NOVA

The mission seemed impossible, the odds astronomical, but the results were spectacular. NOVA presents the fascinating story behind the Apollo space program, including the historic walk on the moon in 1969, in a two-hour special. Meet unsung heroes, experience the dangers, and discover new Apollo perspectives through rare footage, little-known facts, and interviews with NASA scientists, engineers, geologists, and the astronauts themselves.

On August 21, a total solar eclipse crosses the continental U.S. for the first time in 99 years. Scientists and cutting-edge NASA missions investigate this once-in-a-life-time event: how and why they occur, and they reveal about the sun.

Follow the diabetes epidemic in the U.S. Diabetes and pre-diabetes affect over 100 million people in the country, costing more than $325 billion each year. The documentary puts human faces to these statistics, exploring the history and science of the illness through portraits of Americans whose stories shape the film.

NOVA premieres on public television with a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a nature film. Oxford Scientific Films Unit shows how it tackles such problems as filming a wood-wasp laying its egg inside trees, the hatching of a chick and the courtship rituals of the stickleback.

NOVA explores the mighty Colorado River which today has become the life-blood of the Southwest, providing water and electricity to the farms and cities of California, Nevada, and Arizona. The program examines the political expediency and technological over-optimism that has led to some major miscalculations of the river's capacity.

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.

NOVA travels to forests and marshes to discover why birds sing and finds surprising parallels with the acquisition of speech in humans.

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.

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.

It is now possible to predict earthquakes. At least two successful predictions have already been made in the United States; and the NOVA crew was present and filming while a third prediction was being formulated. NOVA looks at why earthquakes occur, how predictions are made, the threat they pose to cities at risk, and examines the advantages and disadvantages of making an earthquake a predictable disaster.

NOVA takes viewers into the world of Joey Deacon, 54 years old and a spastic since birth. Joey has lived most of his life in institutions, unable to communicate with anyone until he met Ernie Roberts. The docudrama recreates Joey's story, with remarkable performances by two spastic actors portraying him as a boy and as a young man. Joey and Ernie themselves appear in the final sequences.

What do singer Peggy Lee, New York Jets Quarterback Joe Namath and Congressman Richard Nolas have in common? They all practice a ritual called TM—Transcendental Meditation. NOVA examines the recent phenomenal success of the TM movement in America.

NOVA traces the development of Hitler's V-2 rocket through rare footage obtained from the National Archives—some never broadcast before on television.

If you were a dinosaur scientist, what would you do with a pile of fossil bones? How would you even start to put the giant jigsaw puzzle together, never mind discover anything about how these dinosaurs lived? NOVA explores the incredible world of the dinosaur scientist.

What is the price we are prepared to pay for coal? NOVA looks at the environmental and health safety issues raised by the government, industry, and the victims.

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

Botany is a neglected science and plants are all around us, but unfamiliar. NOVA examines our state of knowledge of how plants work: growth hormones, responses to light and shade, photosynthesis, root mechanisms and twining responses.

It has been known since the turn of the century that there are four human blood groups, based on different red cells and serum characteristics. NOVA looks at the more recent discovery that the different white cell types, as determined by a variety of different molecular markers on the cell surface, open up the possibility of the prevention of disease.

On the morning of March 16, 1978, the US owned, Liberian registered supertanker, the Amoco Cadiz, went aground off the coast of Brittany. Over the following days and weeks its entire 68 million gallons of oil drained into the sea. A NOVA production team began filmming at the scene shortly after the disaster, the biggest oil spill in history, and recorded clean-up efforts, effects of the spill on the crucial tourism and fishing industries, and the attempts of US and French marine biologists to trace the passage of the oil through the environment.

As a child, Fred Young hunted birds and wild animals with primitive weapons, spoke only the Indian languages Ute and Navajo, went to a medicine man when he was sick, and slept under the stars. NOVA profiles Dr. Frederick Young, now a nuclear physicist working on the laser fusion project at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico.

In 1945, B.F. Skinner shocked the world by putting his 13 month-old daughter, Deborah, into a "box." The box was actually a climate-controlled crib designed for comfort and protection, and the young psychologist was merely testing his theory that environment controls behavior. NOVA portrays the life of this famous behavioral psychologist now in his 70's and living quietly in Cambridge as Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.

Aborigines in Australia, woodchucks in Pennsylvania, the Nobel Prize in Stockholm and the gay community in New York City—what could possibly link such disparate elements? The answer is Hepatitis. NOVA examines this elusive disease, what causes it, how it is spread and how you get rid of it.

NOVA profiles Dr. Edward Teller, the "Father of the Hydrogen Bomb," an acclaimed scientific genius and brilliant theoretician, and a man considered by some the most dangerous scientist in the United States.

NOVA explores the science of natural engineering and asks the basic questions: what makes a good design in nature and why did a particular plant or animal adopt a particular design?

Is the fagara root a match for the stethoscope? This program looks at the contributions of both traditional herbal medicine and western orthodox medicine to the health of the Nigerian people.

This program explores clues gathered from ancient rocks and Meteorites in an attempt to piece together how our planet formed, what happened during its earliest days, and when life first appeared. The program includes visits to the scene of a fresh fall of meteorites, several volcanic eruptions, and an underwater glimpse of molten "pillow" lava as it oozes out of volcanic vents in the sea floor.

NOVA examines the Dead Sea. The lowest place on Earth, at 1400 feet below sea level, it is jointly owned by Israel and Jordan. If used properly it could become a vital natural resource for both countries, giving them not only salt, but protein, fertilizer, oil, and a solar energy store.

NOVA captures the breathtaking power and determination of these amazing creatures and examines how business and technology are changing the fishing industry—and the salmon itself.

NOVA presents a dramatic, exclusive film of the first "test-tube" baby born in America, Elizabeth Jordan Carr. NOVA follows the pregnancy from the start, presenting the only view on American TV of the extraordinary medical procedures used to remove and fertilize the egg, and of the historic birth, 28 December 1981 in Norfolk, VA.

NOVA takes an intimate look at Roger Tory Peterson, the man whose best-selling guide books to ornithology have played a pivotal role in turning birdwatching into a mass sport.

This land of fire and beauty is the most isolated island chain in the world. NOVA cameras uncover an extraordinary world far from the teeming tourist hotels, one filled with unique life forms, but also scarred by tragic extinction.

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.

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.

In the past decade, a number of researchers have begun systematic laboratory research into extrasensory perception—ESP. NOVA considers the claims for—and against—paranormal phenomena and looks at some startling applications in the field of archaeology, criminology and Warfare.

An astronaut once observed a great white light shining out from the bottom of our world: Antarctica, the ice-covered continent we are only just beginning to understand. NOVA visits this wilderness of ice, larger than the United States and Mexico combined, whose only warm-blooded residents are seals, skuas, penguins and scientists.

Efforts to control the population explosion are among the burning controversies of our time. NOVA looks at the one-child policy of the People's Republic of China, a revolutionary decree with profound implications for a people accustomed to traditionally large families.

NOVA explores the fascinating world of Dr. Harold Edgerton, electronics wizard and inventor extraordinaire, whose invention of the electronic strobe, a "magic lamp," has enabled the human eye to see the unseen.

NOVA presents an in-depth look at India's attempt to use satellite technology to leapfrog into the era of space-age communication and whether it brings benefit or blight to India's villages and rural areas.

NOVA examines the complex world of parasites, parasitic diseases and the exciting work currently being done by a new breed of medical researchers as they meet the challenge of conquering the world's number one medical problem.

NOVA observes worldwide preparations as amateur comet hunters, astronomers and scientists armed with specialized cameras, high powered telescopes and spacecraft look to the heavens in search of the expected arrival in 1986 of Halley's Comet.

Gaia, the Greek word for Earth goddess, also is the name of the controversial hypothesis that life on Earth controls the environment. NOVA explores this provocative theory that challenges conventional ways of thinking about the Earth.

For centuries, the Chinese Kazakh horseman preserved their ancient traditions, refusing to be dominated by either the Chinese or nearby Russian cultures. Today, however, this nomadic tribe has integrated communism into its way of life. NOVA traces the ancient Kazahk lifestyle and looks at how the Chinese cultural Revolution has modernized Kazakh customs.

NOVA scans the universe with the infrared eye of IRAS—the Infrared Astronomical Satellite—and discovers never-before-seen comets, stars, galaxies and other celestial wonders and enigmas.

NOVA examines a controversial theory that traces our ancestry to a small group of women living in Africa 300,000 years ago.

Between 60 and 80 percent of all commercial airplane accidents are attributable to pilot error. NOVA looks at some shocking instances of pilot negligence and what airlines are doing to solve the problem.

Today's sophisticated fighter jets can almost fly themselves, but well-trained pilots are still needed to win air battles. NOVA looks at how planes and pilots are adapting to high technology.

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

Scientists investigate the frozen remains of members of the 19th century Franklin Expedition to the Canadian Arctic and ask why all perished.

Was the searing summer of 1988 a taste of things to come? NOVA looks at the greenhouse effect, which portends higher temperatures, rising sea levels and other environmental disasters.

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.

NOVA explains "chaos," a new science that is making surprising sense out of chaotic phenomena in nature, from the weather to brain waves.

NOVA reports on the 100-year-old legacy of pollution from mining that poisons the once-pristine waters of the Rocky Mountain states. Acid Rain and economic development also contribute to stress on the West's scarce water supply.

Using some of the largest machines ever built on earth, American and European physicists race to discover one of the most fundamental and most elusive objects in nature—the top quark.

Sixty-five years after attempts to ban them, chemical weapons pose more of a threat than ever. NOVA looks at the problem of controlling substances that are easily produced and cruelly effective.

NOVA returns to Mount St. Helens a decade after its cataclysmic eruption to learn how nature is recovering from the disaster.

An experiment that could mean limitless supplies of energy sets the scientific world on its head. NOVA covers the cold fusion controversy.

NOVA covers the most elaborate expedition ever undertaken in the search for dinosaurs—to China's Gobi desert. Paleontologists brave sandstorms, heat and worse to find their fossils.

NOVA covers the fight to put out Saddam Hussein's bonfire of oil wells in Kuwait, which has created the worst manmade pollution event in history. Fire fighting teams from Houston and elsewhere are faced with a Texas-size job.

NOVA takes a voyage on the newest of America's doomsday machines—the ballistic missle submarine USS Michigan. The Cold War may be won, but these submerged super arsenals continue to prowl the deep.

Few people give any thought to wildlife in the midst of a war. During the Gulf War, environmentalist John Walsh did his best to save animals from oil spills, bullets and other dangers.