A visit to a rolling mill where aluminum skins for jets are made aluminum is used to make reflective mirrors for telescopes at NASA the process of making aluminum foil why aluminum baseball bats are better than wood.
How iron mined in Minnesota is made into steel iron weapons revolutionize warfare military metallurgists customize weapons and demonstrate their firepower iron magnets.
Geological history from the Stone Age to the Space Age moon rocks provide clues to how planets were formed quarrying marble and granite blasting at a sand-and-gravel pit.
Thousands of tons of dirt transform a stadium into a Supercross course in Las Vegas special mud helps pros grip baseballs mud wrestling in Hawaii adobe and rammed-earth homes potting soil facility in California.
How wheat feeds the world wheat becomes everything from bread to beer a custom harvester follows ripening wheat fields from Texas to North Dakota exporting wheat grinding grain into flour Widmer Brothers Brewery Wheatware.
Cotton caused a civil war and jump-started the Industrial Revolution while becoming the world's most ubiquitous fabric a chronicle of cotton's journey from dirt to shirt.
Tobacco's ancient discovery and Andes cultivation leads to modern North Carolina farming and Dominican Republic Fuente cigar plantation explore harvesting techniques, public health concerns with Surgeon General, and nicotine replacement therapies.
A study of the discoveries, inventions and technological advances that have helped us understand and predict weather from observations made by early humans, to Doppler radar and satellite imaging, we'll see how man has tried to harness weather.
Who could imagine life without our "man-made weather"? On cold winter nights and hot summer days, we are forever grateful to the visionaries who took two basic elements--fire and ice--and turned them into true modern marvels.
Snow forms through nucleation in storm clouds but faces pollution threats explore Storm Peak Laboratory cloud research, Colorado ski resort snowmaking technology, avalanche rescue innovations, and Buffalo blizzard forecasting.
Towering skyscrapers buzzing with life, intricate tunnels connecting entire communities, mighty dams that tame the wildest rivers--this is construction animal style.
When a burning gusher shoots flames into the air, only a handful of men know how to snuff out the monster fighting fire with fire, they place explosives around the flames to blow it out, or douse it with tons of water.
Built of stone and glass, persistence and prayer, gothic cathedrals are an epiphany of imagination and an articulation of joy featured are such masterpieces as Chartres, Notre Dame and the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.
From ancient solutions to the development of modern water and sewer services, plumbing helped to make civilization possible.
Explore basements from Pompeii to Pittsburgh ancient Hittites, Phrygians, and Persians carved subterranean rooms for storage and shelter, Greeks and Romans valued them, Renaissance architects hid kitchens there, and Colonial Americans expanded use.
More than two million people die in the U.S. annually, creating 5,500 daily burials with 80 percent choosing caskets and 20 percent cremation explore dealing with death throughout centuries and today's $20-billion funeral industry.
A survey of torture devices employed throughout history, ranging from the ancient Greeks' Brazen Bull to the Spanish Inquisition's elaborate mechanisms.
Egyptian mummies speak from graves through state-of-the-art CT-scanning technology explore 2,000-year-old child mummy, 70-day mummification process, King Tut's mysterious death investigation, and nitrogen-filled conservation cases preventing decay.
Towering skyscrapers buzzing with life, intricate tunnels connecting entire communities, mighty dams that tame the wildest rivers--this is construction animal style.
When a burning gusher shoots flames into the air, only a handful of men know how to snuff out the monster fighting fire with fire, they place explosives around the flames to blow it out, or douse it with tons of water.