Perched atop a mountain crest, mysteriously abandoned more than four centuries ago, Machu Picchu is the most famous archeological ruin in the Western hemisphere and an iconic symbol of the power and engineering prowess of the Inca. In the years since Machu Picchu was discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911, there have been countless theories about this “Lost City of the Incas,” yet it remains an enigma. Why did the Incas build it on such an inaccessible site, clinging to the steep face of a mountain? Who lived among its stone buildings, farmed its emerald green terraces, and drank from its sophisticated aqueduct system? NOVA joins a new generation of archeologists as they probe areas of Machu Picchu that haven’t been touched since the time of the Incas and unearth burials of the people who built the sacred site. Ghosts of Machu Picchu explores the extraordinary trail of clues that began on that fateful day in 1911 and continues to the present.
Producers: WGBH
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Ghosts of Machu Picchu – Public Performance
Perched atop a mountain crest, mysteriously abandoned more than four centuries ago, Machu Picchu is the most famous archeological ruin in the Western hemisphere and an iconic symbol of the power and engineering prowess of the Inca. In the years since Machu Picchu was discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911, there have been countless theories about this “Lost City of the Incas,” yet it remains an enigma. Why did the Incas build it on such an inaccessible site, clinging to the steep face of a mountain? Who lived among its stone buildings, farmed its emerald green terraces, and drank from its sophisticated aqueduct system? NOVA joins a new generation of archeologists as they probe areas of Machu Picchu that haven’t been touched since the time of the Incas and unearth burials of the people who built the sacred site. Ghosts of Machu Picchu explores the extraordinary trail of clues that began on that fateful day in 1911 and continues to the present.
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Secrets of the Parthenon
Erected by the ancient Greeks as a temple to Athena, the Parthenon has served as a church, a fortress, an ammunition dump, and the model for countless banks, courthouses, and museums across the world. It has been shot at, exploded, set on fire, rocked by earthquakes, looted for its magnificent sculptures, and subjected to restorations that have been termed “catastrophic.” Surprisingly, despite much abuse and renown as an icon of Western civilization, the question of how the Parthenon was built has been largely ignored until recently. Thanks to the Greek government’s $10 billion restoration program, scholars are finally probing the enigmas of its planning and construction. With unprecedented access, NOVA presents the inside story of the official restoration, which reaches far beyond the challenges and controversies of conserving one of the world’s best-known buildings. The researchers are confronting some truly monumental riddles: How did the ancient Athenians build their great temple with incredible precision in a mere eight years? How did they manage to incorporate subtle, eye-pleasing distortions into the Parthenon’s layout, such that there are few straight lines or right angles to be seen? And, most baffling of all, how did they accomplish all of this without an overall building plan or blueprint, which would be indispensable to a modern architect?
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Missing in MIG Alley
In 1950, during the Korean War, Soviet and U.S. jet fighters clashed in the fastest dogfights ever seen. The most advanced planes of their day, the MiG-15 dueled with the F-86 Sabre over MiG Alley, a notorious strip of airspace along the Korean-Chinese border. With rare archival footage and interviews with veteran aces, NOVA puts viewers in the cockpit to experience the danger and drama of MiG Alley, revealing how the Sabre and the MiG acquired their reputations as fearsome fighting machines.
Missing in MiG Alley is also a gripping human story. Over 30 U.S. and British pilots disappeared during combats over MiG Alley, leaving their family members today with painful unanswered questions. NOVA traces the efforts of U.S. government investigators, forensic experts, and family members to determine the missing pilots’ fate, drawing on eyewitness interviews and newly opened Soviet archives. In a few cases, closure has finally come to families more than a half-century after the ferocious dogfights that claimed their loved ones. -
Master of the Killer Ants
In the Mandaras Mountains of northern Cameroon live the Mofu – an ancient tribe that shares its homes and crops with insects in a mutual balance of survival. But this year, a terrible drought has hit the region and a legion of termites has invaded their huts and granaries. To drive them out, the Mofu shaman calls for help from Jaglavak, a ferocious red army ant protected by a thick carapace and armed with pincers that cut, tear and slice through anything in its path.
Filmed in an intimate style that reveals the traditional customs of the Mofu shaman and the villagers who depend on him, Master of the Killer Ants also uses stunning macro photography to go underground, giving us a terrifying up-close look at a termite’s fortress and the war that rages between termites and Jaglavak. Winner of best film awards at the Shanghai Film Festival and Japan’s Wildlife Film Festival. -
Judgment Day – Intelligent Design on Trial
This program captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in a landmark battle over the teaching of evolution in public schools. In 2004, the Dover school board ordered science teachers to read a statement to high school biology students about an alternative to Darwinist theory of evolution called intelligent design the idea that life is too complex to have evolved naturally and so must have been designed by an intelligent agent. The teachers refused to comply, and both parents and teachers filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the school board of violating the constitutional separation of church and state.
Now, NOVA explores the arguments by lawyers and expert witnesses in riveting detail and provides an eye-opening crash course on questions such as: What is evolution? and is intelligent design a scientifically valid alternative? Featuring trial reenactments based on court transcripts and interviews with key participants and expert scientists, this gripping program presents the celebrated case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District. -
Sputnik Declassified
The world changed fifty years ago, on October 4, 1957, when the U.S. public heard the shocking news that the Soviet Union had successfully launched the first satellite, Sputnik The astonishing behind-the-scenes story of the politics and personalities that collided over the earliest efforts to get America into space, long before the founding of NASA. Anticommunist witch-hunts drove some of the nations most talented rocketry pioneers out of the country even as we welcomed Wernher von Braun and his former Nazi colleagues. With help from Walt Disney, von Braunís vision of future space travel swiftly captivated U.S. TV watchers. But even as he became the first media star of the Space Age, von Braunís attempts to build space probes were hobbled by inter-service rivalries. In “Secrets of the Sputnik Race” NOVA details the previously untold story of the technological and political missteps that made the U.S. lose out to the Soviets bleeping electronic basketball.
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Marathon Challenge
Every year thousands of athletes from across the globe flock to Boston to run the city’s marathon, known worldwide as the ultimate test of stamina and endurance. But how do you run 26 miles if you have trouble making it around the block? With good coaching, discipline, and lots of group support, as NOVA shows when it follows 13 sedentary people through a nine-month regimen designed to prepare them for the grueling Boston Marathon.
Filled with personal drama, Marathon Challenge also takes viewers on a scientific adventure inside the human body. What happens to our muscles and hearts when couch potatoes become endurance runners? And what are the hidden risks? NOVA’s behind-the-scenes portrait of the trials, tribulations, and joys of marathon training reaches a climax at the 2007 Boston Marathon. Here our 13 rookie athletes put all their hopes and hard work to the final test, experiencing hidden rewards and floods of emotion at the finish line. -
Lost Treasures of Tibet
Join the race against time as art and restoration experts mix history, science, and politics in a complicated and daunting mission to preserve the surviving sacred masterpieces of an ancient Buddhist kingdom. Travel to a remote part of the world for a remarkably rare look at the spectacular art created by a clandestine Buddhist culture. See astonishingly intricate and expressive Medieval wall paintings, woodcarvings, and a gravity-defying monastery built atop a cliff. And watch as science helps reveal vibrantly colored treasures from the past.
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DNA – Secret of Photo 51
NOVA investigates the shocking truth behind the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA and presents a moving portrait of a brilliant woman in an era of male-dominated science-Rosalind Franklin. Watson and Crick had seen a crucial piece of her data without her permission, an X-ray image, ”Photo 51,” that proved to be a vital clue in their decoding of the double helix. Narrated by Sigourney Weaver.