NOVA scienceNOW Season 6
Can science stop crime? What are animals thinking? How smart can we get? Probe these and other provocative questions.
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NOVA scienceNOW Season 6
Can science stop crime? What are animals thinking? How smart can we get? Get these questions answered, and more.
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Cleaner Cookstoves in Uganda
Getting individuals to change their behavior for the good of the planet can be a hard sell. Whether it's encouraging homeowners to use compact fluorescent bulbs or convincing drivers to buy hybrid cars, environmentalists have learned the best approach is often an appeal to self-interest. That's the tactic an environmental group in Africa is using to persuade women to change the way they cook. Ari Daniel Shapiro has the story from Uganda.
Cleaner Cookstoves in Uganda
Changing the way women cook may help protect the environment and reduce the incidence of sexual assault in Uganda.
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- 15:46
An Interview With Sally Ride
In 1984, NOVA interviewed Sally Ride in a training hangar at NASA for the program "Space Women." Watch the interview to hear the late Dr. Ride discuss why she joined NASA, what Earth looks like from above, and what it was like to be the first American woman in space.
For more on Sally Ride, read Senior Series Producer Melanie Wallace's blog post on Inside NOVA. Melanie conducted the 1984 interview.
An Interview With Sally Ride
Watch an uncut interview with the late astronaut, conducted in 1984, and hear her views on being the first American w...
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Ultimate Mars Challenge
It could be NASA's last chance to set wheels down on Mars until the end of the decade: This August, if all goes to plan, a rover named Curiosity will touch down inside Mars' Gale Crater, carrying 10 new instruments that will advance the quest for signs that Mars might have once been suitable for life. But Curiosity's mission is risky. After parachuting through the Martian atmosphere at twice the speed of sound, Curiosity will be gently lowered to the planet's surface by a "sky crane." This first-of-its-kind system has been tested on Earth, but will it work on Mars? With inside access to the massive team of scientists and engineers responsible for Curiosity's on-the-ground experiments, NOVA will be there for the exhilarating moments after Curiosity's landing—and for the spectacular discoveries sure to come. But no rover does it alone: Curiosity will be joining a team that includes the Mars Odyssey, Express, and Reconnaissance orbiters, along with the tireless Opportunity rover. As we reveal the dynamic new picture of Mars that these explorers are painting, we will discover the deep questions raised by 40 years of roving Mars: How do we define life? How does life begin and what does it need to survive? Are we alone in the universe?
Ultimate Mars Challenge
In its search for life beyond Earth, NASA deploys a new "sky crane" to land the Curiosity rover on Mars.
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Scientists Protest Lakes Closure
It's not every day that you see hundreds of scientists in white lab coats taking to the streets, but that's what happened Tuesday in the Canadian capital of Ottawa. The scientists and their supporters marched outside Parliament chanting, "No science. No evidence. No truth. No democracy."
It was a mock funeral at which protesters said they were mourning the "death of evidence." They charged Prime Minister Stephen Harper with muzzling government scientists and slashing environmental research.
One of the triggers of Tuesday's protest was a high-profile fight over an unlikely place—a little-known research facility deep in the Canadian forest. Reporter Ari Daniel Shapiro has the story.
Scientists Protest Lakes Closure
A Canadian government decision to cease operating the Experimental Lakes Area provokes angry protests by scientists.
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Forensics on Trial
There is a startling gap between the glamorous television world of “CSI” and the gritty reality of the forensic crime lab. With few established scientific standards, no central oversight, and poor regulation of examiners, forensics in the U.S. is in a state of crisis. In "Forensics on Trial", NOVA investigates how modern forensics, including the analysis of fingerprints, bite marks, ballistics, hair, and tool marks, can send innocent men and women to prison—and sometimes even to death row. Shockingly, of more than 250 inmates exonerated by DNA testing over the last decade, more than 50 percent of the wrongful convictions stemmed from invalid or improperly handled forensic science. With the help of vivid recreations of actual trials and cases, NOVA will investigate today’s shaky state of crime science as well as cutting-edge solutions that could help investigators put the real criminals behind bars.
Forensics on Trial
Virtual autopsies, 3-D fingerprints, and digital crime scenes are making crime-solving into a more precise science.
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- 03:53
Higgs Boson Revealed
Go behind the scenes at CERN for exclusive interviews with lead scientists on the historic July 4 announcement. Hear from Joe Incandela of CMS, Fabiola Gianotti of ATLAS, and Lyn Evans of the Large Hadron Collider Project on what the exciting and long-awaited announcement means to them.
Higgs Boson Revealed
Go behind the scenes at CERN for exclusive interviews with lead scientists on the historic July 4 announcement.
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Cornering the Higgs
On July 4, 2012, scientists at CERN used the word "discovery" to describe the results of experiments designed to prove the existence of the Higgs boson, a particle that gives mass to the universe. Host Marco Werman of PRI's The World gets a down-to-earth layman's analogy for what it means to say that a particle "gives mass," finds out why it's called the "God particle," and hears from a member of one of the teams that found the new particle, Jordan Nash of Imperial College London, on what this means for him personally and for physics.
Cornering the Higgs
A professor from one of the CERN teams explains what this experimental result means for the future of physics.
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Secrets of the Viking Sword
The Vikings were among the fiercest warriors of all time. Yet only a select few carried the ultimate weapon of their era: the feared Ulfberht sword. Fashioned using a process that would remain unknown to the Vikings’ rivals for centuries, the Ulfberht was a revolutionary high-tech tool as well as a work of art. Considered one of the greatest swords ever made, it remains a fearsome weapon more than a millennium after it last saw battle. But how did Viking sword makers design and build the Ulfberht, and what was its role in history? Now, NOVA uses cutting edge science and old-fashioned detective work to reconstruct the Ulfberht and finally unravel the "Secrets of the Viking Sword."
Secrets of the Viking Sword
A modern-day swordsmith reverse engineers the ultimate weapon of the Middle Ages — a sword both prized and feared.
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- 04:46
The Higgs Particle Matters
In 1964, physicist Peter Higgs predicted the existence of the Higgs boson, a particle that would confer mass on other particles. Today, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN may be on the brink of finding the Higgs. In this clip from "The Fabric of the Cosmos," learn about Higgs' theory and hear from Peter Higgs himself.
The Higgs Particle Matters
Learn how Peter Higgs' ideas about matter transformed our understanding of space.
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- Running Time:
- 52:55
Hunting the Edge of Space: Hr 2
In “The Ever-Expanding Universe,” Hour 2 of the two-part special “Hunting the Edge of Space,” NOVA investigates a battery of high-tech telescopes that is joining the Hubble Space Telescope on its quest to unlock the secrets of our universe, a cosmos almost incomprehensible in its size, age, and violence.
Hunting the Edge of Space: Hr 2
The Ever-Expanding Universe: Huge new telescopes are poised to penetrate the enigmas of dark matter and dark energy.
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- 52:55
Hunting the Edge of Space: Hr 1
Hour 1, "The Mystery of the Milky Way," chronicles the history of telescopes, from Galileo's refractor to Newton's reflector and beyond. It looks at key discoveries, such as those made by William Herschel and his sister Caroline, including the discovery of the planet Uranus. Hour 1 also looks at recent missions: the voyage of the Cassini spacecraft to Saturn, the Kepler telescope's search for planets beyond our solar system, and the Herschel Space Observatory's examination of the Milky Way, which is so large that it would take 100,000 years traveling at the speed of light to cross from one edge to the other.
Hunting the Edge of Space: Hr 1
The Mystery of the Milky Way: From Galileo's to today's, telescopes have opened grand vistas onto our galaxy and beyond.
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