Seasons & episodes
S27 · E11Diamond Deception 2000-02-01 · 55 min
The film documents the efforts of researchers around the world to create synthetic diamonds, some of which have become so indistinguishable from natural diamonds as to fool experts.
S27 · E12Secrets of Lost Empires: Pharaoh's Obelisk (2) 2000-02-08 · 55 min
In the film, which is a part of the NOVA series Secrets of Lost Empires, NOVA brings together a team of Egyptologists, engineers, stonemasons, and timber framers to probe the mystery of how the ancients shaped, transported, and erected their elegant obelisks.
S27 · E13Trillion Dollar Bet 2000-02-08 · 55 min
The film tells the fascinating story of the invention of the Black-Scholes Formula, a mathematical Holy Grail that forever altered the world of finance and earned its creators the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics.
S27 · E14Secrets of Lost Empires: Easter Island (3) 2000-02-15 · 55 min
The film, which is a part of the NOVA series Secrets of Lost Empires, showcases the efforts of a team of archeologists, engineers, and other experts to transport an Easter Island moai, or carved stone monolith, overland and successfully raise it onto a pedestal.
S27 · E15Mystery of the First Americans 2000-02-15 · 55 min
In 1996, near Kennewick, Washington, a suspected murder victim is identified by forensic anthropologists as Caucasian - but turns out to be almost 10,000 years old. For fifty years our picture of prehistoric America has rested on the premise that the earliest inhabitants of the Americas were east Asians of mongoloid stock, the ancestors of today's Native Americans. But the discovery of the Kennewick Man, along with several other startling finds in recent years, has thrown that once widely accepted idea into question and revolutionized the science of paleo-anthropology. It has also embroiled scientists in a bitter conflict with Native American groups who want the scientific study of early Americans halted. Who and what do Kennewick Man and others represent? NOVA is following the efforts of paleo-anthropologists work to decode the story in the bones of people who died 10,000 years ago.
S27 · E16Secrets of Lost Empires: Roman Bath (4) 2000-02-22 · 55 min
In the film, which is a part of the NOVA series Secrets of Lost Empires, an international crew of archeologists, engineers, and historians designs, builds, and tests a functioning Roman bath in the Turkish countryside.
S27 · E17Lost Tribes of Israel 2000-02-22 · 55 min
At the heart of Jewish tradition lies the haunting mystery of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Ever since their defeat and banishment by the Assyrians in 722 BC., the Lost Tribes fate has inspired countless claims to Jewish ancestry by groups scattered on every continent. But now, surprisingly, new advances in genetics are dispelling myth and fantasy, and raising a curtain on the forgotten reality of the dispersal that happened so many centuries ago. This story will follow the first attempt to use the new tests to investigate a seemingly improbable African candidate for a Lost Tribe. It will dramatize a scientific quest that leads from the gene labs of London to the remote bush country of Zimbabwe and the lunar-like desert wilderness of southern Yemen.
S27 · E18Secrets of Lost Empires: China Bridge (5) 2000-02-29 · 55 min
The film, which is a part of the NOVA series Secrets of Lost Empires, documents a 1999 effort by a NOVA-assembled crew of scholars and timber framers to design and build a Chinese bridge known only from an ancient painting.
S27 · E19What's Up with the Weather? 2000-04-18 · 55 min
In "What's Up with the Weather?" NOVA and FRONTLINE join forces to investigate the science and politics of one of the most controversial issues of the 21st century: the truth about global warming.
S27 · E20Stationed in the Stars 2000-04-25 · 55 min
The broadcast explores America's manned space program and the crisis caused by Russia's delay in delivering the critical third piece of the International Space Station.
S27 · E21The Vikings 2000-05-09 · 55 min
In this two-hour special, NOVA presents a dramatic investigation of a people who were much more than axe-wielding pirates. It features stunning camerawork in Scandinavia and the far-flung countries that the Vikings penetrated, while historians and archaeologists present us with an image of the Vikings that goes far deeper than their savage stereotype. The latest research shows that they were canny merchants, expert shipbuilders, superb artisans, and bold colonizers of lands that lay beyond the edge of the known world.
S28 · E1Lincoln's Secret Weapon 2000-10-24 · 55 min
The film chronicles an expedition to study and retrieve parts of the USS Monitor, the famous Civil War ironclad, which sank off North Carolina only months after its famous battle with the CSS Virginia.
S28 · E2Holocaust on Trial 2000-10-31 · 55 min
The film uses a celebrated recent trial as a springboard to examine and successfully challenge the notion of Holocaust denial
S28 · E3Hitler's Lost Sub 2000-11-14 · 55 min
The film follows a six-year odyssey by a group of divers to identify a mysterious U-boat they discovered in 1991 off the coast of New Jersey
S28 · E4Runaway Universe 2000-11-21 · 55 min
The program follows the efforts of two rival teams of astronomers as they search for exploding stars, map out gigantic cosmic patterns of galaxies, and grapple with the ultimate question: What is the fate of the universe?
S28 · E5Garden of Eden 2000-11-28 · 55 min
The film takes a look at the extraordinary natural history of the Seychelles, an ancient archipelago of about 100 islands scattered between India and Madagascar.
S28 · E6Dying to Be Thin 2000-12-12 · 55 min
The film examines a disturbing increase in the prevalence of debilitating and sometimes life-threatening eating disorders, particularly anorexia and bulimia.
S28 · E7Japan's Secret Garden 2000-12-18 · 55 min
The program chronicles a year in the life of wildlife and people around Lake Biwa, Japan, a cycle that has continued unchanged for thousands of years.
S28 · E8Sultan's Lost Treasure 2001-01-16 · 55 min
The program follows a French-led expedition to recover thousands of porcelain and other artifacts from a centuries-old Chinese shipwreck off the coast of Brunei.
S28 · E9Vanished! 2001-01-30 · 55 min
The program investigates the mysterious disappearance -- and, half a century later, reappearance -- of Stardust, a civilian aircraft that crashed in the Andes in 1947.
S28 · E10Nazi Prison Escape 2001-02-06 · 55 min
The program documents a series of spectacular escape attempts made at Colditz Castle, the Nazi's most impregnable prison.
S28 · E11Lost King of the Maya 2001-02-13 · 55 min
The film follows the work of archeologists who are using new excavations and hieroglyphic translations to interpret the early history of Copán, a Classic Maya site in northern Honduras.
S28 · E12The Cancer Warrior 2001-02-27 · 55 min
For decades Dr. Judah Folkman struggled against the grain of many in the cancer research community in his quest to pioneer a novel form of cancer treatment. In 1960, when he was a young surgical resident, Folkman discovered a startling secret about how cancer grows, which he called angiogenesis. It was a clue he would pursue for the next 40 years. "Cancer Warrior" tells the incredible saga of his personal dedication in a race to defeat one of humanity's most invincible foes.
S28 · E13Survivor M.D.: Tattooed Doctor (1) 2001-03-27 · 55 min
In "Tattooed Doctor," the first hour of NOVA's "Survivor M.D." series, emergency-room physician Dr. Tom Tarter eloquently describes some of the challenges and rewards of emergency medicine.