The Best Episodes of NOVA Season 29

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.

Director: Kirk Wolfinger

Writer: Matthew Collins

The program, with Sir David Attenborough narrating, celebrates the extraordinary antics male bowerbirds get up to when courting a female.

Director: Stephen Sweigart, Paul Reddish

Writer: David Attenborough

The film probes the enigma of our Neanderthal cousins and the roots of our own ancestry.

Director: Mark Davis

Writer: Mark Davis

Marked by striking imagery and a poetic style, the film dramatizes the life cycle of the world's oldest living thing, the bristlecone pine of California's White Mountains.

Director: Ian Duncan

Writer: N/A

The program investigates the brave new world of assisted reproduction.

Director: Sarah Holt, Peter Williams

Writer: Sarah Holt

NOVA takes an intimate look at the men who are in control of Russia's nuclear missiles, standing just a heartbeat from the top Russian politicians and Armageddon. Hosted by Vladimir Pozner, Russia's top television journalist, this startling film shows that despite low pay and the tedious existence that these soldiers and their families live with, these men are motivated by a strong sense of patriotic duty and responsibility for the ultimate powers of destruction at their fingertips, in a job that requires complete perfection.

Director: Leslie Woodhead

Writer: N/A

The program chronicles the lives and covert activities of the so-called "atom spies" in the 1940's, including the big one that got away, Theodore Alvin Hall.

Director: Tug Yourgrau

Writer: N/A

A sequel to the most popular NOVA of all time, "Miracle of Life," the program once again uses the extraordinary microimagery of Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson to track human development from embryo to newborn.

Director: N/A

Writer: Julia Cort

The film investigates the complicated world of gender identity.

Director: Andrew Cohen, Stephen Sweigart

Writer: N/A

No description available

Director: N/A

Writer: N/A

A paleontological tour-de-force and suspenseful scientific detective story, the program documents the search for the ancestor of all four-limbed animals, including humans.

Director: Matthew Barrett, David Espar

Writer: N/A

In October and November 1999, NOVA journeyed into ice-choked Antarctic waters and onto the shores of rugged Elephant and South Georgia Islands as we followed in the footsteps of Sir Ernest Shackleton. This legendary explorer's 1914-1916 Endurance expedition is one of the greatest survival stories of all time. Then, in April 2000, we returned to document Shackleton's final trial -- the crossing of South Georgia -- by three of the world's most distinguished mountaineers, Reinhold Messner, Conrad Anker and Stephen Venables. Follow the expeditions as they unfolded in real-time on this Web site, and also watch for a NOVA Giant Screen Film Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, as well as a NOVA program, "Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance," which originally aired on March 26, 2002.

Director: Sarah Holt, Kelly Tyler

Writer: Sarah Holt, Kelly Tyler

The program chronicles the tobacco industry's decades long effort to create a "safer" cigarette.

Director: Carl Charlson

Writer: Carl Charlson

The program probes the deep mysteries of gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful celestial explosions since the big bang.

Director: David McNab

Writer: N/A

This NOVA program delves into the mind-tingling efforts of neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran to discover how the brain works.

Director: Christopher Rawlence

Writer: Christopher Rawlence

Can lessons learned from the Twin Towers' collapse make new buildings safer?

Director: Larry Klein, Garfield Kennedy

Writer: N/A

In the program, NOVA accompanies the men and women of a wildland firefighting crew known as the Arrowhead Hotshots as they battle one of the most destructive wildfire seasons ever, the summer of 2000.

Director: Kirk Wolfinger

Writer: Rushmore DeNooyer, Judith Vecchione