Nova Pbs

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.

Machines are everywhere. They run our factory assembly lines and make our coffee. But robots-machines with human-like capabilities-have long been the stuff of science fiction. Until now. Fueled by an ambitious DARPA challenge, the race is on to design a robot that can replace humans in disaster relief situations. Follow the robots-and the engineers that program them-as they strive to make their way out of the lab and into the real world. But how capable are they, really? How close are we to a future where humanoid robots are part of our everyday lives?

Nothing is more fascinating to us than, well, us. Where did we come from? What makes us human? NOVA's groundbreaking investigation explores how new discoveries are transforming views of our earliest ancestors. Featuring interviews with world-renowned scientists, footage shot in the trenches as fossils were unearthed, and stunning computer-generated animation, Becoming Human brings early hominids to life, examining how they lived and how we became the creative and adaptable modern humans of today.

Perched atop a mountain crest, mysteriously abandoned more than four centuries ago, Machu Picchu is the most famous archeological ruin in the Western Hemisphere and an iconic symbol of the power and engineering prowess of the Inca. In the years since Machu Picchu was discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911, there have been countless theories about this "Lost City of the Incas," yet it remains an enigma.

With dazzling visuals and the latest discoveries, NOVA’s five-part series captures moments of high drama when the cosmos changed forever–featuring a cast list of rogue planets, colliding galaxies, and black holes more massive than a billion suns.

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 smart phones. To unlock their secrets, David Pogue, technology columnist and lively host of Nova’s popular "Making Stuff" series, 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.

Can Cuba's innovative lung cancer vaccines give new hope to patients across the world?
In Cuba, as in the United States, lung cancer is a leading cause of death. But decades of economic and political isolation have starved the country of medical resources, leading Cuba's biomedical researchers to invent their own immunotherapies. Among them are lung cancer vaccines that can help jumpstart the body's immune response to cancer. Some U.S. patients are even defying their country's trade embargo to travel to Cuba for treatment.

"This is one of NOVA's shining episodes–one of the most exciting works the venerable series has produced in recent years." – The Christian Science Monitor

David Pogue sets out on a worldwide quest to find the key molecules and chemical reactions that have paved the way for human civilization, life, and even the universe as we know it.

A team of intrepid paleontologists discovers that dinosaurs thrived in the unlikeliest of places—the cold and dark of winter in the Arctic Circle. How did they survive year-round and raise their young in frigid and dark winter conditions?