Original subtitles

Let's face it, our world is downright weird.

MAN YELLS

Crawling with creatures you've never heard of...

I can't believe that's a living thing.

..full of the unexpected.

Like freak weather exploding out of the blue...

I thought I was going to die.

..and rocks that spontaneously combust...

I thought that was dynamite going off.

..and the unexplained.

An unborn twin discovered inside a brain!

There was multiple hair follicles, bone and teeth.

We've scoured the globe to bring you the very weirdest stories.

MAN YELLS

I could feel this intense pain,

as if you were being stabbed by hundreds of syringes.

In this series, we're going to examine the evidence,

test the science and unravel the mysteries.

We're going to discover what in the weird world is going on.

In this episode,

we expose the bizarre truth behind some of the world's weirdest mysteries.

Can you actually get drunk without drinking a drop?

HE EXHALES

And what exactly causes this illuminating ride?

What on Earth could possibly make the jungle glow green?

I had never seen anything like this before.

This was just totally new.

And, in a change of tune, has this pop band cracked

the code to the ultimate hit, written in liquid DNA?

If we sell one little vial

of our new album as DNA,

we will have the highest-selling album of all time.

In the summer of 2014,

Europe was having a scorcher. A heat wave swept across

the Continent. But what's really weird is that in Siberia, close to the Arctic Circle,

it was even hotter.

Now, Siberia's probably not a place that springs to mind when you think of balmy

beach holidays, but away from the cold, dark winters, that's exactly what you can get.

Summer 2014, temperatures soar to a whopping 40 degrees

and the locals head to the banks of the River Ob to soak up the sun.

But all of a sudden, everything changes.

The winds pick up

and beach-goers notice the air cooling...and cooling fast.

In a matter of minutes, laughter turns to screams.

Bullet-like ice replaces the blazing sun.

An apocalyptic scene soon unfurls.

Massive hailstones relentlessly raining down on horrified bathers.

The locals rapidly have to deal with this terrifying onslaught,

wearing nothing more than their swimwear.

For more than a quarter of an hour,

a powerful freak hailstorm pelts petrified sun worshippers.

Their only escape? Sheltering under airbeds, towels and umbrellas.

What on Earth was going on?

Siberian weather is renowned for being extreme.

The temperature can get down to minus-20 on regular occasions during the winter,

but I guess less is known about the summer conditions.

Typical temperature during daytime summer would be high 20s,

but on this particular occasion in July 2014,

the temperature had started to reach the low 40s -

41 degrees, extreme heat in the middle of the continent.

And then suddenly, the clouds built, grey, leaden skies. The temperature

fell from 41 degrees down to 25 in just the space of ten or 15 minutes.

So, what caused this ice storm of such Biblical proportions?

Well, it was all down to a peculiar and potentially lethal

set of circumstances.

You see, for days, the unseasonable Siberian sun had

been beating down on that sand.

When the hot air began to rise, it met

some exceptionally cold air that had come in from the mountains.

That was a deadly cocktail for the perfect storm.

Let's examine the evidence.

Now, hail is pretty simple stuff.

It starts life as water droplets. Cold conditions cause them

to freeze inside clouds

and when they become too heavy, they fall to Earth.

But these hailstones were different.

Typically, hailstones are about the size of a pea, maybe about 1cm

across, but on this occasion, they were about the size of a golf ball.

So, what made Siberia's hailstones so big?

Well, it was all to do with that freakish heat wave.

Normally, when a hailstone reaches this size,

the forces of gravity come into play and it falls to the ground.

But in this rising column of hot air,

the hailstones were held up in that super-cool cloud

where they bumped into other

water particles, which stuck to them until they grew

and grew and grew

into monstrous chunks of ice

this size!

Then, of course, gravity did do its work.

And all HAIL broke loose.

For small-size hailstones,

they may hit the ground at about 20mph,

but the larger hailstones - the hailstones we're looking at here -

probably reached the ground at about 110mph.

If you're hit by a hailstone at that size, at that speed, well,

it can cause severe consequences.

Cold down draughts add to the process of acceleration.

At these speeds, a hailstone becomes a deadly weapon,

powerful enough to smash through toughened glass,

as this man discovered

when a scenic drive through Spain nearly cost him his life.

It seems our Siberian sunbathers had a lucky escape.

OK, so the cold can be a killer, but could it also, bizarrely,

hold the key to unlocking one of the greatest

medical mysteries of the 21st century?

Creatures around our planet have adapted to living in some

particularly cold environments. Temperatures so low,

your blood would, literally, freeze in your veins.

Take the wood frog. In winter, its blood does freeze in its veins.

But, come spring, it's able to thaw out

and bounce back to life as if nothing ever happened.

Or the red-sided garter snake.

It produces anti-freeze that protects its major

organs for several hours at a time.

But there's one animal whose survival skills surpass all others.

The Arctic ground squirrel.

Yes, this seemingly unremarkable rodent is very special indeed.

This species of squirrel employs a remarkable strategy

and it's actually one which might help us.

For this tiny mammal,

the best way to survive the big freeze is a mega sleep.

For eight months each year, these ground-dwellers hibernate.

No surprise there, really.

Lots of animals hunker down over winter,

but for the ground squirrel this is no ordinary hibernation.

One day in early August, they'll retreat into their burrow,

pull their tail over their head and they'll fall asleep.

But what's unusual about the Arctic ground squirrel - in fact, unique -

is that it can drop to the lowest body temperature of any

mammal on Earth, to minus-three degrees Celsius.

Should be frozen but isn't.

But the squirrel's body is 50-70% water,

so how does it stop becoming a furry ice pop?

Well, there's some very weird science going on inside

the Arctic ground squirrel.

Let's compare this super squirrel to a raspberry and a cucumber.

They're made up of a similar percentage of water.

When they freeze, ice crystals form.

As the water becomes ice, it expands into sharp-edged crystals,

which puncture the cell walls of the fruit.

When they defrost, these cell walls collapse

and the fruit turns to mush.

But the squirrel comes out of hibernation completely unscathed.

You see, it's got a means of protecting its cells from damage,

a technique called super-cooling.

Super-cooling - what does that mean?

Well, the blood in this curious critter acts

just like the water in this bottle.

Although liquid in appearance, it's actually well below freezing,

around minus-six to minus-eight degrees Celsius,

and it's still fluid.

It should be solid ice, but it isn't.

Just like the hibernating squirrel's blood.

Once their blood drops below the freezing point, it should freeze,

but in fact, liquids don't

unless they're in the presence of what's called an ice nucleator.

Water needs an

ice nucleator to start the freezing off, it acts as an template for ice.

The trick of the super-cool water is that it's super-pure.

There are no tiny impurities - what we call nucleators -

that ice crystals need to grab on to in order to grow.

Lots of things can act as a nucleator -

a simple speck of dust, or even tiny bubbles.

By hitting this bottle on a hard surface, we create bubbles.

And that kick starts ice crystals to form around them.

And right in front of our eyes,

a bottle of water transforms into a solid block of ice.

But why doesn't this happen inside the ground squirrel?

What these Arctic ground squirrels seem to do is

cleanse their bodies and their blood of would-be ice nucleators

and that allows them to reach this super-cool state,

this lowest temperature that no other animal does.

So, the ground squirrel's blood has evolved to be pure.

If it had any impurities at all, it would freeze and eventually die.

And that's what stops the hibernating squirrel

from turning into a slush puppy.

Remember I told you that these chaps could hold the key to solving

a great medical mystery?

Scientists have discovered another amazing string to the

Arctic ground squirrel's already impressive bow.

Its brain.

When a ground squirrel goes into torpor,

its brain cools, of course, and the firing rate of the neurons,

which is how we think, slows down,

and in fact, when they're in their deepest torpid state,

there's no electrical activity in their brain at all.

The number of synapses and the connections between neurons

is reduced,

which in humans is known to be part of the disease of Alzheimer's.

These ground squirrels, when they re-warm, they can reverse all of this.

So, if we could understand how ground squirrels

are able to reverse these symptoms that are

irreversible in humans, it might help us cure Alzheimer's.

So, super-cooling might be the key to preventing memory loss,

which is great news, because we're all living that much longer

and that's what we want - we want a long life with our memories intact.

And, of course, youthful looks.

Many of us humans will try all sorts of weird and exotic potions in our

quest to stay looking young, with ingredients sourced from some pretty weird places,

like snake venom, caviar and even, dare I say it, haemorrhoid cream.

But perhaps we've been looking in the wrong place all the time.

I give you the naked mole rat.

No, really - the naked mole rat.

Yes, this sabre-toothed, sausage-shaped creature spends

its entire life in underground burrows with up to 300 mates

in the arid regions of East Africa.

Conditions in these subterranean burrows are quite extreme.

Oxygen levels are incredibly low,

carbon dioxide is high. It's hot, it's claustrophobic -

it doesn't sound like the perfect recipe for a long and healthy life.

Or does it?

They can live up to 30 years,

which is totally exceptional for a small rodent.

Our naked mole rat guru

has the inside track on these critters.

So, that's nearly ten times longer than a mouse

and about five times longer than you would predict from their body size.

So, I guess if you compare a really old naked mole rat,

it would be equivalent to a really old human of maybe 90 or 100,

but without most of the signs of ageing.

That's like someone in their 60s with the body of a 21-year-old.

Normally, as humans and other mammals and animals age,

we get predictable changes.

We get muscle wasting, bones become weaker,

blood vessels become less elastic.

But it's been shown in naked mole rats that they resist those changes into their old age.

You'd think that having the key to eternal life would be

good enough for most of us. Probably so, but not for the naked mole rat.

No, these remarkable little rodents have another amazing trait.

They're actually cancer-resistant and the secret to that,

lies in the very thing that makes them look so weird.

If I hold this one just by the scruff, which they are quite happy with,

you can see how stretchy the skin is there.

This really loose skin is a good adaptation

to living underground in tight tunnels and tight situations

with a lot of other individuals.

That helps them avoid getting stuck. But this stretchy skin

is a result of a gloopy substance that only naked mole rats

appear to produce. It's known as high molecular weight hyalruonan.

In fact, this substance is known to give them their cancer resistance.

Now scientists are delving deep into this gloopy substance,

trying to copy its extraordinary anti-cancer powers.

So, maybe the old naked mole rat's subterranean secret will help us

live longer, healthier lives.

They are quite ugly little spuds but they are really amazing, yes.

So, the old naked mole rat could help prevent the wear

and tear of the ageing process.

But, of course, our bodies are not the only thing we want to maintain.

What if I were to tell you that we could preserve everything on our

planet for ever,

and that the secret lies in a very unexpected place?

Meet OK Go.

A pop band with futuristic ideas.

# I won't let you down No, I won't let you down... #

A quirky quartet with more than 200 million views on YouTube.

# ..I won't let you down No I won't let you down... #

Known for their wildly entertaining music videos...

# ..Nikki she's got no flag to fly... #

..these arty musos are at the top of their musical game.

But for frontman Damian Kulash,

living in an age of cutting-edge technology has its pitfalls.

I recorded music 15-20 years ago in college that

I can't play any more.

I can't find the right DAT machine, or the right ADAT machine,

or the right 16-track digital machine

that looked like it was the future then and now I can't even find one

to play these tapes on, and that's only 15 years.

But a chance meeting with a biochemist in 2012 meant

that Damian would never, ever think about music

in the same way again.

I met Sri Kosuri, who was at Harvard at the time.

We were both speaking at a storytelling conference

and I learned of his work coding text.

He'd done a book at that time.

Amazingly, Kosuri had converted the entire contents of a book to DNA.

53,000 words stored artificially using genetic material.

If you can do text as DNA, you can do any data as DNA,

and immediately, the first thing I thought was,

"I want my music to be made of DNA!"

Now, music and books stored in the building blocks of life? Hold on.

Our bodies are basically the hardware

and the software is essentially DNA.

It builds the hardware as it goes.

Your DNA is just a long code.

Operating off that model, we can take pieces of DNA

and put any data we want in there.

For instance, our band is releasing our album on DNA.

The same ones and zeroes that would be on the CD version will be on tiny,

tiny pieces of DNA.

It sounds complicated, doesn't it, but let me try and explain.

You see, digital information, such as music, is stored in binary code.

It's got two units. It's got a zero and a one.

Well, DNA is a coded mechanism too. It doesn't have two units,

it has four -

G, C, T and A.

They're not notes, of course, they're chemical compounds.

But if we can store digital information using two units,

we can also store it using four.

It might be a bit more difficult, but it works.

Using computer software, scientists can translate those ones and zeros

into a code for DNA.

For example, zeros become As and Ts and ones become Cs and Gs.

Essentially, going from a long list of numbers, that's music,

to a long list of letters, DNA.

That's all we do, is make data. We make music, we make videos,

we make art of all sorts, but it always comes out as ones and zeros,

and those ones and zeros could be on DNA and that's just awesome.

When songsmith, Damian, met Kosuri, they made beautiful molecular

music together.

Now DNA data is set to become all the rage.

In theory, if we sell one little vial of our new album as DNA,

we will have sold trillions and trillions of copies,

which, I think, will make it the highest-selling album of all time.

Only one person will have all those copies, and they'd need

a lab to be able to read them, but hey, technicalities.

Yes, technicalities.

So, using DNA for albums might still be in its infancy,

but whilst Damian's looking to DNA for music,

scientists have their eyes on a bigger prize -

storing all human knowledge.

Yes, scientists reckon every bit of information in the world right now -

that's all of your photos, all of my photos, phone data, CDs, DVDs,

computer hard drives, the World Wide Web,

in fact, every last byte of data on the entire planet -

could be stored, not on hard drives, but in little vials like this.

And what's more, we could squeeze it all into the back

of just one truck.

Six zettabytes of information in one truck.

You've got to admit, it's absolutely incredible!

A freak hailstorm heralds an icy reign of terror for us,

but thanks to its weird blood, the arctic ground squirrel

doesn't fear the big freeze,

and good genetics allow the naked mole rat to live a long

and healthy life, whilst DNA has another trick up its sleeve

that could help preserve all the world's data forever.

Next, from an unanticipated intoxication,

to a surprising invasion.

First, watch this, because this guy swears that he hasn't

touched a drop.

Honest.

Why are you recording me?

Because I want to show this to the doctors.

Please tell me how you're feeling.

- What? Why are you recording me? - Nick, I need you to focus.

HE EXHALES

Let's be frank. Nick Hess looks absolutely hammered,

but according to him, no alcohol has passed his lips.

His wife, Karen, wasn't convinced.

He started having mental confusion and he was slurring.

He was disorientated.

It was almost like he had had a couple of drinks, even though

we had spent the entire day together.

I decided, at that moment, I would go through the house and determine

if he was indeed hiding alcohol.

When she first accused me of being drunk without drinking, I thought

she was crazy, or she was just playing a joke on me,

or she was just not being serious.

I didn't believe it.

But Karen was serious and she's wasn't alone.

Friends often thought that Nick was drunk.

Friends and family were kind of like, well, he's always a goofy,

party kind of guy anyway, so maybe he is over there drinking

by himself, or a secret alcoholic, or whatever.

Desperate for him to see his behaviour through other

people's eyes, Karen decided to film him in the act.

What do you feel like?

I feel like... I feel like I'm on some hard drug or something.

Have you had anything to drink?

Nothing.

When I first saw the video, I looked in my eyes in the video

and I could tell I wasn't there.

I didn't remember her taking the video and when I see

myself like that, I just...

It was terrifying. It was terrible to see yourself like that.

SLURRED SPEECH BLEEP

He's sworn, he's gotten combative...

- Please. - I need to do this.

..he's mooned me on camera. I mean, everything you can think of

that you would imagine someone who's had seven shots of whisky doing,

he's done.

Maybe something else was brewing here.

Because unbeknown to Nick and Karen, in Texas,

a similar story was playing out

and it was brought to the attention of Dr Barbara Cordell.

I had a friend in 2010, that came to me and he and his wife were very

concerned about some symptoms he was having.

It seemed like he was getting drunk without having drunk any alcohol.

But the weird thing was that Barbara's friend, Joe, was teetotal.

That's when I really started to research and try to figure out

what was going on with him.

Initially, we thought Joe was having some low blood sugar issues,

or that he was a diabetic, or that he maybe even was a closet drinker.

So, Barbara's patient had exactly the same symptoms as Nick.

But why?

In order to pin down Joe's specific diagnosis, we went to a doctor.

He actually hospitalised Joe for 24 hours and gave him

a high carbohydrate diet.

He had no access to alcohol and that's

when the folks in the hospital saw Joe's blood alcohol level

increase on its own without any ingestion of alcohol.

What Barbara had discovered was that Nick

and Joe were suffering from a rare syndrome called auto-brewery.

But what's that?

Well, to find out, we have to examine how booze is made.

Take vodka, for instance.

One of its key ingredients is the potato, the ultimate carb.

Carbohydrates are essentially sugars and when you add yeast to them,

they ferment, producing alcohol.

Normally, our liver naturally stores most sugars,

but if there's too much, it gets into the intestine

and that's where Nick and Joe's guts differ from the rest of us.

Their intestines turn those carbohydrates

and yeasts into alcohol.

It's as if they've got their own little distillery in their bellies.

So, why doesn't this happen to all of us?

Well, there was something else going on in Nick's body.

I took a DNA culture test and when it came back,

I had 400% more yeast than anybody my doctor had ever seen.

And when all that yeast started dining out on all that sugar,

it produced the perfect conditions to make alcohol.

For Nick, it had brewed booze without him ever drinking a drop.

But having a microbrewery in your stomach, isn't as much

fun as you might think.

For Nick, it was completely debilitating.

It was a daily routine. I'd wake up in the morning and I'd throw up,

from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed,

every single day.

I've watched people suffer with it and the most frightening

part of auto-brewery, is that it can come on at any time,

so, for example,

a person could be at work, or they could be driving, and it could

hit them suddenly and they would be so drunk

that they couldn't function,

and that's a terrifying prospect for the people who are going through it,

and the people who are watching their loved ones go through it.

He'll have good and bad days and on his really bad days,

it's very hard to... Sorry.

..it's very hard to watch.

But there is hope.

Now that doctors have worked out what's happening inside Nick's gut,

he's been put on a strict carb-free diet to eliminate foods

that break down to sugar, and by getting his yeast under control,

Nick is slowly getting back on much steadier feet.

Honestly, who'd have thought that such an innocent part

of our staple diet could lead to such dangerous intoxication.

But, you know, we're not the only ones at the top of a food chain

that are vulnerable to a deadly tonic.

4th October 1997.

A group of whale watchers out near the Farallon Islands,

close to San Francisco, chanced upon a surprising display.

We'd got a call from another fishing boat

and he said to our captain,

"Mick, get over to the islands.

"We just saw two killer whales kill a sea lion

"and they partly ate it."

Sightings were just virtually unknown that close to the islands for killer whales.

So, we headed over there very, very quickly

and saw the two killer whales.

But then research volunteer Mary Jane Schramm spotted

something else in the water.

Suddenly we saw a dark form

just going parallel to the whole of the boat, really hugging it

and moving almost directly toward where the killer whales were.

And it was a white shark, it was a good-sized animal, about 11 or 12 feet.

The ocean's deadliest hunters,

the great white and the killer whale,

so rarely seen together, were now about to collide.

What happened next would leave the onlookers stunned.

One of the killer whales stopped

and broke off and went on an intercept path

with the white shark, and they pretty much disappeared into the waves.

Everything after that point for the next 15 minutes was dead.

We had no indication what was going on.

We collectively were holding our breath to find out exactly how this drama would play out.

For 15 long minutes nothing but calm seas.

Unseen below, a clash of the titans.

All of a sudden, we saw a killer whale swimming directly back to the boat

with a white shark upside down in its mouth.

Oh, my God!

Astonishing!

The great white, the predator supreme, was dead,

chomped by the killer whale.

It swam directly to the boat

and it actually did a few laps with this dead shark in its mouth,

almost like victory laps, while we were watching,

not believing what we had just seen.

After a while, the other killer whale joined in

and they were dismembering the shark

and they were feeding on its liver.

Mary Jane had witnessed what appeared to be the first time

a great white shark had been taken out by another apex predator.

How did the orca overpower the great white?

After all, the shark has razor-sharp teeth

and the ultimate killer instinct.

But orcas are known for using their big brains

and their wily hunting methods to sneak up on unsuspecting seals on sand.

Or make waves to knock them into the water

When it comes to great whites,

the orcas need to bring out their big guns.

In fact, they've developed a special tactic

which renders the great white defenceless.

This is just a baby lemon shark,

but most sharks will stop struggling

if they're turned upside down.

It sends them into a sort of a trance,

which scientists call tonic immobility.

The killer whale had exploited the Achilles heel of the great white -

turn it on its back and it goes into sleep mode.

In this relaxed state, the mighty shark

can't respond to an attack with its lethal teeth.

Hmm. It's a nifty trick.

So the orca, with its big brain,

put the great white into a state of tonic immobility

and then it held it there for 15 minutes,

and that is the clever part.

You see, sharks have to keep swimming in order to breathe.

So, by holding it upside-down and still,

the orca was able to suffocate it.

To see it play out in this drama of life or death,

where a white shark is killed,

is more than anybody could possibly have even imagined.

Nothing like that has ever been observed since then.

There you have it - the great white shark can be overcome

and killed without much of a fight.

The orca's secret superpower is all to do

with what's going on up here,

but, you know, there is another sea creature

which has a formidable, hidden strength.

Although, on the surface of it, I've got to say,

its credentials are not nearly so impressive.

It might be the size of a 50 pence piece, but scientists recently

discovered something truly amazing about the humble limpet.

It has a super strength like no other.

Now, if you've ever trodden on one of these molluscs in bare feet,

you'll know exactly how painfully hard their conical shells can be

and you'd be forgiven for thinking that's where their toughness lies.

But you'd be wrong.

So, if it's not the shell,

you might think it's the vice-like grip that it uses to

cling onto rocks as it battles against the ocean's currents.

But that's not where the limpet's super strength lies either.

Remarkably, you know, it's in its teeth.

Yes, its teeth!

The limpet's pearly whites have got one mechanical engineer gripped.

The teeth are almost alien, so they look like claws

that are scraping away at rock surfaces to loosen the food

so the limpet can feed,

and this is really an incredibly demanding process.

The teeth can't afford to break, because if the teeth break,

it doesn't feed and it will die of starvation.

What limpets are looking for is microscopic algae

that finely carpet rocks.

But to get it off, they need some mighty molars.

If you look closely...

hidden in its mouth is a rolled up radula,

a tongue-like appendage.

When unravelled, it reveals rows and rows of teeth,

a thousand to be precise.

If you thought that limpets having 1,000 teeth was mindboggling enough,

Asa discovered something even more exciting

when he was looking at their gnashers.

There's been a little bit of a race to discover

what's the strongest biological material

and spider silk has been winning that race for a long, long time,

but we found that limpet teeth, this mundane sea creature,

produce teeth that were actually even stronger than spider silk.

It really is astounding.

So, the strength of a limpet tooth is over twice that

of Kevlar fibres that are commonly used in ballistic protection.

So, tucked away under their shell,

these tiny teeth, less than a millimetre long,

are the strongest biological material on earth.

It's incredible!

Now scientists think that by understanding how limpets grow

their teeth, they can mimic their design in modern-day structures,

everything from aircraft wings to Formula 1 cars,

but with a greener twist.

The great thing about limpets that we have to remember is

the teeth are made from elements found in the local environment.

It's using a very efficient biological manufacturing process

that's sustainable.

So, the design found in limpet teeth could be very

important for the composites of the future.

I like it when we accept that we get some of our better ideas from nature

and there are plenty of examples around us.

We've all got air bags in our car.

Well, allegedly that idea came from gannets.

Yes, they have air bags in their bodies

so when they plunge into the water at high speed, they don't get hurt.

And now look, the engineers have turned to the

teeth of limpets for ideas.

Smart.

But sometimes we have to admit that nature

wants a little bit of what we've got -

our gardens.

On the southern tip of Africa,

there's been an invasion.

These beach-side retreats are under

attack by something particularly menacing

and it's keeping residents up all night.

They are very tough, very aggressive,

quite dangerous animals.

A stench, which stinks like hell.

They can inflict very nasty bites.

And when the wind blows, we get all this bloody black

rubbish into the house.

They can inflict extremely nasty scratches with their claws.

The noise at night is unreal.

HE BELLOWS

They bellow and bellow and bellow and bellow.

HE BELLOWS

I didn't sleep from quarter to four the other morning.

The picturesque seaside towns of Betty's Bay,

and its neighbour Boulders Beach, are under siege.

From -

and wait for it -

a badly behaved group of African penguins.

Known as jackass penguins because of their donkey-like bray,

the African bird's black and white markings and adorable waddle

are a firm family favourite.

Unless, of course, you live in Betty's Bay.

Look what they've done to the bush here, they've killed the garden.

So, what is bringing hundreds of jackasses to Barbara's back yard?

Could it be the manicured lawn,

the beautifully planted beds or the irresistible sea view?

The real problem with Betty's Bay is that it's the only growing

colony of African penguins and there's no space.

Professor Peter Barham is just potty about penguins.

These animals arrived in Betty's Bay around about 30-odd years ago,

in 1982, for the first time.

They've increased in numbers ever since and started to

invade the areas where people live as well.

These jackasses normally hang out in the neighbouring penguin reserve

with 5,000 others.

The problem is it's full to bursting and, when space is at a premium,

they'll quite happily up sticks in search of another place to live.

And that's exactly what 50 or so have done in Betty's Bay.

The penguins move to wherever they can get more space.

As soon as the density goes up, they seem to want to move away.

As the gardens are further away, they'll move into those gardens.

Penguins breed the best in a really nice, dry burrow.

Well, there are no dry, nice burrows, but a little shed is great,

a building is great.

Anything which has a good roof on it, that's where they're going to nest.

Finding the perfect habitat is key to their breeding success.

What these guys are looking for is enough room to breed and nest,

far away from the rest of the colony.

It's that that's brought them into conflict with the locals.

As the penguin colony grew in numbers, there were so many

birds starting to breed in people's gardens that the people found that

they were too noisy, too smelly

and the guano was killing off their plants -

everything you can imagine.

People, for some reason, didn't like having them in their garden.

It wasn't romantic.

When there was just one or two in the colony it was fine,

but when there are 20 or 30, it suddenly becomes too many.

It's understandable, I suppose.

But it does create a bit of a dilemma for the residents here.

You see, although these penguins are a bit of a nuisance,

the African penguin is, in fact, in serious decline.

100 years ago, there were one-and-a-half million pairs.

These days there are only 20,000

and I've got to tell you,

the only place where the population is doing any good is Betty's Bay.

So you might say - and Barbara is not going to thank me for this -

that's all down to people's back yards.

Our world is wonderfully weird.

We've seen how an inexplicable intoxication

was explained by a deadly diet.

While fearsome sharks go belly up when they're flipped on their backs.

And when it comes to strength,

the tiny limpet has super-tough teeth to take on anything.

Oh, and if you want to pick up a penguin,

you might get lucky in a garden.

And, finally, what's the link between an extraordinary eruption

and a Day-Glo dilemma?

Well...

it all starts with a bang.

Volcanoes.

These fiery giants inspire awe and terror in equal measure.

I fall in love on volcanoes

and I really want to spend

as much time as I can on volcanoes.

For Olivier Grunewald they're an obsession.

I've been on maybe 100 volcanoes in the world

but one changed really my life.

Kawah Ijen.

East Java.

Olivier had heard that something out of the ordinary was going on

at this rather special volcano.

It was absolutely something strange.

It's very rare to have a phenomenon like that.

I tried to find some information on the internet.

There is no picture, no info, nothing.

I decide to take my chance.

So, Olivier headed to Indonesia

to see for himself whether the rumours were true.

I arrive at the top of the crater

and the crater is full of gas and I saw nothing.

In my mind, I really think we've travelled so far for nothing.

The decision to travel more than 7,000 miles based just on hearsay

was beginning to feel a little bit foolhardy,

but then Olivier's luck changed.

Suddenly, the wind changed

and some... Like lightning in a storm,

some blue line appeared in the crater.

I was so excited.

The plumes of gas parted

to reveal something bizarre.

Glowing rivers of blue light.

It was something simply incredible.

It's difficult to describe, because when the light disappear,

we can see the blue light glowing.

The lava pouring from the crater's mouth

wasn't the usual river of red.

It was like a dream.

I spent the night in a trance, taking picture.

I remember nothing of this night except the picture.

It was a natural spectacle unlike anything he'd ever seen.

Back home, Olivier's photographs went viral and caught

the attention of geologists.

I've been studying volcanoes for years,

but I'm constantly surprised by them.

Everything about this blue material

that's flowing down the volcano appears to be like lava.

It flows over the mounds and troughs.

It looks like lava but it's blue,

which means it can't possibly be the lava itself.

When lava erupts from the Earth's crust,

it can flow at temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees Centigrade.

And it's the heat from the lava that tends to give

a volcano its incandescent red glow.

So, if it's blue, then it can't be lava.

If it's not lava, then, what is it?

Well, Kawah Ijen has some secret ingredients

and Olivier's photographs have gone some way to explain its source.

During the day, he watched the locals moving in,

completely unfazed, hacking off what appeared to be

chunks of yellow rock.

But it's not rock that they're mining,

it's actually solid sulphur

that's cooled and solidified on top of the rocks.

Could this sulphur be the cause of Olivier's blue volcano?

We're used to the yellow flame that carbon produces

from burning wood or paper,

but some compounds burn with more unusual coloured flames.

This is boron.

Lithium.

Sodium.

But as the sulphur burns, it reacts with oxygen to produce -

and you've guessed it -

a bright blue flame,

the source of the extraordinary blue in Olivier's pictures.

Now, sulphur is common at every single volcano around the world,

but what's special at this particular volcano is that

it's got really high concentrations of sulphur.

A breathtakingly beautiful phenomena explained by simple chemistry.

The sulphur at Kawah Ijen burns day and night,

but, of course, during the daytime,

with all of that blue reflected light coming from the sky,

you can't actually see the flames.

It's only at night when they look truly spectacular.

Then, of course, a light in the dark is often an irresistible lure.

The Peruvian rain forest -

dark, mysterious,

where strange things come out at night.

But on a moonlit hike in 2012,

something unusual caught the eye of intrepid wildlife photographer

Jeff Cremer.

We stopped in an area just

to turn off the head lamps and look at the stars.

It's really dark in the Amazon jungle.

The stars are amazing when you're out.

You can see the whole Milky Way.

Jeff, expecting to take in the celestial beauty of the night sky,

was met by something much stranger.

Right when we turned the head lamps off,

we were surrounded by a wall of glowing lights.

I've never seen anything like that before.

They were everywhere, like, hundreds of them.

Glowing green dots, flickering in front of him.

I've worked in the Amazon for about five years.

I've seen a lot of really cool stuff, a lot of weird things.

I've never seen a wall of glowing lights.

Each light revealed something peculiar,

a creature that Jeff had never seen before.

Mystified, he quickly took pictures of this rather odd sight

in the hope that someone would be able to help identify it.

Cue entomologist Aaron Pomerantz.

I first came across Jeff's photos online.

They were causing this big stir, because nobody knew what they were

and they were so bizarre-looking.

They looked like glowing worms that were bursting out of the earth.

I'd never seen any picture like this before of an animal.

Intrigued, Aaron wanted to see them in their natural habitat.

So, with the light on, this might just look like a bunch of dirt.

But when the lights are off...

..we're going to see a bunch of green, glowing dots in here.

Let's focus right here, because I can see one sticking his head out.

Right there. So, let's kill the lights.

No way.

I had never seen anything like this before.

Even working with lots of insects, this was just totally new.

What on earth were they?

We started doing a lot more in-depth research on what these were.

How long are they?

Look at its other different body parts, how many legs do they have?

What do their mandibles look like?

There he is.

We took a closer look and that's when we could confirm

that they were some sort of insect larvae,

but then the question on all of our minds was,

why are these things glowing in the middle of the Amazon rainforest?

The mysterious worms were the larvae of an unknown type of beetle

and not your average larvae.

Not only was light coming from their heads, which is pretty weird,

but they also had huge mandibles.

Aaron and Jeff's larvae were armed, but why?

Our first clue came from their behaviour.

They looked tough, they looked dangerous,

like they can grab something and kill it.

What Aaron did is he took some termites,

some tiny, little termites.

He kind of dropped them in really close to where these larvae were.

We were like, "Yeah, they're definitely predatory."

The larvae were using their illuminated heads

to lure in their lunch -

fiendishly clever.

By observing the behaviour of these predatory larvae,

Aaron has been able to shed some light on their mysterious glow.

But is he any closer to knowing which beetle species it is?

The discovery is really exciting and we really want to figure out,

how long have they been there, what are they doing and what are they going to turn into,

because we've never seen an adult before.

This could be a new species.

To make new discoveries and add to the body of knowledge is unbelievable.

To be on the front-lines with that kind of discovery

has just been such a dream come true.

Because they are a new species, we're not entirely sure yet,

but it's likely that these beetles

produce their light in the same way that glow worms do.

It's a bit like the fuel, the wood here,

burning in the presence of oxygen.

Because inside the insect's body, there are two chemicals,

luciferin and luciferase,

and in the presence of oxygen, they actually produce their own light.

It's called bioluminescence.

The beetle larvae are in good company.

Fireflies and glow worms create breathtaking light displays,

but the greatest numbers of bioluminescent species

aren't found on land.

Look at this.

A video gone viral

of a surfer on the San Diego coast.

This is astonishingly beautiful and it's 100% real,

but what creatures create light on this kind of scale?

The reason the wave is glowing like that is because

within the water, there are thousands of tiny, single-celled creatures

known as dinoflagellates.

And they do that when they're knocked around.

So, whether it's the water moving, or the surfer with his board

touching the waves, each of them only glowing for maybe half a second

at a time, but because there are thousands of them,

you get this twinkling and glowing effect across the whole wave.

Dinoflagellates use their illumination as a security

light to deter predators.

But other species, like this cone jellyfish, use it to attract

their prey, just like our mysterious beetle in Peru.

It's certainly a pretty neat survival skill.

So, sulphur explains a volcano burning blue,

while a brand-new species survives by the same chemical reaction

that gave a surfer a really epic ride,

but it also enables a tiny organism living deep in the blue

to put on a spectacular light display.

If you thought all of those stories were weird,

just wait because things are going to get a lot weirder.

Next time...

..how can the weather ruin your perfect day?

You just see it coming, like, the end of the world.

How could cats in bibs save millions of lives?

What's the secret behind some mysterious green balls?

And how could a twin appear inside your brain?

She was literally dying.