Original subtitles

subtitled by MosTafa ȜGena mostafaagina1997@gmail.com

imagine our planet without its people

imagine that every single human being has simply disappeared

this isn't the story of how that might happened

this is the story of what happens to the world we leave behind

this time on Life After People

the fate of man's great attempts at immortality

the bodies left behind

some mummified

some chronically frozen

will any of them achieve immortality ?

or will be survived by other memorials to mankind

take a look at the future of once crowded cities

and goes like towns already devoid of man

welcome to earth, population zero

it's one day after people

without humans to maintain them

power plants across the world start shutting down

lights go out

clocks stop

a race has begun to see who or what

can survive the longest

in a hostile world of life after people

around the world the mummies of many of Egypt's pharaohs

lie not in tombs deep inside Pyramids

but beneath the Plexiglas of modern museums

one day after people

the electronic temperature and humidity controls

that mimic the cool, dry environment where the mummies

once resided

shut down

the bodies they've been left in the tombs in Egypt

have lasted 3000 years or more

if the condition are just perfect for the body

i can see why it can last another 3000 years

but if the condition at the museum fail

the body would start decay immediately

you have a high humidity

you have mold spores in the air at all times

so they would probably be attacked by mold and bacteria

how long can these mummies last ?

we shall see!

one month after people

more than 100 bodies kept in suspended animation

at the world's cryonics facilities are still in a deep freeze

according to experts even a month long power cut won't cause the bodies to thaw

they are kept at a temperature of -320 °F

by liquid Nitrogen

which doesn't rely on electricity

to maintain its temperature

but there is a problem

liquid Nitrogen boils off slowly

in the time of humans, the supply had to be replenished every few weeks

with no-one left to restock the crucial refrigerant the bodies begin to warm up

once they reach -184°F

chemical reactions resume

and the nature process of decomposition take over

in the cells are enzymes and fluids

these breakdown quickly

the cell wall is broken down by enzymes it leak out

as soon as the temperature started to go up

the body would just accelerate in the decaying process

for these human beings the bid for immortality is coming to an end

and should some future intelligence wish to recreate humans

they will find no help in the laboratories left behind by man

there are approximately 400,000 human embryos

currently frozen in clinics in the "United States" alone

they along with all the egg and sperm samples in the world quickly decay

as the supplies of liquid nitrogen run out

but man's DNA still has a chance for survival

200 miles above the earth

up in the international space station

rests a computer disk called the immortality drive

delivered into orbit in October 2008

the immortality drive contains the

digitized DNA information of a highly eclectic group

including physicist "Stephen Hawking",

comedian "Stephen Colbert",

and playboy model "Jo Garcia"

it's the brainchild of "Richard Garriott" a video game producer from "Houston"

who thinks alien beings one day might use

the DNA data to reconstruct an extinct humanity

the immortality drive maybe man's best

shot at preserving the species in a life after people

but can it really last forever ?

another medium through which man has achieved immortality is art

creating images that have lasted centuries

but many masterpieces require protection in controlled environments

in the time of humans Michelangelo's magnificent frescoes

of the Vatican Sistine Chapel

were protected by more than 20 miles of pumps, pipes, valves and wiring

to prevent the fresco plaster from absorbing too much water from the air

the humidity was kept between 50% and 60%

air filters remove even microscopic particles of dust

it was all controlled by computer

but without electricity

the system has closed down forever

but 3 months after people

the disappearance of humans is actually helping the fresco

without the annual hordes of 2 million tourists

there are no ascending currents of human body heat

the figures painted on the ceiling including God and Adam

are safe at least for now

6 months after people

while nature attacks some of the bodies and structures left behind

she preserves others

in the barren wastes of "Ross island" "Antarctica"

are the huts used in the early 20th century

by explorers "Robert Scott" and "Ernest Shackleton"

here with an average temperature of 3 below 0

the ravages of decay have been slowed

inside and out the huts remain frozen entire

with the severe cold in "Antarctica"

a lot of the insects, that would no way at the world structure

don't exist there

and the fungus the mold doesn't exist there

cans of beef from 1917 set on the shelves

these cans they last 2 - 3 more centuries!

meat still hangs on metal hooks appearing quite edible even after almost a century

in some cases extreme cold has preserved flesh for thousands of years

in the 1928 explorers club meeting in "Paris"

they ate mastodon !

some mastodon came up through the ice

and they got it and cooked it up

and they served it at the dinner

and i had a friend there

I asked him how did it taste. And he said,

well It tasted a lot like a rodent meat

but it's have been period in the ice for 10,000 years

but, it's edible

while the Antarctic cold will preserve the explorer's huts for many years

it's the more temperate parts of the globe that most people once called home

cities like "Houston" and "Boston"

where the artifacts of man face a much harsher fate

Sitting in Boston harbor is one of the most famous ships in American history

the USS constitution first launched in 1797

is the world's oldest commissioned warships still afloat

during the war of 1812 cannonballs were seen bouncing of the ship's 25 inch

thick wooden hull earning her the nickname "Old Ironsides"

but even "Old Ironsides" is defenseless in this race to survive

along with most of what man has built

9 months after people

the race to see what survives is becoming more intense

in "Boston" a military relic is about to lose its final battle

the hull of "Old Ironsides" maybe tough enough to repel a cannonball

but it can't withstand the constant infiltration of water

wooden ships leak

the wood starts leaking almost immediately

the wood will shrank, the wood will expand the wood will rough

in the time of humans

automatic bilge pumps drained 900 gallons of water a day from the ship

but those pumps stopped months ago

this flooding alone won't be enough to drag the ship underwater

it will take the "Boston" winter to do finally what enemy warships never could

and the world without people maybe the constitution

would remain afloat for a year, maybe less

3 years after people

the international space station still orbits above the earth

but without constant re-calibration from terrestrial stations

or boosts from space shuttles it loses 2 miles of altitude each month

as it drops from its original height of 200 miles to blew 160 miles

the orbital decline accelerates

until it re-enters the atmosphere

where air and friction meet gravity and the space station burns up

incinerated in the descend

the final hope of reconstructing the human species

the digitized DNA of the immortality drive

proves to be quite mortal after all

5 years into a life after people

weeds have transformed the historic streets of "Boston"

if you just leave the gutters and rain spout

not maintained

plants will take grown in little cracks in the brick

and little cracks in the mortar

Boston's old north church is under attack

it's here that lanterns warned "Paul Revere"

of the British invasion in April 1775

now, the nature world has invaded and conquered

if the windows blowout

you've rain coming in

you've pigeons coming in

you've animals coming in

you also have vine starting to grower

the maple tree sending it shoots in here sprout up in the rotting wood

it's 20 years since humans disappeared

nature has conquered the sub-tropical city of "Houston"

the tallest building in "Texas" now looms

over a city that is slowly reverting back to the swamp it once was

once kept at a steady 72 degrees

Houston's great dome sport stadiums

now swelter to 125 degrees in the summer

they become enormous bat caves

the artificial grass of the Astrodome is swallowed up by weeds and muck

feasting on insects the bats make their own contribution to the new ecosystem

their excrement or guano

guano has a lot of nutrients in it

so you've insects that feed on the fungus

bringing in predators that eat insects

that eats the fungus

25 years without people have not been kind

to the mummies housed in the world's great museums

with no-one around to regulate heat and humidity

mold struck first

then insects

mites will probably be the first insect you will see, destroying a mummified body

after the mites eat a decayed body

they'll start to break down fibers

they would start to turn a dust

great kings like "Ramses II" and

"Tutankhamun" have been reduced to skeletons

when "Lenin" died in 1924

his body was given into the hands of skilled embalmers

and his corpse was preserved for decayed in "Moscow"

the process was once a state secret

rumoured to involved repeated bathes in

formaldehyde ethanol and methanol

Caretakers were always on duty to protect the body

scrubbing away bacteria closing up openings in the flesh

and lightening blemishes

his body has treated with makeup

so that he appears like he did 30 years ago

but the process of decay underneath that makeup and underneath that wax

still taking place

it can be slow down but the process of decay never stops

but with no-one to tend it

Lenin's body goes the way of the rotting pharoahs

the wooden steeple of Boston's 18th century

old north Church is on the verge of collapse

the steeple be taller

is going to more susceptible to big storm than the rest of the building

it would all sooner

the once guiding light of the American revolution has been extinguished

35 years after people is long enough to

turn coastal cities like "Boston" into ghostly wrecks

how do we know this !?

it's a future that already happened almost 7000 miles from "Boston"

this island was the most densely populated place on earth

until man disappeared

35 years after the disappearance of people

homes,

offices

and factories

are cracking and subsiding

as nature takes over

it's a future that has already come to pass in one remote corner of the world

several miles off the the southwest coast of "Japan"

a forsaken island stands lifeless and decaying

so island as you can see is a slab of concrete

setting in the middle of the ocean

with high rise buildings

completely empty, no one living here anymore

no electricity, no vegetation nothing!

Hashima island was once a thriving coal-mining town

and homes to thousands of people

now it's abandoned

offices and residential buildings are literally

exploding under nature's relentless hands

the island has been left literally to the elements

all these is exposed completely

the wind is carrying all the sea water up into the building

because of the unsafe conditions

"Hashima" is strictly off limits to visitors

in the 1890s Japan's Mitsubishi company

began mining coal from the seafloor beneath Hashima

at it's peak in 1959 the 15 acre was

home to more than 5000 workers and their families

the highest recorded population density on earth

in 1974 as "Japan" as began favoring petroleum over coal

Mitsubishi closed the mine and relocated the entire population to the mainland

35 years later

nothing remains but decayed buildings and ghostly memories

what is the city look like after all the people were gone !?

this is the Hashima version of life after people

this isn't a war zone, it was one busiest third fares on the island

there was once a row stores along here with wooden shutters

all of the lumber collapsed onto the ground

the concrete walling has fallen

the metal netting is strewn along the ground

it's a facts of 35 years of wind and rain

once one of the busiest places on the island

now it just completely silent

these rooms once echoed with the laughter of children playing

now all that remains are the corroded rusty remains of their toys

overgrown and forgotten

the school playground is now rusting scrap metal

"Hashima" is a laboratory for showing

what happens to reinforced concrete in a savage environment

every year the typhoon season delivers rain and winds of up to 100 mph

whilst huge ocean waves smashed directly into buildings

in the case of this building we have an iron frame and steel reinforced parts

as you can see the front part of this building is damaged

but the backsides isn't

it tells you that the surfaces damaged by saltwater, wind and rain

scientific studies of concrete core samples

reveal that the buildings most exposed

to the ocean had a salt content 15 times greater than the others

the concrete buildings themselves gave the island a warlike profile

and even a new nickname "Battleship Island"

"Hashima" was called battleship island

because from a distance it literally looks

like the shape of a battleship

the similarity is so uncanny fictive

with actually torpedoed during World War II by American submarines

"Doutoku Sakamoto" lived on the island as a young boy

his former home is on the nine floor of a building

that once housed 300 families in tiny apartments

this was a room that we used into 1974

there 5 family members living in this house

and there was my private room

and a balcony over there

the wooden facades of balconies were quickly destroyed

the many passageways and stairs that

connected the buildings are now falling apart

this is the steps of hell

so named because of so steep

the buildings of Hashima

are high rises of up to

9 storeys in height

and so people living in the island had to

negotiate stair like this on the daily basis

there wasn't a single elevator any more in the island

so you can see where the name comes from

overage the "Hashima" was just a rock without vegetation

setting in the middle of the ocean

and by artificial means it was turning into a human community

but in reality is just that appear rock are city in the middle of the ocean

and lifeless and it's gone back to lifeless

it's been 50 years since the last human voices echoed through the streets

alleys and hallways of planet earth

but the words of man haven't been completely silenced

after humans disappeared tens of thousands of domestic parrots escaped into the wild

and still retain the words and phrases taught to them by their vanished owners

parrots are considered one of the smartest creatures on earth now

up with great apes and dolphins

some parrots have learnt learn several hundred words

and might keep that vocabulary even without humans to interact with

i confirm that parrots escaped into the wild

might have a lifespan say of 60 years

then it be very possible that 50 years later

you could still hear human noises in the wild

so for now, some of mankind's words will survive

time and nature are wearing away

Boston's monumental Bunker Hill Bridge

the steel and concrete span is held up

by 116 steel cables strung from 2 towers

and required constant maintenance in the time of humans

truly, bending the steel making sure no corrosion exist

sweeping the debris of the bridge

cleaning out the drainage structures

so plants don't grow in the water flows over the bridge

and sealing the concrete with a motif resin sealer

the cables are coated in a plastic piping to keep moisture off them

the plastic piping also protect them from another source of corrosion

bird droppings are amazingly corrosive to a wide range of building materials

it wasn't even fully recognized 20 or 30 years ago

the waste product of pigeons and starlings

contains high levels of ammonia and salt

mixed with rainwater

the combination triggers are lethal electro-chemical reaction

it was 20 years of bird droppings

penetrating the steel of an eight-lane bridge in "Minneapolis"

that contributed to its fatal collapse in 2007

after a century weather and stress have

cracked the protective plastic coating on the cables

of the Bunker Hill Bridge

storm water some of it mixed with acidic pigeon droppings

has penetrated to corrode the steel

one by one the cables snap

when half have gone

those that remain can no longer support the weight of the roadway

down the coast in "New York" more than 200 years

after she was given as a gift of friendship

from the people of France to the people of America

the statue of liberty is still holding her torch high

the second to be held a aloft by Lady Liberty

the original was replaced in a 1980s during a massive restoration period

now beneath her copper skin

only a few millimeters thick her skeleton this beginning to disintegrate

the steel straps that hold the copper to steel framework

would pull away the river threat pull away

over period of a 100 to 200 years

her end has not yet come

but without humans it soon will

in "Houston" the dome stadiums have spent the last 100 years

as sub-tropical paradises

in the time of humans it cost an estimated

half a million dollars a year to maintain the "Astrodome"

the first dome-based baseball stadium in the world

after a century of neglect

the entire structure is cracking and crumbling

finally, in great chunks the 9000 tons

steel and lucite dome comes raining down

150 years after people

leaves "Boston" looking like an untamed, neglected and overgrown garden

in the time of humans

the best observation point in the city

was from in top of the 60 storey "John Hancock" tower

the tallest building in "New England"

but the notorious "New England" weather has destroyed the building's outer skin

corroding steel columns lead to a pancake collapse

the urban jungle is now just jungle

but former cities still echo with familiar words

although these parrots have never interacted with humans

their ancestors did

and some remnants of human speech have been passed down to them

but our languages will not be immortal

while parrots can pass on human words to their chicks

it has no value for the survival of the species

i would think the drop-off would be more than 90% 3rd generation

200 years after the last human

would be highly and unlikely to expect hear human vocalisation

and parrots in the wild

over a period of 200 years

the tallest building in "Texas" has had it's windows

blown out by hurricanes

and it's insides corroded by rain

you have to expect a hurricane in "Houston"

a good one, a big one

every 4-5 years

that's going a create a significant amount of damage

almost in its wall buildings

now the accumulated force of nature will strip the building to it's bones

the steel frame might still be there

200 years later

the rest of the building is gone

then the the steel frame itself will corrode and collapse

1600 miles away in "New York" harbor

the statue of liberty's best chance for immortality

might lie beneath the waves

300 years after people

the statue of liberty suffers a fetal relapse of an old complaint

galvanic corrosion

her torch bearing right arm is the first to fall

other parts quickly follow

here on the ocean floor these shattered symbols of hope

become the fossils of the future

the hand with the torch would by that initial ballistic trajectory in bid itself

maybe a up to half a meter into the mud

and that impression, may will stay

just in the way footprints

a preserved in mud and sand

while one icon of humanity makes a bid for immortality on the ocean floor

the most famous ceiling in the world

is barely hanging on

half a millennium after people

Michelangelo's frescoes still look down from the "Sistine" ceiling

where they cover 12,000 square feet of surface

even though all the frescoes have faded

and cracked from changing temperature and humidity

on the wall depicting the last judgement

Michelangelo's heavenly sky has faded faster than other sections

the ultramarine pigment comes from Lapis Lazuli in Tunisia

it was the most precious color in renaissance art

but also one of the most delicate

it's blue color comes from 3 sulphur atoms

and an electron, protected by Aluminum and Silicon atoms

high humidity breaks apart the structure

allowing oxygen to mix with a sulphur

turning the blue to a yellowish-grey

throughout it's history, people have tried to clean the frescoes

and shore up the chapel itself

but after 5 centuries

the last judgement has come

the walls would weaken

the vault of the roof would push the walls apart

Exterior bracing buttresses fail

initiating a chain reaction

walls would collapse

the Sistine ceiling would not be there a 1000 years for now without people

probably would not be there 500 years for now

10,000 years after people

almost all traces of mankind and it's culture

are buried beneath vegetation and sand

10,000 years from now

they would certainly be somethings you would see

pyramids of Egypt perhaps

but, very very little of human existence

would actually be recognizable in the absence of humans

the planet has become warmer

even in the coldest places on Earth

even in those areas, where "Scott" and "Shackleton" built their huts

we may will start to see an increase in

planet life possibly

even an insects

organisms that would began to increase the

rate of which decay would take away those structures

and 10,000 years, it's a improbable that those huts would still be there

in 10,000 years

the earth itself will have buried most of man's cities

100 million years after people

dreaming of immortality

man tried to make his mark on the world

but those marks have been erased

in the end

what survives isn't what people made

but the simple mineral compounds that made people

we re-possessed bones that made out of calcium phosphate

that is as durable as the bones of dinosaurs

teeth are even more durable

the dentin and particularly enamel very hard to break down

so those parts of us will likely survive here and there

this then is the final fate of humans

along with the bridges they stretched across rivers

and the buildings they build up to the sky

art and architecture

aspiration and achievement

all just fragments on the ground

in a life after people

subtitled by MosTafa ȜGena mostafaagina1997@gmail.com