Why Do Birds Sing?

NOVA travels to forests and marshes to discover why birds sing and finds surprising parall...

How Much Do You Smell?

Many insects and some mammals use smell as a primary means of communication. NOVA explains...

The Hunting Of The Quark

Smashing matter into ever smaller pieces in an attempt to find its fundamental building bl...

The Secrets Of Sleep

Most of us spend one-third of our lives in a state of which we understand remarkably littl...

Inside the Golden Gate

NOVA joins a team of U.S. Geological Survey scientists on a mission to find out just how S...

The Men Who Painted Caves

Just why did Cro-Magnon man living in France's Dordogne Valley some 15,000 years ago take...

Red Sea Coral

NOVA joins a group of English biologists living literally on a platform in the middle of t...

War From the Air

What Time is Your Body?

Have you ever sensed that your body reacts differently at different times of the day? NOVA...

The Rise And Fall Of DDT

Has the case against DDT been proven? A strange question, perhaps, to be asking one year a...

Take the World From Another Point of View

NOVA profiles two very different scientists: Richard Feynman, a theoretical physicist, at...

The Lysenko Affair

NOVA explores T.D. Lynsenko's rise to power in the Soviet Union in the early 20th century,...

The Tuaregs

High in the Hoggar Mountains, in the exact center of the Sahara desert, lives Sidi Mohamme...

The Plutonium Connection

How likely is it that a terrorist group will steal plutonium intended for nuclear reactor...

The Other Way

Since the Industrial Revolution, bigger has been better. NOVA profiles E.F. Schumacher, th...

The Lost World Of The Maya

For over a thousand years the Mayan civilization grew and flourished in the rain forests o...

Will The Fishing Have to Stop?

Fish is an excellent source of protein; it could help ease the growing international food...

Predictable Disaster

It is now possible to predict earthquakes. At least two successful predictions have alread...

Joey

NOVA takes viewers into the world of Joey Deacon, 54 years old and a spastic since birth....

Meditation and the Mind

What do singer Peggy Lee, New York Jets Quarterback Joe Namath and Congressman Richard Nol...

The Planets

The last fourteen years have been a revolution in our understanding of our place in the st...

A Desert Place

NOVA explores the mysterious ecosystem of the desert: a snowstorm; a lashing summer monsoo...

A Small Imperfection

Every year, some 5,000 babies are born in the US with spina bifida, a congenital abnormali...

Ninety Degrees Below

There's one place on earth where no one will ever catch a cold. And the freezing waters ar...

The Race for the Double Helix

Author Isaac Asimov joins NOVA in the retelling of the remarkable story of the discovery o...

The Renewable Tree

Each Sunday edition of the New York Times consumes 153 acres of trees. The paper packs, na...

The Williamsburgh File

NOVA joins chief archaeologist, Ivor Noel Hume, of Colonial Williamsburg, VA, for a fascin...

The Overworked Miracle

Today we take antibiotics for granted, and by doing so are steadily eroding their medical...

The Transplant Experiment

Dr. Norman Shumway of Stanford University has performed more heart transplants than any ot...

The Underground Movement

NOVA explores life underground, from foxes and badgers through moles and worms down to the...

Hunters of the Seal

NOVA shows the Netsilik eskimoes of Pelly Bay and their traditional way of life and what h...

Benjamin

Benjamin is a healthy, normal baby, whom we meet at birth and whose first year of life pro...

The Women Rebel

Margaret Sanger was responsible almost single-handedly for changing the whole attitude of...

Death of a Disease

As late as 1967, smallpox struck as many as 15 million people in 43 countries and killed a...

Inside the Shark

The "Jaws" phenomenon has given sharks a bad name. But is the shark really such a barbaria...

The Genetic Chance

Recent scientific developments have made it possible to detect a wide variety of defects i...

The Case of the Bermuda Triangle

Since 1945, hundreds of ships and planes and thousands of people have mysteriously disappe...

Hitler's Secret Weapon

NOVA traces the development of Hitler's V-2 rocket through rare footage obtained from the...

The Hot Blooded Dinosaurs

If you were a dinosaur scientist, what would you do with a pile of fossil bones? How would...

What Price Coal?

What is the price we are prepared to pay for coal? NOVA looks at the environmental and hea...

The Sunspot Mystery

NOVA explores the research on the 1976 drought in the western United States which led some...

The Plastic Prison

NOVA follows the lives of three boys who have combined immuned deficiency—a disease that l...

Incident at Brown's Ferry

NOVA recreates March 1975 at Brown's Ferry, an Alabama nuclear power plant—the largest in...

Bye Bye Blackbird

NOVA looks at blackbirds, their winter habit of nesting in the millions, and the destructi...

The Pill for the People

NOVA profiles chemist Russell Marker who made the birth control pill possible by discoveri...

The Gene Engineers

NOVA explores the history of genetic engineering and the possible risks and benefits of th...

The Human Animal

NOVA investigates the controversial theory of Harvard University biologist E.O. Wilson, th...

The Wolf Equation

In the winter of 1976-77, 80 percent of the wolf population in Northwest Alaska was the ta...

The Dawn of the Solar Age

Solar energy is increasingly popular as a home heating source. But only recently has it be...

The Business of Extinction

NOVA explores the huge international illegal trade in animals, penetrates the thriving und...

The Red Planet

NOVA traces 300 years of speculation, investigation and discovery that have centered on Ma...

Tongues of Men (1)

In part one of this two-part exploration of the diversity of world languages, NOVA examine...

Tongues of Men (2)

In part two of this two-part series on the diversity of language, NOVA explores how man ha...

Linus Pauling: Crusading Scientist

NOVA profiles Linus Pauling—the only person to have received two unshared Nobel Prizes for...

Across the Silent Barrier

NOVA explores the different means by which hearing-impaired people have learned to penetra...

The New Healers

NOVA explores the delibitating diseases that are often caused by poverty and follows two p...

In The Event of Catastrophe

Can a nuclear war be survived? Some members of the defense community say yes. NOVA explore...

The Green Machine

Botany is a neglected science and plants are all around us, but unfamiliar. NOVA examines...

Blueprints in the Bloodstream

It has been known since the turn of the century that there are four human blood groups, ba...

One Small Step

Part one of a two-part series on the subject of man in space, NOVA examines the history of...

The Final Frontier

Second of the two-part series on space programs, NOVA looks ahead to the future, post-Apol...

BaMiki BaNdula: Children of the Forest

In the rain forests of Zaire, in the heart of Africa, live the Mbuti Pygmies. The Pygmy wa...

Trial of Denton Cooley

In a dramatic docudrama, NOVA reconstructs the controversial lawsuit raised against renown...

The Great Wine Revolution

A science-based revolution in the making of wine is underway. NOVA traces the secrets of t...

The Case of the Ancient Astronauts

NOVA investigates the theories of von Daniken and others that the Earth has been visited b...

The Mind Machines

Today's scientists may be creating their own successors. Work being done in Artificial Int...

Icarus' Children

In the summer of 1977 Paul MacCready, a California scientist and businessman, won the cove...

Still Waters

NOVA shows a year in the life of a beaver pond and includes almost every life form that ex...

Battle for the Acropolis

The fortified plateau above Athens known as the Acropolis is the site of some of the most...

The Road to Happiness. : The Life and Times of Henry Ford

Henry Ford, a great friend of Edison, was a film enthusiast who amassed some one and a hal...

Laser : Light of the 21st Century

When first invented 18 years ago, lasers were called "a solution looking for a problem;" n...

Insect Alternative

In a world that each year loses up to 40 percent of its crops to insects, some form of pes...

The Desert's Edge

For thousands of years people have managed to live in deserts all over the world. But in r...

The Tsetse Trap

NOVA explores Bovine sleeping sickness. Spread by a fly, it is a deadly disease that poses...

Memories From Eden

Traditionally zoos were designed neither for people nor animals; barred cages taught peopl...

A Whisper from Space

In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, two radio astronomers at Bell Telephone Laborator...

Alaska: The Closing Frontier

Congress is currently considering a proposal that would double the size of America's natio...

Black Tide

On the morning of March 16, 1978, the US owned, Liberian registered supertanker, the Amoco...

Long Walk Of Fred Young

As a child, Fred Young hunted birds and wild animals with primitive weapons, spoke only th...

A World Of Difference

In 1945, B.F. Skinner shocked the world by putting his 13 month-old daughter, Deborah, int...

Cashing In On The Ocean

The bed of the northeast Pacific Ocean is covered with a "carpet" estimated to be worth a...

Patterns From The Past

Below the snow-capped peaks of the Peruvian Andes, the Q'eros Indians live a life patterne...

The Invisible Flame

Some day hydrogen may replace the gasoline that we are now using up so rapidly. NOVA looks...

The End Of The Rainbow

Is nuclear fusion the solution to the energy crisis? NOVA examines the promise—and problem...

The Beersheva Experiment

Health care is the third largest industry in the US. As a result of billions of dollars sp...

Einstein

One hundred years after his birth, Albert Einstein remains an enigma to most Americans. NO...

The Keys Of Paradise

Some powerful and complex painkilling drugs have just been discovered—in a place where you...

A Plague on our Children

Is the chemical industry a boom to modern civilization, or a major threat to our health an...

Life on a Silken Thread

Sinister, sometimes even deadly, spiders have little popular appeal; yet their silken webs...

Sweet Solutions

NOVA views the history of sugar—from its scientific, religious and political history to it...

Race for the Gold

At the 1976 Olympics, East German athletes walked off with 40 of the coveted gold medals,...

All Part of the Game

Thousands of amateur athletes are hurt every year, and many professional athletes suffer i...

India: Machinery of Hope

Most of India lives by the same rhythm, the same tools, as in centuries past. But there is...

The Bridge that Spanned the World

The Iron Bridge across the River Severn in Telford, England is two centuries old this year...

Termites to Telescopes

Dr. Philip Morrison, Institute Professor and professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institu...

Blindness: Five Points of Views

For many people the idea of life without vision is as fearful as death. NOVA looks at five...

The Elusive Illness

Aborigines in Australia, woodchucks in Pennsylvania, the Nobel Prize in Stockholm and the...

A is for Atom, B is for Bomb

NOVA profiles Dr. Edward Teller, the "Father of the Hydrogen Bomb," an acclaimed scientifi...

Living Machines

NOVA explores the science of natural engineering and asks the basic questions: what makes...

Portrait of a Killer

More than 40 million Americans are afflicted by cardiovascular disease. NOVA examines the...

Umealit: The Whale Hunters

Whaling is an integral part of Eskimo life, and a major source of food; even so, conservat...

The Safety Factor

Recent aircraft accidents have raised the question of just how safe modern commercial avia...

A Mediterranean Prospect

Every year, millions of tourists converge on the Mediterranean's sunny coasts, lured by th...

Mr. Ludwig's Tropical Dreamland

NOVA explores the amazing Jari project of the Amazon basin. Eleven years ago, 3.5 million...

The Pinks and the Blues

NOVA explores the shaping and molding of the male and female personality. From infancy thr...

The Cancer Detectives of Lin Xian

In one of the first films ever to come out of modern China, NOVA sifts through clues that...

The Sea Behind the Dunes

One year in the intricate life of a coastal lagoon unfolds in an hour's time when NOVA doc...

Do We Really Need the Rockes?

Locked in the shale of the Western Rocky Mountains is more oil than in the Middle East—mor...

The Big IF

Is interferon—known as IF in medical shorthand—the wonder drug and cure for cancer that so...

Voyager: Jupiter & Beyond

On Wednesday, 12 November 1980, Voyager 1 is expected to arrive at Saturn for a first time...

The Wizard Who Spat on the Floor

Thomas Edison is the quintessential American hero, the Wizard whose inventions revolutioni...

The Water Crisis

Water, water everywhere...but just how useful is it? NOVA travels to the Adirondack Mounta...

Moving Still

NOVA tells the story of still and cine photography in science—from the extraordinary work...

A Touch of Sensitivity

The exquisite sensitivity of touch cells in the human skin makes it possible for us to dis...

The Red Deer of Rhum

The cuddly image of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has become an integral part of the joll...

It's About Time

Time—a concept which has baffled scientists and philosophers since time immemorial. Actor...

Doctors of Nigeria

Is the fagara root a match for the stethoscope? This program looks at the contributions of...

Message in the Rocks

This program explores clues gathered from ancient rocks and Meteorites in an attempt to pi...

The Dead Sea Lives

NOVA examines the Dead Sea. The lowest place on Earth, at 1400 feet below sea level, it is...

Anatomy of a Volcano

When Mount St. Helens erupted earlier this year, it focused the attention of the whole wor...

The Science of Murder

NOVA investigates what science can do in helping to solve murder—in understanding why it o...

The Malady of Health Care

Health care is no longer two Aspirins and some chicken soup—it is a huge enterprise capabl...

Beyond the Milky Way

Sophisticated instruments used by astronomers enable earthlings to see beyond what was onc...

The Asteroid and the Dinosaur

For 150 million years, non-avian dinosaurs dominated the Earth. Then, 65 million years ago...

Animal Olympians

The beauty, endurance, and raw power of animals in the wild are captured on film as NOVA j...

Resolution on Saturn

It's over 300 years since Galileo turned his new telescope on Saturn and first saw its spe...

Computers, Spies and Private Lives

NOVA reports on the potential danger of modern Computers that gather "routine" information...

Why America Burns

More people die in fires in the US than in any other industrialized country. In an alarmin...

The Great Violin Mystery

A great secret lies locked inside the master Violins created by Italian craftsmen like Ant...

Cosmic Fire

A NOVA showing the extraordinary discoveries of X-ray astronomy. This new science has reve...

Locusts: War Without End

Called the "teeth of the wind" by those who have battled them for centuries, locusts conti...

Did Darwin Get It Wrong?

The controversy which exploded a century ago when Charles Darwin published "The Origin of...

Artists in the Lab

Many were delighted by the extraordinary special effects in movies like "2001" and "Star W...

Notes of a Biology Watcher: A Film with Lewis Thomas

You are not alone! Like it or not, every human being and virtually every living creature i...

City Spaces, Human Places

William H. Whyte's insightful and humorous look at city parks, plazas and Streets, and the...

Twins

Ever thought what it's like having your mirror image talk back to you? It can be an everyd...

Salmon on the Run

NOVA captures the breathtaking power and determination of these amazing creatures and exam...

Test-Tube Babies: A Daughter For Judy

NOVA presents a dramatic, exclusive film of the first "test-tube" baby born in America, El...

Field Guide to Roger Tory Peterson

NOVA takes an intimate look at Roger Tory Peterson, the man whose best-selling guide books...

The Hunt for the Legion Killer

One of the biggest investigations in medical history began when a mysterious killer diseas...

Finding a Voice

What is it like not to be able to communicate with others? NOVA explores the severest of s...

The Television Explosion

NOVA explores the past, present, and future of American television including the potential...

Life: Patent Pending

NOVA shows how scientists go about creating new forms of life, and investigates the impact...

Palace of Delights

NOVA visits San Francisco's Exploratorium—part laboratory, part school, part three-ring ci...

Animal Impostors

In this vivid study of mimicry and camouflage NOVA shows dramatically how snakes, butterfl...

Aging: The Methuselah Syndrome

What is aging? Why does it happen? Can it be stopped? NOVA presents a startling report on...

The Case of the UFOs

For the first time on television a rigorous, scientific investigation into the fact, ficti...

The Fragile Mountain

The Himalayas, highest peaks in the world, are crumbling. People are making them crumble,...

Here's Looking At You Kid

Of the 70,000 Americans hospitalized annually for severe Burns, one-third are children. NO...

Adventures of Teenage Scientists

NOVA introduces some of the winners of the 1982 Westinghouse Science Talent Search: high s...

The Cobalt Blues

An investigative report on US dependence on foreign sources of strategic minerals, vital t...

Goodbye Louisiana

NOVA reports on the staggering water problems of Southern Louisiana—where the mighty Missi...

Whale Watch

NOVA follows the great grey whales along their annual marathon migration from the Arctic t...

Tracking The Supertrains

While America's passenger-train service deteriorates, trains in Japan and Europe are speed...

The Making of a Natural History Film

To celebrate its 10th broadcast season, NOVA repeats the very first NOVA program every air...

Hawaii: Crucible of Life

This land of fire and beauty is the most isolated island chain in the world. NOVA cameras...

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

NOVA captivates a remarkably candid portrait of Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feyn...

Lassa Fever

A gripping docudrama about a mysterious, highly lethal disease which struck a village in N...

The Miracle of Life

NOVA presents the first film ever made of the incredible chain of events which turns a spe...

Asbestos: A Lethal Legacy

Every 58 minutes between now and the end of the century, one American will die from asbest...

City of Coral

NOVA takes a spellbinding voyage through one of the world's most fascinating and colorful...

Fat Chance in a Thin World

"Why can't I lose weight?" It's a question many Americans ask themselves everyday. NOVA co...

Sixty Minutes to Meltdown

The accident at Three Mile Island made front page news all over the world and rocked the e...

Signs of the Apes, Songs of the Whales

The dream of talking with animals has been with us for centuries. NOVA explores the latest...

The Artificial Heart

Seattle dentist Barney Clark received the first artificial heart implant in 1982. He died...

Talking Turtle

NOVA looks at computers in the classroom through the eyes of MIT's Seymour Papert, father...

Papua New Guinea: Anthropology on Trial

Remote tribes and exotic islanders have been made known to the world through the lens of a...

To Live Until You Die: The Work of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross has become a legend in her lifetime for her work with the dying....

A Magic Way of Going: The Story of Thoroughbreds

Can the thoroughbred horse run any faster? NOVA examines the billion-dollar horse racing i...

A Normal Face: The Wonders of Plastic Surgery

When plastic surgeons repair the shattered face of a soldier or rescue a child from a disf...

Captives of Care

Patients at an Australian institution for the severely handicapped rebel against a pair of...

Twenty-Five Years in Space

As the American space program celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, NOVA chronicles t...

Nuclear Strategy for Beginners

Will nuclear weapons deter World War III or only make it more likely? NOVA explores the mi...

The Climate Crisis

This summer's record temperatures may be one of the signs that the earth's atmosphere is w...

Eyes Over China

NOVA documents a dramatic encounter in international medicine when an American plane lands...

Alcoholism: Life Under The Influence

In a culture laced with alcohol, the search for a scientific understanding of alcoholism i...

The Case of ESP

In the past decade, a number of researchers have begun systematic laboratory research into...

Antarctica: Earth's Last Frontier

An astronaut once observed a great white light shining out from the bottom of our world: A...

China's Only Child

Efforts to control the population explosion are among the burning controversies of our tim...

Will I Walk Again?

Is there a cure for paralyzing spinal injuries? Most neurosurgeons are doubtful, pointing...

Visions of the Deep: The Underwater World of Al Giddings

Al Giddings is one of the greatest underwater photographers in the world. In a riveting lo...

Down on the Farm

Agriculture is America's biggest industry. This productivity, envied around the world, is...

Make My People Live: The Crisis in Indian Health Care

What are America's obligations to its native population? As an important Indian health act...

The World According to Weisskopf

Victor Weisskopf: physicist, lover of music and citizen of the world. NOVA profiles the in...

Space Bridge to Moscow

At a time when scientific exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union is at it...

The National Science Test I

NOVA departs from tradition with the first National Science Test. Viewers can match wits w...

Fountains of Paradise

NOVA explores the billion-dollar-plus Mahaweli Irrigation Project in Sri Lanka. Will this...

The Mystery of Yellow Rain

NOVA explores whether "yellow rain," described by members of the Hmong tribe of Laos, is a...

The Nomads of the Rain Forest

NOVA visits a tribe of Ecuadoran Indians who still maintain traditions that date back to t...

Farmers of the Sea

NOVA looks at the "blue revolution"—modern advances in the ancient art of raising aquatic...

Frontiers of Plastic Surgery

NOVA's sequel to "A Normal Face" examines the merging of technology and art in modern reco...

Space Women

They have been part of the United States' space program for more than 20 years. Who are th...

Jaws: The True Story

Acclaimed underwater cameraman Al Giddings takes NOVA viewers beneath the waves to explore...

Acid Rain: New Bad News

The debate over acid rain continues to grow. NOVA travels to West Germany, the mid-Atlanti...

Stephen Jay Gould: This View of Life

What do dinosaurs, a panda's thumb and a peacock's tail have in common? Dr. Stephen Jay Go...

The Garden of Inheritance

In this docudrama presentation, NOVA looks at the life, times and work of Gregor Mendel, t...

Edgerton and His Incredible Seeing Machines

NOVA explores the fascinating world of Dr. Harold Edgerton, electronics wizard and invento...

Global Village

NOVA presents an in-depth look at India's attempt to use satellite technology to leapfrog...

Conquest of the Parasites

NOVA examines the complex world of parasites, parasitic diseases and the exciting work cur...

In the Land of the Polar Bears

A rare look at the beautiful and desolate Wrangel Island-a Soviet possession 300 miles off...

AIDS: Chapter One

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, is a deadly disease that has struck down som...

The Shape of Things

Sea shells, Crystals, Honeycombs, Eggs and seeds: They are shaped the way they are for a r...

Baby Talk

It's a mystery just how children acquire language. Does the process begin in the womb? And...

The Mathematical Mystery Tour

Imagine a bottle with no inside or a number bigger than infinity or parallel lines that me...

Child's Play: Prodigies and Possibilities

What do Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the painter Raphael and chess champion Bobby Fischer have...

Monarch of the Mountains

NOVA explores the breeding, migration and survival patterns of the Rocky Mountain elk in a...

The National Science Test II

In NOVA's special sequel to 1984's National Science Test, viewers can match wits with cele...

Seeds of Tomorrow

NOVA examines worldwide efforts of scientists who employ aggressive agricultural technolog...

What Einstein Never Knew

Albert Einstein did not live to find the answer. NOVA follows a new generation of physicis...

The Robot Revolution?

How are the computer and the robot affecting the way we work? NOVA chronicles the new indu...

The Magic of Special Effects

NOVA cameras go behind-the-scenes to reveal the new art of illusion, Hollywood-style, focu...

Child Survival: The Silent Emergency

NOVA charts the progress of an ambitious worldwide health program established to save the...

Tornado!

NOVA follows a chase team—a group of scientists who chart deadly Tornadoes—in an effort to...

The Genetic Gamble

NOVA examines current research and its ethical implications as modern medicine confronts t...

Animal Architects

NOVA examines the intricate world of nature's construction industry and presents rare foot...

The Plane that Changed the World

NOVA joins the 50th anniversary celebration of the DC-3—the plane that revolutionized comm...

Halley's Comet: Once in a Lifetime

NOVA observes worldwide preparations as amateur comet hunters, astronomers and scientists...

Goddess of the Earth

Gaia, the Greek word for Earth goddess, also is the name of the controversial hypothesis t...

Horsemen of China

For centuries, the Chinese Kazakh horseman preserved their ancient traditions, refusing to...

Life's First Feelings

NOVA explores the incredibly complex emotional development of infants and examines the cur...

The Case of the Frozen Addict

In July 1982, a 42-year-old addict in a San Jose, California jail became paralyzed—unable...

Toxic Trials

When a high number of cancer cases struck the suburban community of Woburn, Massachusetts,...

Skydive to the Rain Forest

NOVA journeys to a remote region of southern Venezuela where the land is alive with specta...

Return of the Osprey

NOVA follows a conservation success story as environmentalists, scientists and bird-lovers...

The Rise of a Wonder Drug

When Alexander Fleming discovered the penicillin mold in 1928, he never considered its pos...

When Wonder Drugs Don't Work

NOVA examines the medical community's alarm as the spread of antibiotic-resistant infectio...

Visions of Star Wars

NOVA and Frontline combine resources to explore the Strategic Defense Initiative. The two-...

The Search for the Disappeared

NOVA joins scientists in Argentina as they help locate kidnapped children and identify tho...

The Planet that Got Knocked on its Side

The adventures of the Voyager 2 spacecraft continue as it passes the rings of Uranus. Scie...

High-Tech Babies

Scientific breakthroughs now make it possible to reproduce ourselves in ways never before...

Can AIDS Be Stopped?

What are the prospects for halting or curing the deadliest epidemic ever to challenge mode...

Is Anybody Out There?

Could there be life beyond Earth? Only recently has it become possible to scan the skies i...

Mystery of the Animal Pathfinders

Birds do it; bees do it, butterflies, bats and eels do it—all leave one habitat to migrate...

Are You Swimming in a Sewer?

NOVA dips into the sad plight of our coastal waters, where toxic chemicals, raw sewage and...

Sail Wars!

Yankee ingenuity has designs on the America's Cup. NOVA goes behind-the-scenes to look at...

Leprosy Can Be Cured!

Leprosy, a misunderstood disease that has been curable for 40 years, still afflicts some 1...

How Babies Get Made

NOVA explores the ground-breaking experiments that led to the discovery of a tiny sequence...

Countdown to the Invisible Universe

NOVA scans the universe with the infrared eye of IRAS—the Infrared Astronomical Satellite—...

Children of Eve

NOVA examines a controversial theory that traces our ancestry to a small group of women li...

Why Planes Crash

Between 60 and 80 percent of all commercial airplane accidents are attributable to pilot e...

Orangutans of the Rain Forest

NOVA cameras travel to Borneo, one of the last habitats of the wild orangutans, where scie...

Freud Under Analysis

Fifty years after his death, the creator of psychoanalysis is still the subject of intense...

The Hole in the Sky

NOVA travels to Antarctica with an emergency scientific expedition to study a baffling "ho...

Confessions of a Weaponeer

Harvard chemist George Kistiakowsky was an anti-Bolshevik soldier in 1919 Russia, an atomi...

Great Moments from NOVA

NOVA presents two hours of the best from its 14 seasons of exciting science coverage. A "t...

Will the World Starve?

All over the world, farmers are taking more from the soil than they return. NOVA reports o...

The Desert Doesn't Bloom Here Anymore

In rich and poor countries alike, once-productive farms are turning to desert because of m...

Rocky Road to Jupiter

In a case study of the strengths and weaknesses of the United States space program, NOVA c...

Death of a Star

Why do stars explode and how is the energy generated? What is the effect of all those litt...

Spy Machines

On the 25th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, NOVA investigates the spy planes and...

Hidden Power of Plants

Plants produce some of the world's most potent chemicals in the fight against disease. NOV...

Japan's American Genius

Is Detroit inventor Stanford Ovshinsky the new Thomas Edison? Japanese industries are bett...

A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama

The Panama Canal opened in 1914 after a 30-year effort that dwarfed the building of the py...

Volcano!

Millions live in the shadows of nature's ticking time-bombs—volcanos. NOVA accompanies sci...

How Good is Soviet Science?

Princeton professor and author Robert Mark tracks down the engineering secrets of some of...

Ancient Treasures from the Deep

NOVA joins underwater archaeologists as they explore the oldest shipwreck ever excavated,...

Riddle of the Joints

A trail of evidence leading from a medieval abbey to a small town in Connecticut sheds new...

Secrets of the Lost Red Paint People

NOVA follows archaeologists as they unearth clues, some 7,000 years old, about an unknown,...

Top Gun and Beyond

Today's sophisticated fighter jets can almost fly themselves, but well-trained pilots are...

How to Create a Junk Food

Julia Child introduces NOVA's behind-the-scenes look at how science aids in the creation o...

Buried in Ice

Scientists investigate the frozen remains of members of the 19th century Franklin Expediti...

Why Planes Burn

Airplane fires are often deadly. NOVA looks at efforts to make fires aboard planes less li...

Battles in the War on Cancer: A Wonder Drug on Trial

In part one of a two-part special presentation, NOVA reports on the trials to determine wh...

Battles in the War on Cancer: Turning the Tide

Breast cancer claims the lives of four American women every hour. Jane Pauley of NBC News...

The Mystery of the Master Builders

Princeton professor and author Robert Mark tracks down the engineering secrets of some of...

Whale Rescue

It was a blustery day in December 1986, and the New England Coast was in the midst of a wi...

The Man Who Loved Numbers

NOVA explores the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a poor clerk from India who astounded mathe...

Race for the Superconductor

NOVA charts an electronics revolution in the making as Japan and the United States race to...

Can You Still Get Polio?

Most cases of polio in this country are caused by the vaccine designed to prevent it. NOVA...

Pioneers of Surgery: The Brutal Craft

Part one of a four-part series on the pioneers of modern surgery relives the early days, w...

Pioneers of Surgery: Into the Heart

Once unthinkable, open-heart surgery is now an everyday miracle. NOVA looks at the brave d...

Pioneers of Surgery: New Organs for Old

From kidneys to hearts, NOVA examines the daring attempts to replace diseased organs with...

Pioneers of Surgery: Beyond the Knife

Surgeons have always been eager to help patients, even at the risk of killing them. NOVA l...

Can the Vatican Save the Sistine Chapel?

Science meets art in the controversial effort to restore Michelangelo's famous Sistine Cha...

Can the Next President Win the Space Race?

Thirty years after Sputnik, the United States space program is mired in uncertainty, while...

Do Scientists Cheat?

NOVA examines the troubling question of scientific fraud: How prevalent is it? Who commits...

Who Shot President Kennedy?

Using previously unavailable technology, NOVA probes the available evidence surrounding th...

The Light Stuff

Reliving a Greek myth takes an effort of mythic proportions, as NOVA reveals in its behind...

The All-American Bear

The life of the shy, intelligent black bear in the wild—foraging, mating, playing and cons...

Can We Make a Better Doctor?

NOVA embarks on a 10-year project to profile—in its entirety—the education of a doctor. In...

Hot Enough for You?

Was the searing summer of 1988 a taste of things to come? NOVA looks at the greenhouse eff...

The Last Journey of a Genius

NOVA looks at the bongo-playing scientist, adventurer, safecracker and yarn-spinner Richar...

The Strange New Science of Chaos

NOVA explains "chaos," a new science that is making surprising sense out of chaotic phenom...

Back to Chernobyl

NOVA goes to the Soviet Union for an inside investigation of the world's most catastrophic...

God, Darwin and the Dinosaurs

In an Idaho classroom, teacher Phil Gerrish puts an unorthodox interpretation on the day's...

Adrift on the Gulf Stream

NOVA explores the importance of the Gulf Stream to ocean life, climate and human history.

Secrets of Easter Island (1)

In this two-part series, NOVA investigates the mystery of Easter Island in the South Pacif...

Legends of Easter Island (2)

In the second part of this two-part series, NOVA explores ancient legends hold the clues t...

The World Is Full of Oil!

Scientific detectives test their ingenuity in the effort to find underground oil deposits.

Confronting the Killer Gene

Arlo, Nancy and Janice each have a 50/50 chance of developing a devastating nerve disorder...

The Hidden City

Actor Judd Hirsch narrates this behind-the scenes look at what makes New York City tick. W...

The Controversial Dr. Koop

In this profile of the former Surgeon General, NOVA follows events as they unfold in a uni...

Design Wars!

Five architects compete for the approval of architecture-obsessed Chicagoans in the contes...

Echoes of War

The atomic bomb might have ended World War II, but radar was the quiet miracle that won ba...

Decoding the Book of Life

Biologists around the world gear up to decode the three-billion-letter genetic message tha...

Hurricane!

NOVA studies hurricanes—the lurking giants waiting to destroy many coastal areas—by flying...

Will Venice Survive Its Rescue?

Increasingly awash in high water, the romantic city of Venice is counting on high-tech flo...

What Is Music?

East and West came into direct conflict over trade and power in the 19th century. The West...

Yellowstone's Burning Question

The 1988 Yellowstone fire may have been one of the worst in human memory, but nature has h...

The Schoolboys Who Cracked the Soviet Secret

NOVA re-enacts a classic case of classroom detection when English schoolboys track down a...

Poison in the Rockies

NOVA reports on the 100-year-old legacy of pollution from mining that poisons the once-pri...

Race for the Top

Using some of the largest machines ever built on earth, American and European physicists r...

Disguises of War

Sixty-five years after attempts to ban them, chemical weapons pose more of a threat than e...

The Bomb's Lethal Legacy

NOVA examines an alarming nuclear waste problem at the Hanfrod Nuclear Reservation in east...

The Big Spill

Covering last year's Exxon Valdez oil spill from an unexplored angle, NOVA focuses on how...

The Genius That Was China: Rise of the Dragon

China in the 13th century was the richest, most powerful, most technologically advanced ci...

The Genius That Was China: Empires in Collision

NOVA examines the extraordinary transformation that propelled Europe outward into the worl...

The Genius that Was China: The Threat from Japan

Ever wonder how junk mail finds you? NOVA investigates the hidden world of direct marketin...

The Genius That Was China: Will the Dragon Rise Again?

NOVA covers China's long road to economic and technological equality with the West, punctu...

The KGB, The Computer and Me

This documentary covers the surprising tale of an average systems administrator who stumbl...

Neptune's Cold Fury

NOVA visits Neptune, the planet that took Voyager 12 years to reach. Mysteries abound in a...

To Boldly Go...

NOVA chronicles the Voyager space mission—from Earth to the ends of the solar system. Jupi...

Poisoned Winds of War

Sixty-five years after attempts to ban them, chemical weapons pose more of a threat than e...

The Blimp is Back!

NOVA examines the troubled past and promising future of blimps, zeppelins, cyclocranes and...

Earthquake!

NOVA looks at the high-stakes quest to predict earthquakes. Despite past disappointments,...

Killing Machines

Robotic weapons that seek out and destroy ships, planes, and other targets are the wave of...

Can the Elephant Be Saved?

Is the ivory ban in the elephant's best interest? NOVA looks at the controversial strategi...

We Know Where You Live

Ever wonder how junk mail finds you? NOVA investigates the hidden world of direct marketin...

In the Land of the Llamas

NOVA profiles the llama, alpaca, vicuna and guanaco of South America. At one time nearly e...

What's Killing the Children?

NOVA tracks a mysterious disease that suddenly and fatally attacks the children of a small...

Return to Mt. St. Helens

NOVA returns to Mount St. Helens a decade after its cataclysmic eruption to learn how natu...

ConFusion in a Jar

An experiment that could mean limitless supplies of energy sets the scientific world on it...

The Hunt for China's Dinosaurs (1)

NOVA covers the most elaborate expedition ever undertaken in the search for dinosaurs—to C...

Case of the Flying Dinosaur

Are dinosaurs still among us? NOVA looks at the contentious question of whether present-da...

T. rex Exposed

Tyrannosaurus rex, the terrifying kind of the dinos, recently turned up in a nearly comple...

The Russian Right Stuff: The Invisible Spaceman

In the first program of a three-part miniseries on the Soviet space program, NOVA profiles...

The Russian Right Stuff: The Dark Side of the Moon

NOVA reveals the details of Moscow's secret plan to reach the moon ahead of the Americans....

The Russian Right Stuff: The Mission

In an unprecedented insider's look, NOVA covers the training, flight and recovery of a cos...

Swimming With Whales

Gregory Peck narrates a scientific voyage around Vancouver Island in search of whales. Hum...

The Chip vs. the Chess Master

Will machines be able to beat us at our own game? The computer chess champ matches wits wi...

Sex, Lies and Toupee Tape

NOVA covers the causes and attempted cures of baldness. Some men take pride in their bald...

So You Want to Be a Doctor?

In a two-hour special, NOVA follows seven aspiring doctors through four years of medical s...

Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Forty years after they were discovered, the Dead Sea Scrolls have yet to be published in t...

Suicide Mission to Chernobyl

NOVA accompanies Soviet scientists on a deadly mission inside the sarcophagus-the massive...

Taller Than Everest?

The tallest mountain in the world? Think again—cartographers had to when satellite date re...

Fastest Planes in the Sky

The fastest machines in the sky are going to be slow stuff when the latest speed demons on...

Avoiding the Surgeon's Knife

NOVA follows the efforts of four participants in a celebrated California study to unblock...

Skyscraper! A NOVA Special

This 80-minute NOVA pledge special chronicles the building of the Worldwide Plaza, 47-stor...

The Fine Art of Faking It

The spectacular eclipse of 1991 passed over major observatories on the island of Hawaii. N...

Hell Fighters of Kuwait

NOVA covers the fight to put out Saddam Hussein's bonfire of oil wells in Kuwait, which ha...

Submarine!

NOVA takes a voyage on the newest of America's doomsday machines—the ballistic missle subm...

Saddam's War on Wildlife

Few people give any thought to wildlife in the midst of a war. During the Gulf War, enviro...

What Smells?

The nose knows. How much is the subject of NOVA's investigation of the mysterious aromas a...

Can You Believe TV Ratings?

Rating the audience for TV shows is a classic problem in statistical analysis. NOVA finds...

Making a Dishonest Buck

Criminals still make money the old-fashioned way—by counterfeiting. NOVA looks at why US c...

Rescuing Baby Whales

NOVA examines the mysterious whale strandings along the beaches of Cape Cod Bay, as the pu...

An Astronaut's View of the Earth

NOVA goes behind the scenes to watch the filming of a big-screen Imax/Omnimax space specta...

Eclipse of the Century

The spectacular eclipse of 1991 passed over major observatories on the island of Hawaii. N...

Animal Olympians II

In a 90-minute special presentation, NOVA reveals the ancient secrets of how the pyramids...

The Genius Behind the Bomb

Physicists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard reenact the signing of the 1939 letter that ale...

Mind of a Serial Killer

NOVA goes behind the scenes to give the real story behind the FBI unit popularized in the...

Search for the First Americans

NOVA follows the trail of America's first inhabitants. Did they migrate across a Bering Se...

Rafting Through the Grand Canyon

NOVA explores Earth's greatest natural wonder by rafting down the river that created it, r...

This Old Pyramid

In a 90-minute special presentation, NOVA reveals the ancient secrets of how the pyramids...

Iceman

Five thousand years ago, a man perished in a mountain storm. In 1991, his frozen body was...