Upcoming Science, Nature and Technology programs on KNME Public Television


For two centuries, American whale oil lit the world — powering the start of the industrial revolution and laying the groundwork for a truly global economy. From its stunning rise as an economic force in the 18th century, to its precipitous decline in the decades following the Civil War, the whaling industry mapped millions of miles of uncharted ocean, opened new seaways and markets, employed the world's most multi-cultural workforce, and shrunk the globe by bringing once remote reaches of the earth into contact as never before — all the while capturing the American imagination. From director Ric Burns (New York: A Documentary Film, Ansel Adams, The Donner Party) this program explores America's first global industry. And as Americans now see fortunes rise and fall on the global energy and consumer markets, the rapid commoditization of whales and the sharp decline of the whaling industry serve as a stark reminder of the volatility of the global marketplace.


Explore one family's unforgettable journey as they travel halfway across the world in search of a miracle to heal their autistic son. The film blends footage from the family's adventure through the Mongolian countryside with scenes from their life at home in Texas. Bolstered by testimony from autism experts, including Dr. Temple Grandin, this compelling film exquisitely captures an astonishing physical and spiritual journey.


In the 1970s, a small group of ordinary parents rocked the halls of psychiatry, launching a grassroots movement that challenged medicine, policy-making and American culture at large. Rita Moreno narrates the story of a small group of middle-class parents who, in the 1970s, got sick and tired of being blamed for causing their children's schizophrenia. They built a grassroots movement and launched a multi-pronged rebellion. This program opens a hidden chapter of recent American history, one where parents declared "Yes We Can" and took on doctors, politicians and the cultural fear surrounding schizophrenia.


An in-depth look at the eagle, using new camera techniques, from aerial battles for territory to tender moments spent rearing their young. Features golden eagles in Greece, crowned eagles in Africa, and 13 other species in ten other countries. Sir David Attenborough hosts.


From the moment of their birth, baby animals in the wild can face almost anything — from a large social group of interested caregivers, to a potentially deadly group of relatives, to one or two devoted parents, to complete abandonment and no available help at all. Yet they all have something in common. They must learn whom to trust, what to fear and when to act — all in the first days of life. Child care involves instinct, but also experience and choices, some of which can be devastatingly hard. Find out how being born in the wild has evolved over time, and how animals interacting with their young, wrestling with the feelings and dilemmas that come with raising a baby, can mirror our own experiences.


A powerful tornado is a terrifying phenomenon that continues to defy decades of scientific efforts to predict it. During one of the worst tornado seasons on record, a NOVA camera team chased across the Midwest, capturing hair-raising footage of highly destructive twisters in action. But this is much more than just another "extreme weather" show, focusing on the efforts of two scientists at the University of Oklahoma to develop radically different approaches to forecasting twisters: one relies on "virtual tornados" created inside supercomputers, while the other involves hunting down real-life storms to collect data firsthand (the method that inspired the movie Twister). With jaw-dropping 3D graphics generated by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Hunt for the Supertwister features spectacular footage of these terrifying twisters and gives viewers a front-row seat to the risky and thrilling art of storm chasing.


This episode looks at how heartland food products figure in our vacation plans. We set sail on a Carnival cruise where food is as much of an attraction as the scenery. Experience a flight kitchen where millions of meals are prepared to enjoy bon appetit at 35 thousand feet. Then jump aboard Amtrak, from Los Angeles to Seattle, and discover heartland products by rail.


The second part of this series about the natural and human history of Appalachia traces the story of the region from the rumblings of Revolutionary War through Andrew Jackson's forced relocation of the Cherokee people in 1831. Appalachia's early settlers hand-cut trails through steep terrain covered with enormous trees and teeming with wild animals. They weren't about to take orders from Redcoats. When a few hundred angry mountain men handily beat the regiment of a pompous British major, they changed the course of history. Contrary to current stereotypes, the colonists saw Appalachia as a source of great wealth.


This is a story of the interconnection of life, how every species is important, no matter how big or small. At the center is the humble horseshoe crab, a creature that has remained virtually unchanged for 300 million years. Its annual spring spawning produces millions of eggs that are the lifeline for a tiny bird called a red knot, which migrates 10,000 miles from South America to the Arctic each year. Scientific and medical communities have discovered that the crab also provides an indispensable testing agent for drugs and vaccines, as well as resources for human optics and burn treatment. But horseshoe crab numbers are plummeting from their new use as bait for the fishing industry, dropping by two-thirds since 1990. The precious pyramid depending on this age-old creature is about to come crashing down.


In September 1938, a great storm rose up on the African coast and began to cross the Atlantic. The National Weather Bureau predicted it would blow itself out at Cape Hatteras, just as such storms usually did. But there was nothing typical about this storm. Without sophisticated forecasting tools, the East Coast was taken by surprise as the storm suddenly headed north. Within 24 hours of the Weather Bureau's benign forecast, the so-called "Florida cyclone" ripped into the New England coast with a fury that set off seismographs in Alaska. Expecting only heavy rains, people found themselves, virtually without warning, in the midst of the most devastating storm ever recorded in North America. Traveling at 60 mph, with peak gust winds surging up to three times that speed, the storm killed some 600 people, destroyed 8,000 homes, and wrecked 6,000 boats. This program follows the lives of fishermen, Shinnecock Indians, and vacationers who were caught up in this incredible natural disaster.


They were called "Black Blizzards," dark clouds reaching miles into the sky, churning millions of tons of dirt into torrents of destruction. For ten years beginning in 1930, dust storms ravaged the parched and overplowed southern plains, turning bountiful wheat fields into desert. Disease, hardship and death followed, yet the majority of people stayed on, steadfastly refusing to give up on the land and a way of life.


NOVA presents a minute-by-minute eyewitness account of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, exploring why the flood defenses and disaster relief planning failed to match Katrina's fury. What made this storm so deadly? How accurately did scientists predict its impact? And why are powerful hurricanes like Katrina likely to strike more often? The program will investigate the immense challenges posed by rebuilding New Orleans, and why-despite all the knowledge of the peril faced by its citizens-the city was so tragically unprepared when the long-feared disaster finally struck.


Since the Iraq War began, soldier arrests in the city of Colorado Springs have tripled. At least 36 servicemen based at the nearby Army post of Fort Carson have committed suicide. And 14 Fort Carson soldiers have been charged or convicted in at least 11 killings. Many of the most violent crimes involved men who had served in the same battalion in Iraq. Three of them came from a single platoon of infantrymen. Frontline tells the dark tale of the men of Third Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st battalion of the 506th infantry and how the war followed them home. It is a story of heroism, grief, vicious combat, depression, drugs, alcohol and brutal murder; an investigation into the Army's mental health services; and a powerful portrait of what multiple tours and post-traumatic stress are doing to a generation of young American soldiers.