. >> i'm phil torres. i'm an entomologist. i go on a journey of a lifetime, ten days off the coast of costa rica. including a dive in a submarine. there prepare to dive. >> that will take me down to 10,000 feet under the sea. >> i get paid to play in mud. like my dreams. >> that's our team. now let's do some science. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> hey guys welcome to "techknow" i'm phil torres joined by marita davison and dr. shini somara. the earth is covered by ocean yet we know about the planets more than we do about the surface of the ocean. my question to you is, why should we care about what's down there? >> we are just starting to understand how the ocean and the deep ocean is going to be on providing global scale. >> and it seems like a harsh landscape down there and very, very far down. and there are a few technologies that allow us to go down there and you have a chance to go down there. >> 10,000 feet, just to get a chance to go down there it's tricky. i had a chance in a submarine called alvin. take a look. >> as we look for signs of li

i'm phil torres. i'm an entomologist. that's our team, now let's do some science. >>> hey, guys, welcome to techknow, i'm phil torres, joined by marita davison, and crystal dilworth. as you think of a farm in the midwest you think of corn and wheat fields, it's not the case these days. >> as research is scarce, farmers find innovative solutions to problems. farmers are turned on its head, including going away from the field, and taking it indoors. going indoors, stacking plants and growing problems in the absence of sunlight. it sounds like a science fair experiment. it's a viable business. >> reporter: sometimes mother enemy. >> if we don't get rain in a 30 day window we'll be in strife. >> in california 400,000 acres are unplanted at a cost of $800 million in loft revenue because of the drought. >> in bosnia, the worst floods swamped 172,000 acres of crops in may. devastating the country's agricultural industry. last wint inside polar vortex took a toll as the impact made big news on the vineyard. >> a crisis on the lak

i'm phil torres joined by lindsay moran, dr. shay somora and dr. dilworth. i just got back with an exciting week of my life, and it was all for science. with you jump on an one-ton tiger shark? well, that's the opportunity i got to do with these researchers based out of university of miami. we went on a boat in the bahamas sbahamas bahamas, in the name of sharks. let's take a look. >> shark on! >> shark. the very name inspires wonder and fear, vilified as the world's ultimate killing machine, but their bad-boy image is all wrong, according to these guys. >> i haven't had a single bad day with sharks in 35 years of doing business. >> if there is a shark around, you're likely to find jim in the water with the camera. >> we have 400 billion years of sharks shaping our ocean's health. and in the last 50 years on my watch we've literally destroyed it. >> one in six of all sharks that have been threatened with extinction . >> the university of miami, one of his primary missions is to study sharks in the wild so policymakers can make good policies based on science.

phil torres. i'm phil torres. 'm an entomologist. that's hour team, nout let's do some science. >>> hey, guys, welcome to "techknow", joined by dr ross shimabuku, and lindsay moran. microscopic things have been making news. viruses. take ebola - it caught america offguard. in some places we overreacted and in other places we doesn't do enough. >> there's a lot of scare around ebola, because we don't know much about it, compared to measles. which is also a hot topic. >> when we think of diseases we tend to think of containment. how do we contain them. i had an opportunity to meet a small group of scientists who are seeking out the pathogens in order to understand it. it might surprise people that metropolis. that's good reason for that. let's have a look. >> reporter: we are all vulnerable to the tiny viruses. >> microscopic agents causing big diseases. >> reporter: these infectious agents know now boundaries and in today's hyper connective world, they can move fast. like others, like small pox are eradicated. others spring back to li

i'm joined by phil torres, host of "techknow" and doug gurian sherman. are bees particularly vulnerable because they live in intimate little groups of 40 or 50,000 individuals? >> yes i think that definitely contributes to it. if one bee is out there he's bringing it home to the rest of it. but it goes beyond a single hive. one of the issues is bees are being shipped across the united states to pollenate could have a might mite or infection it's not in the hive it's in the pollennationenpollennation grown udz. the deceases or possiblen could spread. >> i want to put this in its proper context. how much we should worry about this whether it is a potential calamity, how much circulate we worry about the potential of the honey bee in the united states? >> it's critically important. as you indicated a third or more of our food depends on bees or other pollenators. , very types of foods that are threatened by decline of pollenators. not just honey bees. wild beads are important in pollenating our foods. billions of dollars to our agriculture economy. those ar

i'm phil torres joined by davison.he internet at all you've probably seen the face of commander chris hadfield. i got a chance to interview him. >> making space travel and this whole idea so cool again. it's fantastic. >> give us a with it into his world and a way for those of us that aren't living on the international space station to kind of have an understanding of what that experience is like and maybe imagine ourselves in space one day. >> and i had a chance to talk to him about all those amazing things. let's take a look. >> five four three two one and liftoff. tom and ivan and chris making their way to the international space station. >> international space station has long been a paragon of mystery, that is until one man brought it back down to earth. >> chocolate pudding cake, looks like it too. not bad. it is going to be hard to eat. going to be messy. >> chris hadfield the former commander of the international space station spent 166 days in space. but he didn't spend his time just doing experiments. instead

i'm phil torres, with global extremes. we're seeing the hot get hotter and the cold get colder, and it's hitting all corners of the u.s. >> it's a really challenging time. challenging and exciting to try to understand what these extreme weather patterns mean for our climate. >> and i got to look at the significant costs involved not just with the devastation caused by extreme weather but hidden causes. >> heat, drought, it's happening. let's take a look. >> oxnard, california, august 12, 2014. >> the weather team has been at it for ours. the storm was no surprise. scientists and technos cameras were tracking it. what meteorologists were calling the storm of the decade hit california with a vengeance. at the national weather service office in response to one of the worst winter storms to hit the state in a very long time. nine inches at once reported in napa valley. massive snow and minutes lake tahoe. flooding in los angeles. >> this is a chance for scientists to study in realtime the latest in a year of extreme weather ev

i'm phil torres, joined by crystal dilworth, marita davison, and cara santa maria. meet baxter, a smiling robot that may come to a factory near you and helping some workers there. let's look. >>> a human-sized robot named baxter is redefining work. he is a 2-armed robot with an animated space. if he bumps into something, or someone grabs his arm, sensors stop the arm allowing a human to reposition it. making hands-on training safe, easy and intuitive. it's used for simply industrial jobs such as loading, unloading, sorting and handling materials. baxter is able to work on an assembly line, next to a person training him to learn the representative tasks. with behaviour-based intelligence, baxter senses and adapts to task. >> so one of the questions that comes to mind when you see a piece like this is is this robot going to replace human jobs? >> i think we can look to different industries that are implementing and using robots now. the agricultural industry is one where there's a push towards automation, and a concern that it will displace the workforce and take the

i'm phil torres. i'm an entomologist. >> wow! that was something else, i mean it was a real rush for me. >> that's our team. now let's do some science. [ ♪♪♪ ] >>> hey guys - welcome to "techknow", i'm phil torres joined by lindsay moran, dr. crystal dilworth and dr. shini somara. it's a debate that somehow is still raging on - is the climate changing, is man to blame and is there anything we can do to stop the disaster. most agree the answers is yes. that's most scientists, not all of them. shini, crystal, lindsay, you each had a piece of the story. >> at the c.i.a. i was trained to analyse complex and sometimes contradictory data. climate change fits into that model as well. washington d.c. - politics are part of the equation. no matter what the science is, there's going to be contentious debate. >> i had a different experience. i was dealing with the scientists and citizens who are not debating if climate change is happening, but they are living it now. >> i think it's interesting that both sides of the debate claim to be on t

i'm phil torres, an endometeorologist. tonight spiders and goats - and how we may hannes spider -- harness spider silk. that's the team, let's do some science. ♪ music ♪ ] >>> hey guys, welcome to "techknow." what does the bulletproof vest have to do with goat's milk. the answer lies in spider silk - of all things. i got a chance to look at the future of fabrics. it is fascinating. let's take a look. >> reporter: they are nature's masterful architects, genius at structural design. their silk - though just a fraction of the size of a human hair, is stronger than steel and more powerful than tevlar. you have called spider silk the ancient biomaterial for the future. what do you mean by that? >> spiders have been around for roughly 600 billion years. it has properties that no manmade properties have. >> what can you use it for? >> medical products, car tyres, bike tyres - looking at it for air bags. >> how do you get from a single strand of spider silk to a group. a good place to start at at the spider lab at the university o

. >> i'm phil torres. i'm an entimologist. >> ready? >> yes. >> i'll share it with a biologist. that's our team. now let's do some science. >>> hey, guys, welcome to techknow. you guys know, i've spent a lot of in the jungles. i do my research in the tropics and usually i'm looking at spiders and butterflies. but this time i went down to costa rica to look at something different. we know there are a lot of scientific issues out there protecting our rain forest is one of them certainly but maybe it's not quite high enough on the list. because we're realizing now that rain forests are doing incredible services for us in society. >> and they're doing them for free. completely for free. we don't usually think about ecosystems like rain forests providing fundamental services. >> it takes so much to keep new york running, so many systems, the rain forest is so much more complex. >> what's amazing is those services that you see in the rain forest, they don't just stop there. they're actually affecting us here in los angeles and that's something scientists are just now beginning to real

verhook and phil torres, thanks for joining us for this edition of snroir. get in touch by facebook, follow us on twitter, and watch us next time, in washington i'm ray suarez. >> on "america tonight", snuffed out ? quitting tobacco draws users who never started. maintain's christof putzel on vapping and lighting up. also tonight, a contaminated catch? >> i quit shrimping with them. i didn't go shrimping anymore. >> "america tonight's" michael okwu, five years after the bp oil spill. is the gulf catch safe to eat? thanks for joining us, i'm joie chen. it is high season on the gulf coast and it's a grim anniversary. five years since the worst oil spill in u.s. history. on april 20th, 2010, the deep water horizon rig exploded leaking over 200 million gallons into the gulf of mexico. while sunshine has returned to the shore there are still deep questions about what lies beneath the surface. "america"america tonight"'s michael okwu returned to the water with those who say they know best, just how much has changed. >> reporter: what kind of fish are you catching

aztec know's phil torres and dr. samara report one company is taking waste water and turning it into clean drinking water using only the sun. >> underground drainage water. northerly occur ohing salts and other heavy metals makes this water unfit for irrigation or human consumption. >> this is what we call sub surface tile water. historically this water has been problematic water. our goal is to take this water and turn it into a productive resource. >> so this water actually runs underground about eight feet, and you brought it up to the surface. you're going clean it up, and then attack it back to the crops. >> that's the plan. >> aaron mandel is ceo and founder of water fx, the company behind the desalination plant. it's prominent feature is this, 377-foot long mirrors. >> we're using large mirrors here to capture the heat. >> mineral oil travels down the central tube and is heated up by the sun to 248 degrees. the heat is then piped into evaporators and the steam is generated. fresh water is condensed from the st

i'm phil torres. i'm an entomologist. >> that was something else a rush. that's the team.'s do some science. [ ♪♪ ] [ ♪♪ ] >>> welcome to "techknow", it's a debate that somehow is still raging on - is the climate changing is man to blame and is there anything we cabn do to stop the disaster. most agree the answers is yes. that's most scientists not all of them. >> you each had a peace of the story. >> at the c.i.a. i was trained to analyse complex and sometimes contradictory data. climate change fits into that model as well. washington d.c. - politics are part of the equation. no matter what the science is there's going to becontentious debates. >> i had a different experience. i was dealing with the scientists and citizens would are not debating if climate change is happening, but they are living it now. >> i think it's interesting that both sides of the debate is on the side of science, and use studies as ammunition. we wanted to know who is right. things got interesting. >> as scientists we are trained to look at the data and go from there. that's what we try to keep in

i'm phil torres. tonight sharks. both people avoid sharks. we're out to meet them. tag them. learn all about this pep. >> sharks don't eat people. >> five days and nights at sea on our especially rigged shark laboratory. exhort research is next.

phil torres >> this is "techknow," a show of invo vasions that can save lives, we'll explore the intersection of hart ware and huge -- hardware and humanity. let's check out the team. marita davison is specialising in ecology. tonight, what are the scientists at monsanta up to. we go into their lab.

hey guys welcome to techknow i'm phil torres joined by lindsay moran and marita davidson. this upcoming episode is an important one to me it takes place in peru where i've done alot of my research and it is a tale of contrast we will see a rainforest full of new species and then we will see the devastation that humans have done to extract gold. >> and as we know with devastating stories like this, where there is a lot of damage science can play a role here not just in monitoring and discovering what's going on but in trying to help process. >> i think this is a story having looked at some of the images that one image of the devastation pretty much says it all. >> absolutely, this is an important story it's one that is very near and dear to my heart and it starts in the peruvian rainforest. the amazon rainforest for more than 50 million years it's been a cradle of life. this is what pristine rainforest looks like. lush, untamed, bursting with wildlife. but maybe not for long. because the soil underneath is laced with gold. and the human desire for it can turn all of this...