Discover how it works in bacterial cells and how it can be applied to other forms of life—including humans. This is video is an excerpt from "Human Nature".

(This program is no longer streaming). Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs in a fiery global catastrophe. But we know little about how their successors, the mammals, ...

Two to 3 million years ago, humans lost the use of a gene called CMAH. Around the same time, our species seemed to have developed an increased capacity for endurance running. ByBrittany Flaherty ...

At the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, snowboarding made its debut as an Olympic sport. No longer relegated to the fringes, snowboarders took to the snow-capped peaks of Mount Yakebitai, and 26 ...

Once you’ve seen a slime mold—its gooey, delicately branching structure oozing in a vaguely unsettling way along a log or leaf—you’re unlikely to forget it. They’re unmistakable because there’s ...

Receive emails about upcoming NOVA programs and related content, as well as featured reporting about current events through a science lens. The engineer whips out a protractor and straightedge. That’s ...

While quantum mechanics is arguably our most successful theory of nature, it is perhaps best known for its strangeness. Quantum theory—and its key mathematical tool, the wave function—excels at ...

For more than three centuries, a plague of unshakable lethargy blanketed the American South. It began with “ground itch,” a prickly tingling in the tender webs between the toes, which was soon ...

In the game of climate change, you win or you die. At the bottom of the world, who comes out on top? According to a new study published today in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, Antarctic ...

Chris Mazurek was a freshman in college when he had a dream that he was inside the Legends of Zelda video game. He saw himself as the main protagonist, Link, in third person. Suddenly, beeping noises ...

According to new research, reassigning police officers with a history of misconduct makes it more likely that their new peers will also misbehave. ByKatherine J. Wu Monday, May 27, 2019 NOVA NextNOVA ...

After a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, DNA databases are set to expand. How will the decision affect your privacy? Certain information encoded in DNA, seen here in an x-ray data visualization, is being ...