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.
Producers: WGBH
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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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Doctors’ Diaries
Over the past 21 years, NOVA has followed a group of seven doctors from their first day at Harvard Medical School in 1987. All young, bright and accomplished, none of them could have predicted what it would take, personally and professionally, to become a member of the medical tribe. In this special two-part program, NOVA returns one last time to get an update on the kind of doctors, and people, they have become.
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Fractals: Hunting the Hidden Dimension
What do movie special effects, the stock market, and heart attacks have in common? They are connected by a revolutionary new branch of math called fractals, which changed the way we see the world and opened up a vast new territory to scientific analysis and understanding. Meet the mathematicians who developed fractals from a mere curiosity to an approach that touches nearly every branch of understanding, including the fate of our universe.
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Last Extinction
What killed the mammoths? Near the end of the last ice age 13,000 years ago, these mighty beasts disappeared from North America together with some 35 other groups of mammals. For four decades, debate has raged over the cause of their abrupt demise. NOVA presents an in-depth investigation of a controversial new hypothesis which suggests that a massive impact from space could be the culprit, and also explores alternate theories.
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Riddles of the Sphinx – Home Use
For 45 centuries, the Great Sphinx has cast its enigmatic gaze over Egypt’s Giza plateau. The biggest and oldest statue in a land of colossal ancient monuments, its scale is staggering: the mighty head towers as tall as the White House while its body is nearly the length of a football field. This strange half-human, half-lion image has inspired countless fantastic theories about its origins. How was it built, and who or what does it represent? Surprisingly, the scribes of the period when it was built-during Egypt’s Old Kingdom-passed over it in silence. Adding to the mystery, archaeologists found that its creators abruptly discarded their tools and abandoned the structure when it was nearly complete. Searching for clues, NOVA’s expert team of archaeologists carries out eye-opening experiments that reveal the techniques and incredible labor that was invested in the carving of this gigantic sculpture. The team also unearths new discoveries about the people who built the Sphinx and why they created such a haunting and stupendous image.
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Riddles of the Sphinx – Public Performance
For 45 centuries, the Great Sphinx has cast its enigmatic gaze over Egypt’s Giza plateau. The biggest and oldest statue in a land of colossal ancient monuments, its scale is staggering: the mighty head towers as tall as the White House while its body is nearly the length of a football field. This strange half-human, half-lion image has inspired countless fantastic theories about its origins. How was it built, and who or what does it represent? Surprisingly, the scribes of the period when it was built-during Egypt’s Old Kingdom-passed over it in silence. Adding to the mystery, archaeologists found that its creators abruptly discarded their tools and abandoned the structure when it was nearly complete. Searching for clues, NOVA’s expert team of archaeologists carries out eye-opening experiments that reveal the techniques and incredible labor that was invested in the carving of this gigantic sculpture. The team also unearths new discoveries about the people who built the Sphinx and why they created such a haunting and stupendous image.