Upcoming science, nature and technology programs on KNME public television

Crown of the Continent — Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park
8:30 p.m. Saturday
Filmmaker John Grabowska explores Alaska's Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, which includes the continent's largest assemblage of glaciers and the greatest collection of peaks above 16,000 feet, along with dramatic valleys, rivers and a variety of wildlife.

Wild! 'Animal Inventors: Animal It'
9 a.m. Sunday
This film explores the world of animal senses and animal intelligence. We may think we're the smartest creatures on earth but animals often see and hear far more than we can. Human roboticists are turning to animal tech for inspiration in building the next generation of artificially intelligent machines.

Nature 'Fortress of the Bears'
10 a.m. Sunday
Admiralty Island in southeast Alaska supports the largest concentration of bears anywhere in the world. Sustained by a wealth of salmon streams, some 1,700 Alaskan brown bears are part of a unique circle of life that has played out here for centuries. Beginning in August, millions of salmon return to the island to spawn, providing a feast for the bears and other creatures in the area. As long as the salmon come, all is well. But this year, for the first time, the salmon fail to arrive.

NOVA 'Mystery of a Masterpiece'
11 a.m. Sunday
In October 2009, a striking portrait of a young woman in Renaissance dress made world news headlines. Originally sold two years before for around $20,000, the portrait is now thought to be an undiscovered masterwork by Leonardo da Vinci worth more than $100 million. How did cutting edge imaging analysis help tie the portrait to Leonardo? A new breed of experts are approaching art mysteries as if they were crime scenes, determined to discover "who committed the art."

Wyatt Earp: American Experience
2 p.m. Sunday
He has been portrayed by Hollywood greats Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart and Kevin Costner, but popular fictions belie the complexities and flaws of a man whose life is a lens on politics, justice and economic opportunity in the American frontier. As a young man, Wyatt Earp spent his days drinking in saloons, gambling, visiting brothels and gaining notoriety as the legendary gunman in the shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Ariz. But shortly after his death in 1929, Americans transformed Earp into a folk hero in the narrative of how the West was won.

Geronimo: American Experience
3 p.m. Sunday
In February 1909, Geronimo said on his deathbed, "I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive." It was an admission of regret from a man whose pursuit of military resistance in the face of overwhelming odds confounded his Mexican and American enemies, as well as many of his fellow Apaches. After Geronimo's tribe was relocated to an Arizona reservation in 1872, he became a focus of the fury of terrified white settlers and of the growing tensions that divided Apaches.

Remembered Earth: New Mexico's High Desert
10:30 p.m. Monday
New Mexico's high desert is a land of hallowed mountains, canyons and vast plateaus. This program presents a vision of hope for humankind's relationship to the natural world by interpreting the myth, beauty and power of a scarred but sacred landscape.

Annie Oakley: American Experience
7 p.m. Tuesday
As the star attraction of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Annie Oakley thrilled audiences with her shooting feats. Her act helped fuel turn-of-the-century nostalgia for the vanished, mythical world of the American West. Over time she became a legend -- the loud, brassy shooter celebrated in Annie Get Your Gun. But that legend had little to do with the real Annie Oakley.

Jesse James: American Experience
8 p.m. Tuesday
Jesse James, so the legend goes, was a Western outlaw, but he never went West. He has been called America's own Robin Hood, yet he robbed both rich and poor, and was never seen to share his ill-gotten gains. He was known as a gunfighter -- but his victims were usually unarmed. Less heroic than brutal, James was a member of a band of guerrillas during the Civil War and sought vengeance for the Confederate defeat afterwards. This is the true story of the notorious outlaw.

Frontline 'Post Mortem'
9 p.m. Tuesday
Every day nearly 7,000 people die in America. And when these deaths happen under suspicious circumstances, we assume there will be a thorough investigation, just like on CSI. But the reality is very different. In more than 2,000 U.S. counties, elected coroners, many with no medical or scientific background, are in charge of death investigations. Nationwide there is a severe shortage of competent forensic pathologists to do autopsies. The rate of autopsies has plummeted to less than six percent of those who die. Frontline correspondent Lowell Bergman reports the results of a joint investigation with ProPublica, NPR, and the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkeley.

Nature 'Wolverine: Chasing the Phantom'
7 p.m. Wednesday; 10 a.m. Feb. 5
This film takes viewers into the secretive world of the largest and least known member of the weasel family to reveal who this dynamic little devil truly is. Hard-wired to endure an environment of scarcity, the wolverine is one of the most efficient and resourceful carnivores on Earth.

NOVA 'Ice Age Death Trap'
8 p.m. Wednesday
In a race against developers in the Rockies, archaeologists uncover a unique site packed with astonishingly preserved bones of mammoths, mastodons and other giant extinct beasts, opening a vivid window on the Ice Age.

Inside Nature's Giants 'Great White Shark'
9 p.m. Wednesday
Experts dissect a 15-foot great white shark. Comparative anatomist Joy Reidenberg looks at the shark's array of senses, including the ability to detect the electro-magnetic field given off by other creatures. Veterinary scientist Mark Evans investigates the shark's deadly bite, and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explains how sharks' teeth and jaws evolved. Finally, the experts ask whether the shark deserves its reputation as a man killer.

Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale
7 p.m. Thursday
Bad Blood chronicles how a "miracle" treatment for hemophilia became an agent of death for 10,000 Americans. Faced with evidence that pharmaceutical companies and government regulators knew the product was contaminated with HIV and hepatitis from the 1960s through the early 1990s, they launched a fight to right the system that failed them and to make it safer for all.