A Clever Colditz Escape
A chance discover during a game of rugby led Dutch POWs to an ingenious WWII jailbreak.
Reconstructing the D-Day Gliders
The Allies used silent wooden gliders to get behind enemy lines before the D-Day landings.
Escape from Nazi Alcatraz Preview
A crack team rebuilds a glider that POWs hoped to catapult off the top of Colditz Castle. Airing May 14, 2014 at 9 pm on PBS
Flying Cow Intestines
In World War I, the Germans used cow guts to construct their deadly Zeppelins.
What Is Gravity Made Of?
A "cosmic fingerprint" reveals the universe’s beginning and gravity's microscopic secrets.
Animal Minds: Smartest Preview
Explore the social lives of some of the smartest animals on the planet. Airing April 23, 2014 at 9 pm on PBS
Animal Minds: Dogs Preview
How do dogs, sharks, dolphins, or birds experience the world? Airing April 16, 2014 at 9 pm on PBS
Nature's Time Capsules
By studying bogs, scientists can uncover thousands of years of Earth’s history.
Animal Minds: Birds Preview
Birds that craft tools and pick locks are rewriting the rules of animal intelligence. Airing April 9, 2014 at 9 pm on PBS
The Mysteries of Optic Flow
How do birds manage to fly through narrow spaces without constantly bumping into trees or buildings? It turns out that they use a trick of the eye called optic flow. Understanding what optic flow is and how birds use it could help us build a safer world for our feathered friends.
Five Dogs With Crazy Résumés
Why do some dogs have short fur, others long tails, and still others wrinkly faces? Many dogs were bred to perform a specific tasks--from hunting vermin to wrangling bulls--and their physical characteristics were chosen to help them do their jobs.
Why Sharks Attack Preview
In recent years, an unusual spate of deadly shark attacks has gripped Australia, resulting in five deaths in ten months. At the same time, great white sharks have begun appearing in growing numbers off the beaches of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, not far from the waters where Steven Spielberg filmed the ultimate shark fright film, Jaws.
Wild Predator Invasion Preview
Can we return apex predators to their natural environments without endangering humans? Airing April 2, 2014 at 9 pm on PBS
2.5 Ways to Die in a Black Hole
The answer to how you would die in a black hole could revolutionize the laws of nature.
Great Cathedral Mystery Preview
The dome that crowns Florence’s great cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore—the Duomo—is a towering masterpiece of Renaissance ingenuity and an enduring source of mystery. Still the largest masonry dome on earth after more than six centuries, it is taller than the Statue of Liberty and weighs as much as an average cruise ship.
Roman Catacomb Mystery Preview
Who or what killed hundreds of people hidden in a burial chamber nearly 2,000 years ago?
Ghosts of Murdered Kings Preview
In the rolling hills of Ireland's County Tipperary, a laborer harvesting peat from a dried-up bog spots the remnants of a corpse and stops his machine just in time, revealing a headless torso almost perfectly preserved and stained dark brown by the bog. Archeologists recognize the corpse as one of Europe's rare bog bodies.
Poop-Eating Sloth Moths
Sloths may be cute, but they’re covered in a surprising number of creepy crawlies.
Supported by
