This program shows how DNA replicates, how copy errors occur and are fixed by repair enzymes, how DNA is compressed into chromosomes making possible mitosis and cell division.
Subjects: Life Science
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The Outer Envelope
Here students become acquainted with the properties of the plasma membrane, how it governs the kinds of molecules that go in and out of cells, and how cells feed by engulfing (phagocytosis) and drink in fluids by pinocytosis.
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Inside the Living Cell
In this introductory cell biology series, students learn all about cells and how they carry out the fundamental processes of life. The menu structure offers over 30 learning chapters that can be discussed and repeated as needed to assure that everyone is up to speed on the content. The large topics in modules covered are: The Cell-Unit of Life, The Outer Envelope, How Cells Obtain Energy, How Cells Are Controlled, How Cells Reproduce.
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The Cell: Unit of Life
This program shows the kinds of cells and emphasizes the fact that all cells have a common organization and how all cells carry out similar biochemical processes.
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NOVA scienceNOW: What are Animals Thinking?
Have you ever wondered what’s going on inside your pet’s mind? In What Are Animals Thinking? find out how a beehive resembles a human brain and whether your dog is really feeling guilty when it gives you that famous “guilty look.”
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NOVA scienceNOW: How smart can we get?
How Smart Can We Get? How do you get a genius brain? Is it all in the genes? Or is it hard work? Episodes include: Einstein’s Brain; Mystery of the Savant Brain; What is Intelligence?; and Profile: Sian Beilock.
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NOVA: Decoding Neanderthals
Over 60,000 years ago, the first modern humans – people physically identical to us today – left their African homeland and entered Europe, then a bleak and inhospitable continent in the grip of the Ice Age. But when they arrived, they were not alone: the stocky, powerfully built Neanderthals had already been living there for hundreds of thousands of years. So what happened when the first modern humans encountered the Neanderthals? Did they make love or war? That question has tantalized generations of scholars and seized the popular imagination. Then, in 2010, a team led by geneticist Svante Paabo announced stunning news. Not only had they reconstructed much of the Neanderthal genome – an extraordinary technical feat that would have seemed impossible only a decade ago – but their analysis showed that “we” modern humans had interbred with Neanderthals, leaving a small but consistent signature of Neanderthal genes behind in everyone outside Africa today. In “Decoding Neanderthals,” NOVA explores the implications of this exciting discovery. In the traditional view, Neanderthals differed from “us” in behavior and capabilities as well as anatomy. But were they really mentally inferior, as inexpressive and clumsy as the cartoon caveman they inspired? NOVA explores a range of intriguing new evidence for Neanderthal self-expression and language, all pointing to the fact that we may have seriously underestimated our mysterious, long-vanished human cousins.
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Mind of a Rampage Killer
What makes a person walk into a theater, church, or classroom and open fire? What combination of circumstances compels a human being to commit the most inhuman of crimes? As the nation tries to comprehend the tragic events in Newtown, Connecticut, NOVA correspondent Miles O’Brien investigates theories that many rampage killers are driven most of all by the wish to die, not the urge to kill. Could suicide-and the desire to go out in a media-fueled blaze of glory-be their main motivation? How much can science tell us about a brain at risk for violence? Most important, can we recognize dangerous minds in time to stop the next Newtown?
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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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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.