Dynamite explodes hills, drills divide stone walls, and giant cranes pull 400,000-pound blocks from quarry pits rock serves as civilization's raw material for roads, buildings, paint, glue, makeup, antacids, and chewing gum.
The controversial logging industry topples 4 billion trees annually in a world striving to protect nature while devouring it.
A historic survey of adaptation to killer environmental conditions travels to the desert, Arctic, sea, jungle and space, charting the body's physiological responses to extreme circumstances such as frostbite, heatstroke and hypothermia.
The assembly and surprising history behind the airboat a wild ride on a big-tired swamp buggy local delicacies that bring new meaning to acquired taste a massive engineering project to divert the mighty Mississippi River pythons and alligators.
Inventions for holding off a global warming meltdown include giant solar energy towers, a rooftop wind turbine, a car that runs on air and a kite that tows a cargo ship.
From the prairies of Saskatchewan to a Manhattan skyscraper we'll see the 21st Century's cutting-edge "green" technologies in action.
George Washington Carver rose from slavery to become one of the 20th century's greatest scientists at Tuskegee Institute, he invented over 300 peanut uses, developed crop rotation, and changed rural economy through agricultural innovations.
A fascinating journey from farm to table the dizzying heights of California's date palm trees the soggy Wisconsin cranberry marshes the cavernous labyrinths of Pennsylvania's mushroom farms picking through the most unique forms of harvesting.
A look at the many uses of acid the military harnesses acid to make explosives at a sulfuric acid plant, acid takes the stain out of stainless steel and dissolves precious metals the Heinz vinegar plant acid-loving bacteria.
Heavy metals occupy select periodic table portions and are essential to America's economic and military might, stored in National Defense Stockpile vital metals include copper, uranium, lead, zinc, nickel, and corrosion-resistant superalloys.
The journey begins before the Bronze Age and goes into the shiny future when new metal structures, engineered at a molecular level to be stronger, lighter, and cheaper, shape human progress, as they have since man first thrust copper into a fire.
All life-forms and modern technology are built on a foundation of carbon the steel industry coal-fired power plants graphite pencils a charcoal water filter diamonds.
Mankind makes use of lead, a versatile but toxic metal, for 6,000 years mining car battery factory specialists remove harmful lead objects from homes and businesses lead makes crystal sparkle.
Copper transports electricity, water, and heat while being essential for survival yet killing microbes this versatile metal conducts electricity globally, revolutionizes electronics, forms plumbing pipes, creates beautiful roofs, and more.
Chrome hot rod the Chrome Shop Mafia adds bling to truckers' big rigs in Missouri Illinois' Arlington Plating Co. adds luster to auto parts how Harley-Davidson puts chrome to work as both a decorative and protective feature of motorcycles.
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.
Traces the history and evolution of the world's most important fossil fuel without gasoline, modern life would grind to a halt.
A look at the many uses of acid the military harnesses acid to make explosives at a sulfuric acid plant, acid takes the stain out of stainless steel and dissolves precious metals the Heinz vinegar plant acid-loving bacteria.
Heavy metals occupy select periodic table portions and are essential to America's economic and military might, stored in National Defense Stockpile vital metals include copper, uranium, lead, zinc, nickel, and corrosion-resistant superalloys.
The journey begins before the Bronze Age and goes into the shiny future when new metal structures, engineered at a molecular level to be stronger, lighter, and cheaper, shape human progress, as they have since man first thrust copper into a fire.