Original subtitles

can a pinhead-sized pellet

be a murder weapon

that this tiny bullet was in the body of

a dead man

this medieval instrument helps to

predict the future

and predicted the rise of Hitler centuries

before

this high-tech bird cage saved

the lives of thousands of people

not to use these birds

[music]

fascinating mysterious objects

long hidden in museums, laboratories and

archives,

now we can use the latest

technology to reveal their secrets

[music]

we can recreate them,

disassemble

and enlarge them

and forget them

[music]

these are the strangest things in the world

[music]

in the London Crime Museum there is a

tiny one Metal balls 1.7 mm in size,

smaller than the head of a pin,

it is the only evidence in a case

that has kept the police busy for almost half a

century. Using the

latest technology, we are

now able to extract its secret from the deadly bullet.

This strange little ball was found in the

body of a corpse

Metal ball

really looks quite innocent and is made

of a harmless metal but the

devil is in the details

this ball is made of two of the

most valuable rare metals on earth

on the surface we can see small

scratches but there are also two holes

the diameter of the holes is only

four times larger than that of human

hair the two mini tunnels that

run through the ball meet in the

middle and form an

]

London September 8, 1978 the 49 year old

Bulgarian playwright Georgi Markhof

is admitted to the hospital at 11 p.m.

he is in severe pain he is

dizzy

his white blood cell count

is very high the doctors are at a loss

his heart stops on September 11th at 10:40

a.m

The doctors say the

cause of death was sepsis,

blood poisoning caused by bacteria,

but that is just a guess. The

doctors don't know why the healthy

man lost weight dramatically in a very short time

and then died.

However, before his

death, Marktkauf expressed the suspicion that he had been

the victim of an attack

Ten years earlier, the author had left

Bulgaria. The

playwright and satirist, who was once celebrated in his homeland, became

one of the

most prominent critics of the Bulgarian

regime in Great Britain, which was supported by the Soviet Union.

At that time, the head chef was the dictator of

Bulgaria

and criticism of his rule was

suspected The

British police are planning an attack

and an autopsy of the body is being carried out. The

circumstances of the Bulgarian

dissident's death are unclear.

The pathologists discover a tiny

puncture mark in the man's body as if

something had been injected into the man. They

cut out the wound and send

it to the strict intestines secret

British research center for

biochemical weapons

dear sample the laboratory doctors discover

a tiny metal ball smaller than

2 mm

this is the ball

magnified almost 1,000 times

this tiny thing can actually

be the cause of death

we know toxic metals such as

mercury and potassium

there are some chemicals that

are harmful to humans,

a metal purchased from the market was poisoned,

the

analysis of the pellet showed that it consisted of

almost 90% platinum and about 10% iridium,

both of which are precious metals that

react very slowly both chemically and biologically,

not the cause of death,

but what killed Georgi Markov

[music]

Two weeks after the attack, the

British police received a call from Paris.

Two weeks before Marktkauf was admitted to the hospital, there

had

been another incident.

Vladimir Kostov. Another

Bulgarian dissident felt

a stab in his back while getting off the Paris metro.

Krustdorf fell ill with similar

symptoms to Marktkauf

But Christoph

also survives. The doctors treating him discover

a small puncture mark on his

back. They remove a tiny

metal ball.

On Thursday we took a

metal object out of

Mr. Christoph's back. We are

pretty sure that it is an

object of the same size and

composition

Police are sure that the

solution to the mystery can be found in the metal ball

[music]

what was in the holes

or

5000 grams of a substance would

have been enough to kill an adult man

since biological substances

produce different phenomena than those

seen here Of course,

the question would now be whether these are chemicals, i.e.

chemical poisons, for example

hydrogen cyanide or arsenic, but these substances

must be present in much higher quantities

than the quantities seen here at Marktkauf,

so these

substances could also be removed from the list in just

one category of poisons comes into question

the next group of substances that now

comes into consideration are simply biological

substances from nature from plants

spiders snails everything that crawls

and is moist and particularly poisonous

a biological toxin is different

from the rest, whatever it was in this

little ball had to travel through the

entire body of market purchase

in very small quantities and it

then caused bleeding and severe

physical symptoms but

left no trace.

Scientists identify the

substance

Ricin

Ricin can be obtained very, very easily, which is

perhaps why it was

chosen not just because it is special

is toxic because it comes from the

remains of the oil production so there are

huge amounts of waste and

there is the ricin in it so it is

actually a waste product that you

can easily get it is inexpensive

and it is very very easily available

we pull blocked the

Protein production by the cells as soon as it

gets into the bloodstream

there is a danger to life

[music]

we pull creates very typical

symptoms of poisoning you have a

lot of white blood cells that try to

somehow fight whatever is

going on then vomiting

headaches

stomach ache all very typical symptoms

of poisoning and the

market purchase It is exactly this that one can

assume that he was poisoned,

but why did Christoph survive in Paris

in France? It was almost identical to the one

in the market purchase body. But the

ball was not empty,

poison but filled with wax. The

investigators suspect that the wax paint

acts as a stopper. The ball was

the one The delivery container for the poison

was inside, covered in wax,

until the bullet entered the body,

then the wax heated up and released

the poison.

The experts assume that Christoph

was lucky, the bullet hit him in the

back, where the

blood vessels are larger The

body had already

mobilized its defenses before the wax

could melt and release the poison.

In Kostorf's case, the man who survived,

it was also quite good that

blood clots prevented the

poison from coming out of the small ball at all,

but also the wax was used to

seal the holes or the tunnel

was used to dissolve

the method could appear

but it was not unusual in times of the Cold War

it sounds like something out of a James Bond film

but at that time the Cold War was raging

they worked with secret weapons with

objects that were hidden in other objects

nothing unusual in That

was the world of spies at that time.

Poisoning by secret services is

something completely normal. In the 1960s,

for example, the American

secret service considered whether they would poison the leader

of Cuba with a box of his

favorite cigars into which they put

botulinus toxin or in the

70s Years ago they developed a kind of violet

where a poison that was

obtained from a sea animal is

administered, which creates even a

small red dot, a small

skin lesion, so that's unfortunately

something completely normal,

died bizarrely due to a minimal amount of ricin in

a tiny ball

is how the poison got into his body

[music]

before his death he tells

a story in the hospital that is

reminiscent of John Lee's thrillers

on the afternoon of September 7th he is

shopping at the market on the way to his

job at the BBC he crosses

the Waterloo bridge and poses At

the bus stop he suddenly feels

a pang in his thigh. Someone

apologizes. He turns around

and sees an unknown person

picking up an umbrella and getting into a taxi

and driving away. A few hours later

the symptoms set in.

The umbrella was the weapon for both him and him

its unknown owner has also

disappeared

[music]

a year goes by and the police are

still at a loss

only a decade later there is a

trace

an aunt on November 10, 1989 one day

after the fall of the wall the

Bulgarian dictator Schiffdorf is

chased from office

secrets of the communist regime

are revealed. The investigators make

a discovery in the Ministry of the Interior. They

come across manipulated umbrellas from which

small metal projectiles

can be fired.

Now you know that there

were actually umbrella guns and how they

worked.

It looks like a normal umbrella

but the button is used to open it When pressed,

the gas contained in a cylinder is released so

that the ball is

pushed forward with pressure so that it can

penetrate the victim.

Now the police know how Marko died

but who was the shooter?

There are a lot of suspects for

the man with the umbrella

underneath Francesco Galeno, who

probably worked for the Bulgarian government,

we know that he was in London several times, including

at the time of the

attack on Marktkauf, we also know

that he traveled to Rome the following day,

he says he was in the right place at the right time. In

1993, Interpol questioned him

There is no evidence, only circumstantial evidence.

Galeno always dies Gust 2021 for the

murder of Marktkauf he is never named.

Even today the only evidence is an

unusual metal ball barely the size of a pin head.

Regardless of the perpetrator, it is certain that sometimes

terrible things come in very

small packages

in the history of science The

Oxford University Museum houses an

unusual device.

This elegant and complex device

is hundreds of years old and oscillates

between science and superstition. We do

n't yet understand exactly how it

works.

The secret of this miraculous instrument is to be revealed using the most modern technology.

Its elaborately engraved discs are

almost 8 inches

There are wheels wide on both sides, what is

it all about?

This device predicts what is happening in the sky,

but it is not only used for astronomy

[music],

several signs also indicate a

use in medicine

[music],

but what is special is its owner

[ Music]

a man who claimed to be

able to predict the events of the world.

The owner was a man who had

predicted the rise of Hitler centuries before.

His name was Nostradamus.

Experts believe that Nostradamus

made his predictions with this device.

The instrument allows a glimpse into

the future

exactly it is

a medical

device who is Nostradamus he could

actually use it to predict the future

this device is a star altimeter

or astrolabe

the front is a

two-dimensional map of the night sky

the firmament in the evening is projected onto this

flat plane similar to the

earth's surface shown on an ordinary

world map in two dimensions

the name astrolabe comes from the

Greek and means star taker

holds supports the entire universe

it consists of several movable

elements with which the height of a particular star can be determined at a

particular moment in a particular

place

it receives In the truest sense of the word,

the night sky

but astronomy can do even more.

You can use it to measure distances and

calculate the height of houses.

The tides can be predicted.

Special astrolabes were used for

navigation.

In the 10th century a

philosopher wrote about a thousand

possible applications.

This example is particularly

interesting Because it's more than all that, it's

two devices in one.

The front is used to look at

the stars.

The back shows the planets

up to escode. We call it equatorium.

Planets move more than stars,

hence the name planet means wanderer.

Planets are objects similar to stars

in the sky hiking

the equatorium refers to the

past and future will

be located and reconstruct where

they were in the past

give you in one with the equatorium

we recognize every movement in the

nighttime firmament

astrolabe and equatorium in one that

is indeed unusual

we only own three devices

of these today Type and we are still deciphering them they are

highly precise

instruments

the astrolabe is not only beautiful it

is also very precise complex calculations were required to determine the correct

size of the individual elements

[music]

but this device actually belonged

to the legendary Nostradamus

There is evidence to support this theory

[music]

the astronomium was owned by

the rich French family who

lives

who had a famous neighbor

[music]

Nostradamus or Michelle de nostre Dame

probably lived near the du mondeurvey for the last 19 years of his life The

prominent citizens of the small

town knew each other, it is

assumed that the Fertilization Dörrwil family

warmed the astrolabe after Nostradamus's

death

[music]

they had the money for it

on the device itself, there is

another indication

here is the inscription in Kiev morby

onset of the illness with the

astrolabe The onset of

febrile illnesses was calculated, which

usually occurred at certain times of the

year and had to be calculated that way.

The engraving is an indication of the

owner.

Diseases were Nostradamus' profession

was a doctor and had enough

wealth to buy such an expensive instrument.

All in all it seems It is likely

that the astrolabe belonged to Nostradamus,

but why does your doctor need a device

that reads stars and planets?

In the Middle Ages, astronomy and

astrology were important aspects of medicine.

The belief was that there was a

connection between what happened in the

sky on earth and in the human

body

[Music ]

that is understandable

the moon influences the times

why shouldn't other celestial bodies

have an impact on people's lives

astrology has played a role in medicine for

thousands of years

ancient Greece developed

the homo signorum around 300 BC

after each body part

is assigned a zodiac sign for

each zodiac sign Constellation has

specific properties that

are transferred to the respective body part

is assigned to the head Gemini

the shoulders of Scorpio the

genitals

diseases are attributed to certain

zodiac constellations

Price Pisces Cancer and

Capricorn cause ulcers

Scales and fistulas Sagittarius and Gemini are

responsible for convulsions or epileptic seizures

Planets Play

an important role in medieval medicine

in a system, planets are related to

body parts, Saturn controls

the right ear and the spleen, for example,

Jupiter rules the lungs and

the arteries, Mercury watches over

language, thinking and the law

for a doctor like Nostradamus is the

astrolabe an important

diagnostic tool

[music]

for calculating a person's horoscope

[music]

the sun, the moon and the planets

are in position

then he looks at the constellation of the

zodiac signs when the disease breaks out

only then does he decide which is the

best day for bleeding out, bathing or

sweating If he is based

on the phases of the moon and the zodiac signs, then

the equatorium is used.

Nostradamus looks for the astrological sign relevant to the

diagnosed illness.

Pages after Südamer. If it is a

problem with the spine,

he looks at the orbit of the sun. If

it is the liver, he has to find Jupiter

He uses his equatorium for this.

Nostradamus uses the wisdom of the

astrolabe not only in

medical

calculations and publishes his

forecasts in a kind of Alma. His writings

also contain very practical facts for farmers and fishermen by

predicting the tides, sunrise and sunset

Tips for the treatment

of illnesses

His readership extends far beyond those who

only derive a purely practical

benefit from his writings,

but this is far from a

prognosis about the rise of Hitler or

the assassination of John F Kennedy,

how did Nostradamus become a prophet

and what does that mean? strange device to do with it

Nostradamus lives in the 16th century

it's a bad time to be a doctor

a deadly disease is raging

on the continent

knows the cause because it doesn't

follow any rhythm or pattern

when it also takes away Nostradamus women children the

doctor turns to the

occult To the time of his

prophecies begins

Nostradamus wants to predict the future

in order to prepare for another plague or

other catastrophe.

He spends hours meditating. He has

hallucinations and visions that inspire him to make

predictions.

He decorates these with the astrolabe

from

[music]

the possibility in a certain Being

able to say at a moment that on a

certain day this planet will be here and

that star there seems to

people a magical possibility.

Nostradamus publishes his

prophecies as so-called centurias

in a compendium

[music]

he has to be discreet in order

not to antagonize the Catholic Church

Words in Latin and Greek

to disguise his prophecies

so he writes the great man will be

thunderstruck which is later interpreted as the

announcement of the murder of John F Kennedy

[music]

this is a pretty vague statement

the great man could be any ruler

and a Thunderclap a

gunshot or not maybe

meant real thunder or

another event

supposedly Nostradamus also predicts the

rise of Hitler

[music]

once it is said that a child of poor parents

will become powerful in Europe,

however many were born in poverty

and later became powerful

the problem of this Dare formulations

is that they can mean anything

[music]

but a prophecy is not a scales

formulation On the eve of his death on

July 1, 1566, he explains to his secretary

that he will no longer find him alive the next morning,

the next day he dies, but

one feels probably not well on the eve of his own

death anyway

the lively discussions about the

accuracy of the prophecies continue

today

Nostradamus always emphasized that his

predictions

were based on astronomical calculations that he could have

made with the astrolabe

[Music] there is

a strange one in the London Science Museum Instrument

it saved the lives of thousands of people

worldwide we found this device in the

deepest depths of the earth

it turned out to be a simple solution to

a gigantic problem

modern technology brings the device back

to light it is a good 25 cm high and 10

cm wide

it is used for Reviving

canaries

this simple glass box with a metal frame

changed the world

[music]

the use of the birds was required by law

what is it why was it developed and

how can it save human lives

and why is there a bird in there

[music]

the device actually works

without it Little bird,

it's the high-tech birdcage of its

time, it's pleasant for the bird, there

are windows, it can look out, the

device keeps the little animal alive because

the atmosphere outside would kill it.

110 years ago, the construction of

this birdcage was really high-tech, it

's real engineering screws

Glass panes Once the bird is

in the cage, it can't get out The

cage is closed with a perforated

metal grille

The perforated metal grille behind the

porthole is the heart of it

As soon as the porthole is opened,

air flows into the device, the bird breathes it

in and if something dangerous comes in of the

air please pass out then

something is wrong

the bird can be saved by immediately

closing the porthole

this is where the tank on the device comes into

play

is pumped into the airtight room via a metal pipe

so the

bird gets air and survives like in a

tiny spaceship

is a complex procedure to

save a bird

at the same time the device is

revolutionary

but why is there a bird in

the box at all

[music] At the

end of the 19th century the

triumph of heavy industry begins

the world is powered by steam

its energy source is coal

an important element of the new

Way of life

the more coal the world needs, the more

dangerous mines become. A

mine was a damn dangerous

place to work. Tunnels collapsed. Mines were flooded.

The equipment was

heavy. Dynamite was also used

[music]

but the most feared gases

[music]

act as a dampener which everyone

was afraid of,

they have different effects but are

always deadly

when gases ignite the

so-called firedamp occurs.

Firedamp is a mixture of methane

and air.

Miners fidget with candlelight

but fire ignites methane.

The white vapor of the condensation fog is just as deadly. The condensation fog

then consists almost

entirely of carbon monoxide is a smell

and tasteless and deadly. When

inhaled, the carbon monoxide binds to

hemoglobin and gradually occupies the

places that otherwise

transport oxygen. When all are occupied,

you die within minutes

[Music] In

1896, 57 men and 80 rough

ponies died in a mining accident in Wales

The physiologist John Holding is supposed to find

out the cause

the dead have no fatal

injuries only a pink

discoloration

pink tint of the skin indicates

carbon monoxide poisoning so it

was proven that the white steam

killed the men

[music]

Holding wants to find a way to

detect carbon monoxide

that becomes the task of the canaries

[music]

in the late 19th century there are still

no detectors for carbon monoxide.

John Holding locks himself in his

laboratory

where he examines mice and finds

that they react 20 times more strongly to

carbon monoxide than humans.

Unfortunately, mice sleep a lot If you see a

mouse lying in a cage, you do

n't know whether it

has carbon monoxide poisoning or is just taking a

nap.

Birds are better choices as warm detectors.

They sit on their perch when they

fall down. You know they haven't fallen

asleep but are poisoned. Holding

finds out that birds are even more sensitive

react to carbon monoxide as Moses

they have a highly developed

respiratory system quickly

because they fly and use a lot of

energy in relation to their

body weight

[applause]

they have to inhale large amounts of oxygen

to cause the chemical reactions

that keep them in the air

so birds breathe a lot more Air per

unit volume than a human being and

are therefore far more susceptible to the

slightest dose of poison in the air

[music]

but why canaries

[music]

sing

to the male animals of the genus

permanently

you can't constantly look at the bird in the mine

if he no longer

sings, he notices that

Holding's canaries make the

dangerous work underground safer

on February 15, 1901,

pipe monoxide spreads throughout the

mine.

Ramsay himself, a victim of the accident,

returns to the mountain to save his colleagues.

He takes two canaries with

and explains that thanks to them he survived

then an unusual law is

passed

nisse in the law from now on

canaries have to be taken underground

soon the whole

world shares this insight canaries become the

rule

by 1914 canaries save

800 men in Great Britain alone Life

[music]

then the

resuscitation machine is developed.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the

apparatus is a real high-tech device.

It is built by the British

technology company Sieb Gorman. It has

specialized

in the production of

diving helmets since the 1830s. The company has

great know-how in oxygen supply

had already gained experience in airtight rooms. In

1902 they built a ventilator for

mine rescue. This gave the

miners two hours of time in a toxic environment.

The technology was also used during the First

World War in regions

that were under chemical weapons fire.

These experiences flowed into the construction of the

resuscitation device for

canaries a

glass pane has rubber seals

the whole thing is held in place by screws

the porthole follows the

construction principle of

diving equipment

[music]

when the miner finds that the

bird has problems he seals the

porthole and traps the air then

he opens the valve of the tank to release the

toxic air escapes and the bird

is hopefully saved.

The black and white color distance reveals

that there is pure oxygen in it.

This is vital for the

animal.

The higher the oxygen concentration in

the air, the easier it is to breathe, even

if it is difficult for

a canary to absorb enough oxygen to survive

has just inhaled poison gas, the

chance of survival increases if it is in high

oxygen concentration

on the top of the device, another

sign of the expertise of 7.

Oxygen in the tank is under enormous

pressure under which the bird

could not survive.

The pressure can be

regulated with a safety valve and the little bird is

protected

why so much effort goes into the life of

a canary

the answer can be found in the relationship

between the miners and their animals

a bond is incredibly important for

people as well as for animals all

living beings want to build connections

if we spend long enough with something

interacting, we develop a form

of relationship

when you look after a

canary in its cage day in and day out,

you automatically feel connected to the

animal, you love the little bird,

you think it's a wonderful

creature, this creature belongs to me

[music]

maybe it came so to develop the

device

[music]

perhaps the miners exerted pressure

and demanded protection for their

canaries

worldwide, the canaries became

part of the mines

but they had to

give way to technical progress. At the

end of the 1980s, the

coal mines all over the world are pulling their

canaries out of the Traffic

The birds were underground for 100 years

until they were replaced by small electronic

devices, which

also marked the end of the

resuscitation machine.

After the canaries had

saved thousands of lives for a century,

the apparatus museum landed there, an

object to satisfy historical

curiosity, the device is out the mine

disappeared but the canaries

left traces

the memory of the canaries in

the mines after nine eleven

the canary breeders in New

York could hardly meet the demand for the churches

people wanted to be warned by a

canary about a possible

chemical weapons attack

2003 was the year Demand in Baghdad from the

same layout

also in the English language

they left their mark

something that is a warning of problems

or misfortune it is

unbelievable that I derive such a

formulation from the life-saving use

of canaries

[music]