NOVA explores the hidden world of secret communications, focusing on the minds dedicated to unlocking their meaning. The program examines the most remarkable achievement in cryptography – the decryption of the Japanese and German codes empl…

Among the remarkable fossil discoveries are velociraptors and early birds, as NOVA journeys with a team from the American Museum of Natural History into the Gobi Desert. The expedition retraces the adventures of Roy Chapman Andrews, the Mus…

NOVA chronicles the journey of the United States Aerobatic Team as they train for and compete in the 1992 World Aerobatic Championship. The discipline, a series of movements as meticulously choreographed as a gymnastics routine—only perform…

In the heart of Africa, NOVA ventures into mountains capped with ice, a surprising sight so close to the equator. These colossal peaks are vibrant ecosystems, rising majestically above the arid plains below. Within their rugged heights dwel…

The research conducted at NOVA presents a fascinating, and often contentious, exploration of chimpanzees who have learned to communicate using human symbols. The question lingers: do these primates truly articulate their thoughts, or merely…

In the opening installment of a three-part exploration, renowned anthropologist Donald Johanson journeys back over three million years to examine the earliest ancestors of humankind – a peculiar ape that first adopted an upright gait. He le…

Anthropologist Donald Johanson examines the subsistence strategies of our ancestors who walked the Earth two million years ago. Challenging a common misconception, he argues that scavenging offered a more reliable means of survival than hun…

The question lingers: at what juncture did our ancient forebears achieve the physical form we recognize as human? And equally compelling, when did they first exhibit the behaviors that define us? Anthropologist Donald Johanson explores the …

Nova journeys to China, a nation grappling with the world's highest rate of cigarette addiction. Western advertising and commercial strategies have intensified the country's perilous relationship with smoking, a habit now placing a growing …

Life aboard the USS Independence, a US Navy aircraft carrier, is a ceaseless cycle. There is no respite, only the continuous rhythm of launching and recovering aircraft above a self-contained community of five thousand souls. Days are fille…

Polly advocates for a forceful response to the illicit trade in parrots, those birds renowned for their beauty and intellect. NOVA goes undercover with a sting operation orchestrated by the US government, successfully dismantling a vast int…

NOVA presents a profile of "Genie," a young woman whose parents subjected her to near-total isolation from birth. Discovered by social workers as a teenager, Genie had not acquired basic motor skills like walking or the ability to speak. Th…

NOVA examines the story of the great auk, a striking, flightless bird that vanished from the world over a century ago due to relentless hunting. In a journey following the auk’s ancient migratory path, host Richard Wheeler paddles by kayak …

NOVA confronts the historically hushed topic of menopause, exploring recent research and the ensuing medical and ethical debates. As science offers women the possibility of delaying menopause or even continuing to have children long after t…

Deep within the Amazon rainforest, NOVA seeks a tribe shrouded in mystery – a people infamous for the gruesome dismemberment and partial consumption of three prospectors in 1976. After finding the group, NOVA spends three months among them,…

NOVA examines the 1994 earthquake that struck Los Angeles. While the city continues its arduous recovery from the devastation, geological stress persists. Scientists warn that recently identified fault lines might, at any time, unleash a ca…

A cataclysmic volcanic eruption, occurring ten million years ago, inundated much of present-day Nebraska under as much as ten feet of ash. This extraordinary event remarkably preserved countless skeletons of prehistoric megafauna. With the…

Crippled by a flawed prescription from the outset, the Hubble Space Telescope underwent a dramatic repair during a recent Space Shuttle mission. *NOVA* chronicles the efforts of the astronauts who accomplished this feat, and the remarkable …

NOVA journeys to Lake Baikal, a body of water renowned as the world's oldest and deepest, holding a fifth of all the planet's fresh water. Examining Baikal from air, water, and land, NOVA documents the lake’s dramatically shifting environme…

NOVA delves into the shared origins of the world's five thousand languages, exploring a contentious theory that seeks to reconstruct words from a period when humanity spoke but a few tongues – a linguistic echo of the biblical tale of the T…