Nikki Stirling

Primeval New Zealand

We call ourselves Kiwis. But do we really know where "our" bird came from? The answer is astounding... and rather disturbing. To trace the origins of the kiwi and the rest of our weird and wonderful wildlife, we travel back through time - to Primeval New Zealand. For the first time science is revealing the true story about where our wildlife icons came from, and the reasons for their unique evolution.

China's Lost Pyramids

In China, there exists an astonishing place. A burial ground to rival Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, where pyramid tombs of stupendous size are full of astonishing riches. In 221 BC, China's first Emperor united warring kingdoms into a nation that still exists today. To memorialise this achievement, he bankrupted the national treasury and oppressed thousands of workers to build one of the world’s biggest mortuary complexes. China's second dynasty, the Han, inherited the daunting challenge of building larger tombs to command respect and establish their right to rule without running the nation into the ground. Although no Han emperor's tomb has been opened, the tombs of lesser Han aristocrats have revealed astonishing things: complete underground palaces (including kitchens and toilets) and at least one corpse so amazingly well-preserved some believe Han tomb-builders knew how to "engineer immortality".