Radio Times: Review by:; David Butcher

If you like octopuses – and if not, why not? – be sure to catch the latter stages of this instalment as Brian Cox scuba dives off Florida with some splendid ones. There is one shot as we drift up to a big clump of seaweed and suddenly – whoomf! – part of it changes colour and an indignant octopus materialises before our eyes, squirts some ink and shoots off.

They are the smartest of the invertebrates, Cox tells us, with about as many brain cells as dogs – they’ve been known to use tools, for instance. This is all part of Cox’s dissertation on sensing: how organisms gather information about the world to help them survive. It’s a subject that takes him from hugging a massive catfish to making his own eye.

About this programme

1/5. Professor Brian Cox travels around the world to investigate whether the emergence of life was an inevitable consequence of the physical laws that govern the universe. On the edge of Taal Volcano lake in the Philippines, he demonstrates how the first spark of life may have arisen from the chemical changes caused when heat from the inner Earth forced its way to the surface. The physicist also swims with millions of golden jellyfish, which have algae embedded in their structures that draw energy from the sun and nourish the creatures.