Below is a list of broadcasts scheduled to air in the next 60 days on any of our three channels.
Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Awakening
Of all the continents on Earth, none preserves a more spectacular story of its origins than Australia. NOVA's mini-series takes viewers on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today. With help from high-energy host and scientist Richard Smith, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and deadly asteroids. This is the untold story of the Land Down Under, the one island continent that has got it all. Hidden in the red hills of Australia are clues to the mysteries of Earth's birth, how life arose and how it transformed the planet into the world we now live in. Experts unveil the earliest forms of life: an odd assortment of bacterial slime. Life like this would flood the atmosphere with oxygen and spark the biological revolution that conquered the planet. Travel with NOVA and host Dr. Richard Smith to meet the cast in the first scenes of the great drama of life on earth.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Life Explodes
Of all the continents on Earth, none preserves a more spectacular story of its origins than Australia. NOVA's mini-series takes viewers on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today. With help from high-energy host and scientist Richard Smith, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and deadly asteroids. This is the untold story of the Land Down Under, the one island continent that has got it all. How did life storm the beaches and dominate planet Earth? Ancient Australian fossils offer clues. While the oceans were teeming, the world above the waves remained an almost lifeless wasteland - until the Silurian period, when the conquest of the land began. Host Richard Smith introduces Earth's forgotten pioneers: the scuttling arthropod armies that invaded the shores and the waves of green revolutionaries whose battle for the light pushed plant life across the face of a barren continent. Join NOVA's prehistoric adventure as four-legged animals walk onto dry land, with the planet poised for disaster.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Monsters
Of all the continents on Earth, none preserves a more spectacular story of its origins than Australia. NOVA's mini-series takes viewers on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today. With help from high-energy host and scientist Richard Smith, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and deadly asteroids. This is the untold story of the Land Down Under, the one island continent that has got it all. Host Richard Smith comes face-to-face with the previously unknown reptilian rulers of prehistoric Australia. NOVA resurrects the giants that stalked the land and discovers that some of them 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. But reptiles didn't have the world all to themselves. Mammals like the enigmatic platypus lived alongside them, ready for their day in the sun. And 65 million years ago, that day arrived.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Strange Creatur
Of all the continents on Earth, none preserves a more spectacular story of its origins than Australia. NOVA's mini-series takes viewers on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today. With help from high-energy host and scientist Richard Smith, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and deadly asteroids. This is the untold story of the Land Down Under, the one island continent that has got it all.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
Over 60,000 years ago, the first modern humans --people physically identical to us today -- left their African homeland and entered Europe, then a bleak and inhospitable continent in the grip of the Ice Age. But when they arrived, they were not alone: the stocky, powerfully built Neanderthals had already been living there for hundred of thousands of years. So what happened when the first modern humans encountered the Neanderthals? Did we make love or war? That question has tantalized generations of scholars and seized the popular imagination. Then, in 2010, a team led by geneticist Svante Paabo announced stunning news. Not only had they reconstructed much of the Neanderthal genome -- an extraordinary technical feat that would have seemed impossible only a decade ago -- but their analysis showed that "we" modern humans had interbred with Neanderthals, leaving a small but consistent signature of Neanderthal genes behind in everyone outside Africa today.
Learn more about this episode » 56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
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 re-creating what happens at the very center of the Sun 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.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
At 2:50pm on April 15, two bomb blasts turned the Boston Marathon finish line from a scene of triumph to tragedy, leaving three dead, hundreds injured and a city gripped by heartbreak and terror. Less than five days later, the key suspects were identified and apprehended with one dead, the other in custody. How did investigators transform the chaos of the bombing into a coherent trail of clues, pointing to the accused killers? NOVA follows the manhunt step by step, examining the role modern technology -- combined with old-fashioned detective work -- played in cracking the case. Given hundreds of hours of surveillance and bystander videos, how did agents spot the bad guys in a sea of spectators? Why couldn't facial recognition software I.D. the criminals? How much could bomb chemistry analysis, cell phone GPS, infrared imagery and crowd sourcing reveal about the secrets behind this horrific crime? With the help of top criminal investigators and anti-terrorism experts, NOVA explores which technological innovations worked -- and which didn't -- in the most notorious case of today, and how the world of crime fighting could be transformed tomorrow.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
In 2010, epic earthquakes all over the planet delivered one of the worst annual death tolls ever recorded. The deadliest strike was in Haiti, where a quake just southwest of the capital, Port-au-Prince, killed more than 200,000, reducing homes, hospitals, schools, and the presidential palace to rubble. In exclusive coverage, a NOVA camera crew follows a team of US geologists as they first enter Haiti in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. It is a race against time as they hunt for crucial evidence that will help them determine exactly what happened deep underground and what the risks are of a new killer quake. Barely a month after the Haiti quake, Chile was struck by a quake 100 times more powerful, unleashing a tsunami that put the entire Pacific coast on high alert. In a coastal town devastated by the rushing wave, NOVA follows a team of geologists as they battle aftershocks to measure the displacement caused by the earthquake. Could their work, and the work of geologists at earthquake hot-spots around the U.S., one day lead to a breakthrough in predicting quakes before they happen? NOVA investigates new leads in its investigation of a deadly scientific conundrum.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
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?
55 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
The great apes - which include chimps, orangutans, gorillas and bonobos - seem to have rich emotional lives similar to our own. But just how smart are these animals? A new generation of investigators is revealing the secret mental lives of great apes; our evolutionary next-of-kin are turning out to be far smarter than most experts ever imagined. But just as clever experiments are exposing the extraordinary abilities of great apes, new research is redefining the mental talents of our own species. Scientists are at last zeroing in on what separates us from our closest living relatives.
Learn more about this episode » 54 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
Follow the charismatic Dr. Kenny Broad as he dives into Blue Holes -- underwater caves that formed during the last ice age when sea level was nearly 400 feet below what it is today. They are Earth's least explored and perhaps most dangerous frontiers. With an interdisciplinary team of climatologists, paleontologists and anthropologists, Broad investigates the hidden history of Earth's climate as revealed by finds in this spectacularly beautiful "alternate universe."
55 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
Dogs have been domesticated for longer than any other animal on the planet and humans have developed a unique relationship with these furry friends. We treat our pets like a part of the family and we feel that they can understand us in a way other animals cannot. Now, new research is revealing what dog lovers have suspected all along: dogs have an uncanny ability to read and respond to human emotions. What is surprising, however, is new research showing that 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? It's all in the genes. "Dogs Decoded" investigates new discoveries in genetics that are illuminating the origin of dogs -- with revealing implications for the evolution of human culture as well. NOVA also travels to Siberia, where the mystery of dogs' domestication is being repeated -- in foxes. A 50-year-old breeding program is creating an entirely new kind of creature, a tame fox with some surprising similarities to man's best friend. This film reveals the science behind the remarkable bond between humans and their dogs and spurs new questions about what this could mean for our relationships with other animal species.
55 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
Building Pharaoh's Chariot
Around 3,600 years ago, reliefs in Egyptian tombs and temples depicted pharaohs and warriors proudly riding into battle on horse-drawn chariots. Some historians claim that the chariot launched a technological and strategic revolution, and was the secret weapon behind Egypt's greatest era of conquest known as the New Kingdom. But was the Egyptian chariot really a revolutionary design? How decisive a role did it play in the bloody battles of the ancient world? In this film, a team of archaeologists, engineers, woodworkers and horse trainers join forces to build and test two highly accurate replicas of Egyptian royal chariots. They discover astonishingly advanced features, including spoked wheels, springs, shock absorbers, anti-roll bars and even a convex shaped rear mirror, leading one of them to compare the level of design to the engineering standards of 1930's-era Buicks! By driving our pair of replicas to their limits in the desert outside Cairo, NOVA's experts test the claim that the chariot marks a crucial turning point in ancient military history.
Learn more about this episode » 55 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No upcoming airings of this
episode on this channel.
This list includes any broadcasts that aired in the past 2 months on any of our three channels.
Over 60,000 years ago, the first modern humans --people physically identical to us today -- left their African homeland and entered Europe, then a bleak and inhospitable continent in the grip of the Ice Age. But when they arrived, they were not alone: the stocky, powerfully built Neanderthals had already been living there for hundred of thousands of years. So what happened when the first modern humans encountered the Neanderthals? Did we make love or war? That question has tantalized generations of scholars and seized the popular imagination. Then, in 2010, a team led by geneticist Svante Paabo announced stunning news. Not only had they reconstructed much of the Neanderthal genome -- an extraordinary technical feat that would have seemed impossible only a decade ago -- but their analysis showed that "we" modern humans had interbred with Neanderthals, leaving a small but consistent signature of Neanderthal genes behind in everyone outside Africa today.
Learn more about this episode » 56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
Venom scientists are in a race against time. Inside the bodies of many creatures, evolution has produced extreme toxic cocktails, all designed for one reason: to kill. It took millions of years to perfect these ultimate brews of proteins and peptides and we have only just begun to discover their potential. Now, the race is on to collect and study them before the animals that produce them disappear. But how does venom do its deadly work? NOVA reveals how venom causes the body to shut down, arteries to bleed uncontrollably and limbs to go black and die. But nature's most destructive and extreme poisons could contain the building blocks for a new generation of advanced drugs that could treat heart attack, stroke, diabetes, obesity and cancer. VENOM follows scientists on their expeditions to track down and capture the planet's most deadly creatures, risking life and limb just to tease out milligrams of venom and get it back to the lab. Find out how nature's deadliest cocktails could be medicine's brightest new hope.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Strange Creatur
Of all the continents on Earth, none preserves a more spectacular story of its origins than Australia. NOVA's mini-series takes viewers on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today. With help from high-energy host and scientist Richard Smith, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and deadly asteroids. This is the untold story of the Land Down Under, the one island continent that has got it all.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Monsters
Of all the continents on Earth, none preserves a more spectacular story of its origins than Australia. NOVA's mini-series takes viewers on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today. With help from high-energy host and scientist Richard Smith, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and deadly asteroids. This is the untold story of the Land Down Under, the one island continent that has got it all. Host Richard Smith comes face-to-face with the previously unknown reptilian rulers of prehistoric Australia. NOVA resurrects the giants that stalked the land and discovers that some of them 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. But reptiles didn't have the world all to themselves. Mammals like the enigmatic platypus lived alongside them, ready for their day in the sun. And 65 million years ago, that day arrived.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Life Explodes
Of all the continents on Earth, none preserves a more spectacular story of its origins than Australia. NOVA's mini-series takes viewers on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today. With help from high-energy host and scientist Richard Smith, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and deadly asteroids. This is the untold story of the Land Down Under, the one island continent that has got it all. How did life storm the beaches and dominate planet Earth? Ancient Australian fossils offer clues. While the oceans were teeming, the world above the waves remained an almost lifeless wasteland - until the Silurian period, when the conquest of the land began. Host Richard Smith introduces Earth's forgotten pioneers: the scuttling arthropod armies that invaded the shores and the waves of green revolutionaries whose battle for the light pushed plant life across the face of a barren continent. Join NOVA's prehistoric adventure as four-legged animals walk onto dry land, with the planet poised for disaster.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
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, which will prepare them for the ultimate challenge: a marathon separation surgery that will allow them to live truly separate lives. 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, our cameras have been with Trishna and Krishna and their caregivers throughout their journey.
54 minutes long
tpt Channel 2.1
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Awakening
Of all the continents on Earth, none preserves a more spectacular story of its origins than Australia. NOVA's mini-series takes viewers on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today. With help from high-energy host and scientist Richard Smith, we meet titanic dinosaurs and giant kangaroos, sea monsters and prehistoric crustaceans, disappearing mountains and deadly asteroids. This is the untold story of the Land Down Under, the one island continent that has got it all. Hidden in the red hills of Australia are clues to the mysteries of Earth's birth, how life arose and how it transformed the planet into the world we now live in. Experts unveil the earliest forms of life: an odd assortment of bacterial slime. Life like this would flood the atmosphere with oxygen and spark the biological revolution that conquered the planet. Travel with NOVA and host Dr. Richard Smith to meet the cast in the first scenes of the great drama of life on earth.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
In 1900, a storm blew a boatload of sponge divers off course and forced them to take shelter by the tiny Mediterranean island of Antikythera. Diving the next day, they discovered a 2,000-year-old Greek shipwreck. Among the ship's cargo they hauled up was an unimpressive green lump of corroded bronze. Rusted remnants of gear wheels could be seen on its surface, suggesting some kind of intricate mechanism. The first X-ray studies confirmed that idea, but how it worked and what it was for puzzled scientists for decades. Recently, hi-tech imaging has revealed the extraordinary truth: this unique clockwork machine was the world's first computer. An array of 30 intricate bronze gear wheels, originally housed in a shoebox-size wooden case, was designed to predict the dates of lunar and solar eclipses, track the Moon's subtle motions through the sky and calculate the dates of significant events such as the Olympic Games. No device of comparable technological sophistication is known from anywhere in the world for at least another 1,000 years. So who was the genius inventor behind it? And what happened to the advanced astronomical and engineering knowledge of its makers? NOVA follows the ingenious sleuthing that finally decoded the truth behind the amazing ancient Greek computer.
Learn more about this episode » 55 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
In its worst crisis since World War II, Japan faces disaster on an epic scale: a rising death toll in the tens of thousands, massive destruction of homes and businesses, shortages of water and power, and the specter of nuclear reactor meltdowns. The facts and figures are astonishing. The March 11th earthquake was the world's fourth largest earthquake since record keeping began in 1900 and the worst ever to shake Japan. The seismic shock wave released over 4,000 times the energy of the largest nuclear test ever conducted; it shifted the earth's axis by 6 inches and shortened the day by a few millionths of a second. The tsunami slammed Japan's coast with 30 feet-high waves that traveled 6 miles inland, obliterating entire towns in a matter of minutes. JAPAN'S KILLER QUAKE combines authoritative on-the-spot reporting, personal stories of tragedy and survival, compelling eyewitness videos, explanatory graphics and exclusive helicopter footage for a unique look at the science behind the catastrophe.
55 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
What are things made of? It's a simple question with an astonishing answer. Fewer than 100 naturally occurring elements form the ingredients of everything in our world -- from solid rocks to ethereal gases, from scorching acids to the living cells in our body. David Pogue, lively host of NOVA's popular "Making Stuff" series and personal technology correspondent for "The New York Times," spins viewers through the world of weird, extreme chemistry on a quest to unlock the secrets of the elements. Why are some elements, like platinum and gold, relatively inert while others, like phosphorus and potassium, are violently explosive? Why are some vital to every breath we take while others are potentially lethal? Punctuated by surprising and often alarming experiments, Pogue takes NOVA on a roller coaster ride through nature's hidden lab and the compelling stories of discovery that revealed its secrets.
1 hour, 55 minutes long
tpt Channel 2.1
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
A blinding streak of light screaming across the Russian sky, followed by a shuddering blast strong enough to damage buildings and send more than 1000 people to the hospital. On the morning of February 15th, a 7000 ton asteroid crashed into the Earth's atmosphere, exploded and fell to earth across a wide swath near the Ural mountains. According to NASA, the Siberian Meteor, which exploded with the power of 30 Hiroshima bombs, was the largest object to burst in the atmosphere since a 1908 event near Siberia's Tunguska river. That time there were few eyewitnesses and no record of the event except for thousands of acres of flattened trees. This time however the event was captured by countless digital dashboard cameras, which have lately become a common fixture in Russian autos and trucks. Within days, armed with this unprecedented crowd-sourced material, NOVA crews hit the ground in Russia along with impact scientists as they hunt for debris from the explosion and clues to the meteor's origin and makeup. To understand how lucky we were this time, we explore even greater explosions in the past, from Tunguska to the asteroid that extinguished the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. "Russian Meteor Strike" puts it all together and asks: Is our solar system a deadly celestial shooting gallery - with Earth in the cross-hairs? What are the chances that another, even more massive asteroid is heading straight for us? Are we just years, months or days away from a total global reboot of civilization, or worse?
55 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
tpt Life Channel 2.3
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
Smartest Machine On Earth
What's so special about human intelligence and will scientists ever build a computer that rivals the flexibility and power of a human brain? In "Artificial Intelligence," NOVA takes viewers inside an IBM lab where a crack team has been working for nearly three years to perfect a machine that can answer any question. The scientists hope their machine will be able to beat expert contestants in one of the USA's most challenging TV quiz shows -- Jeopardy, which has entertained viewers for over four decades. "Artificial Intelligence" presents the exclusive inside story of how the IBM team developed the world's smartest computer from scratch. Now they're racing to finish it for a special Jeopardy airdate in February 2011. They've built an exact replica of the studio at its research lab near New York and invited past champions to compete against the machine, a big black box code -- named Watson after IBM's founder, Thomas J. Watson. But will Watson be able to beat out its human competition?
54 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
Cracking Your Genetic Code
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? As NOVA reveals in "Bioethics" we stand on the verge of a revolution in medicine, the first effects of which are already upon us. 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. But we also meet ethicists convinced we need to consider the moral dilemmas raised by the new technology. Will it help or hurt us to know that we are likely to come down with a serious disease? What if such information falls into the hands of insurance companies, employers, prospective mates? Should parents be allowed to select embryos with specific characteristics? Both ominous and promising, the new era of personalized, gene-based medicine is one thing for certain: it's relevant to everyone. Because soon you will be deciding whether to join the ranks of those who know what their genes reveal.
56 minutes long
tpt MN Channel 2.2
No previous airings of this
episode on this channel.
