This part of the Sahara Desert is the resting place of some of the earliest whales ever found. These fossils may hold the key to how whales evolved.

A small furry carnivore that lived both on land and sea is the ancestor of modern whales.

A spectacular fossil graveyard reveals a 43-million-year-old whale that had four legs and could walk. Follow scientists as they search for new clues to how mammals moved from land into the sea to become the largest animals on Earth.

Many Black families in America don’t have robust ancestry records because of the legacy of slavery and family separation. But this documentary filmmaker is on a mission: use DNA technology to solve the mysteries of his family tree.

Many descendants of enslaved people have little record of their family's ancestry. Follow one family's quest to discover their lost history, and see how science and genealogy can help rebuild a family tree broken by slavery. Join filmmaker Byron Hurt at his extended family reunion as they celebrate the joy of family in the African diaspora and discover new details of their history.

The World Health Organization approved anti-malaria vaccine, R-21, in 2023. Children in Ivory Coast were the first to receive the vaccine in July of 2024.

Around the 1900s, parts of the United States were awash with Malaria—especially in the South and parts of the Eastern Seaboard. And it even has impacted major historical events like the American Revolution.

Malaria overwhelms the body before it has a chance to fight back, making the development of a vaccine especially challenging.

To many people in China, there’s no better example of success than the tech giant Huawei. Although it’s considered controversial to some, there’s no denying that the company innovates in a very unique way.

China is betting big on 5G, deploying the technology at a greater scale than any other place in the world.

In just a few decades, China has transformed into a science and technology superpower. See inside leading Chinese tech companies and labs to discover how they innovate, what drives their rise, and what it means for the future of the global economy.

The asteroid released the equivalent of 10-billion nuclear bombs worth of energy when it struck Earth. The impact started a chain of events that wiped out 75% of all plants and animals at the time.

252 million years ago, the most devastating mass extinction of all time wiped out around 90% of all species on Earth. The culprit? Liquid magma beneath Pangea’s northern surface that split open the crust and tore apart the landscape, spewing curtains of lava and fire.

252 million years ago, a devastating mass extinction wiped out about 90% of all species on Earth. Follow scientists as they piece together evidence to discover how life survived and set the stage for a new dominant life form: the dinosaurs.

Today, plants like trees can grow very tall, while fungi remain close to the ground, with most of it hidden underneath. But millions of years ago, some fungi were were 20-feet-tall, towering over Earth’s landscape.

When the moon is at it’s farthest point away from the Earth, it appears small and doesn’t completely cover the sun, creating an annular, or “ring of fire” eclipse.

Seven-hundred-million years ago, ice threatened to make our planet uninhabitable, snuffing out new complex life forms. From this climate catastrophe, new forms of life arose, eventually leading to the living world today. But it was a close call.

For millions of years, ancient Earth was a fiery hellscape of volcanic activity, totally inhospitable to life. See what our planet might have looked like before the atmosphere—a ball of rock and fire hurtling through space.

How did oxygen escape from the oceans to form Earth’s atmosphere and create breathable air? Rust played a critical role in the process.

Want to elevate the lighting and audio in your videos? NOVA producer Alex Clark breaks down proper audio and lighting techniques to consider, whether you're shooting with a professional camera or a smartphone!