Miracle planet: survival of the fittest
The human race is here today because of its ability to adapt. Our ancestors, the earliest mammals, survived low oxygen levels. Later primates developed sharp eyesight and hands that could clasp for nocturnal life in trees. And about six million year...
Miracle planet: extinction & rebirth
There was a moment in Earth's history, about 250 million years ago, when all life nearly disappeared from the planet. Scientists now believe the cause was an eruption of the Earth's molten core that triggered global climate change. The resulting dro...
Miracle planet: snowball Earth
The last ice age ended only a few thousand years ago, but there were earlier periods when the entire world was frozen, periods now known as Snowball Earth. Episode 2 of Miracle Planet takes us back more than two billion years to this first ice age t...
Miracle planet: new frontiers
For billions of years, life existed only in the Earth's oceans. But about 350 million years ago, some of those earliest life forms began to explore new frontiers on land. They could breathe oxygen from the air and were able to support their weight o...
Miracle planet: the violent past
The planet Earth was born out of chaos and disaster - and completely by chance. Episode 1 of Miracle Planet transports us to this breathtaking genesis, the violent past that created the fragile conditions for life itself. Featuring astounding high-...
Clinical Impressions: Identifying Mental Illness
How long can mental illness stay hidden, especially from the eyes of trained experts? This program rejoins a group of ten adults—five of them healthy and five of them with histories of mental illness—as psychiatric specialists try to spot and co...
Did Cooking Make Us Human?
The use of heat and utensils to process food may be more than a by-product of human evolution. According to theories presented in this program, cooking began much earlier than previously thought and ignited a series of changes that shaped our physic...