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Scientific American Frontiers was an American television program primarily focused on informing the public about new technologies and discoveries in science and medicine. It was a companion program to the Scientific American magazine. The show was produced for PBS…

From 1996 to 2001, Boeing and Lockheed Martin produced rival designs and prototypes for the Joint Strike Fighter, a stealthy, affordable combat plane intended for the 21st century needs of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marines. In “Battle of…

Click and Clack of Car Talk go in search of the car of the future. For 30 years Click and Clack have advised motorists about their cars on their PBS radio show

Carrier is a 10-hour documentary film about a six-month deployment of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier in 2005 from the United States to the Middle East and back.
The miniseries in ten parts is directed by Maro Chermayeff, and produced…

Science with sideburns and a tokes. Carl Sagan produced this 1980 series of spacey shows which was the most popular PBS TV show in the 1980’s even though there were only 13 episodes. “Billions and Billions… whoa dude!…. nuclear winter…

On the outskirts of Ghana’s biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah.
Correspondent…

Bernie” Madoff is an American former businessman and former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange who was convicted of operating a Ponzi scheme that has been called the largest investor fraud ever committed by a single person. On March…

Frontline on PBS presents “Heat”. “Heat” discusses the effects of Global Warming on the planet. There are also discussions about coal, electric cars and alternative energy sources. It explains the impact and politics of our various options, examining electric cars,…

Europe’s formal gardens — some of them several centuries old — are featured in this volume of the award-winning PBS series, hosted by elegant actress Audrey Hepburn. Hepburn, wearing graceful dresses, wanders along the garden paths, makes observations about the…

On May 3, 1999, one of the most powerful tornadoes ever recorded carved a path of complete destruction near Oklahoma City. To scientists, the supertwister held sobering lessons about the future for rapidly expanding cities in tornado-threatened areas. Most tornadoes…

Palomar Observatory is a privately owned observatory located in San Diego County, California, 90 miles (145 km) southeast of Mount Wilson Observatory, on Palomar Mountain in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of…

Julia Child revolutionized American cuisine through her French cooking school, award-winning cookbooks, and world-renowned television programs by presenting an approachable version of sophisticated French cooking to her eager audience for four decades.
What a great lady.  Julia was born in…

Around 13,000 years ago, right as North America’s warm climate suddenly flipped back into ice-age conditions, most of the continent’s biggest beasts went extinct. Nobody knows why. Did hunters kill off the mammoths and other “megafauna”? Or did the climate…

This is a PBS documentary about Les Paul, recently deceased, the inventor of the electric guitar. This was filmed around his 90th birthday and he was still playing then. This is perhaps the best look at the creation of American Rock and Roll that I have ever seen.

Before Leonardo da Vinci painted “The Last Supper,” Tibetan craftsmen were creating stunning artistry of their deities in the remote Himalayan kingdom of Mustang. In “Lost Treasures of Tibet,” NOVA goes behind the scenes with the first conservation team from…

Ancient maps, legends, and fairy tales all tell of dragons in our world.  In nearly every culture, we are taught as children that dragons are big and fearsome, that they fly, breathe fire, are found in caves and live nearly…

An expedition of archeologists and historians sets off to explore a legendary cave in the Judean Desert. A cache of papyrus documents and other artifacts offers a portrait of the Jews who sought refuge in the cave 2,000 years ago. …

High in the unforgiving environment North of the Arctic Circle, two teams of paleontologists unearth dozens of dinosaur fossils. Scientists dynamite a 65-foot tunnel into the permafrost along Alaska’s Colville River while a second team uses more traditional methods to…

Millions remember the countdowns, launchings, splashdowns, and parades as the U.S. raced the USSR to the moon in the 1960s. But few know that both countries also ran parallel space programs, whose covert goal was to launch military astronauts on…

They’re odd-looking shapes you may never have heard of, but they’re everywhere around you the jagged repeating forms called fractals. If you know what to look for, you can find them in the clouds, in mountains, even inside the human…

Ant expert E.O. Wilson has spent his career studying tiny creatures. Yet what sets him apart is his ability to step back and see the grand scheme of things.  Newly appointed to Harvard, Wilson ignores charges by molecular biologists that…

NASA sends two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, to Mars to search for signs of water, in the distant past or currently. Why water? Because life as we know it could not exist without it.
Watch on PBS

A black hole is a theoretical region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even electromagnetic radiation (e.g. visible light), can escape its pull after having fallen past its event horizon. The term derives…

A highly sophisticated restoration team is painstakingly reassembling the Parthenon of Athens a classic Greek building that has suffered from wars, earthquakes, and disastrous previous restoration attempts. The Parthenon’s builders created dauntingly precise yet subtle curves throughout the structure, giving…

Liaoning Province in the northeastern corner of China has produced some of the most spectacular fossils ever seen, including one that may hold clues to the origin of flight. The dinosaur-bird connection first came to light in the 1860’s, when…

During the Korean War, a new episode of Cold War confrontation erupted as Russian MiGs and American Sabres engaged in dogfights high over the border between China and Korea.
Over 30 American Sabre pilots disappeared during the Korean War,…

The World’s First Satellite
The launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik in 1957 sends a shockwave through America and the world, signaling the beginning of a new era, the Space Age.

NOVA | Sputnik Declassified | Watch the Program |…

Orville and Wilbur Wright were remarkable inventors who designed and built their own wings, steering devices, engines, and wind tunnel. But just how did they construct such an impressive flying machine?

The Indonesian island of Flores is home to an ancient legend. It tells of an elf-like creature with oversized feet, an awkward gait and a voracious appetite. Villagers call her “ebu gogo,” “the grandmother who eats anything.”
She seems as…

High in the unforgiving environment north of the Arctic Circle, two teams of paleontologists unearth dozens of dinosaur fossils. Scientists dynamite a 65-foot tunnel into the permafrost along Alaska’s Colville River while a second team uses more traditional methods…

In the wake of several failed missions to Mars, NASA dispatches the aptly named Phoenix to see if soil conditions on the Red Planet might have allowed for the development of life the holy grail of Mars exploration.
Watch on…

The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster occurred on February 1, 2003, when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, with the loss of all seven crew members, shortly before it was scheduled to conclude its…

A thunderstorm brewing off the coast of Africa has all the makings of the killer storm experts have long predicted. Katrina is upgraded from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane and makes landfall in southern Florida. As Katrina…

In a remote village in northeast India, a plague of black rats suddenly appears and, over the course of three days, decimates the farmers’ subsistence crops. As the stunned villagers try to cope, Australian rat expert Ken Aplin arrives with…

Secrets of Lost Empires is a two part television series produced by PBS Nova, Boston (WGBH). Both series explore experimentally how ancient civilizations achieved notable constructions without modern machinery and construction methods. Each episode has guest experts who are challenged…

In the winter of 2006, a strange phenomenon fell upon honeybee hives across the country. Without a trace, millions of bees vanished from their hives, leaving billions of dollars of crops at risk and potentially threatening our food supply. The…

On the southbound lane of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, traffic is stalled as commuters crowd down a special restricted exit that disappears into the thick woods. Beyond, hidden from view and protected by electrified fences and heavily armed guards, is the…

Strange Days on Planet Earth is a television program on PBS concerning human impact on the environment. It is narrated by Edward Norton. The show was produced by Sea Studios Foundation. Strange Days on Planet Earth grew into an ongoing…

PBS online presents biographies of 20th century American presidents. Included are extensive biographies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W Bush.

Modern aquariums try to create an interactive experience for visitors, as opposed to their predecessors which just displayed fish behind glass. This film details the efforts of four modern aquariums to entertain and inform their guests.