12 May 2026 The Rest Is Science
This episode contains descriptions of warfare and use of chemical weapons
How do you feed a world that’s running out of food?
In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens uncover one of the strangest and most unsettling stories in modern science: the tale of the man who learned how to pull fertiliser out of thin air.
This discovery transformed agriculture. It made modern civilisation possible. But it also powered explosives, prolonged the First World War, and helped to birth some of the most deadly chemical weapons in history.
From battles for bird poop to the ethics of scientific progress, this is the story of the molecule that changed humanity forever.
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Video Editor: Oli Oakley
Animator: Sam Benson
Video & Social: Bex Tyrrell
Assistant Producer: Lucy Lipscombe
Producer: Simona Rata
Senior Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter
Head Of Digital: Samuel Oakley
Exec Producer: Neil Fearn
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00:00 Intro
00:08 Cancer Research UK
01:22 Who is the biggest villain in history?
04:35 Who was Fritz Haber
07:11 The Principle of Population
08:00 Poop was like liquid gold
08:37 Japanese landlords and tenants’ ‘waste’
11:00 The battles over bird poo
14:05 How Haber broke open the Nitrogen production process
20:20 Adapting the environment instead of adapting to our environment
24:45 Breaking the nitrogen bond to make explosives
27:25 The father of chemical warfare
31:30 The tragedy of Haber’s wife
35:00 If Haber didn’t do it, would someone else have?
36:48 What happened to Haber?
38:55 Is scientific progress inevitable?
40:05 Outro
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