun Yahya. We investigate how well known these public figures are, what their views of religion are perceived to be and, drawing on social identity theory, whether they exert different effects on attitudinal change to evolution among different religious and non-religious publics. Binary logistic regression analysis shows that among Muslim and Pentecostal Christian publics, those familiar with Dawkins as both a scientist and as someone who holds negative views of religion are more likely to have become less accepting of evolution. Conversely, among non-religious publics, Dawkins was the only celebrity scientist associated with higher odds of becoming more accepting of evolution. We suggest that engaging certain religious audiences with the science of evolutionary biology may be more effective when their religious identities are not threatened.

Polar research and supply vessel capabilities – An exploratory study

Many countries engaged in polar research are commissioning polar research and supply vessels (PRSVs), inter alia, Britain's RRS Sir David Attenborough and Australia's RSV Nuyina. The prevalent climate change has placed the Arctic and Antarctic regions in the forefront of operations requiring specialist ships to support and deploy research activities. This study focuses on PRSVs and examines potential means of assessing their capabilities by identifying and gathering sources of information into a database. Further, this study presents established models of ship performance assessment in the academic literature. Links are drawn between these models, PRSV characteristics and the need for scientific capabilities and transport logistics in polar science. An adapted model is then applied to the data collected, enabling the assessment of PRSV capabilities. The assessment is based on the following key characteristics: (1) icebreaking, (2) logistics, (3) science and (4) ship size, each using attributes from the database to provide a normalised score. Data pertaining to five PRSVs are examined and the results are depicted as a radar diagram. The results show the general applicability of the model.

Icebreaking polar class research vessels: New Antarctic fleet capabilities

Abstract Supporting Antarctic scientific investigation is the job of the national Antarctic programmes, the government entities charged with delivering their countries’ Antarctic research strategies. This requires sustained investment in people, innovative technologies, Antarctic infrastructures, and vessels with icebreaking capabilities. The recent endorsement of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Polar Code (2015) means that countries must address challenges related to an ageing icebreaking vessel fleet. Many countries have recently invested in and begun, or completed, builds on new icebreaking Polar research vessels. These vessels incorporate innovative technologies to increase fuel efficiency, to reduce noise output, and to address ways to protect the Antarctic environment in their design. This paper is a result of a Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs (COMNAP) project on new vessel builds which began in 2018. It considers the recent vessel builds of Australia’s RSV Nuyina, China’s MV Xue Long 2, France’s L’Astrolabe, Norway’s RV Kronprins Haakon, Peru’s BAP Carrasco, and the United Kingdom’s RRS Sir David Attenborough. The paper provides examples of purposeful consideration of science support requirements and environmental sustainability in vessel designs and operations.

Historicising David Attenborough’s nature: nation, continent, country and environment

ABSTRACT Recognising his association with Australia over the course of decades, this essay explores how Sir David Attenborough’s programmes ‘remake’ Australian nature for global audiences. It examines not only Attenborough himself, but offers equal weight to the human and nonhuman world he brings to audiences. Offering an examination of ‘blue chip’ natural history programming and the two series that bookend Attenborough’s work as a presenter ‘in’ and ‘of’ Australia – Quest Under Capricorn (1963a, 1963b, 1963c and 1963d) and Life in Cold Blood (2008a, 2008b), it is attuned to historical and contemporary cultures of colonisation and how these are located within the values and practices of blue-chip natural history programming.

Paediatric gastroenterology: The doors of perception

We know more about the surface of Mars than we know about the depths of the ocean. David Attenborough, Blue Planet, 2018 The same holds true for the human gut. We can navigate its abysses and study its topography with bathyscopes such as a capsule endoscopy (pill cam) but to a large extent our knowledge of its functional complexity and homeostatic regulation is embryonic. What do we know? We have an inkling that our gastrointestinal tract and its symbionts is existential to our being. I eat, therefore, I am. This Descartian view was expressed by Brillat-Savarin, the father of French gastronomy in the Physiology of Taste (1825) as: ‘Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are’. Notionally our gut and symbionts may determine our personality, our intellect and our psyche. Autism,1 schizophrenia,2 attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder,3 Alzheimer's disease4 and even anxiety5 may be manifestations of our microbial signature and an underlying intestinal dysbiosis. Every individual has a unique flora, with unique speciation and a unique mix. This flora will determine or contribute to our longevity by protecting us from harmful pathogens. Adaptive immunity and surveillance will be established by interaction of our symbionts with immune regulating mechanisms, such as Toll-like receptors6 which may protect us from cancer and autoimmune diseases. Additionally, lifestyle diseases such as obesity and other associated insulin-resistant states such as diabetes types 1 and 2, fatty liver, dyslipidaemia and hypertension, all associated with premature death, have a dysbiotic component.7, 8 All parts of our bowel, the mouth, oesophagus,9 stomach, small intestine10 and colon have their own unique flora. All this is a gift from our mothers. This starts in utero with the swallowing of amniotic fluid,11 but central to the process is vaginal delivery and breastfeeding. Anathema to the establishment of a healthy flora is the early use of antibiotics and possibly antipyretics. As a bonus, our mothers provide us with both a virome, mainly in the form of bacteriophages and a mycobiome (fungi). How these co-passengers contribute to our life course and the phenomenology of our diseases is still to be elucidated. At once the tummy voice came through, It shouted “Hey there! Listen you!” “I'm getting hungry! I want eats!” “I want lots of chocs and sweets!” “Get me half a pound of nuts!” “Look snappy or I'll twist your guts” Whatever's the matter with Mary Jane? She is crying with all her might and main Whatever's the matter with Mary Jane? It can't be rice pudding again. Don't scratch your bum and suck your thumb. Babette Cole, Dr Dog, 1994 The first two examples link food to symptoms of abdominal pain. As such, they are prescient. The much later example from Dr Dog may or may not be good advice. It depends on both parental and medical belief in the hygiene hypothesis. Intestinal parasites may well protect from autoimmune disease.12 Psychiatrists, like mothers, also recognise the centrality of the gut to our existence. They were extraordinarily perceptive in noting that our development is intrinsically linked to our gastrointestinal tract. Of the three stages of infant development, two are gut related. The oral phase relates to sustainability and the anal phase to autonomy. These were recognised by Freud, respectively, as the id and ego predominant. With our evolving understanding of our microbiota, it is possible that Freud scored a trifecta with the possibility that the much less reliable development of a superego (conscience or sentient thought) is also gut related. Paediatric gastroenterologists are lucky. Our domain is the growling, grumbling, volatile, murky, odiferous and largely unexplored gastrointestinal tract of childhood. We serve as Argonauts of the same. Some swerve off on roads less travelled but no less fascinating. The liver and pancreas are much less accessible and even less studied. They hold their own secrets. The Greek legend of the Titan Prometheus forever chained to a rock with an eagle devouring his liver which would regenerate overnight to be devoured again attests to this. Prometheus was eventually freed by Hercules. Two and a half millennia later the equally legendary Thomas Starzl, father of liver transplant, discovered that if you transplant a small liver in a large dog it grows and if you transplant a large liver in a small dog it shrinks.13 We now think this has something to do with insulin-like growth factors and homeobox genes.14 The ancient Greeks believed the liver to be the seat of the soul. This may explain their optimism on Prometheus' part but it is uncannily close to the truth. This issue of the journal explores what we know about the childhood intestinal tract, liver and pancreas. Much is unknown and will be a source of febrile maternal and literary conjecture for millennia to come.

Provoking Animal Realities on TV: Exploring the Affinities between STS and Screen Studies

This paper investigates the logistics of crafting and accounting for animal realities on television. Using the case of The Making of David Attenborough’s Conquest of the Skies, a behind-the-scenes documentary about how the Sky TV series David Attenborough’s Conquest of the Skies was created, it explores how the material reality of animals becomes a televisual reality. In seeking to challenge the lingering concern within many media studies critiques of wildlife TV about the constructed and manipulated nature of televisual animals, we propose an approach focused on how realities are provoked. This approach draws on recent debates within STS and screen theory about the contingent elements and accountability relations that become practically operative in making something real. Equally significant is the animal performer. How do the animals, often domesticated, that are used in television to simulate wildness or scientific facts participate in and resist the television apparatus? And how do these animal performances shape distinct animal–human relations and contact zones?

Attenborough's rallying cry.

David Attenborough's latest film A Life on Our Planet is a powerful and unusually personal call to action, finds Timothy Revell

A circumscribed (natural) history: British television celebrates David Attenborough

Four programmes celebrating the life and work of David Attenborough (Life on Air (BBC, 2002); the 3-part series Attenborough: 60 Years in the Wild (BBC, 2012); Attenborough at 90: Behind the Lens (Atlantic, 2016); and Attenborough at 90: Starring David Attenborough (BBC, 2016)) are examined to show what is chosen to be celebrated about Attenborough’s career, what they reveal about the television genre of natural history, and about the kind of television work which is most valued. The programmes concentrate on his role as a natural history presenter on location and on the technology used to produce natural history television. The later three are also concerned with his defying of age-related norms in continuing to work and his adventurousness on location. They do not show the range of his programmes, nor, with the exception of the first and last BBC programmes which acknowledge his long past administrative roles, make explicit the many other roles he plays in programme-making. While showing something of the range of the natural history genre, their concentration on landmark programmes reduces their value as a history of the genre, apart from its technological development.

Time to change course on climate

Summary The 25th annual climate conference marks a quarter of a century of humanity failing to do enough to avert a climate catastrophe. Although a wave of climate strikes and Extinction Rebellion protests has brought the issues to the forefront, experts warn that the pledged reductions are insufficient. A backlash from short-term corporate interests and populist politics could threaten even what little progress has been secured so far. Michael Gross reports.

A plastic ocean: Behind the lens

A plastic ocean: Behind the lens

Plastics in the hydrosphere

Plastics in the hydrosphere

Nature documentaries and saving nature: Reflections on the new Netflix series Our Planet

Abstract Netflix recently launched its high‐profile nature documentary Our Planet. Voiced by Sir David Attenborough in English (with Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz and other Hollywood actors voicing versions simultaneously released in 10 other languages), Netflix are making a clear play for core BBC territory. However, they claim that this is a nature documentary with a difference as it puts the threats facing nature front and center to the narrative. We coded the scripts of Our Planet, and those of three recent Attenborough‐voiced BBC documentaries, to explore the extent to which threats (and conservation action and success) are discussed. The only other series which comes close to the frequency with which these issues are discussed is Blue Planet II, but Our Planet is unique in weaving discussion of these issues throughout all episodes rather than keeping them to a dedicated final episode. However, although Our Planet sounds different to other documentaries, the visuals are very similar. Nature is still mostly shown as pristine, and the presence or impacts of people on the natural world very seldom appear. We discuss the potential consequences of nature documentaries erasing humans from the land/seascape. We also discuss the mechanisms by which nature documentaries may have a positive impact on conservation. Despite links between information provision and behaviour change being complex and uncertain, nature documentaries may, at least in theory, elicit change in a number of ways. They may increase willingness amongst viewers to make personal lifestyle changes, increase support for conservation organizations, and generate positive public attitudes and subsequently social norms towards an issue, making policy change more likely. Netflix is certainly bringing biodiversity and the threats it faces into the mainstream, but the mechanisms by which viewing these representations translates to concrete behaviour change are poorly understood. Increasing interest in robust impact evaluation, integrating qualitative and quantitative methods, means the time is right to explore how both showing nature on screens and talking about the threats it faces, affects people in ways which might, ultimately, contribute to saving it. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Beyond tokenism: meaningful youth engagement in planetary health

Beyond tokenism: meaningful youth engagement in planetary health