Discover the essential ways that we are connected the earth in Precious Planet, and learn what you can do to take care of our planet. How amazing is the home we all share, planet Earth! It's home to millions and billions of animals and plants, but have you ever wondered how everything is connected? In Precious Planet, learn all about our home that was formed almost 4.6 billion years ago- the earth's crust, the continents we live on, and the oceans...

Focusing on endangered species, Part Five in the Saving My Tomorrow series highlights stories about animals in danger of becoming extinct, alongside scenes with kids who are working to protect the natural world around them – from the planting of oysters and banding birds to recycling. Also featured are readings and performances by Laura Dern, Stephin Merritt and They Might Be Giants, along with a behind-the-scenes look at the American Museum of...

In this episode, Last Human Standing explores the origins of "us" - where modern humans and our capacities for art, invention, and survival came from, and what happened when we encountered the mysterious Neanderthals. Crucial new evidence comes from the recent decoding of the Neanderthal genome. Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals? Exterminate them? Becoming Human examines why "we" survived while our other ancestral cousins - including...

Earth, water, wind, and fire according to tradition, these four pieces make up the complex puzzle of our world. In the spirit of that tradition, is there a fifth component, one so close and disturbingly powerful that we choose to overlook it? This program reverses the concept that nature shapes human destiny and instead focuses on the impact our species has had, and will continue to have, on the Earth's geological cycles. Perhaps surprisingly, the...

If there is one belief that has united the left and the right, psychologists and philosophers, ancient thinkers and modern ones, it is the tacit assumption that humans are bad. It's a notion that drives newspaper headlines and guides the laws that shape our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest....

Scientists have struggled for centuries to pinpoint the qualities that distinguish humans from the millions of other animal species with which we share the vast majority of our DNA. In this NOVA scienceNOW program, we explore those traits once thought to be uniquely human to discover their evolutionary roots.

In the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, a winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books shows how four tools enabled us humans to control the destiny of our species "A wondrous, visionary work"--Tim Flannery, scientist and author of the bestselling The Weather Makers What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a...

The history of mankind is a history with plenty of questions. We have been wondering for one hundred thousand years about what is surrounding us. The big questions have marked our cultures, have shaped the religious beliefs and whole civilizations have arisen to turn the human race into the dominant one throughout the planet. ANIMAL SAPIENS will bring viewers closer to the cultural successes of mankind to show us that these strategies are also used...