NOVA

The Himalayas were among the last places on Earth that homo sapiens came to inhabit. Now, join an international team of scientists as they climb to the world’s highest tombs to unearth secrets of the people who settled these extreme environments.

Five years after the Fukushima disaster, the future of nuclear power is in question. Join engineers as they embark on an unprecedented cleanup and investigate new nuclear technologies that would prevent future meltdowns.

Join renowned gadget geek and host David Pogue as he sets out on a quest to discover how batteries work, and uncover what the future has in store for our gadgets, our lives, and even our planet.

Weighing 54,000 gross tons and stretching over two football fields, the Seven Seas Explorer is no ordinary boat. Join pioneering shipbuilders as they endeavor to build the ultimate cruise ship. It will be decked with the finest gold, marble, and crystal and designed to offer guests the roomiest accommodations of any commercial cruise ship. However, engineering opulence is no easy feat. NOVA follows a pioneering team of ship builders as they embark on what is advertised to be a milestone in maritime engineering.

From derailments to head-on collisions to drivers killed at road crossings, deadly train accidents claim dozens of lives each year. But just how unsafe are the railroads? NOVA investigates recent rail tragedies and advances in train tech that could help prevent them, taking a special look at Japan’s superefficient bullet trains, which have a perfect safety record. What would it take to usher in a new golden age of safer, faster, more modern and reliable train travel?

For centuries, the Lithuanian city of Vilnius was one of the most important Jewish centers in the world, earning the title “Jerusalem of the North,” until the Nazis destroyed it. About 95% of its Jewish population of Vilna, its name in Hebrew and Yiddish, was murdered and its synagogues and institutions were reduced to ruins. The Soviets finished the job, paving over the remnants of Vilna's famous Great Synagogue, for example, so thoroughly that few today know it ever existed. Now, an international team of archaeologists are trying to recover this lost world. They will excavate the remains of its Great Synagogue and uncover one of Vilna's greatest secrets: a lost escape tunnel dug by Jewish prisoners inside a horrific Nazi execution site.