NOVA explores the impact of whaling and the goods it produces for the industry, verses the grace and beatury of this intelligent mammal of the sea.

Where do nature’s building blocks, called the elements, come from? They’re the hidden ingredients of everything in our world, from the carbon in our bodies to the metals in our smartphones. To unlock their secrets, David Pogue, the lively host of NOVA’s popular "Making Stuff" series and technology correspondent of The New York Times, spins viewers through the world of weird, extreme chemistry: the strongest acids, the deadliest poisons, the universe’s most abundant elements, and the rarest of the rare—substances cooked up in atom smashers that flicker into existence for only fractions of a second.

Apollo astronauts and engineers tell the inside story of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon. The U.S. space program suffered a bitter setback when Apollo 1 ended in a deadly fire during a pre-launch run-through. In disarray, and threatened by the prospect of a Soviet Union victory in the space race, NASA decided upon a radical and risky change of plan: turn Apollo 8 from an earth-orbit mission into a daring sprint to the moon while relying on untried new technologies. Fifty years after the historic mission, the Apollo 8 astronauts and engineers recount the feats of engineering that paved the way to the moon.

Experts investigate how a mysterious "second genome" helps determine our biological fates.

In 1054 AD, the Chinese recorded the explosion of a star so bright that it lit the sky for three weeks, even during the day. It was the explosion of a dying star that was bigger than our sun. NOVA explores this mysterious explosion that led to the discovery of Crab Nebula.

The earthquake that hit the northern coast of Japan on March 11, 2011, was recorded at magnitude 9.0 the worst ever recorded in Japan. It generated an unprecedented tsunami, obliterating coastal villages and towns in a matter of minutes. In some areas, the tsunami climbed above 100 feet in height and traveled miles inland. Amazingly, amateur and professional photographers captured it all on video, including remarkable tales of human survival, as ordinary citizens became heroes in a drama they never could have imagined. As the waves rush in, a daughter struggles to help her elderly mother ascend their rooftop to safety; a man climbs onto an overpass just as the wave overtakes his car. These never-before-seen stories are captured in video and retold after the fact by the survivors who reveal what they were thinking as they made their life-saving decisions. Their stories provide lessons for how we should all act in the face of life-threatening disasters.

NOVA takes you inside a very special ER to witness the efforts of wildlife veterinarians as they fight to save their animal patients as well as to uncover the cause of a mysterious neurological illness plaguing marine mammals like California sea lions and harbor seal pups. Part emergency room, part rehab facility, and part research lab, the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California means the difference between life and death for sick and injured ocean animals. Not only are the animal patients endearing, they are also sending us an urgent message about the health of our oceans.

This is the incredible story of Trishna and Krishna, twin girls born joined at the head. Abandoned shortly after birth at an orphanage in Bangladesh, they had little chance of survival, until they were saved and taken to Australia by an aid worker. After two years battling for life, the twins are ready for a series of delicate operations that will prepare them for the ultimate challenge: a marathon separation surgery that will allow them to live truly separate lives. Since the beginning, surgeons knew there was no guarantee of survival for either of the girls—but without surgery there was no hope at all. With exclusive access to this extraordinary human and medical drama, our cameras have been with Trishna and Krishna and their caregivers at each moment of their journey.

During World War II, Hitler’s scientists developed terrifying new weapons of mass destruction. Alarmed by rumors of advanced rockets and missiles, Allied intelligence recruited a team of brilliant minds from British universities and Hollywood studios to a country house near London. Here, they secretly pored over millions of air photos shot at great risk over German territory by specially converted, high-flying Spitfires. Peering at the photos through 3D stereoscopes, the team spotted telltale clues that revealed hidden Nazi rocket bases. The photos led to devastating Allied bombing raids that dealt crucial setbacks to the German rocket program and helped ensure the success of the D-Day landings. With 3D graphics that recreate exactly what the photo spies saw, NOVA tells the suspenseful, previously untold story of air photo intelligence that played a vital role in defeating the Nazis.

This one-hour film chronicles the fate of the 33 miners trapped in a collapsed Chilean gold and copper mine in August 2010 and investigates the many challenges faced by both the miners and those working around the clock to bring them safely to the surface. NOVA was on-site at the San José mine in Chile by early September. Conferred special access, NOVA's film crew interviewed engineers, NASA experts, medical personnel, and key figures from the companies that provided drills and crucial rescue equipment to give a more detailed scientific account of the unfolding events. The resulting film, using footage from the scene as well as advanced animation, showcases the extraordinary feats of engineering as well as the biological and geological factors inherent in the rescue. "Emergency Mine Rescue" also examines the psychological and physiological impact of this kind of prolonged ordeal on the miners and those involved in the rescue efforts.

Many insects and some mammals use smell as a primary means of communication. NOVA explains how, for example, the entire economy of an ant's nest is organized by smell, and how some moths use smell for population control—an ability we is now beginning to understand.

Can innovations in materials science help clean up our world? In "Making Stuff: Cleaner," David Pogue explores the rapidly developing science and business of clean energy and examines alternative ways to generate it, store it, and distribute it. Is hydrogen the way to go? What about lithium batteries? Does this solve an energy problem or create a new dependency? Pogue investigates the latest developments in bio-based fuels and in harnessing solar energy for our cars, homes, and industry in a program full of the stuff of a sustainable future.

In a race against developers in the Rocky Mountains, archeologists uncover a unique fossil site packed with astonishingly well-preserved bones of mammoths, mastodons, and other giant extinct beasts. The discovery opens a highly focused window on the vanished world of the Ice Age in North America.

It contains 99.9 percent of all the matter in our solar system and sheds hot plasma at nearly a million miles an hour. The temperature at its core is a staggering 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. It convulses, it blazes, it sings. You know it as the sun. Scientists know it as one of the most amazing physics laboratories in the universe. Now, with the help of new spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes, scientists are seeing the sun as they never have before and even recreating what happens at its very center in labs here on Earth. Their work will help us understand aspects of the sun that have puzzled scientists for decades. But more critically, it may help us predict and track solar storms that have the power to zap our power grid, shut down telecommunications, and ground global air travel for days, weeks, or even longer. Such storms have happened before—but never in the modern era of satellite communication. "Secrets of the Sun" reveals a bright new dawn in our understanding of our nearest star—one that might help keep our planet from going dark.

In the remote mountains of China, scientist come closer to understanding the origins of flowers.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11, NOVA presents an epic story of engineering, innovation, and the perseverance of the human spirit. With extraordinary access granted by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, “Engineering Ground Zero” follows the five-year construction of One World Trade Center (1 WTC) and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Join Brian Greene on a wild ride into the weird realm of quantum physics, which governs the universe on the tiniest of scales. Brian brings quantum mechanics to life in a nightclub like no other, where objects pop in and out of existence, and things over here can affect others over there, instantaneously-without anything crossing the space between them.

A sequel to the most popular NOVA of all time, "Miracle of Life," the program once again uses the extraordinary microimagery of Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson to track human development from embryo to newborn.

Every 58 minutes between now and the end of the century, one American will die from asbestos exposure. NOVA turns its spotlight on the tragic consequences of asbestos use and on the current controversy over who is responsible.

NOVA takes you inside the operating room to witness organ transplant teams transferring organs from donors to recipients. Meet families navigating both sides of a transplant, and researchers working to end the organ shortage. Their efforts to understand organ rejection, discover ways to keep organs alive outside the body, and even grow artificial organs with stem cells, could save countless lives.

NOVA joins a new generation of archeologists as they probe areas of Machu Picchu that haven’t been touched since the time of the Incas.

Uranus and Neptune's unexpected rings, supersonic winds and dozens of moons; an up-close view of Pluto before exploring the Kuiper belt.

NOVA goes beyond the wagging tails and floppy ears to reveal surprising insights into the origin and evolutionary strategy of our canine companions. From a wolf research facility in rural Indiana to New York’s Westminster Dog Show, you’ll discover some amazing dog facts. Did you know the Saluki can beat any other mammal on earth in a three-mile race? That dogs developed spots for a specific reason? And that their evolution is helping us learn about our own?

During World War I, the Allies and Germans repeatedly struggled to break the hideous stalemate of trench warfare. In the winter of 1916, Allied engineers devised a massive surprise attack: over 1 million pounds of explosives hidden in secret tunnels driven under German lines. Building the tunnels was desperate work, with tunnelers at constant risk from flooding, cave-ins, and enemy digging teams. In June of 1917, the planted mines at Messines were simultaneously triggered, killing an estimated 10,000 German troops instantly. Now, archaeologists are revealing the extraordinary scale and risks of the Allied tunneling operations in one of the biggest excavations ever undertaken on the Western Front. “Secret Tunnel Warfare” opens a unique window on the frenzy of Allied mining activity that led up to the attack and its bitter aftermath.

Witness life-or-death decisions 250 miles above Earth, as astronauts and Mission Control work together to survive moments of high danger on board humanity's remarkable orbiting laboratory, the International Space Station.

At a research site in Fongoli, Senegal, a female chimpanzee breaks off a branch, chews the end to make it sharp, and then uses this rudimentary spear to skewer a tasty bush baby hiding inside a hollow tree. It’s an astonishing breakthrough for primate researchers—the first time anyone has documented a chimpanzee wielding a carefully prepared, preplanned weapon. But it's only the latest in a slew of extraordinary new findings about ape behavior. The more researchers learn about the great apes—chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans—the more evidence they find of creative intelligence. What, then, is the essential difference between them and us? "Ape Genius," a NOVA-National Geographic special, explores that provocative question and examines research that is illuminating the ape mind. Bit by bit, investigators are finding an explanation for why the non-human great apes never made the breakthrough into a human-style culture that builds on the achievements of previous generations.

The grandson of Alabama slaves, Percy Julian met with every possible barrier in a deeply segregated America. He was a man of genius, devotion, and determination. As a black man he was also an outsider, fighting to make a place for himself in a profession and country divided by bigotry—a man who would eventually find freedom in the laboratory. By the time of his death, Julian had risen to the highest levels of scientific and personal achievement, overcoming countless obstacles to become a world-class scientist, a self-made millionaire, and a civil-rights pioneer.

Examine the complex case of Typhoid Mary, a cook that was quaratined for life against her will in the early 1900s.

NOVA soars with the condor, an extraordinary bird that lives a tenuous existence in the California mountains and the Andes of South America. Footage includes never-before-photographed nesting sites in the cliffs of Patagonia.

For over 1000 years, chariots thundered across China's battlefields - dominating warfare longer than anywhere else on earth. Now, archaeological findings enable a team of experts to reconstruct and test China's first super-weapon.

Nasa's Cassini reveals the mysteries of Saturn's rings and new hope for life on one of its moons.

The epic 3 billion-year story of how our continent came to be. From the palm trees that once flourished in Alaska to titanic eruptions that nearly tore the Midwest in two, discover how forces of almost unimaginable power gave birth to North America.

Scientists investigate the bizarre “intelligence” of slime molds, which appear to learn and make decisions—without a brain. These cunning, single-celled blobs can navigate mazes and create efficient networks. Can they also redefine cognition?

What will it mean when most of us can afford to have the information in our DNA—all three billion chemical letters of it—read, stored, and available for analysis? In "Cracking Your Genetic Code," NOVA reveals that we stand on the verge of a revolution. We meet cancer patients returned to robust health and a cystic fibrosis sufferer breathing easily because scientists have been able to pinpoint and neutralize the genetic abnormalities underlying their conditions. What are the moral dilemmas raised by the new technology? Will it help or hurt us to know our genetic destiny? What if such information falls into the hands of insurance companies, employers, and prospective mates? One thing is for certain: The new era of personalized, gene-based medicine is relevant to everyone. Soon, all of us may be deciding whether to join the ranks of the DNA generation.

Space. It separates you from me, one galaxy from the next, and atoms from each other. It is everywhere in the universe. But to most of us, space is nothing, an empty void. Well, it turns out space is not what it seems.

Beneath the streets of Rome lies a city of the dead known as the Catacombs—a labyrinth of tunnels, hundreds of miles long, lined with the neatly laid out tombs of the citizens of ancient Rome. Here, in 2002, maintenance workers fixing a broken water main stumbled upon a previously unknown burial chamber like none other in the complex. It was a mass grave of hundreds of bodies spread across six roughly carved caverns, locked away for nearly 2000 years. Who were these people? And can we discover, after all these centuries, what killed them? Could they be Christian martyrs massacred by the Emperor? Or were they felled by a deadly plague? In “Roman Catacomb Mystery,” NOVA’s forensic investigation follows a trail of ancient clues to uncover new secrets of life, death, and disease in the heyday of a mighty empire.

In recent years, an unusual spate of deadly shark attacks has gripped Australia, resulting in five deaths in ten months. At the same time, great white sharks have begun appearing in growing numbers off the beaches of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, not far from the waters where Steven Spielberg filmed the ultimate shark fright film, Jaws. What's behind the mysterious arrival of this apex predator in an area where they've rarely been seen for hundreds of years? Are deadly encounters with tourists inevitable? To separate fact from fear, NOVA teams up with leading shark experts in Australia and the United States to discover the science behind the great white's hunting instincts. Do sharks ever target humans, or is each attack a tragic case of mistaken identity? And can a deeper understanding of shark senses lead scientists to design effective deterrents and help prevent future attacks?

Nuclear fusion offers the promises of an unlimited, clean source of energy. But achieving fusion has proved one of the most difficult and elusive goals of the physicist. NOVA tells the story of the twists and turns and the international competition along the road toward the achievement of fusion; and details the recent breakthroughs which seem at last to have brought it within reach.

Aiming to skim less than 2000 miles above the cloud tops, no spacecraft has ever gone so close to Saturn, and hopes are high for incredible observations that could solve major mysteries about the planet’s core. Join NASA engineers for the tense and triumphant moments as they find out if their bold reprogramming has worked, and discover the wonders that Cassini has revealed over the years.

Since it explored Pluto in 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft has been zooming toward NASA’s most distant target yet. Join the mission team as the probe attempts to fly by Ultima Thule, an object 4 billion miles from Earth.

From a dwarf planet that looks like a deflated football, to a tiny moon with cliffs taller than Mt. Everest, to the spectacular rings of Saturn, discover how the effects of gravity produce the amazing variety of weird worlds in our solar system.

700 million years ago, Earth was a giant snowball cloaked in ice from pole to pole—a global deep freeze that held the planet in a stranglehold, threatening the survival of the earliest complex life. How did life manage to hold on in this forbidding world? Leading scientists investigate how this catastrophe may have become a catalyst for life to evolve in creative new ways as it bounced back from the brink—setting the stage for the astonishing complexity we see today.

Sharply rising carbon emissions are entering Earth's seas at a staggering rate, raising their acidity. Learn how scientists are researching the effects and looking for solutions.

What makes an animal smart? What forces of evolution drive brains to become more complex? Many scientists believe the secret lies in our relationships. Throughout the animal kingdom, some of the cleverest creatures—including humans—seem to be those who live in complex social groups, like dolphins, elephants, and apes. Could the skills required to keep track of friend and foe make animals smarter? To find out, NOVA goes inside the social lives of some of the smartest animals on the planet. Off the coast of Florida, we see dolphins team up to catch fish by whipping up a wall of muddy water that drives the meal right into their companions’ waiting mouths. It seems that the dolphins are working together to plan their hunt. But are they really? Biologists go on a quest to decipher the secrets of animal societies, from the seas of the Caribbean to the plains of Africa. Do dolphins and elephants have “language?" Do chimps have a sense of fairness? And are any animals besides ourselves capable of feeling empathy?

As the Ebola epidemic threatens to spiral out of control, NOVA reports from the hot zone, where courageous medical teams struggle to cope with a flood of victims, to labs where scientists are racing to test vaccines and find a cure. "Surviving Ebola" includes chilling first-hand interviews of what it's like to contract — and survive — this terrible affliction.

Take a spectacular trip to distant realms of our solar system to discover where secret forms of life may lie hidden. Combining the latest telescope images with dazzling animation, this program immerses audiences in the sights and sounds of alien worlds, while top astrobiologists explain how these places are changing how we think about the potential for life in our solar system. We used to think our neighboring planets and moons were fairly boring—mostly cold, dead rocks where life could never take hold. Today, however, the solar system looks wilder than we ever imagined.

NOVA follows the manhunt for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers examining the role modern technology played in the case.

"Monsters" begins Down Under at the dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs. Host Richard Smith comes face-to-face with the previously unknown reptilian rulers of prehistoric Australia. NOVA resurrects the giants that stalked the Great Southern Land and discovers that some of these animals were among the largest ever to have walked the Earth. Others were some of the most dangerous. In the dry desert heart, scientists unearth an ancient inland ocean full of sea monsters. Opal fossils of some of these beasts paint a colorful picture of the exotic seascape, where long-necked plesiosaurs snacked on shelled creatures that grew as large as truck tires. The most fearsome was Kronosaurus, with a skull twice as long as T. rex. But reptiles didn't have the world all to themselves. Mammals like the enigmatic platypus lived alongside them, ready for their moment in the sun.

A team of "glacionauts" verntures into a labyrinth of unexplored and hazardous glacier caves on France's Mt. Blanc.

Hallucinogenic drugs—popularly called psychedelics—have been used by human societies for thousands of years. Today, scientists are taking a second look at many of these mind-altering substances – both natural and synthetic – and discovering that they can have profoundly positive clinical impacts, helping patients struggling with a range of afflictions from addiction to depression and PTSD.

When World War I began in 1914, the air forces of the opposing nations consisted of handfuls of rickety biplanes from which pilots occasionally took pot shots at one another with rifles. By 1918, the fighter had become an efficient killing machine with a growing strategic impact on the outcome of the war. With the help of a unique collection of meticulously recreated flying replicas, NOVA traces the story of the designers, engineers, and brave pilots caught up in the race to dominate the skies over the western front.

See the world through the eyes of nature’s fastest animal: the peregrine falcon. Though once perilously endangered in the U.S., this spectacular predator is now thriving again in American cities and on every continent but Antarctica. What is the secret to its predatory prowess? Join expert falconer Lloyd Buck as he trains a captive peregrine and puts its hunting skills to the test.

Astrophysicist and novelist Janna Levin talks about black holes and their importance to the universe.

Birds migrate in search of perpetual summer, sometimes traveling as much as 20,000 miles every year. NOVA uses radar to track and identify migrating birds that travel at night, focusing on how they coose routes tat avoid bad weather and make the best of prevailing winds—information that can aid meteorologists.

How did NASA engineers build and launch the most ambitious telescope of all time? Follow the dramatic story of the James Webb Space Telescope—the most complex machine ever launched into space. If it works, scientists believe that this new eye on the universe will peer deeper back in time and space than ever before to the birth of galaxies, and may even be able to “sniff” the atmospheres of exoplanets as we search for signs of life beyond Earth. But getting it to work is no easy task. The telescope is far bigger than its predecessor, the famous Hubble Space Telescope, and it needs to make its observations a million miles away from Earth—so there will be no chance to go out and fix it. That means there’s no room for error; the most ambitious telescope ever built needs to work perfectly. Meet the engineers making it happen and join them on their high stakes journey to uncover new secrets of the universe.

Jupiter's gravitational force made it a wrecking ball as it barreled through the early solar system, but it also helped shape life on Earth as it brought comets laden with water and possibly the asteroid that put an end to the dinosaurs.

Disastrous hurricanes. Widespread droughts and wildfires. Withering heat. Extreme rainfall. It is hard not to conclude that something’s up with the weather, and many scientists agree. It’s the result of the weather machine itself—our climate—changing, becoming hotter and more erratic. In this 2-hour documentary, NOVA will cut through the confusion around climate change.

Countless treasure-seekers have set off in search of King Solomon's mines, trekking through burning deserts and scaling the forbidding mountains of Africa and the Levant, inspired by the Bible's account of splendid temples and palaces adorned in glittering gold and copper. Yet to date, the evidence that has claimed to support the existence of Solomon and other early kings in the Bible has been highly controversial. In fact, so little physical evidence of the kings who ruled Israel and Edom has been found that many contend that they are no more real than King Arthur. In the summer of 2010, NOVA and National Geographic embarked on two cutting-edge field investigations that illuminate the legend of Solomon and reveal the source of the great wealth that powered the first mighty biblical kingdoms. These groundbreaking expeditions expose important new clues buried in the pockmarked desert of Jordan, including ancient remnants of an industrial-scale copper mine and a 3,000-year-old message with the words "slave," "king," and "judge."

Eagles dominate the skies. But what makes these predators so special? Researchers study one special bird—and stunning up-close footage reveals her exceptional strength, eyesight, and flying skills. With intimate access to a new bald eagle family, NOVA takes you into the nest to witness the drama of chicks struggling to survive.

Over the last few centuries we have shot, trapped, and skinned the predators that formerly thrived at the top of the food chain in the wild. Wild bears, wolves, and big cats are all in retreat, and a growing number of scientists are discovering that by eliminating predators, we have changed the environment. Removing predators from the wild has thrown ecosystems off-kilter, triggering domino effects that scientists are just beginning to understand. In "Wild Predator Invasion," NOVA follows scientists who are trying a simple but controversial solution: returning apex predators—like wolves, bears, and panthers—to their natural environments. Can these newly reintroduced predators restore the natural balance of their ecosystems without threatening the humans who live among them?

The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has upended life as we know it in a matter of months. But at the same time, an unprecedented global effort to understand and contain the virus—and find a treatment for the disease it causes—is underway. Join doctors on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19 as they strategize to stop the spread, and meet the researchers racing to develop treatments and vaccines.

In April 2011, the worst tornado outbreak in decades left a trail of destruction across the U.S., killing more than 360 people. Why was there such an extreme outbreak? How do such outbreaks form? With modern warning systems, why did so many die? Is our weather getting more extreme—and, if so, how bad will it get? In this NOVA special, we meet scientists striving to understand the forces at work behind last year's outbreak. Could their work improve tornado prediction in the future? We also meet people whose lives have been upended by these extreme weather events and learn how we all can protect ourselves and our communities for the future.

Bats have been implicated in deadly epidemics such as COVID-19 and Ebola, yet scientists are discovering evidence that they may hold a key to a longer and healthier life. From caves in Thailand and Texas to labs around the globe, NOVA meets the scientists who are decoding the superpowers of the bat.

The rocky planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars all have similar origins, but only one supports life.

In the rolling hills of Ireland's County Tipperary, a laborer harvesting peat from a dried-up bog spots the remnants of a corpse and stops his machine just in time, revealing a headless torso almost perfectly preserved and stained dark brown by the bog. Archeologists recognize the corpse as one of Europe's rare bog bodies: prehistoric corpses flung into marshes with forensic clues often suggesting execution or human sacrifice. The corpse will eventually be dated to the Bronze Age, over 3,000 years ago. Many of these were victims of shocking violence, showing evidence of axe blows, hanging, and stab wounds. Like a crime thriller, NOVA follows archaeologists and forensic experts in their methodical hunt for clues to the identity and the circumstances of this and other violent deaths of bog body victims. A new theory emerges that they are those of ritually murdered kings, gruesomely slain to assure the fertility of land and people. NOVA’s ancient detective story opens a tantalizing window on the strange beliefs of Europe's long vanished prehistoric peoples.

How Leonardo da Vinci used science to create his legendary artwork. Included: why Mona Lisa's smile is so captivating—and what it took to create it.

Forensic archaeologist Cat Jarman and her team investigate the Great Heathen army, a legendary Viking fighting force that invaded England in the 9th century.

Lionfish–long prized in home aquariums–have invaded the Atlantic, and are now one of the ocean’s most successful invasive species, wreaking havoc in waters across the globe. Join ocean explorer Danni Washington on a journey to find out how they took over, why they’re doing so much damage, and what can be done about it.

What causes infertility, and how can assisted reproductive technologies help? Follow the journeys of people navigating fertility challenges from structural inequalities and racism to falling sperm counts, egg freezing, and IVF.

Writing shaped our world and the rise of human knowledge, from the trading of goods to tales of ancient goddesses and kings. Follow the evolution of the written word, from 4,000-year-old carvings in an Egyptian turquoise mine to modern-day alphabets.

Camera technology is revolutionizing the study of animals—without them even noticing.

NOVA tells the inside story of the search for Flight MH370 and meets the key players, from all corners of the globe, who have spent months searching for the lost plane. How easy is it to make a plane disappear? Or can new technology guarantee that in the future, nothing will ever be "lost" again?

Millions of people around the world live in the shadow of active volcanoes. Under constant threat of massive volcanic eruptions, their homes and their lives are daily at risk from these sleeping giants. From Japan’s Mount Fuji to the "Sleeping Giant" submerged beneath Naples to the Yellowstone "supervolcano" in the United States, we will travel with scientists from around the world who are at work on these sites, attempting to discover how likely these volcanoes are to erupt, when it might happen, and exactly how deadly they could prove to be.

Hard as it is to swallow, cutting-edge theories are suggesting that our universe may not be the only universe. Instead, it may be just one of an infinite number of worlds that make up the multiverse. In this show, Brian Greene takes us on a tour of this brave new theory at the frontier of physics, explaining why scientists believe it's true and showing what some of these alternate realities might be like.

Time. We waste it, save it, kill it, make it. The world runs on it. Yet, ask physicists what time actually is, and the answer might shock you: They have no idea. Even more surprising, the deep sense we have of time passing from present to past may be nothing more than an illusion. How can our understanding of something so familiar be so wrong?

A documentary examining the ubiquitous transportation device as used in modern day and features a recounting of a real-life horror story of one individual's experiences when stuck in an elevator for an extraordinarily long period of time.

When the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium stopped calling Pluto a planet, director Neil deGrasse Tyson found himself at the center of a firestorm led by angry Pluto-loving elementary school students. What is it about Pluto—a cold, distant, icy rock—that captures so many hearts? Four years after the IAU (International Astronomical Union) officially reclassified the ninth planet as a plutoid, NOVA travels cross-country with Tyson to find out.

"Extreme Cave Diving" follows a fearless team of scientists as they venture into blue holes—underwater caves that formed during the last ice age, when sea level was nearly 400 feet below what it is today. These caves, little-known treasures of the Bahamas, are one of Earth's least explored and perhaps most dangerous frontiers. The interdisciplinary team of biologists, climatologists, and anthropologists, led by renowned cave explorer Kenny Broad, discover intriguing evidence of the earliest human inhabitants of the islands, find animals seen nowhere else on Earth, and recover a remarkable record of the planet's climate. The stakes are high as the scientists swim hundreds of feet through narrow, dark passages that have trapped and killed divers in the past, but the scientific payoff is considerable.

Once every 48 years, bamboo forests in parts of northeast India go into exuberant flower. Then, like clockwork, the flowering is invariably followed by a plague of black rats that appear to spring from nowhere to spread destruction and famine in their wake. For the first time on film, NOVA and National Geographic capture this rat population explosion in vivid detail and show how scientists are unraveling the connections between bamboo flowering and rat outbreaks. Ultimately, their research should help local people better cope with the next attack—due in 2056.

At the end of a nearly flawless 15-day mission in early 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere, killing the crew of seven men and women. In this documentary, NOVA probes the accident and the decisions stretching back four decades that made the tragedy almost inevitable. It offers a penetrating look at the history of the shuttle program and the political pressures that made the shuttle a highly complex engineering compromise, which fell short of its ambitious goal to make space travel routine, cheap, and safe.

In this award-winning documentary, a difficult journey that begins in hopelessness and shame for thousands of women in Ethiopia ends in a productive new life. The film tells the personal stories of rural women who make their way to Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, seeking treatment for obstetric fistula, a life-shattering complication of childbirth. Filmed in a starkly beautiful landscape, the documentary juxtaposes the isolated lives of village women who are outcasts because of their medical condition, with the faraway hospital that offers a miracle after a long and arduous trek—a "walk to beautiful."

In the early 1950s, epic battles unfolded in the skies over North Korea as American and Russian fighters faced off in history's first jet war. This program explores the Korean War's aerial tactics, technology, and grim aftermath for downed pilots, many of whom disappeared without a trace. The Korean War pitted the two most advanced fighters of their day, the American F-86 Sabre and the Soviet MiG-15, in furious air battles in North Korea's notorious "MiG Alley." With the help of dramatic reconstructions, rare archival footage, and interviews with veteran American and Soviet pilots, NOVA puts viewers in the cockpit to experience the lethal split-second duels that erupted in MiG Alley.

Using courtroom reenactments based on transcripts and interviews with those present, NOVA looks at the events of the federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District.

The recent archeological discovery of the Native American Powhatan village of Werowocomoco, sheds new light on the Jamestown story of Pocahontas.

As the Earth heats up at a dangerous rate and fossil fuels become scarcer, ordinary citizens and businesses are bypassing the federal government to lead the way in exploring a clean, renewable source of power: the sun. In this report, NOVA shines a light on how and why people across America and the world are "going solar," using radiant energy of the sun to power homes, businesses, and even entire communities. But can everyday people really make a difference by using solar power? And can solar technologies, with their high cost and logistical challenges, truly play a bigger role in powering the future of humanity? The grand hopes, latest innovations, roiling controversies, and practical realities of solar power all come to the fore in this program.

Join NOVA on a voyage beneath the waves, where you'll discover a bizarre, alien-like creature like no other. It's an animal with eight sucker-covered arms growing out of its head, three hearts pumping its blue-green blood, and a doughnut-shaped brain. It has the ability to change its color and shape to blend in with seaweed and rocks, and it has a knack for switching on electrifying light shows that dazzle its prey. Perhaps most surprising of all, this animal is quite intelligent, with a highly complex brain. In this program, underwater cameras capture the extraordinary powers of the cuttlefish.

Follow an expedition to a remote cave in the Judean desert, first excavated by the famed Israeli archeologist Yigael Yadin in 1960-61. Yadin uncovered a cache of ancient documents, human skulls, and artifacts that shed light on a legendary revolt by Jews against the Roman Empire in the year 132. The uprising, led by Jewish patriot Shimon Bar-Kokhba, is said to have resulted in the Roman slaughter of 580,000 Jews. NOVA explores the last refuge of one group of Bar-Kokhba's followers with an historian whose bold theories have rocked the world of biblical archeology.

Nova investigates the impact of forces that are radically changing populations in both rich and poor nations.

One of the most exhaustive investigations in aviation history reveals telling clues to the cause of a dissaster off Nova Scotia.

A battered manuscript turns up after 1000 years revealing the mind of the Greek genius Archimedes

For nine months in 2000, Tom Hart Dyke was a captive of guerrillas who seized him while he was collecting wild orchids in the Colombian rain forest. Now Hart Dyke is at it again in the most orchid-rich and one of the most politically unstable parts of Irian Jaya, the western half of the island of New Guinea.

Experts struggle to save the City of Canals before it vanishes beneath the waves.

One of the final aeronautics challenges left in the world today does not involve the use of a plane, a rocket, or even an engine. No one has yet been able to circumnavigate the earth in a balloon. Any team attempting the feat would have to fly higher than most planes ever fly and would need a passenger capsule that could both offer protection from extreme cold and carry the proper navigation and life support equipment. Depending on the powerful jet stream to propel them, crew members would have to plot their course carefully and plan their schedule to coincide with the most advantageous winds. Even landing would be a risky venture. This program follows a team of three adventurers as they attempt to make just such a journey.

NOVA profiles "Genie," a girl whose parents kept her imprisoned in near total isolation from infancy. When social workers discoverd her as a teenager, Genie had not learned to walk or talk. This NOVA documentary includes never-before-seen footage of Genie during her rehabilitation and probes how and when we learn the skills that make us "human."

NOVA fans from around the country match wits in a fast-paced contest of general science knowledge celebrating NOVA's 20th anniversary. Famous guests pose questions for the viewers at home. Marc Summers hosts.

This documentary covers the surprising tale of an average systems administrator who stumbled upon a KGB spy operation. Clifford Stoll carried out one of the first successful digital forensics investigations by tracking down Markus Hess, a KGB hacker, after noticing a discrepancy in the logs of a University of California computer.

Five architects compete for the approval of architecture-obsessed Chicagoans in the contest to build the city's new public library. NOVA looks at the strengths and weakness of each of the suprisingly varied entries.

NOVA looks at the bongo-playing scientist, adventurer, safecracker and yarn-spinner Richard Feynman, most recently famous for his role as gadfly of the Presidential Commission investigating the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

Could there be life beyond Earth? Only recently has it become possible to scan the skies in a systematic attempt to find out. NOVA joins the search with guest host Lily Tomlin.

The adventures of the Voyager 2 spacecraft continue as it passes the rings of Uranus. Scientists suspect that violent events in the early history of the planet may have shaped Uranus and its strange collection of moons.

Is there a cure for paralyzing spinal injuries? Most neurosurgeons are doubtful, pointing to the central nervous system's most apparent inability to heal itself. But others dispute the point. NOVA explores the debate, the hopes for a cure and recent breakthroughs to help paralyzed patients.

A gripping docudrama about a mysterious, highly lethal disease which struck a village in Nigeria in 1969, and the frustrating, seesaw battle against it. NOVA recounts how public health workers came perilously close to accidentally releasing a deadly virus in the US.

NOVA captivates a remarkably candid portrait of Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, a man of few pretensions and tremendous personal charm, who speaks with the same passion about a child's toy wagon and the frontiers of subatomic physics.

When Mount St. Helens erupted earlier this year, it focused the attention of the whole world on the almost incredible destructive forces that volcanos can release. Geologists from around the world congregated at the volcano and NOVA joined the vigil for an in-depth look at the incident and its aftermath.

One year in the intricate life of a coastal lagoon unfolds in an hour's time when NOVA documents the fragile tidal ecosystem which supports the entire ocean.

Smashing matter into ever smaller pieces in an attempt to find its fundamental building blocks has produced a confused nightmare of particles. NOVA looks at this on-again, off-again story—one of sciences's most mysterious—and, one of the most expensive, involving some of the biggest machines in the world.

The dry, red planet Mars was once a blue water world studded with active volcanoes and may have even had the ingredients to support life.

From derailments to head-on collisions to drivers killed at road crossings, deadly train accidents claim dozens of lives each year. But just how unsafe are the railroads? NOVA investigates recent rail tragedies and advances in train tech that could help prevent them, taking a special look at Japan’s superefficient bullet trains, which have a perfect safety record. What would it take to usher in a new golden age of safer, faster, more modern and reliable train travel?

Scientists try to determine the cause for the increasing megafire threat by exploring the physics of fire, how firestorms move and travel and by analyzing aerial drone and satellite data to catch fires before they start.

In just one devastating month, Houston, Florida, and the Caribbean were changed forever. In summer 2017, three monster hurricanes swept in from the Atlantic one after another, shattering storm records and killing hundreds of people. As the planet warms, are these superstorms the new normal? How well can we predict them?

On the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing, NOVA looks ahead to the hoped-for dawn of a new age in lunar exploration. This time, governments and private industry are working together to reach our nearest celestial neighbour. But why go back? The Moon can serve as a platform for basic astronomical research; as an abundant source of rare metals and hydrogen fuel; and ultimately as a stepping stone for human missions to Mars and beyond. Join the next generation of engineers that aim to take us to the Moon, and discover how our legacy of lunar exploration won't be confined to the history books for long.

Journey to Hawaii's Kilauea volcano, which sent rivers of lava through communities and into the sea when it erupted in 2018. A group of scientists and locals investigate the spike in volcano activity that turned paradise into an inferno.

In September 2024, Hurricane Helene dumped 14 inches of rain on North Carolina, triggering flash floods and killing more than 100 people. Why are these floods on the rise around the world-even in places thousands of feet above sea level?

NOVA joins a team of leading Egyptologists who deploy the latest medical imaging to peer beneath the wrappings of Egyptian mummified beasts without damaging the animal bodies inside. The results are enlightening, often surprising insights into the weird beliefs and practices that clung to the Egyptian quest for immortality.

In the wake of the catastrophic asteroid impact believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs, Australia was set adrift on a lonely voyage across southern seas. With host Richard Smith, NOVA travels the walkabout continent to uncover how it became the strange land it is today. In this final episode, "Strange Creatures," NOVA traces the last 65 million years, revealing the events that shaped the Australia we know today. Prehistoric jungles retreated, replaced by eucalypt forests, grasslands, and deserts. When humans first arrived, giant marsupials dominated the land and the Great Barrier Reef was yet to form. This is a tale of calamity and conquest; how a conspiracy of climate, biology, and geology shaped the Earth we now call home.

A half-century after Apollo, the Artemis missions aim to bring astronauts back to the Moon and establish a lunar space station. Follow the Artemis II engineers and crew on the perilous 10-day journey to orbit the Moon.

66 million years ago, a seven-mile-wide asteroid collided with Earth, triggering a chain of events that coincide with the end of the dinosaurs. But experts have long debated exactly what happened when the asteroid struck and how the giant beasts met their end. Now, scientists have uncovered compelling new clues about the catastrophe.

The centuries-old tradition of folding two-dimensional paper into three-dimensional shapes is inspiring a scientific revolution. The rules of folding are at the heart of many natural phenomena, from how leaves blossom to how beetles fly. Engineers and designers are applying its principles to reshape the world around us—and even within us, designing new drugs, micro-robots, and future space missions.

Hear firsthand from individuals struggling with addiction and follow the cutting-edge work of doctors and scientists as they investigate why addiction is not a moral failing, but a chronic, treatable medical condition. Easy access to drugs like heroin, fentanyl, and even prescription medications like OxyContin has fueled an epidemic of addiction—the deadliest in U.S. history.

Uncover the truth behind the legendary Vikings and their epic journey to the Americas.

Following a trail of fossils found in all the wrong places–beech trees in Antarctica, redwoods and hippo-like mammals in the Arctic–NOVA uncovers the bizarre history of the poles, from miles-thick ice sheets to warm polar forests teeming with life.

Just as writing changed the course of human history, the evolution of paper and printing revolutionized the spread of information. The printing press kicked off the Industrial Revolution that fast-tracked us to the current digital age. But as the 4,000-year-old tradition of penmanship falls out of favor, should we consider what might be lost in this pursuit of ever more efficient communication? (Premiered September 30, 2020)

All around our solar system, volcanoes are powerful shapers of worlds. Next door on Mars is Olympus Mons, a giant volcanic mountain more than twice the size of Mt. Everest. And closer to the Sun, thousands of volcanoes produce the toxic atmosphere that keeps Venus boiling. Then there’s Jupiter’s moon Io, the most volcanically active world in the entire solar system, and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, where clues in its watery eruptions hint at the possibility of life. Discover the explosive forces that molded each of these worlds – and what makes the volcanoes right here on Earth so special.

On November 25th, 1915, Einstein published his greatest work: general relativity. The theory transformed our understanding of nature’s laws and the entire history of the cosmos, reaching back to the origin of time itself. Now, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s achievement, NOVA tells the inside story of Einstein’s masterpiece. The story begins with the intuitive thought experiments that set Einstein off on his quest and traces the revolution in cosmology that is still playing out in today’s labs and observatories. Discover the simple but powerful ideas at the heart of relativity, illuminating the theory—and Einstein’s brilliance—as never before. From the first spark of an idea to the discovery of the expanding universe, the Big Bang, black holes, and dark energy, NOVA uncovers the inspired insights and brilliant breakthroughs of “the perfect theory.”

In 1943 a squadron of Lancaster bombers staged one of the most audacious raids in military history: destroying two gigantic dams in Germany’s industrial heartland and cutting the water supply to arms factories. Their secret weapon? A revolutionary bouncing bomb invented by British engineer Barnes Wallis. Wallis and the pilots of 617 Squadron—a lively mix of Britons, Australians, Americans, and Canadians—were hailed as heroes who dealt a mighty blow to the German war machine. Now, NOVA recreates the extreme engineering challenges faced by Wallis and the pilots. A crack team of experts, including dam engineers, explosives specialists, mechanics, and aircrew, steps into the shoes of the "dambusters" and attempts to overcome each of the obstacles the original team faced. They must adapt a vintage World War II DC-4 to carry a bomb the size of an oil drum, train to drop it from a dangerously low altitude in pitch darkness, and get it to bounce over obstacles and onto the target, a scale model the German dam struck by the original dambusters. Can they succeed in destroying the dam and unraveling the mysteries of the one-of-a-kind bouncing bomb?

When we look at the world at the tiniest scales in the subatomic realm, things get weird – very weird. Welcome to the quantum universe, where particles can spin in two directions at once, observing something changes it, and something on one side of the galaxy can instantly affect something on the other, as if the space between them didn’t exist. Buckle up for a wild ride through the discoveries that proved all of this to be true and paved the way for the digital technologies we enjoy today – and the powerful quantum sensors and computers of tomorrow.

An examination over whether a comet struck the Great Lakes region 12,900 years ago, and whether it caused the extinction of such mega-creatures as the woolly mammoth and the saber-toothed cat in North America. Also included is the discovery of nano-diamonds which are created by heat and objects from space.

The search for the wreck of the Yamato, the largest and mightiest battleship ever floated and the pride of the Japanese Imperial Fleet. Constructed in absolute secrecy and sunk by American planes toward the end of World War II, her rapid demise had been a mystery, rather like a military Titanic.

NOVA takes you inside the historic international race to develop the first supersonic airliner, the Concorde. Hear stories from those inside the choreographed effort to design and build Concorde in two countries at once—and the crew members who flew her. Then, follow Concorde’s legacy to a new generation of innovators reviving the dream of supersonic passenger travel today.

Climb with volcano experts to the summit of Nyiragongo, a highly active volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Twice in recent memory it has erupted, devastating Goma, a neighboring city of 1 million people. To investigate when it might erupt next, scientists climb into its crater toward a bubbling lava lake to deploy sensors and monitor the volcano’s activity.

From ammonia leaks to Space Shuttle disasters to a spacewalk gone terribly wrong, astronauts and Mission Control insiders relive the most terrifying moments during construction of the International Space Station.

Explore the hidden world of energy storage and how it holds the keys to a greener future.

In July 2018, the world held its breath as an international team of cave divers endeavored to rescue 12 boys and their soccer coach stranded deep in a flooded cave in Thailand. Follow the harrowing operation and discover the scientific ingenuity that made the rescue possible.

Devastating hurricanes struck the U.S. mainland and Caribbean islands in 2017. But they weren’t the first. The Great Hurricane of 1780 took nine days to blast its way across the Caribbean, killing at least 20,000—the highest known death toll of any single weather event in history. What made this superstorm so deadly?

The Lithuanian city of Vilna, known also as the “Jerusalem of the North”, was one of the most important Jewish centers in the world until World War II, when the Nazis murdered about 95% of its Jewish population. Now, an international team of archaeologists is excavating the remains of its Great Synagogue and searching for a lost escape tunnel dug by Jewish prisoners inside a Nazi execution site.

Is what you see real? Join neuroscientist Heather Berlin on a quest to understand how your brain shapes your reality, and why you can’t always trust what you perceive. In the first hour of this two-part series, learn what the latest research shows about how your brain processes and shapes the world around you, and discover the surprising tricks and shortcuts your brain takes to help you survive.

Explore key military technologies in the American colonies’ fight for freedom.

What really happens in a multi-vehicle pileup? A first-of-its-kind experiment aims to stage a high speed crash to gain new insights on car safety. But how can they create and study a complex collision without putting any lives in danger?

Today, Earth is enveloped by a thin veil of gas, a narrow band of atmosphere that protects a world covered in lush green vegetation, deep blue oceans, and abundant life. But 4.5 billion years ago, Earth was a very different place: a hellscape of molten lava and barren rock, under relentless bombardment from meteors, and with no atmosphere whatsoever. So how did our familiar blue sky come to be? Breathtakingly realistic animations and a chorus of science experts reveal how the primordial inferno first gave rise to an orange-hued cauldron of toxic gasses that would be deadly to us today. Witness how the first drops of rain splashed down on the searing planet, setting the stage for the evolution of life. And discover how life itself helped create the air we all breathe today.

When it comes to intelligence, we humans are clearly the most gifted animals around. But what make us so special? Is it our ability to make and use tools? To solve complex problems? Or plan for the future? It might seem that way, but today, researchers are discovering other creatures with impressive brains that have mastered all those skills. Surprisingly, many are bird brains. Crows bend and shape sticks to create custom-made spears for hunting grubs, and they are just one among a growing list of bird species whose impressive problem-solving abilities are shocking scientists and revolutionizing our understanding of animal intelligence. At the head of the class, we meet animals like Muppet, a cockatoo with a talent for picking locks; 007, a wild crow on a mission to solve an eight-step puzzle for the first time ever; and Bran, a tame raven who can solve a puzzle box so quickly that his performance has to be captured with high-speed photography. But are these skills really evidence of high intelligence, or just parlor tricks, the result of training and instinct? To find out, NOVA tests the limits of some of the planet’s brainiest animals, searching for the secrets of a problem-solving mind.

On May 20, 2013, a ferocious EF5 tornado over a mile wide tore through Moore, Oklahoma, inflicting 24 deaths and obliterating entire neighborhoods. It was the third time an exceptionally violent tornado had struck the city in 14 years. Yet predicting when and where these killer storms will hit still poses a huge challenge. Why was 2011—the worst ever recorded tornado season that left 158 dead in Joplin, Missouri—followed by the quietest ever year of activity prior to the Moore disaster? Can improved radar and warning technology explain why so many fewer died in Moore than in Joplin? And will tornadoes get worse as Earth's climate heats up? In this NOVA special, we meet scientists in the front ranks of the battle to understand these extreme weather events. We also meet storm survivors whose lives have been upended and learn how we can protect ourselves and our communities for the uncertain future.

Tom and Ray Magliozzi of NPR's Car Talk, explore new technologies and ideas for the future of automobiles.

On December 26, 2004 a devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean kills more than 250,000 people. NOVA takes an in depth look at just what happened on that fateful day.

Examining evidence about Neanderthals that sheds light on the hominids, which died off some 30,000 years ago. Included: geneticist Svante Pääbo's 2010 reconstruction of the Neanderthal genome, which posits that modern humans and Neanderthals interbred at some point in the distant past.

The 2004 discovery of tiny human fossil bones on the island of Flores, Indonesia, raised new—and controversial—speculation about the history of the human race. Ever since, scientists have been scrambling to find more information about these "hobbits."

While other reporters were embedded in fighting units during the Iraq War, NOVA was covering the emergency medical response, living night and day with the doctors, nurses, and medics in a frontline Combat Support Hospital (CSH). The program captures a period of the conflict in April and May of 2003 when CSH units faced a deluge of injured Iraqi soldiers and civilians who had little support from their country's collapsed health-care system.

Part 3 of "The Elegant Universe” with host Brian Greene shows how Edward Witten of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, aided by others, revolutionized string theory by successfully uniting the five different versions into a single theory that is cryptically named "M-theory," a development that requires a total of eleven dimensions. Ten...eleven...who's counting? But the new 11th dimension implies that strings can come in shapes called membranes, or "branes" for short. These have truly science fiction-like qualities, since in principle they can be as large as the universe. A brane can even be a universe—a parallel universe—and we may be living on one right now.

Engineers race to build a massive dome to contain the crumbling remains of the reactor.

Watch astonishing tests of avian aptitude: parrots that can plan for the future, jackdaws that can “read” human faces, and crows that can solve multi-step puzzles with tools like pebbles, sticks, and hooks. Could these just be clever tricks, based on instinct or triggered by subtle cues from their human handlers?

Discover why some predictions succeed and others fail as experts forecast the future.

Out in the solar system, the weather gets wacky – with globe-spanning dust storms, monsoons of liquid methane, and lightning 10 times stronger than here on Earth. Discover the forces driving the dramatic weather on neighboring planets and moons.

Join scientists as they use NASA’s brand new James Webb Space Telescope to peer deep in time to hunt for the first stars and galaxies in our universe, and try to detect the fingerprints of life in the atmospheres of distant exoplanets.

How courage and ingenuity saved Allied troops during the epic Dunkirk operation in 1940.

NOVA takes viewers on a journey from the Galapagos Islands to the Arctic, and from the Cambrian explosion of animal forms half a billion years ago to the research labs of today. Here scientists are finally beginning to crack nature’s biggest secrets at the genetic level. And, as NOVA shows in this absorbing detective story, the results are confirming the brilliance of Darwin’s insights while exposing clues to life’s breathtaking diversity in ways the great naturalist could scarcely have imagined.

In less than 12 hours on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Louisiana coast, leading to more than a thousand deaths and transforming a city of over one million into an uninhabitable swamp. NOVA investigates the science of Hurricane Katrina, combining a penetrating analysis of what went wrong with a dramatic, minute-by-minute unfolding of events told through eyewitness testimony. What made this storm so deadly? Will powerful hurricanes like Katrina strike more often? How accurately did scientists predict its impact, and why did the levees protecting New Orleans fail?

Rare lemurs and crocodiles with bizarre cave-dwelling behavior draw scientists to remote corner of Madagascar.

What is it like to be a dog, a shark, or a bird? Long the subject of human daydreams, this question is now getting serious attention from scientists who study animal senses. The senses define our experience of the world—they shape our minds, and help make us what we are. Humans rely on smell, sight, taste, touch, and sound, but other animals have super-powered versions of these senses, and a few, like electrically-sensitive sharks, even have extra senses we don’t have at all. From a dog who seems to use smell to tell time, to a dolphin who can "see" with his ears, we will discover how animals use their senses in ways we humans can barely imagine. But it’s not just the senses that are remarkable—it's the brains that process them. How does a swallow’s tiny, one-gram brain take in the flood of visual information that enables the bird to whiz within inches of buildings while flying at 40 miles per hour? How does a dog’s mind turn the sight of a hand signal into the happy anticipation of a treat? How has the evolution of the dog—from its wolf ancestors–reshaped its brain? NOVA goes into the minds of animals to “see” the world in an entirely new way.

NOVA investigates what happened in Flint, Michigan when local officials changed the city’s water source to save money, but overlooked a critical treatment process. As the water pipes corroded, lead leached into the system, exposing the community—including thousands of children—to dangerous levels of poison. NOVA uncovers the science behind this manmade disaster.

For billions of years, life teemed in the oceans of planet Earth while the land was desolate and inhospitable. So how did life make the leap to land? Scientists explore how some of the earliest life emerged and invaded a barren, rocky landscape, eventually transforming it into a verdant, green world. Gripping visual effects reveal an alien landscape dominated by towering fungi before the arrival of plants. Witness how the first plants made landfall and partnered with fungi to create soil that would sustain them. And discover how, once life emerged on land, it fundamentally altered the very ground it grew on.

NOVA presents an exclusive breakthrough in the greatest unsolved mystery in Arctic exploration. In 1845, British explorer Sir John Franklin set off to chart the elusive Northwest Passage, commanding 128 men in two robust and well-stocked Royal Navy ships, the Erebus and Terror. They were never heard from again.

Car safety experts just pulled off a first-of-its-kind remote controlled multi-vehicle pile up. Now investigators are put to the test as they analyze the data and look for insights into driver behavior and vehicle design.

Scientists, engineers and political leaders devise a plan to save the Dead Sea, whose levels have declined by more than 65 feet since 1976.

Can emerging technology defeat global warming? The United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in clean energy projects as our leaders try to save our crumbling economy and our poisoned planet in one bold, green stroke. Are we finally on the brink of a green-energy "power surge," or is it all a case of too little, too late? From solar panel factories in China to a carbon capture-and-storage facility in the Sahara desert to massive wind and solar installations in the United States, NOVA travels the globe to reveal the surprising technologies that just might turn back the clock on climate change. NOVA will focus on the latest and greatest innovations, including everything from artificial trees to green reboots of familiar technologies like coal and nuclear energy. Can our technology, which helped create this problem, now solve it?

"Dogs Decoded" reveals the science behind the remarkable bond between humans and their dogs and investigates new discoveries in genetics that are illuminating the origin of dogs—with surprising implications for the evolution of human culture. Other research is proving what dog lovers have suspected all along: Dogs have an uncanny ability to read and respond to human emotions. Humans, in turn, respond to dogs with the same hormone responsible for bonding mothers to their babies. How did this incredible relationship between humans and dogs come to be? And how can dogs, so closely related to fearsome wild wolves, behave so differently?

Follow scientists in a quest to understand how complex forest ecosystems can help cool our planet.

Gold, bronze, iron, steel... metals are pillars of our civilization, but what makes them so special? Discover their unique properties and explore how our mastery of metals has led us from the stone age to today's hi-tech world.

Why go back to Mars? Far from dead, Mars holds untold potential. Nearly half a century of Mars exploration has yielded tantalizing clues that Mars may once have harbored life—and may harbor it still. The extraordinary landing of a revolutionary rover named Curiosity—which successfully touched down inside the Gale Crater—means we have wheels down on the planet once again, in the form of the most sophisticated robot ever to rove the Mars surface. Will NASA's bold mission and this marvel of technology answer some of our biggest questions and usher in a new golden age of exploration? NOVA goes behind the scenes on NASA’s quest to solve the riddles of the red planet.

Join NOVA on a mathematical mystery tour—a provocative exploration of math's astonishing power across the centuries. We discover math's signature in the swirl of a nautilus shell, the whirlpool of a galaxy, and the spiral in the center of a sunflower. Math was essential to everything from the first wireless radio transmissions to the prediction and discovery of the Higgs boson and the successful landing of rovers on Mars. Astrophysicist and writer Mario Livio, along with a colorful cast of mathematicians, physicists, and engineers, follow math from Pythagoras to Einstein and beyond. It all leads to the ultimate riddle: Is math a human invention or the discovery of the language of the universe?

At age 78, E.O. Wilson is still going through his "little savage" phase of boyhood exploration of the natural world. In "Lord of the Ants," NOVA profiles this soft-spoken Southerner and Harvard professor, who is an acclaimed advocate for ants, biological diversity, and the controversial extension of Darwinian ideas to human society. Actor and environmentalist Harrison Ford narrates this engaging portrait of a ceaselessly active scientist and eloquent writer, who has accumulated two Pulitzer Prizes among his many other honors. Says fellow naturalist David Attenborough: "He will go down as the man who opened the eyes of millions 'round the world to the glories, the values, the importance of—to use his term—biodiversity."

Memory is the glue that binds our mental lives. Without it, we’d be prisoners of the present, unable to use the lessons of the past to change our future. From our first kiss to where we put our keys, memory represents who we are and how we learn and navigate the world. But how does it work? Neuroscientists using cutting-edge techniques are exploring the precise molecular mechanisms of memory. By studying a range of individuals ranging—from an 11-year-old whiz-kid who remembers every detail of his life to a woman who had memories implanted—scientists have uncovered a provocative idea. For much of human history, memory has been seen as a tape recorder that faithfully registers information and replays intact. But now, researchers are discovering that memory is far more malleable, always being written and rewritten, not just by us but by others. We are discovering the precise mechanisms that can explain and even control our memories. The question is—are we ready?

Explore how newly established wildlife corridors offer hope to endangered species.

NOVA re-creates key flights, including the world’s first manned voyage on November 21, 1783. A descendant of the Montgolfier brothers, whose exploits fascinated Benjamin Franklin, will join a team to build an accurate replica of the fragile paper and canvas craft using 18th-century tools and materials.

NOVA goes behind the scenes of the fast-paced world of cryptography to meet the scientists battling to keep our data safe. They are experts in extreme physics, math, and a new field called "ultra-paranoid computing," all working to forge unbreakable codes and build ultra-fast computers. From the sleuths who decoded the world's most advanced cyber weapon to scientists who believe they can store a password in your unconscious brain, NOVA investigates how a new global geek squad is harnessing cutting-edge science—all to stay one step ahead of the hackers.

For 25 centuries the Parthenon has been shot at, set on fire, rocked by earthquakes, looted for its sculptures, almost destroyed by explosion, and disfigured by well-meaning renovations. It has gone from temple, to church, to mosque, to munitions dump. What could be next? How about a scientific search for the secrets of its incomparable beauty and astonishingly rapid construction? With unprecedented access, NOVA unravels the architectural and engineering mysteries of this celebrated ancient temple.