6.8/1062 votesLoading...#1 - Is Gun Crime a Virus?
Season 8 Episode 4 - Aired 5/16/2017
Every 17 minutes, someone is killed with a gun. It's a wave of violence that political debate can't seem to stop. Is this an epidemic that scientists can help cure? Could gun crime be a virus?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.0/1085 votesLoading...#2 - Is Poverty Genetic?
Season 5 Episode 3 - Aired 6/4/2014
Are the wealthy just born in the right place at the right time? Are the poor victims of a system designed to keep them down? Or do physics and biology determine who is rich and who is poor? Throughout history, distribution of wealth is governed by hidden forces: DNA, environmental stress, patterns of human migration and even the laws of thermodynamics! Nature seems to demand winners and losers in life. But does this mean greed is king, and the rich can take what they want? Or is cooperation – between microorganisms, monkeys, and humans – more essential to survival of a species?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.0/1067 votesLoading...#3 - Are There Aliens Inside Us?
Season 6 Episode 5 - Aired 5/27/2015
Odds are excellent that extra-terrestrial life exists. So why haven't we found aliens out in the galaxy? Are we looking in the wrong places?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.1/1083 votesLoading...#4 - Did God Create Evolution?
Season 4 Episode 10 - Aired 7/31/2013
What or who created all of the billions of species that have lived on Earth? Is all life the product of evolution as Charles Darwin proposed or was it the guiding hand of a higher power?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.1/1072 votesLoading...#5 - Will We Become God?
Season 5 Episode 8 - Aired 7/9/2014
Humanity’s potential seems limitless. But could we become as powerful as God? Scientific breakthroughs grant our species seemingly divine abilities. Biologists tinkering with DNA are figuring out ways to grow new life forms, while neuroscientists try to create artificial consciousness. Statisticians around the world are using big data to predict the future and computer scientists have discovered a “God algorithm” that could solve any global problem in an instant. But to truly become God, we not only have to be all knowing, but all being. Quantum physicists are figuring out how to teleport matter at the speed of light!
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.2/10126 votesLoading...#6 - Is the Universe Alive?
Season 3 Episode 3 - Aired 6/13/2012
As scientists peer across the galaxy, a new revelation emerges: The universe is shockingly organic. Are the secrets to the life and death of the universe hidden not in physics, but biology? Could it be that the universe is alive?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.2/10115 votesLoading...#7 - What Makes Us Who We Are?
Season 3 Episode 4 - Aired 6/20/2012
What is it that makes you you? Scientists are searching the brain for the core of who we are - some would call it the soul, others, our personal identity. How do we become who we are?
Director: Geoffrey Sharp
Writer: N/A
7.2/10113 votesLoading...#8 - What Is Nothing?
Season 3 Episode 5 - Aired 6/27/2012
Is empty space really empty? Scientists regard understanding the true nature of empty space may explain where the universe came from, whether it is fated to expand into oblivion or whether it will undergo another dramatic transformation that could destroy everything we know.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.2/1061 votesLoading...#9 - What Makes a Terrorist?
Season 7 Episode 1 - Aired 8/30/2016
A dissection of the causes of terrorism.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.3/10107 votesLoading...#10 - Can We Resurrect the Dead?
Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 7/11/2012
With cloning and genetic engineering, we can bring back extinct animals. But could we also bring back dead humans? Is it possible to keep our brains alive after our bodies have died? Could we rise from the dead in some strange new form? Can we - should we - resurrect the dead?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.3/10102 votesLoading...#11 - Will Eternity End?
Season 3 Episode 9 - Aired 8/1/2012
Many religious traditions have predicted that our world will come to an apocalyptic end. Scientists agree that Earth can't last forever, but disagree on whether the universe and time itself can ever disappear. Some may hope for eternity, but the possibility of never-ending time has mind-bending implications for the present.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.3/1079 votesLoading...#12 - Does the Ocean Think?
Season 5 Episode 5 - Aired 6/18/2014
There could be an undiscovered species on Earth unlike anything we’ve ever known. Not in the ocean, but the ocean itself! Its body spans thousands of miles; its heart beats with a one-thousand-year pulse. It could even have an immune system capable of annihilating all other life on earth. Just as our bodies function through the interaction of water with individual cells, including bacteria and other microorganisms, the ocean’s residents might collectively form a super-organism. A recent discovery suggests the ocean is a living being capable of thought. If so, what is the ocean thinking about us?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.3/1078 votesLoading...#13 - Is a Zombie Apocalypse Possible?
Season 5 Episode 6 - Aired 6/25/2014
It is a nightmare that has stalked us for centuries: hordes of human beings transformed into mindless, cannibalistic monsters. Could this civilization-ending nightmare become reality? Scientists have discovered pathogens that turn insects into the walking dead. New strains of viruses are attacking humans every day. Mathematicians have calculated the likelihood of surviving a zombie virus outbreak: they’re not hopeful. Now neuroscientists are discovering how easy it is for us to lose conscious control of our bodies. Are we at risk of becoming puppets? If we were in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, would we even know it?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.3/1045 votesLoading...#14 - Are There More Than Two Sexes?
Season 7 Episode 3 - Aired 9/13/2016
Science reveals the line between male and female is blurred, and the battle of the sexes happens deep within our cells.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.4/10136 votesLoading...#15 - Will We Survive First Contact?
Season 3 Episode 1 - Aired 3/6/2012
Mankind longs for proof that we are not alone in the universe, but the moment of first contact will certainly mean the end of the world as we know it. Whether that is a bad thing for humanity or the start of a great future is uncertain.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.4/10131 votesLoading...#16 - Is There a Superior Race?
Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 6/6/2012
How different are the races? Is there even such a thing as race? Could technology create a superior race? The answer may tell us where humanity is headed, what our descendants will look like and how they will think.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.4/1099 votesLoading...#17 - Can We Eliminate Evil?
Season 3 Episode 7 - Aired 7/18/2012
What drives some to torture and kill without remorse? Why do seemingly normal people commit acts of cruelty and violence. Researchers are exploring our inner demons, looking for ways to isolate and neutralize the source of evil in the brain. Is it really possible to change human nature?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.4/1083 votesLoading...#18 - Will Sex Become Extinct?
Season 4 Episode 5 - Aired 7/3/2013
Every single person who has ever lived was created from the genes of one man and one woman. But human sexual reproduction, unchanged for millions of years, is about to undergo radical change.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.4/1089 votesLoading...#19 - Can Our Minds Be Hacked?
Season 4 Episode 6 - Aired 6/26/2013
Our minds store our entire lives, our memories and our deepest desires. Tell no one, and our thoughts remain our own. But our brains are biological computers. Computer hackers can tamper with our email.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.4/1093 votesLoading...#20 - Do We Have Free Will?
Season 4 Episode 9 - Aired 7/24/2013
What if everything that has or will happen in the universe has already been determined and we are unable to change our inevitable destinies? Until the discovery of quantum uncertainty, physicists were convinced free will does not exist. Now neuroscientists and geneticists have stepped into the fray, arguing that free will is an illusion thanks to the genes we are born with, the automatic processes working in our brains, and the conforming pressures of society.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.4/10102 votesLoading...#21 - Is God an Alien Concept?
Season 5 Episode 1 - Aired 3/5/2014
Is God worshipped in other worlds across the cosmos? How might alien deities differ from our own? Have advanced aliens discovered everything there is to know about the universe, or are they too looking for answers? The answer may lie buried on Earth.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.4/1080 votesLoading...#22 - How to Collapse a Superpower
Season 5 Episode 4 - Aired 6/11/2014
With a little imagination, could a few terrorists sabotage a mighty nation? Perhaps even tear down modern civilization? The stability of the US, Europe, China, or any global power depends on high-speed digital communication. Our increasing dependence on digital devices and global interactivity may be placing us in grave danger. Scientists around the world are dealing with new threats such as body hacking, Trojan horse viruses, and brain-damaging Internet addiction. But what if the ultimate threat isn’t an attack on technology, but the technology? Could the final superpower be the disembodied mind of the Internet itself?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.5/10112 votesLoading...#23 - Mysteries of the Subconscious
Season 3 Episode 8 - Aired 7/25/2012
Does your subconscious know more than you ever will, and is your conscious mind holding you back? Do thoughts control actions, or vice versa? Research shows that opening the subconscious may make people healthier and more creative. There are also dangers lurking in the dark recesses of the mind.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.5/1079 votesLoading...#24 - Is There a Shadow Universe?
Season 5 Episode 9 - Aired 7/16/2014
When we look up into the sky it appears we live in a universe that is filled with light. But scientists are now certain there is far more matter in the dark portions of our universe that we can’t see or touch. There’s something hiding in the shadows. Cosmologists agree that “dark matter” has helped shape our Universe, but now they need to figure out what dark matter is. What’s going on in this hidden world? Could it have formed its own dark stars, planets, and even life forms? Could this Shadow Universe threaten our world of light?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.5/1077 votesLoading...#25 - Can Time Go Backwards?
Season 6 Episode 2 - Aired 5/6/2015
Could science ever make the clock move backwards? Experiments in quantum physics are showing that the future influences the present: what happens later limits the choices we think we have now.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
The Worst Episodes of Through the Wormhole
Every episode of Through the Wormhole ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of Through the Wormhole!
Hosted by Morgan Freeman, Through the Wormhole explores the deepest mysteries of existence - the questions that have puzzled mankind for eternity. What are we...
Genre:Documentary
Network:Science
Worst Episodes Summary
"Is Gun Crime a Virus?" is the worst rated episode of "Through the Wormhole". It scored 6.8/10 based on 62 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 5/16/2017. This episode scored 0.2 points lower than the second lowest rated, "Is Poverty Genetic?".