Bang Goes The Theory (2009) s04e01 Episode Script
Season 4, Episode 1
1 This week, Liz goes behind the scenes of lVF treatment.
To think that that just there is potentially the beginning of a brand-new life, incredible.
Dr Yan is out on the streets, worrying shoppers.
All l'd like you to do is pass me that sweet.
Oh, my God! And Jem attempts to become the first man ever to go 360 degrees on a playground swing.
lt's the most dangerous thing that nobody's ever done.
That's Bang Goes The Theory.
Whoa! Revealing your world with a bang.
Welcome to Bang Goes The Theory.
First up on the show, Mr Jem Stansfield is regressing back to his childhood and having a go on the swings.
'Don't anyone ever try this.
' Everybody knows somebody who reckons that their cousin's best mate's brother once knew somebody who went all the way round on a swing.
Fact is, l don't think it's ever actually happened.
Not on a real swing with chains, anyway.
There's just too many things that stack up against it.
Let's see.
l can just about push an empty swing over.
But add 75 kilos of fully grown man and a quick calculation shows you'd need a shove force of nearly a tonne to get round.
You'd have to have the biggest big brother ever.
So what l want to do is, with a normal park swing, see what it WOULD take to make it actually happen.
l think it would take something pretty extreme.
First step, some quick tests with my very own mini-me swing.
Ah.
That's a big issue.
But it shows that scaled down about 100 times, yeah, a guy OAN push another fella all the way round a swing.
What l want to find out is not what would get this to go all the way round, because l know l could stick a massive rocket on there and it will eventually go round.
l want to find out what the minimum requirement is, because if a person wants to go round on a swing, he doesn't want to go round 100 times, just the once.
What's more, the propulsion system has to be smooth enough that the G-force doesn't break his neck.
l figure the best way of getting this round, for reliability and variability, is a water rocket.
l've got the thrust here coming through the centre of gravity, so this thing won't rock around too much, it should just go straight.
l now need to put four atmospheres of air in there - four times atmospheric pressure.
The thrust from that should be enough, just enough, to send this all the way round.
Ah! Yes! Obviously there's some inherent danger in there still, like the way he cracked his head on the bar.
But it shows the principle's there, and l'm now satisfied that all these calculations WlLL scale up and that this is wholly possible on a human scale.
The problem is that on a human scale, it's, like, 100 times the pressure, it's 100 times the mass.
The forces are absolutely gargantuan.
To achieve that, l'm building a bigger, more hi-tech version of my little prototype.
After reams of calculations, a couple of mates and l spent three weeks putting together our jet pack.
To hold the massive 250 atmospheres of pressure required, we're using old, light American fire service breathing tanks, loaded with exactly 4.
3 litres of water, coming through twin 5.
5 millimetre nozzles.
l should get precisely the thrust l need.
BLEEP! Ouch! l should have seen that coming! Even with a cupful of water in the system, this test literally blew me away.
A hefty solid steel workbench is no match for my 240-horsepower jet pack.
l'm not sure if anybody really wants to sit on something that can chuck a metal bench across a car park.
l can't push that.
l know the propulsion system is up to the job.
Now it's time to build the framework.
With such high pressures involved, we had to get specialist help with the piping.
Even so, we need to put the whole thing through some serious testing.
At this stage, we're not using chains to hang the swing.
We're going to test it first with straight bars, because if anything went wrong and those high-pressure bottles were to fall on the floor and explode, none of us would be around any more to find out what happened next.
We've added my weight in sandbags, and a couple of tonnes of gas cylinders, to hold down the frame.
So, this is it - everything's set.
ls it going to work?' Three, two, one.
lt's all over the place.
That frame is going to need a lot more ballast.
l mean, it held, nothing broke.
But you wouldn't fancy riding it, though.
On the one hand, this is brilliant.
The jet pack has clearly got enough oomph to get all the way around, but once at speed, there's nothing to stop it.
This is now the big problem.
At some point, the swing is going to stop rotating, but l can't predict where.
lf we are going to hang this from chains, what's to stop it crashing down onto the crossbar, with disastrous results? Please don't try anything like this.
Wow, is all l've got to say about that.
You won't want to go anywhere for the next 20 minutes because you will want to know what happens next.
Yes.
Oan l point out as well, this figure with his head in his hands in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen - what was going through your head? For all the number-crunching and thinking, l'd not seen the forces l'd been predicting in real life.
lt's twisting steel, chucking gas bottles.
Scary! lt all came from a question on the road show, somebody asked, did we think anybody'd gone all the way around it on a swing? l figure that sometimes there's a limit to how far you should go to answer a question.
Sometimes there isn't.
- You haven't reached your limit? - Wait and see.
We've talking about this question for months now.
OK, all will be revealed at the end of the show.
That's called ramping up the tension for you.
.
l love it.
Next up, something that affects a lot of us here in the UK.
ln fact, one in seven people have problems conceiving.
So, for them, lVF, or in vitro fertilisation, offers very real hope.
The technology's been around for about 30 years, but only last year, Dr Robert Edwards, the pioneer of lVF, was offered a Nobel Prize for his work.
ln 1978, the first ever lVF baby, Louise Brown, was conceived in this very incubator.
Since her birth, four million lVF babies have followed in her footsteps.
This ground-breaking science isn't without controversy.
For some it raises ethical questions about creating new life.
But for couples desperate to conceive, it is a lifeline, couples like Hannah and Stuart, who are about to start their first round of lVF.
So, how are you feeling this morning? Excited.
Nervous and excited, at the same time.
- Morning, Hannah.
- Hello! - Hello, lovely lady! - Good morning.
'Under local anaesthetic, 'Hannah is settled in by Dr Matthews and his medical team.
' This is the crucial egg collection stage of the lVF process.
Basically, Hannah has been taking lots of hormones that have induced all her follicles to develop fully, to the stage where they each, hopefully, produce an egg.
Those big black holes, each one is a follicle.
Normally, in your regular cycle, you're only developing one follicle to produce one egg per month.
lt looks like Hannah had 10 or 1 1 fully developed follicles, and Dr Matthews is now extracting all the fluid from those follicles, and hopefully within that fluid, there'll be quite a lot of eggs.
'Dr Matthews continues to fill the test tubes, 'and next door in the lab, 'embryologist Adam is counting the eggs in each one.
'Finding the eggs has to happen fast, 'to make sure everything is kept at a constant 37 degrees - 'the temperature inside your body.
' Yep, it's another egg.
.
.
Another egg.
lt's quite a moving thing, to watch it in action, to watch the needle enter a full follicle and then drain it of its liquid.
While Hannah recovers, Adam is checking the final egg count.
- Yep, ten it is.
- Good going, eh? That's good.
That's about the average number of eggs we collect from patients, so, yeah, spot-on.
With the eggs checked and counted, it's time for Stuart's sperm to undergo their own health check.
How well they do will help determine the method used for fertilisation.
With every sample, what exactly are you looking for? Two main things, the first one is the number of sperm in the sample.
And the second one is motility of the sperm, how well the sperm is moving in a forward direction.
Depending on count and the motility, we'll decide whether to inject a single sperm into each egg, or we will just surround each egg with a known concentration of sperm and hopefully fertilisation - will take place naturally in a culture dish.
- Oh, OK.
lnteresting.
Let's have a look at Stuart's sample.
lt looks good, lots of sperm down here, mainly moving quickly, in a forward direction, which is what you want to see, if you want to have a look.
Yes please.
- They look great, loads of them! - That's what l call a good sample.
Which brings to my mind the question, Hannah's eggs seemed good, she produced 10 eggs, she's 30 years old, his sperm motility and number is good.
Even now, with the sperm quality looking good and the eggs appearing normal, we don't know what'll happen when we put the eggs with the sperm.
You can't tell until it actually happens, how many might fertilise.
The next step is to prepare the sperm and the eggs for the all-important fertilisation.
This is the stage where you're actually going to place Stuart's sperm surrounding Hannah's egg, yeah? That's right, we make up drops in this dish with a known concentration of sperm.
l've got slight butterflies, because you're just about to make life, hopefully.
Yes, this is one of the most important moments, when you add the sperm to the eggs.
- And that's it.
- That's it.
And now the eggs go back in the incubator overnight, and hopefully, if they fertilise, we'll see that first thing in the morning tomorrow.
So, potentially, ten babies right there.
Potentially, yes.
Good luck! And now it's a waiting game, to see if any of Hannah's eggs become embryos.
But in some cases, fertilisation needs more of a helping hand.
Kelly and Daryl are on their second round of lVF, and after one failed attempt, Adam's using a technique known as lOSl, to improve the chances of conception.
lOSl, what does it stand for? lOSl, stands for intracytoplasmic sperm injection.
Does what it says on the tin.
You're basically injecting the sperm into the cytoplasm of the egg? Exactly.
One single sperm, yes.
This is when the father's sperm isn't as motile? Usually, there's either a very low sperm count, or the motility's not good or a patient has previously had treatment and not fertilised, even with what appears a good sperm sample.
Before we inject the sperm, we have to immobilise it.
- What do you do? - With this needle, - l strike over the top of the sperm, like so.
- You are kidding? - You just whacked it on the head? - Yes, more or less.
lt is still alive, but it can't go anywhere.
l take it into the needle.
- You don't need it to be motile any more? - No.
That's why you gave it a thump.
You don't want it to be motile.
You want to be able to place the sperm into the egg and it to just sit there.
That's incredible.
Oh, my gosh, here you go! Now, the sperm's right on the tip of the needle, so we're going through the stretchy membrane surrounding the cytoplasm.
There it is.
Apply suction to make sure that membrane is broken.
- Re-inject the sperm.
- There it goes, there it goes! That is just the most amazing thing l have ever seen.
To think that that, just there, is potentially the beginning of a brand-new life.
lncredible.
- So, Adam, that's it, job done.
- Yep.
Hopefully fertilised eggs are incubating nicely, and then tomorrow, what do you look for? When we come in, in the morning, we'll be looking for signs of fertilisation.
You should see a male and female nucleus.
But there's some bad news on day two.
None of Hannah's eggs have been fertilised.
She and Stuart will have to wait six months before starting the process all over again.
For Kelly and Daryl, things are looking brighter.
The eggs fertilised to become embryos, and after five days, can be implanted into Kelly's womb.
They'll still have a tense few weeks ahead as the embryos' development is closely monitored.
There's lots of hurdles along the way and even when you've good embryos, those embryos still have to implant.
There's lots of factors after growing good quality embryos that influence whether the patient will get pregnant and go to term or not.
l've heard of lVF so many times but l've never seen those pictures before.
lt gave me goose bumps to see the start of life.
Why aren't Hannah and Stuart conceiving when they seem to have healthy eggs, healthy sperm? lt's a problem, it's one of the unknowns and they're not alone.
6% of couples have that very problem.
To me, it's another reminder of the beautiful complexity of living systems and what we still have to understand.
Hannah and Stuart are going to get lOSl in the next round.
lnjecting the sperm.
Yes but Daryl and Kelly who had lOSl in that film are pregnant which is good news, so congratulations to you.
The thing l found really interesting is that in 30 years of improved equipment, improved technology, the success rates for lVF simply have not gone up, which is fascinating.
The main issue is the implantation.
Scientists look at embryos, they see if they're dividing, multiplying, growing properly.
The longer they wait to implant that embryo, the less chance it has of implanting and taking properly in the womb.
But scientists in Stanford have been researching embryos.
Take a look at this.
This is a microscopic time-lapse photography of developing embryos.
What they've found out is that there are certain cell divisions which need to happen within very strict time windows.
With that knowledge, they can now predict which of those young embryos would develop to the next stage with an accuracy of 93%.
Now they can implant those embryos sooner into the womb, increasing the chances of pregnancy.
Overall, the success rates of lVF would go up to 50%, to 75 % which is really huge.
These are just the trial stages but it's looking really good.
That's a really big leap.
That is good news.
lt is.
Just a thought, did anyone tell Dr Yan we're moving? l sent an e-mail but it bounced back.
l've not seen him for weeks.
Which means he's out wowing the general population with his vast wisdom, insight and intellect.
So, what l'd like you to do is pass me that sweet.
- Pass you the sweet? Yes.
- Made myself look stupid, haven't l? lt's all right.
Go on.
Oh my God! Look at that! l've just realised.
Have a go, do it.
- Oh! - Go on, try.
lt's a real sweet.
- Why is it like that? - lt's an optical illusion? Have a look right inside.
No.
There's no lights in there.
What's going on is when we see something, like the sweets, then what we're seeing is light rays bouncing off the surface of the object.
They are collected by our eyes.
All we need to do to make this sweet look like it's somewhere else, is to make those same light rays come from a different place.
OK? Does that make sense? How do you think we do that? - Mirrors.
- Very good.
Yeah, mirrors.
Exactly.
But not just any old mirrors.
Special mirrors.
Let me show you.
lt's under here.
You can see what they're like.
So here, you see, mirrors.
So it's just like a satellite dish.
The reason that a satellite dish is this shape, is because it collects radio waves from a distant satellite.
Those waves come in parallel to each other but they bounce off the back.
That's designed to focus the waves together to a single point at the front.
lt's called the focal point.
So we've got these special dish-shaped mirrors.
Parabolic mirrors, they're called.
That's the important thing, that there's two of these dish-shaped mirrors.
lt's probably easier to show you with this cross section so if you come round, l can show you how light bounces around inside.
lmagine that that's the bottom - the sweet's like that and that's the top where you're looking through.
You can see that any light that comes off a point on the surface of the sweet, bounces around it's reflected off the top, comes down in parallel is reflected back up and comes to the same point.
No matter how l move it, it comes through the same point at the top.
OK? For each point on the surface of the sweet at the bottom, it makes another point on the top that's exactly the same.
Oh.
So, of course, when you see this here it looks like an exact replica of the sweet because the light's coming off every point, just as it did in the same way for the sweets down the bottom.
And that's how it works.
Well done.
l'm impressed.
lt's cool, isn't it? Anyone fancy a sweet? (LAUGHTER) lt's a real one! lt's all right.
l'll eat it later.
Now it's time to return to the enduring conundrum of the 360 swing.
l can't tell you how much science, maths and engineering has gone into getting this far but l now feel it's less of a question will it work and more one of is there a survivable way of stopping it? So A catch mechanism.
l have given this so much thought.
l've thought about parachutes, l've thought about dragnets, l've thought about bungee, l've thought about circus catch nets.
l've thought about absolutely everything and l feel as though none of them will do it.
Over the distances that those sort of systems work on, the forces would be absolutely huge, possibly too much for a person to handle.
l need to come up with something that acts for as long a period of time to keep that breaking force to a minimum.
l've decided to go for a rotating catch net.
What should happen is the rider will get jetted round as before, maintaining straight chains, land in the catch net, the friction on here will be what sucks the energy out, breaking his fall, back up to there, and then drop back down, hopefully still smiling.
Three, two, one Oh! Ho! Ho! Ho! l meanit wasn't pleasant but it couldn't have looked more survivable.
lt did exactly as it was supposed to do.
So now l just need to do the same thing but on a human scale.
We're attaching a set of drum brakes from an old trailer to the crossbar of the swing frame.
Fixed to them are bars holding a piece of netting.
l went for the stuff that goes round the outside of garden trampolines.
The brakes can be adjusted so they absorb a specific force.
l need them to stop the swing fully loaded at exactly the right point because l want it to go round once and once only.
60, 70, 70 Right, now we're hanging the swing from real chains, not solid bars.
This is the test.
Time to bring out our proper crash-test dummy.
He's exactly my weight - 75 kilos.
Three, two, one Oh no! lt's a disaster.
So near but yet so far.
Suddenly, what promised to be a perfect ten has crashed in at a miserable zero.
lf this had been a real person, l'd be calling an ambulance or maybe an undertaker.
lt's the netting that let us down.
l figured that it needs reinforcing but with minimal extra weight.
And l've worked out it needs to be set at a slightly different angle.
lt looks like success or so l thought.
l've seen something that looks survivable but it also looks a bit like a car crash.
Look closely at where the dummy's legs and feet hit the breaking net.
His shins, just down above his ankle, were banging into the bar at the bottom that keeps the net taught.
So we're going to adjust the seating position and see if that can pull the legs in sufficiently.
Threetwoone! Wow! Perfection! And the first of a bunch of successful tests.
The high-pressure system's firing perfectly.
The braking net is spot-on.
All those calculations and predictions are proving accurate, and our crash-test dummy is still in one piece - at least he's not complaining.
There is only one thing left to do - move over, dummy - time to put my convictions to the test and myself in the hot seat.
lt might seem insane but my calculations predict that l should survive the forces involved.
But, please, don't try anything like this.
Pretty much like that.
lt's been a massive investigation to answer a question from a viewer on last year's road show.
And now, finally it could be solved in the blink of an eye.
Three, two, one.
l'm so happy.
Oh, ho-ho-ho! Yes! (OLAPPlNG) Jim Milner! Man! Oh, my friend! l never want to press a button like that again.
Oh, my god.
lt appears as though it is possible for a person to go all the way round on a swing.
You have seriously just raised the bar and then gone round the bar you just raised.
Absolutely.
Our superhero is back in the room.
Well done you.
Well, l mean, sometimes even l'm shocked at the level of faith l put in my own understanding of science and engineering.
lt's wrong.
lt works though, it works.
We'll leave you with something extra special tonight.
we're going to end Bang as you've never heard it before.
Ladies and gentlemen, l give you the symphony of Bang.
See you next week.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
That is amazing, it really demonstrates the speed of sound perfectly.
Oan we do it again? Three, two, one # Welcome to Bang Goes The Theory.
# The show that likes to take science apart.
# Give it a bit of a poke, and put it all back together again.
# Put it all back together again.
# What l want to do is make that bigger faster stronger # And a whole load more powerful # Something that requires a shocking disregard for personal safety # l'm going to accelerate to almost the speed of light # When l get there things'll seem pretty normal to me # One of the most tantalising questions we could ever ask # The big question is why is he doing this? # This actually illustrates # One of the most fundamental laws of the universe # The more questions you answer # The more you find there is to investigate # And the more questions you pose And that's the beauty of science.
To think that that just there is potentially the beginning of a brand-new life, incredible.
Dr Yan is out on the streets, worrying shoppers.
All l'd like you to do is pass me that sweet.
Oh, my God! And Jem attempts to become the first man ever to go 360 degrees on a playground swing.
lt's the most dangerous thing that nobody's ever done.
That's Bang Goes The Theory.
Whoa! Revealing your world with a bang.
Welcome to Bang Goes The Theory.
First up on the show, Mr Jem Stansfield is regressing back to his childhood and having a go on the swings.
'Don't anyone ever try this.
' Everybody knows somebody who reckons that their cousin's best mate's brother once knew somebody who went all the way round on a swing.
Fact is, l don't think it's ever actually happened.
Not on a real swing with chains, anyway.
There's just too many things that stack up against it.
Let's see.
l can just about push an empty swing over.
But add 75 kilos of fully grown man and a quick calculation shows you'd need a shove force of nearly a tonne to get round.
You'd have to have the biggest big brother ever.
So what l want to do is, with a normal park swing, see what it WOULD take to make it actually happen.
l think it would take something pretty extreme.
First step, some quick tests with my very own mini-me swing.
Ah.
That's a big issue.
But it shows that scaled down about 100 times, yeah, a guy OAN push another fella all the way round a swing.
What l want to find out is not what would get this to go all the way round, because l know l could stick a massive rocket on there and it will eventually go round.
l want to find out what the minimum requirement is, because if a person wants to go round on a swing, he doesn't want to go round 100 times, just the once.
What's more, the propulsion system has to be smooth enough that the G-force doesn't break his neck.
l figure the best way of getting this round, for reliability and variability, is a water rocket.
l've got the thrust here coming through the centre of gravity, so this thing won't rock around too much, it should just go straight.
l now need to put four atmospheres of air in there - four times atmospheric pressure.
The thrust from that should be enough, just enough, to send this all the way round.
Ah! Yes! Obviously there's some inherent danger in there still, like the way he cracked his head on the bar.
But it shows the principle's there, and l'm now satisfied that all these calculations WlLL scale up and that this is wholly possible on a human scale.
The problem is that on a human scale, it's, like, 100 times the pressure, it's 100 times the mass.
The forces are absolutely gargantuan.
To achieve that, l'm building a bigger, more hi-tech version of my little prototype.
After reams of calculations, a couple of mates and l spent three weeks putting together our jet pack.
To hold the massive 250 atmospheres of pressure required, we're using old, light American fire service breathing tanks, loaded with exactly 4.
3 litres of water, coming through twin 5.
5 millimetre nozzles.
l should get precisely the thrust l need.
BLEEP! Ouch! l should have seen that coming! Even with a cupful of water in the system, this test literally blew me away.
A hefty solid steel workbench is no match for my 240-horsepower jet pack.
l'm not sure if anybody really wants to sit on something that can chuck a metal bench across a car park.
l can't push that.
l know the propulsion system is up to the job.
Now it's time to build the framework.
With such high pressures involved, we had to get specialist help with the piping.
Even so, we need to put the whole thing through some serious testing.
At this stage, we're not using chains to hang the swing.
We're going to test it first with straight bars, because if anything went wrong and those high-pressure bottles were to fall on the floor and explode, none of us would be around any more to find out what happened next.
We've added my weight in sandbags, and a couple of tonnes of gas cylinders, to hold down the frame.
So, this is it - everything's set.
ls it going to work?' Three, two, one.
lt's all over the place.
That frame is going to need a lot more ballast.
l mean, it held, nothing broke.
But you wouldn't fancy riding it, though.
On the one hand, this is brilliant.
The jet pack has clearly got enough oomph to get all the way around, but once at speed, there's nothing to stop it.
This is now the big problem.
At some point, the swing is going to stop rotating, but l can't predict where.
lf we are going to hang this from chains, what's to stop it crashing down onto the crossbar, with disastrous results? Please don't try anything like this.
Wow, is all l've got to say about that.
You won't want to go anywhere for the next 20 minutes because you will want to know what happens next.
Yes.
Oan l point out as well, this figure with his head in his hands in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen - what was going through your head? For all the number-crunching and thinking, l'd not seen the forces l'd been predicting in real life.
lt's twisting steel, chucking gas bottles.
Scary! lt all came from a question on the road show, somebody asked, did we think anybody'd gone all the way around it on a swing? l figure that sometimes there's a limit to how far you should go to answer a question.
Sometimes there isn't.
- You haven't reached your limit? - Wait and see.
We've talking about this question for months now.
OK, all will be revealed at the end of the show.
That's called ramping up the tension for you.
.
l love it.
Next up, something that affects a lot of us here in the UK.
ln fact, one in seven people have problems conceiving.
So, for them, lVF, or in vitro fertilisation, offers very real hope.
The technology's been around for about 30 years, but only last year, Dr Robert Edwards, the pioneer of lVF, was offered a Nobel Prize for his work.
ln 1978, the first ever lVF baby, Louise Brown, was conceived in this very incubator.
Since her birth, four million lVF babies have followed in her footsteps.
This ground-breaking science isn't without controversy.
For some it raises ethical questions about creating new life.
But for couples desperate to conceive, it is a lifeline, couples like Hannah and Stuart, who are about to start their first round of lVF.
So, how are you feeling this morning? Excited.
Nervous and excited, at the same time.
- Morning, Hannah.
- Hello! - Hello, lovely lady! - Good morning.
'Under local anaesthetic, 'Hannah is settled in by Dr Matthews and his medical team.
' This is the crucial egg collection stage of the lVF process.
Basically, Hannah has been taking lots of hormones that have induced all her follicles to develop fully, to the stage where they each, hopefully, produce an egg.
Those big black holes, each one is a follicle.
Normally, in your regular cycle, you're only developing one follicle to produce one egg per month.
lt looks like Hannah had 10 or 1 1 fully developed follicles, and Dr Matthews is now extracting all the fluid from those follicles, and hopefully within that fluid, there'll be quite a lot of eggs.
'Dr Matthews continues to fill the test tubes, 'and next door in the lab, 'embryologist Adam is counting the eggs in each one.
'Finding the eggs has to happen fast, 'to make sure everything is kept at a constant 37 degrees - 'the temperature inside your body.
' Yep, it's another egg.
.
.
Another egg.
lt's quite a moving thing, to watch it in action, to watch the needle enter a full follicle and then drain it of its liquid.
While Hannah recovers, Adam is checking the final egg count.
- Yep, ten it is.
- Good going, eh? That's good.
That's about the average number of eggs we collect from patients, so, yeah, spot-on.
With the eggs checked and counted, it's time for Stuart's sperm to undergo their own health check.
How well they do will help determine the method used for fertilisation.
With every sample, what exactly are you looking for? Two main things, the first one is the number of sperm in the sample.
And the second one is motility of the sperm, how well the sperm is moving in a forward direction.
Depending on count and the motility, we'll decide whether to inject a single sperm into each egg, or we will just surround each egg with a known concentration of sperm and hopefully fertilisation - will take place naturally in a culture dish.
- Oh, OK.
lnteresting.
Let's have a look at Stuart's sample.
lt looks good, lots of sperm down here, mainly moving quickly, in a forward direction, which is what you want to see, if you want to have a look.
Yes please.
- They look great, loads of them! - That's what l call a good sample.
Which brings to my mind the question, Hannah's eggs seemed good, she produced 10 eggs, she's 30 years old, his sperm motility and number is good.
Even now, with the sperm quality looking good and the eggs appearing normal, we don't know what'll happen when we put the eggs with the sperm.
You can't tell until it actually happens, how many might fertilise.
The next step is to prepare the sperm and the eggs for the all-important fertilisation.
This is the stage where you're actually going to place Stuart's sperm surrounding Hannah's egg, yeah? That's right, we make up drops in this dish with a known concentration of sperm.
l've got slight butterflies, because you're just about to make life, hopefully.
Yes, this is one of the most important moments, when you add the sperm to the eggs.
- And that's it.
- That's it.
And now the eggs go back in the incubator overnight, and hopefully, if they fertilise, we'll see that first thing in the morning tomorrow.
So, potentially, ten babies right there.
Potentially, yes.
Good luck! And now it's a waiting game, to see if any of Hannah's eggs become embryos.
But in some cases, fertilisation needs more of a helping hand.
Kelly and Daryl are on their second round of lVF, and after one failed attempt, Adam's using a technique known as lOSl, to improve the chances of conception.
lOSl, what does it stand for? lOSl, stands for intracytoplasmic sperm injection.
Does what it says on the tin.
You're basically injecting the sperm into the cytoplasm of the egg? Exactly.
One single sperm, yes.
This is when the father's sperm isn't as motile? Usually, there's either a very low sperm count, or the motility's not good or a patient has previously had treatment and not fertilised, even with what appears a good sperm sample.
Before we inject the sperm, we have to immobilise it.
- What do you do? - With this needle, - l strike over the top of the sperm, like so.
- You are kidding? - You just whacked it on the head? - Yes, more or less.
lt is still alive, but it can't go anywhere.
l take it into the needle.
- You don't need it to be motile any more? - No.
That's why you gave it a thump.
You don't want it to be motile.
You want to be able to place the sperm into the egg and it to just sit there.
That's incredible.
Oh, my gosh, here you go! Now, the sperm's right on the tip of the needle, so we're going through the stretchy membrane surrounding the cytoplasm.
There it is.
Apply suction to make sure that membrane is broken.
- Re-inject the sperm.
- There it goes, there it goes! That is just the most amazing thing l have ever seen.
To think that that, just there, is potentially the beginning of a brand-new life.
lncredible.
- So, Adam, that's it, job done.
- Yep.
Hopefully fertilised eggs are incubating nicely, and then tomorrow, what do you look for? When we come in, in the morning, we'll be looking for signs of fertilisation.
You should see a male and female nucleus.
But there's some bad news on day two.
None of Hannah's eggs have been fertilised.
She and Stuart will have to wait six months before starting the process all over again.
For Kelly and Daryl, things are looking brighter.
The eggs fertilised to become embryos, and after five days, can be implanted into Kelly's womb.
They'll still have a tense few weeks ahead as the embryos' development is closely monitored.
There's lots of hurdles along the way and even when you've good embryos, those embryos still have to implant.
There's lots of factors after growing good quality embryos that influence whether the patient will get pregnant and go to term or not.
l've heard of lVF so many times but l've never seen those pictures before.
lt gave me goose bumps to see the start of life.
Why aren't Hannah and Stuart conceiving when they seem to have healthy eggs, healthy sperm? lt's a problem, it's one of the unknowns and they're not alone.
6% of couples have that very problem.
To me, it's another reminder of the beautiful complexity of living systems and what we still have to understand.
Hannah and Stuart are going to get lOSl in the next round.
lnjecting the sperm.
Yes but Daryl and Kelly who had lOSl in that film are pregnant which is good news, so congratulations to you.
The thing l found really interesting is that in 30 years of improved equipment, improved technology, the success rates for lVF simply have not gone up, which is fascinating.
The main issue is the implantation.
Scientists look at embryos, they see if they're dividing, multiplying, growing properly.
The longer they wait to implant that embryo, the less chance it has of implanting and taking properly in the womb.
But scientists in Stanford have been researching embryos.
Take a look at this.
This is a microscopic time-lapse photography of developing embryos.
What they've found out is that there are certain cell divisions which need to happen within very strict time windows.
With that knowledge, they can now predict which of those young embryos would develop to the next stage with an accuracy of 93%.
Now they can implant those embryos sooner into the womb, increasing the chances of pregnancy.
Overall, the success rates of lVF would go up to 50%, to 75 % which is really huge.
These are just the trial stages but it's looking really good.
That's a really big leap.
That is good news.
lt is.
Just a thought, did anyone tell Dr Yan we're moving? l sent an e-mail but it bounced back.
l've not seen him for weeks.
Which means he's out wowing the general population with his vast wisdom, insight and intellect.
So, what l'd like you to do is pass me that sweet.
- Pass you the sweet? Yes.
- Made myself look stupid, haven't l? lt's all right.
Go on.
Oh my God! Look at that! l've just realised.
Have a go, do it.
- Oh! - Go on, try.
lt's a real sweet.
- Why is it like that? - lt's an optical illusion? Have a look right inside.
No.
There's no lights in there.
What's going on is when we see something, like the sweets, then what we're seeing is light rays bouncing off the surface of the object.
They are collected by our eyes.
All we need to do to make this sweet look like it's somewhere else, is to make those same light rays come from a different place.
OK? Does that make sense? How do you think we do that? - Mirrors.
- Very good.
Yeah, mirrors.
Exactly.
But not just any old mirrors.
Special mirrors.
Let me show you.
lt's under here.
You can see what they're like.
So here, you see, mirrors.
So it's just like a satellite dish.
The reason that a satellite dish is this shape, is because it collects radio waves from a distant satellite.
Those waves come in parallel to each other but they bounce off the back.
That's designed to focus the waves together to a single point at the front.
lt's called the focal point.
So we've got these special dish-shaped mirrors.
Parabolic mirrors, they're called.
That's the important thing, that there's two of these dish-shaped mirrors.
lt's probably easier to show you with this cross section so if you come round, l can show you how light bounces around inside.
lmagine that that's the bottom - the sweet's like that and that's the top where you're looking through.
You can see that any light that comes off a point on the surface of the sweet, bounces around it's reflected off the top, comes down in parallel is reflected back up and comes to the same point.
No matter how l move it, it comes through the same point at the top.
OK? For each point on the surface of the sweet at the bottom, it makes another point on the top that's exactly the same.
Oh.
So, of course, when you see this here it looks like an exact replica of the sweet because the light's coming off every point, just as it did in the same way for the sweets down the bottom.
And that's how it works.
Well done.
l'm impressed.
lt's cool, isn't it? Anyone fancy a sweet? (LAUGHTER) lt's a real one! lt's all right.
l'll eat it later.
Now it's time to return to the enduring conundrum of the 360 swing.
l can't tell you how much science, maths and engineering has gone into getting this far but l now feel it's less of a question will it work and more one of is there a survivable way of stopping it? So A catch mechanism.
l have given this so much thought.
l've thought about parachutes, l've thought about dragnets, l've thought about bungee, l've thought about circus catch nets.
l've thought about absolutely everything and l feel as though none of them will do it.
Over the distances that those sort of systems work on, the forces would be absolutely huge, possibly too much for a person to handle.
l need to come up with something that acts for as long a period of time to keep that breaking force to a minimum.
l've decided to go for a rotating catch net.
What should happen is the rider will get jetted round as before, maintaining straight chains, land in the catch net, the friction on here will be what sucks the energy out, breaking his fall, back up to there, and then drop back down, hopefully still smiling.
Three, two, one Oh! Ho! Ho! Ho! l meanit wasn't pleasant but it couldn't have looked more survivable.
lt did exactly as it was supposed to do.
So now l just need to do the same thing but on a human scale.
We're attaching a set of drum brakes from an old trailer to the crossbar of the swing frame.
Fixed to them are bars holding a piece of netting.
l went for the stuff that goes round the outside of garden trampolines.
The brakes can be adjusted so they absorb a specific force.
l need them to stop the swing fully loaded at exactly the right point because l want it to go round once and once only.
60, 70, 70 Right, now we're hanging the swing from real chains, not solid bars.
This is the test.
Time to bring out our proper crash-test dummy.
He's exactly my weight - 75 kilos.
Three, two, one Oh no! lt's a disaster.
So near but yet so far.
Suddenly, what promised to be a perfect ten has crashed in at a miserable zero.
lf this had been a real person, l'd be calling an ambulance or maybe an undertaker.
lt's the netting that let us down.
l figured that it needs reinforcing but with minimal extra weight.
And l've worked out it needs to be set at a slightly different angle.
lt looks like success or so l thought.
l've seen something that looks survivable but it also looks a bit like a car crash.
Look closely at where the dummy's legs and feet hit the breaking net.
His shins, just down above his ankle, were banging into the bar at the bottom that keeps the net taught.
So we're going to adjust the seating position and see if that can pull the legs in sufficiently.
Threetwoone! Wow! Perfection! And the first of a bunch of successful tests.
The high-pressure system's firing perfectly.
The braking net is spot-on.
All those calculations and predictions are proving accurate, and our crash-test dummy is still in one piece - at least he's not complaining.
There is only one thing left to do - move over, dummy - time to put my convictions to the test and myself in the hot seat.
lt might seem insane but my calculations predict that l should survive the forces involved.
But, please, don't try anything like this.
Pretty much like that.
lt's been a massive investigation to answer a question from a viewer on last year's road show.
And now, finally it could be solved in the blink of an eye.
Three, two, one.
l'm so happy.
Oh, ho-ho-ho! Yes! (OLAPPlNG) Jim Milner! Man! Oh, my friend! l never want to press a button like that again.
Oh, my god.
lt appears as though it is possible for a person to go all the way round on a swing.
You have seriously just raised the bar and then gone round the bar you just raised.
Absolutely.
Our superhero is back in the room.
Well done you.
Well, l mean, sometimes even l'm shocked at the level of faith l put in my own understanding of science and engineering.
lt's wrong.
lt works though, it works.
We'll leave you with something extra special tonight.
we're going to end Bang as you've never heard it before.
Ladies and gentlemen, l give you the symphony of Bang.
See you next week.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
That is amazing, it really demonstrates the speed of sound perfectly.
Oan we do it again? Three, two, one # Welcome to Bang Goes The Theory.
# The show that likes to take science apart.
# Give it a bit of a poke, and put it all back together again.
# Put it all back together again.
# What l want to do is make that bigger faster stronger # And a whole load more powerful # Something that requires a shocking disregard for personal safety # l'm going to accelerate to almost the speed of light # When l get there things'll seem pretty normal to me # One of the most tantalising questions we could ever ask # The big question is why is he doing this? # This actually illustrates # One of the most fundamental laws of the universe # The more questions you answer # The more you find there is to investigate # And the more questions you pose And that's the beauty of science.