The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

Many geneticists and archaeologists have long surmised that human life began in Africa. Dr. Spencer Wells, one of a group of scientists studying the origin of human life, offers evidence and theories to support such a thesis in this PBS special. He claims that Africa was populated by only a few thousand people that some deserted their homeland in a conquest that has resulted in global domination.

Unrest

When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head." Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families' stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot.

What Darwin Never Knew

Earth teems with a staggering variety of animals, including 9,000 kinds of birds, 28,000 types of fish, and more than 350,000 species of beetles. What explains this explosion of living creatures—1.4 million different species discovered so far, with perhaps another 50 million to go? The source of life's endless forms was a profound mystery until Charles Darwin brought forth his revolutionary idea of natural selection. But Darwin's radical insights raised as many questions as they answered. What actually drives evolution and turns one species into another? To what degree do different animals rely on the same genetic toolkit? And how did we evolve?

Counterfeit Culture

A documentary that explores the dangerous and sometimes deadly world of fake products. An industry that once dealt in imitation designer handbags and shoes has exploded into a global epidemic of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, foods, toys, electronic goods, car parts and microchips. COUNTERFEIT CULTURE challenges consumers to take a deeper look at what appears to be harmless knock-offs at bargain prices.

El negocio del ADN

Tales from the Royal Wardrobe

Today, few people's clothes attract as much attention as the royal family, but this is not a modern-day paparazzi-inspired obsession. Historian Dr. Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, reveals that it has always been this way. Exploring the royal wardrobes of our kings and queens over the last four hundred years, Lucy shows this isn't just a public fascination, but an important and powerful message from the monarchs. From Elizabeth I to the present Queen Elizabeth II, Lucy explains how the royal wardrobe's significance goes far beyond the cut and color of the clothing. Royal fashion is, and has always been, regarded as a very personal statement to reflect their power over the reign. Most kings and queens have carefully choreographed every aspect of their wardrobe; for those who have not, there have sometimes been calamitous consequences. As much today as in the past, royal fashion is as much about politics as it is about elegant attire.

The End of Memory

Each day, some 2.5 trillion bytes of data are exchanged, a deluge known as "big data." How can we classify, store, and give meaning to this mass of digital information? Will our digital society remain capable of producing a lasting memory? Learn the fate of memory storage in the future.

Unlocking the Mystery of Life

Unlocking the Mystery of Life represents a unique programming opportunity for local stations. Its broadcast release coincides with the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs in history-James Watson and Francis Crick's discovery that the DNA molecule carries hereditary information in the form of a code that many scientists have likened to computer software or a written language. This discovery (announced on April 25,1953) sparked a scientific revolution. But it also left a fundamental question unanswered. Where did the information in DNA come from? How did the software in the cell arise? Unlocking the Mystery of Life explores these questions through the stories of a growing number of scientists who no longer believe that natural selection or chemistry, alone, can explain life's origin. Instead, they think that the microscopic world of the cell provides evidence of purpose and design in nature.

The Real Beauty and the Beast

It's a condition known as "hypertrichosis" or "Ambras Syndrome," but in the 1500s it would transform one man into a national sensation and iconic fairy-tale character. His name: Petrus Gonsalvus, more commonly known today as the hairy hero of Beauty and the Beast.

Homicide Hunter: Never Give Up

The unsolved rape, mutilation and murder of young G.I. Darlene Krashoc has haunted Joe Kenda in the years since he turned in his gun and badge. Until a crack team of cold case cops uses Kenda’s groundwork to set a trap for a monster hiding in plain sight.

Powers of Ten

A scientific film essay, narrated by Phil Morrison. A set of pictures of two picnickers in a park, with the area of each frame one-tenth the size of the one before. Starting from a view of the entire known universe, the camera gradually zooms in until we are viewing the subatomic particles on a man's hand.

Thank You for Coming

At age 29, documentary filmmaker Sara Lamm discovered that she was conceived via sperm donor. Using her skills as an investigator she decides to dig ever deeper to uncover where half of her DNA comes from.

Columbus DNA: His True Origin

One of the most important and exciting historical research of all time, the study of the DNA of the navigator Christopher Columbus, finally answers two fundamental questions: where do his bones rest? What is his true origin?

The Hunt for the Oldest DNA

Three million years ago, camels roamed through Greenland’s endless forests and our ancestors lived in the trees. It all came to an end with the Ice Ages. What died and what survived, as natural selection shaped the evolutionary tree during this epochal shift from hot to cold? Until now, scientists have known less about the natural world before the Ice Age than they did about the age of dinosaurs, which ended 64 million years ago. A new discovery is set to reveal this lost world, species by species. Led by Danish gene-hunter Eske Willerslev, a team of scientists for the first time in history is sequencing DNA from before the Ice Age. The picture that emerges is of a hot planet, when forests blanketed the Arctic and carbon levels matched those in our atmosphere today. Is this a portrait of our own climate future?

The Real Eve

The made-for-cable documentary film The Real Eve is predicated on the theory that the human race can be traced to a common ancestor. The mitochondrial DNA of one prehistoric woman, who lived in Africa, has according to this theory been passed down from generation to generation over a span of 150,000 years, supplying the "chemical energy" to all humankind.

Your Inner Fish

How did your body become the complicated, quirky, amazing machine it is today? Anatomist Neil Shubin uncovers the answers in this 3-part science series that looks at human evolution. Using fossils, embryos and genes, he reveals how our bodies are the legacy of ancient fish, reptiles and primates — the ancestors you never knew were in your family tree.

Rosalind Franklin: DNA's Dark Lady

A documentary about Rosalind Franklin, the scientist who first photographed and discovered the shape of DNA.

Fresh Dressed

The history of Hip-Hop / Urban fashion and its rise from southern cotton plantations to the gangs of 1970s in the South Bronx, to corporate America, and everywhere in-between. Supported by rich archival materials and in-depth interviews with individuals crucial to the evolution of a way of life--and the outsiders who studied and admired them – Fresh Dressed goes to the core of where style was born on the black and brown side of town.

Voyage Inside the Cell

This narrated computer animation, with an original musical score, illuminates cellular mitosis. DNA self-replicates; chromosomes divide into two daughter cells; but it begins with a hormone entering the nucleus of a cell.

Cotton Road

What does a rural town in South Carolina have to do with China? Americans consume nearly twenty billion new items of clothing each year, and at least one billion of them are made in China. Cotton Road uncovers the transnational movement of cotton and tells the stories of workers lives in a conventional cotton supply chain. From rural farms in South Carolina to factory cities in China, we span the globe to encounter the industrial processes behind our rapacious consumption of cheap clothing and textile products. Are we connected to one another through the things we consume? Cotton Road explores a contemporary landscape of globalized labor through human stories and provides an opportunity to reflect on the ways our consumption impacts others and drives a global economy.