NOVA : Season 12

Albert Einstein did not live to find the answer. NOVA follows a new generation of physicists in their search to explain the mystery of the universe.

How are the computer and the robot affecting the way we work? NOVA chronicles the new industrial revolution reshaping the American workplace.

NOVA cameras go behind-the-scenes to reveal the new art of illusion, Hollywood-style, focusing on three blockbuster films—"Return of the Jedi," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and "2010: The Year We Made Contact."

NOVA charts the progress of an ambitious worldwide health program established to save the lives of millions of children who continue to die from common but curable diseases.

NOVA follows a chase team—a group of scientists who chart deadly tornadoes—in an effort to learn more about predicting nature's most powerful and elusive weather phenomenon.

NOVA examines current research and its ethical implications as modern medicine confronts the era of human gene therapy.

NOVA examines the intricate world of nature's construction industry and presents rare footage of unusual habits.

NOVA joins the 50th anniversary celebration of the DC-3—the plane that revolutionized commercial air travel, served gallantly in World War II and is called the most important plane ever built.

What do Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the painter Raphael and chess champion Bobby Fischer have in common? They were all child prodigies. NOVA explores the current efforts to learn more about the nature of giftedness.

NOVA explores the breeding, migration and survival patterns of the Rocky Mountain elk in a unique film, made totally under natural conditions. Telephoto lenses were used so as not to disturb the animals; filmmakers spent 18 months tracking the elk through the breathtaking Wyoming Rockies.

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 explores the incredibly complex emotional development of infants and examines the current theory that early childhood psychological intervention can head off emotional problems later in life.

In July 1982, a 42-year-old addict in a San Jose, California jail became paralyzed—unable to move or talk. His symptoms, caused by a bad batch of synthetic heroin, were indistinguishable from those associated with Parkinson's disease, a degenerative nerve disorder that strikes the elderly. NOVA traces the story of a "designer" drug which could lead to a major medical breakthrough.

When a high number of cancer cases struck the suburban community of Woburn, Massachusetts, the town mobilized to investigate why. The result was a landmark study of the effects of hazardous wastes. NOVA explores the legal and scientific implications of the link between environmental pollution and illness.

NOVA journeys to a remote region of southern Venezuela where the land is alive with spectacular waterfalls, colored by exotic flowers and inhabited by rare species of birds and animals.

NOVA follows a conservation success story as environmentalists, scientists and bird-lovers fight to save the majestic Osprey from extinction.

When Alexander Fleming discovered the penicillin mold in 1928, he never considered its possible therapeutic value. NOVA explores the "Fleming myth" and reveals the true story of thescientists who worked behind the scenes to develop the wonder drug of the century.

NOVA examines the medical community's alarm as the spread of antibiotic-resistant infection increases, and studies how one hospital fights its own dramatic epidemic.