Alie Ward careens through human history, connecting seemingly unrelated events, objects and people to the modern world—and our future.

How did the invention of photography lead us to a world where we live entirely virtually? From photojournalism, war and anarchy, to wild hedonistic people gathered naked in the desert in search of communion, Alie Ward will point us towards a future where we might upload ourselves to the web.

Living Virtually

What is the secret to eternal life? Alie Ward goes from an ancient herbal remedy, through naturalistic theater and the horrifying results of atomic weapons, to arrive at embryonic stem cells and the tantalising prospect of a future where our bodies are tricked into keeping us forever young.

Fighting Mortality

What could possibly link rockets and antidepressants? Are we on the cusp of having a neural switch that can control our moods? Alie Ward weaves a chain of extraordinary connections, from our earliest dreams of standing on the moon, to our pill-popping present and a future of happiness on-demand.

Hacking Happiness

Alie Ward falls through the wormholes of history into the Louisiana swamps, then journeys on to discover how poker-faced mischief and a mathematical code for winning games have brought us to machines that can invent faces so real that nobody, not even other machines, can tell they are fake.

Faking Faces

A heroic bid for freedom by an enslaved couple in 19th century America precipitates great innovation that culminates in people literally making the heavens open. But can controlling the weather save us from climate catastrophe? Or are we playing god?

Engineering Earth

A discovery in a gold mine in the Ural Mountains leads to a vivid paint that revolutionises art and stuns the world of science. From dissecting stolen corpses and peering into microscopes, the secret structure of the brain and nervous system is exposed. Could this lead to a race of superhumans?