Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto has held a warm place in the public imagination. So, when the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium stopped calling Pluto a planet, director Neil deGrasse Tyson found himself at the center of a firestorm-a firestorm led by angry, Pluto-loving elementary school students. But what is it about this cold, distant rock that captures so many hearts? NOVA joins Tyson as he follows the amazing story of its discovery and the captivating science that surrounds this former planet, including the possibility of finding more Pluto-like planets in the mysterious Kuiper belt – an area of icy rocks at the edge of the solar system. From the scientists trying to classify Pluto to die-hard “Pluto-philes,” Tyson meets a fascinating cast of characters with just one thing in common: Strong opinions about Pluto. Based on Tyson’s book of the same name, Pluto Files is an exciting and entertaining look at the solar system’s best-loved non-planet.
Countries: US
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The Pluto Files – Public Performance
Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto has held a warm place in the public imagination. So, when the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium stopped calling Pluto a planet, director Neil deGrasse Tyson found himself at the center of a firestorm-a firestorm led by angry, Pluto-loving elementary school students. But what is it about this cold, distant rock that captures so many hearts? NOVA joins Tyson as he follows the amazing story of its discovery and the captivating science that surrounds this former planet, including the possibility of finding more Pluto-like planets in the mysterious Kuiper belt – an area of icy rocks at the edge of the solar system. From the scientists trying to classify Pluto to die-hard “Pluto-philes,” Tyson meets a fascinating cast of characters with just one thing in common: Strong opinions about Pluto. Based on Tyson’s book of the same name, Pluto Files is an exciting and entertaining look at the solar system’s best-loved non-planet.
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Mind Over Money – Home Use
In the wake of the worst financial crisis in a generation, NOVA investigates what science can tell us about the way we make crucial financial decisions. Traditional economics has little to say about our spending, saving, and investing habits except to assume that we all act rationally-a notion that seems wildly improbable in the current turmoil on Wall Street and beyond. But there’s a new breakthrough in social science-behavioral finance-that’s taking a more realistic look at our attitudes to money by bringing cognitive psychology and even neuroscience into economics. In a timely and lively exploration, NOVA’s Behavioral Economics recreates behavioral finance’s most surprising findings and compelling experiments. These include wiring up Wall Street traders so we can watch their brain scans as they buy and sell stocks, exposing a seething interplay of brain activity patterns linked to reason and emotion. Other tests show how too much consumer choice-for instance, between similar brands at a supermarket-can overwhelm our ability to make good decisions. With the help of mini-dramas following real people as they grapple with real financial decisions, Behavioral Economics shows how new theories are revealing unexpected insights into our emotions and behavior in a time of unprecedented crisis in the marketplace.
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Nova: Mt. St. Helens: Back from the Dead
When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, every living thing in the blast zone was buried beneath 300 feet of avalanche debris, covered with steaming mud, and finally, topped with a superheated layer of frothy rock from deep within the earth. It seemed as though Mount St. Helens might remain a wasteland forever. Then, to everyone’s surprise, life began to bloom again. Over the course of thirty years, biologist Charlie Crisafulli has been documenting the dramatic return of plant and animal life to the barren landscape. But he has also tracked a new threat: The mountain, like the wildlife, is coming back to life. Soon after the 1980 eruption, new lava was bubbling up to the surface, and in 2004, a flurry of explosions blasted steam and ash thousands of feet into the air over Mount St. Helens. What force is driving this baffling pattern? Using GPS, magnetic mapping, and more, geologists are tracking the movement of magma deep within the volcano and revealing a hidden lattice of faults that lies beneath the volatile landscape. NOVA presents a pioneering look at the interplay between biology and geology that may help scientists predict future volcanic eruptions.
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Becoming Human — Unearthing Our Earliest Ancestors – Home Use
Why the AV version? Because it provides additional usage options for PBS videos. AV versions come with limited performance rights so they can be shown in classrooms, at PTA meetings, during after school programs, and transmitted on a closed-circuit system within a building or on a single campus. They also can be enjoyed in admission-free public screenings, which also makes them ideal for use by library patrons and businesses involved in community clubs and organizations.
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Becoming Human — Unearthing Our Earliest Ancestors – Public Performance
Why the AV version? Because it provides additional usage options for PBS videos. AV versions come with limited performance rights so they can be shown in classrooms, at PTA meetings, during after school programs, and transmitted on a closed-circuit system within a building or on a single campus. They also can be enjoyed in admission-free public screenings, which also makes them ideal for use by library patrons and businesses involved in community clubs and organizations.
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Lightning!
Lightning! takes you on a high-voltage trip into the most electrically charged weather in the world–culminating in a dazzling lightning show set to music that rivals the most extraordinary fireworks display. The program also visits with some of lightning’s tragic victims who thought they were out of harm’s way. Lightning’s fleeting rivers of electricity strike Earth 6,000 times a minute; jolt every commercial airplane one to two times a year; wipe out power to entire cities; hit 1,000 people annually; and account on average for more deaths than hurricanes and tornadoes put together. Join the scientists as they tempt nature by creating the world’s tallest lightning rod, a wire leading thousands of feet into storm clouds, which triggers awe-inspiring thunderbolts a few hundred feet from the observers–and creates a chunk of “petrified” lightning. “I think lightning fascinates everyone,” says “stormchaser” Dan Davis. “It’s a personification of the intensity, the chaos and the unpredictability of nature.”
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Odyssey of Life: The Ultimate Journey
From the maker of The Miracle of Life comes another astounding glimpse into the mysteries of life before birth. Once again, the micro-photography of Lennart Nilsson takes you into the hidden world of life in the womb, from the dance of the egg and sperm to the emergence of our first tiny features to the thrill of birth.
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First Flower
In a vivid story, blooming with beauty and scientific mystery, NOVA goes hunting for the world’s earliest flower. Although flowers have long been at the center of human life, gracing our gardens and expressing our emotions-not to mention providing us with food, crops, and medicines-the question of how flowers evolved has long baffled scientists. Charles Darwin called it “an abominable mystery.”
But now a tantalizing fossil that bloomed during the reign of the dinosaurs has surfaced in China. In First Flower, NOVA probes the controversy ignited by this unique fossil, and pursues the trail through the stunning lost world of China’s remote Hengduan Mountains. In this spectacular landscape-dubbed the “Mother of All Gardens”-lie the origins of dozens of plants we take for granted today, including forsythia, clematis, rhododendrons, dogwoods, primroses, and the regal lily. How did they reach our gardens? The detective story behind the evolution of our favorite flowers continues to unfold. Join NOVA on the trail of botany’s most beguiling mystery.