the global 3000 talks with team british researchers who take a more optimistic view. the world is not always a good plan but it's much much better than i was. really getting better. a global $3000.00 special reports. start august 19th on digital. welcome to tomorrow today the science show on t w coming up alexander from home but was born 250 years ago we follow in the footsteps of the great scientist and explorer. the tablo physique is one of hubbard's most important creations it contains in consistencies as scientists have found out. and we had to fire back where hobart studied mining technology now researchers there are working on new ways of extracting metals. he wanted to see the world in its entirety at a time when europeans saw themselves as a period to other peoples and cultures aleksandr from home but sought personal contact his famous expedition to the americas revealed to him how everything was connected. multifaceted scientist explorer humanist combat is considered one of the last minister. alexander one who was born in berlin and 769 growing up in a palace outside the city he was fascinated by rocks plants and insects from an early age after attending university. and working as a government mine inspector he set off for the americas in 171009 it was a dream come true for a naturalist for 4 months we slept in the forests surrounded by crocodiles boas and jackie was eating nothing more than rice ants manioc and on occasion monkeys he wrote of the hardships and excitement of his expedition he returned after 5 years with a wealth of measurement data and botanical and geological specimens. vulcanology zoology ethnology just 3 of the many research areas to which he made important contributions. was celebrated in his lifetime he died in 859 and. his legacy is preserved in his great multi-volume work cosmos a comprehensive treaties on science and nature. how relevant is humbug today. to find out our reporter christiana coleman headed out with a team to follow the route of her mots expedition in south america. the trip took them to ecuador and colombia. in part one they climbed. and at of all canada that is as much a challenge today as it was and how much time. 4000 meters above sea level on the north face of chin but also the legendary volcano that an $1802.00 proved an insurmountable challenge for. mountain guide garcia wants to take us to the summit. our team is struggling with the thin air at this altitude and we still have hours of ascent to head of us we're following the route taken 2 centuries ago by the famous explorer and naturalist. and really question about timing and i'm really passionate about being in one time so of course 200 years ago someone has a right here and discovered these area and the like of course we did with them on things. like you to see how missionary he was thinking how he can get to the top if you. didn't know how heights and just feel enough to go up and fight the measure of the mountain and try to be enough place for it. as we follow in the footsteps of onyx on the one home board our expedition will take us halfway across south america. our journey begins here in ecuador and one of the world's highest capital cities. quito was the window on the heavens he and his companions set up a base in a spanish colonial town their objective to explore the region and document everything they encountered along the way. the basement of ecuador's national archives houses the priceless findings of their research trip. the maps correspondence and drawings produced by on board and stored here amount to over 4000 pages. historian and home board expert is it going to him or do you know youngness has examined all the documents. in that moment important is it possible to get one enormously important item is the passport issued to home by the spanish government on may 7th 799 he is important but that name was for him to quote continue studying them i see and make collections of observations and discoveries useful for the advancement of the natural sciences but it is so the less he said that without. the passport gave him board license to roam as he pleased through spain's colonial territories an extraordinary privilege for the time and one that he made maximum use of. in the space of 5 years he travelled from ben as a whaler to cuba colombia ecuador and peru then on to mexico exploring collecting and measuring everything he came across on boats holistic approach to research combined precise data gathering with personal observations made during his journey he bridge the boundaries of scientific disciplines humble came to the americas to understand how all the forces of nature are intertwined and interconnected he was accompanied on his mission by his friend the botanist i'm a bump wrong the 2 men were on by john barrasso the an active volcano which at the time was considered the world's highest mountain. resolved to reach its summit. as. i've been out of my own up with him go up the mountain that's not something people do here normally at most maybe bring out luggage for visitors but no one goes up the mountain of their own accord. or since a is or him what i thought. north where they can't be climbed by anyone who is bad or has failed again they are going across iowa towel or impairment north of where it will be it can only be inclined to fight people who are healthy when commuter who are well fed and who are on good terms with the lord he will say yes if you've done something bad in your life you won't make it work if you try you end up in line to your own crazy or dead horse or. that's. still the term and to climb the colossus towering 6300 meters above sea level it was long considered. so we're trying to climb was from across the world. because 1st internationally licensed female. sea. i remember one. unless. you. think you'll. just need to trust yourself. to keep. her. climbing and because of that. ok i can inspire people to do the same. i never thought that i'm going to became the fairs. and be like that but now is part of me. a respect for scientific curiosity grows is where you approach the glacier it's our 1st time with this kind of altitude. as we continue our ascent so we can also see distinct changes in the vegetation. now you can see. but they're disappearing as. the glaciers near so just some plants can survive you know many few meters from down below to 300 meters is a big change. is going to disappear in the next 100 meters and so is the. in these area b. cannot survive these on and off oxygen for them to be alive here. the trek from quito option but also was on board road like a botanical journey from the equator to the poles down in the valleys he saw tropical plants and further up the mountain vegetation similar to that in northern europe as the explorer looked down on the mountain ranges below him he perceived the world with different eyes. later on board painter the now famous cross-section of chimborazo illustrating the different vegetation in climate zones that demonstrated the relationship between plant life and altitude and climate and patterns repeated across the planet the chimborazo map was a striking illustration of the complex interconnectedness of the natural world. it was forced to abandon his expedition a few 100 metres short of the summit of chin but also his way blocked by an impassable ravine. but he had climbed higher than anyone before him and his world fame was guaranteed. let's take a closer look at home but still ross and that also known as the tabloid physique the diagram contains data of great interest to modern day reset has some climate and ecology. but now it team of scientists has found some discrepancies in the data we talked on skype with french research it. was currently on an expedition in ecuador and i asked him why he's so interested in the temple of physic. working with colleagues. on. climate change on high altitude organisms. we soon realized it was necessary that's good of research. sure gets as old information as we care so historical old information we can call there with the current position of all isms and of course in tropical regions we have very few really startled because and who is one of the most important potential sources of information for that going off historical records. that together with his colleagues he found that some of humbert's information about the altitude at which says some plants were granting was inconsistent. plus another area did he notice but we also realize that is that most of his observation about her did use the education did not come from the children i saw but from another monday in god and dishonor he was completely aware of that of course so the devil does it it is not a saint if you documents perfect that can be used by modern as they are just for new results it's a very important. document for the history of science. this is a small painfully humble canton 80 now to my place team rediscovered it on one of their trips on humble it's expedition still a source of inspiration yes of course it is very inspiring and we had a description or how he climbed on the. he gets almost this or snowblind he didn't have a. good good protection of the eyes it's a dirty drug to say what you are so where he suffered a storm and the reason why he could not observe the education higher that you put it. is because there he was he suffered a store just during his time so of course and not to say about. clothes where. his clothes was not adapted to to carry a monkey so of course it's very pressing what's trained to do so such a long explanation it's not a one in a. sense to him out there it's. a ceremony explanation so of course it's a mode. for more fascinating research results and expeditions go to her website or funnel as on twitter and facebook and do check out our special birthday web page full of stories related to aleksandar from home by. numerous species of plants and animals have been named after oleksandr from home but they range from penguins. to screw monkeys. and bats and speaking of that if you encounter incentive a question about a special thing they do. ringback why do bats sleep upside down. in fact they spend most of their time hanging with their heads pointing down even for months at a time when they hibernate. nobody really knows how they evolve to do it. but that they do it has distinct advantages as research has demonstrated. critical hanging from rafters or branches means they don't have to compete with other species for a place to sleep far from the ground they're less vulnerable to predators. and if they do sense danger they can make a quick getaway. drop in flap and off they go in fact most bats can take off directly from the ground. but is it healthy to hang your head for hours or months on end uncomfortable bats don't seem to mind their blood can pump from feet to head and back to the heart without any problem. their body weight closes their claws by mechanical action it has to do with the way their tendons are attached. that means they don't expend any energy in order to roost upside down and if they die in that position they'll just stay put. but their hind legs and feet are not well suited to walking let alone running. spots also hanging downwards when they sleep the differences they took their head up against their chips. and as far as humans are concerned there's no evidence we can sleep upside down. bats are the only creatures known to science to hang their heads so much. if problem is red why are very very few. do you have a science question that you've always wanted answered we're happy to help out yes and it to us as a video text ovoid smell if we answer it on the show we'll send you a little surprise as a thank you can i just ask. we like to ask you questions too and for this time our program we wanted to know what you associate with alexander from home but. we got a lot of answers from latin america where continues to be popular. elizabeth estrada notes that hobart is very famous for discovering the ocean current that bears his name. diego mother nardo points out that he was a great student of geography biodiversity and the anthropology of ecuador and he quotes him board as saying ecuadorians are strange and unique beings they sleep calmly amid smoking volcanoes live in poverty amid incomparable riches and reach choice in sad music. mary blankets writes that she says him with education and the books with his impressions of mexico and she says he was a great historian. the better pin a dumb ass leno from mexico says who not represents the kind of german who loves the world science and truth and is an outstanding source for the understanding of mexico. better often visits an answer castle the volcano also known as nevada toluca. standing on the rim he thinks about how this one man could explore so many areas in such a profound manner thought was the perfect scholar citizen of the world who sought the ultimate frontier. and beyond and he concludes the true name of america ought to be one bought land thanks for writing in. many modern technologies require special metals these resources are not always easy to come by but without them we'd have no wind turbines and no batteries. in 5 back in eastern germany scientists are searching for new ways of extracting minerals and 1st they're not going under the ground but high above it. these men are treasure hunters searching for valuable minerals. they are following in the footsteps of alex hunter from white. their homemade drones designed to fly with sophisticated equipment upwards of 100000 euros. the aerial vehicle scans large areas with the devices like this magnetometer. it measures variations in the make let it field of the earth which helps to pinpoint mineral deposits without elaborate and costly drugs the ones who've been used in the you know we want to encroach as little as possible on people surroundings and environment because we want to gain acceptance on the population. the sun and the other aspects or efficiency and safety. droughns enable us to gather data rapidly without having to go there ourselves in. the data taken by the individual instruments are combined to give geologists an idea of the structure of the subsonic. * then they can guess where and which mineral they may find. this method would have freed alex hunter from whom boyd in his day it was almost impossible to find deposits hidden deep underground. down most. men in the dark then mines were only in places where orders had been found on the surface when people found them they pursued them for today that's not possible anymore because practically the entire surface of the earth has been studied and we have to go down deep. there are currently around 5000 known minerals and many of them are on display here in freiburg ringback over the centuries they've been brought to the surface by minus and by researchers like. ringback studied at the u. we found that mining academy in freiburg. it was the 1st university of its kind in the verge and he a homebody learnt the state of the art mining technology of his time. yes at the buddhist this carnival this one of the mining academies most famous students he looked for minerals not just here in freiburg but all over the world and bed. then it's now the minerals have to be separated from the surrounding rock . ready in freiburg who would learn the techniques for doing it in the much time it's how to crush the rock for example by using stem cells to break down the rock from the or mountains all we needed were methods for separating the larger pieces so. that made it possible to extract silver iron and. minarets like germanium indium and during our earth are a different story today we need them for when turbines electric car batteries and so. funds these elements are generally either not very abundant are not concentrated in deposits martin who drove studies how to recover these minerals from crushed rock. using water and a number of chemicals that were frothy after this prepared for the minerals. ideally the desired mineral particles were to guess bubbles and rice to the surface . there they can be skimmed off layer by layer. the problem is this so-called flotation technique is not environmentally friendly in part because of the flotation reagents. one strategy and making the production more eco friendly focuses on the chemicals we have to research projects that are trying to replace the chemicals by a biological reagents that is we use microorganisms send their diverse interaction with the materials to get tailor made reagents from these microorganisms in the quarters most who are designed not to these are produced naturally and are more ecologically compatible so it can help reduce the need for harm for some static reagents. would. would also like to reduce the amount of water at least for the trusses you would force them on a horse and in my research the dream would be to no longer use flotation but to find a separation process that works in the dry state so we don't have the water problem that's something we're working on. making flirtation more environmentally friendly would have another important impact it could then be used to recycle products to recover the valuable minerals. present day treasure hunting has very much in whole spirit the big picture in mind. our journey in the footsteps of alexander from humble it continues next week when our reports have visits the avenue of the volcanoes in ecuador. join us for more of his impressions inspired by the boats expedition till then by. absolutely. it's good. to. meet the artist we talked to sasha. a choreographer who is constantly pushing the limits of dance theater the funny thing was of course the latest the highest cool look she's been dancing against the current for 25 years where does she get her energy from kumi such a hot. change. coming up on w. flamage burgling a little tourist guide for germany's booming capital i love berlin discover the multicultural metropolis with our euro max series. of books 50 nations 50 stories and 15 very personal gypsum berlin's very best features a. look now at the moment. 30 minutes on d w. early the global tourist guide fun germany's booming capital i love berlin the scope of the multicultural metropolis in our duramax series the bad sign likes are something moving and i love the even want to show what's a citizen looks like so it's like meet the sights as the 50 nations 50 story. and 50 very personal tips on berlin's very best in terms of. books now live for lent every week on d w. robots they're still in the development phase of certain what's going to happen when they grow how. will schumann's and missions and speed able to peacefully co-exist before are we on the verge of the lips if we just bumble into this totally unprepared with our heads in the sand fusing to think about what could go wrong then it's the space that is probably going to be the biggest mistake in human history. artificial intelligence is now spreading through our society is