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The Age

Thursday November 20, 2008

Brad Newsome

Naked Science: Glacier Meltdown

National Geographic, 9.30pm

AWOOGAH! Awoogah! The klaxons are always howling in this cataclysmic science series. Oddly enough, though, while the tone of this episode is a little more sedate than usual, tonight's threat actually seems scarier than the series' regular roster of comets, volcanoes and earthquakes. The program gives a good overview of the dire state of the world's glaciers, from the retreat of those in Alaska to the way in which the disintegration of the Larsen ice shelf has allowed Antarctic glaciers to slide into the sea at a much faster rate. Real scientists use simple experiments to demonstrate how glaciers work and how climate change is affecting them, and there are groovy graphics to explain things that the boffins' mud balls and icy-poles can't. The main danger posed by the big melt is, of course, a rise in sea levels, so the doco heads to New York, Venice and the Netherlands to assess those places' vulnerabilities and see what (if anything) is being done to avert catastrophe. At the moment, though, the most immediate threat is in the Himalayas, where melting glaciers are causing lakes to burst, sweeping away entire villages.

Supersize v Superskinny

Lifestyle, 7.30pm

THIS new British diet-swap show seems a bit all-over-the-place at times, but the pairing each week of a dangerously underweight person with a grossly obese one makes for interesting viewing. Tonight, we meet the seriously skinny Tatiana, who eats just five days' worth of food each week and is at risk of bone damage, and the enormously overweight Sandra, who eats 13 days' worth of food each week and is at risk of practically everything else. Tatiana and Sandra spend a week in a food-rehab clinic eating each other's diets and learning how their own diet is ruining their health. There are other segments and storylines, though. The one in which reporter Anna Richardson tries out fad diets and weight-loss treatments doesn't add all that much, although the horror story she hears tonight about laxative-abusing models not making it to the toilet in time will stay with me for a long time. The other segment, in which nutrition harpy Gillian McKeith - who shows an unhealthy interest in stool samples in You Are What You Eat (Lifestyle, 11am) - berates women into trying to make their bottoms smaller borders on worthless.

World's Toughest Fixes

National Geographic, 8.30pm

HOST Sean Riley is off to France to work on a damaged Boeing 767. It's a big job - the entire tail section has to come off - but it's fairly standard engineering TV.

Worth a look

The Hunt for the Texas 7

(CI, 7.30pm). Fugitives on the run.

Walking with Dinosaurs

(BBC Knowledge, 7.30pm).

SAS Survival Secrets

(BBC Knowledge, 10.30pm)

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