Nuclear fusion offers the promises of an unlimited, clean source of energy. But achieving fusion has proved one of the most difficult and elusive goals of the physicist. NOVA tells the story of the twists and turns and the international competition along the road toward the achievement of fusion; and details the recent breakthroughs which seem at last to have brought it within reach.

When Mount St. Helens erupted earlier this year, it focused the attention of the whole world on the almost incredible destructive forces that volcanos can release. Geologists from around the world congregated at the volcano and NOVA joined the vigil for an in-depth look at the incident and its aftermath.

NOVA examines a controversial theory that traces our ancestry to a small group of women living in Africa 300,000 years ago.

Harvard chemist George Kistiakowsky was an anti-Bolshevik soldier in 1919 Russia, an atomic bomb scientist at Los Alamos, a presidential advisor in the Eisenhower White House and an arms control activist. Shortly before Kistiakowsky death, he recounts his eventful career to interviewer Carl Sagan.

Whether they make you fat, fart, or freak out, microbes play a central role in your life. Right beneath your nose—on your face, in your gut, and everywhere in between—trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi are so abundant in your body, they outnumber your human cells. But these aren’t just nasty hitch-hikers. Many are crucial to your survival.

Sinister, sometimes even deadly, spiders have little popular appeal; yet their silken webs are among nature's loveliest creations. NOVA takes a close-look in slow motion, as spiders reveal a delicate grace and beauty, and an amazing array of lifestyles.

In a two-hour special, NOVA follows seven aspiring doctors through four years of medical school. The first examination, the anatomy lab, the first death, the first baby-it's all part of becoming a doctor. Neil Patrick Harris, star of ABC's Doogie Howser, MD hosts. (Follow-up to the program 1521 "Can We Make a Better Doctor?")

A great secret lies locked inside the master Violins created by Italian craftsmen like Antonio Stradivari in the 17th and 18th centuries. Now, a Wisconsin physicist, working alone in his cellar, may have solved the violin mystery.

In NOVA's special sequel to 1984's National Science Test, viewers can match wits with celebrity panelists David Attenborough, Michelle Johnson, Edwin Newman and Alvin Poussaint and a live studio audience. Art Fleming hosts.

NOVA joins the 50th anniversary celebration of the DC-3—the plane that revolutionized commercial air travel, served gallantly in World War II and is called the most important plane ever built.

Part one of a four-part series on the pioneers of modern surgery relives the early days, when surgery was practiced without the benefit of anaesthesia or antisceptics and patients usually died.

Once unthinkable, open-heart surgery is now an everyday miracle. NOVA looks at the brave doctors and patients who make it possible.

From kidneys to hearts, NOVA examines the daring attempts to replace diseased organs with transplanted ones.

Surgeons have always been eager to help patients, even at the risk of killing them. NOVA looks at some of the excesses of surgery, and at how new drugs and technologies are rendering some operations obsolete.

NOVA returns to Mount St. Helens a decade after its cataclysmic eruption to learn how nature is recovering from the disaster.

A distinctive feature of this stone site are the trilithons, which consist of two upright stones topped by a horizontal lintel stone. In this program, the NOVA team considers how to transport and raise the massive stones, as well as how to place the lintel stone on top. By comparing different strategies and adapting ramps, levers, and other tools that might have been available to the ancient builders, the team works to meet the challenge.

A famous brain surgeon struggles to save the life of a comatose child using a controversial new method of treating severe head injuries. In charge is Dr. Jan Ghajar, who gained notoriety in 1996 by successfully treating a woman who was savagely beaten in Manhattan's Central Park and expected to die. Dr. Ghajar believes the measure that helped save her life should be available to all.

Sir David Attenborough hosts a never-before-seen look at one of the most misunderstood creatures in nature. Special photography, including infrared photography, exposes the secret life of the wolf pack.

The film follows three New York Times reporters as they delve into the murky past of bioweapons research and grapple with the current threat of anthrax and other attacks.

NOVA profiles two very different scientists: Richard Feynman, a theoretical physicist, at the pinnacle of his career—a Nobel prizewinner; and Richard Lewontin, a biologist and highly regarded population geneticist from Harvard University.

Author Isaac Asimov joins NOVA in the retelling of the remarkable story of the discovery of the structure of DNA. James Watson and his ex-colleague Francis Crick exchange memories of the events which led to their winning the race for the structure of the gene.

NOVA tells the story of still and cine photography in science—from the extraordinary work of the pioneers in the early 1800s to how the ability to freeze time on film in ever shorter periods has given scientists remarkable new insights. Today photography enables us to analyze (frame by frame) the thousands of molecular reactions that can happen in less time than the blink of an eye.

Imagine a bottle with no inside or a number bigger than infinity or parallel lines that meet. Welcome to the world of pure mathematics. NOVA offers a look into a wholly abstract, quirky world of mathematics.

Forty years after they were discovered, the Dead Sea Scrolls have yet to be published in their entirety. NOVA looks at the laborious-some say scandalous-process of compiling and releasing this religious treasure.

Sharks are known as the "perfect predators," but sometimes they slip up and attack the wrong prey—people.