The Immortalists

PBS' premier science series helps viewers of all ages explore the science behind the headlines. Along the way, NOVA demystifies science and technology, and highlights the people involved in scientific pursuits.

“We are as gods and might as well get good at it.” This is the audacious opening line of the Whole Earth Catalog, a compendium of wonderful tools compiled by counterculture legend Stewart Brand. A psychedelic experimenter, cyberspace pioneer, and environmentalist, he is now urging humanity to use our god-like powers to reframe our relationship with time and life itself. Today, Stewart is using biotech to resurrect extinct species. He and a team of scientists travel to Siberia to collect ancient DNA in an effort to make a hybrid Woolly Mammoth. Former allies in the environmental movement vow to stand in his way, but Stewart forges ahead in his life-long mission to conserve the whole earth.

Bill Nye is retiring his kid show act in a bid to become more like his late professor, astronomer Carl Sagan. Sagan dreamed of launching a spacecraft that could revolutionize interplanetary exploration. Bill sets out to accomplish Sagan's mission, but he is pulled away when he is challenged by evolution and climate change contrarians to defend the scientific consensus. Can Bill show the world why science matters in a culture increasingly indifferent to evidence?

A short documentary portrait of Maurice Laroche, owner and projectionist of the 'Beverley', the last Porno Cinema in Paris.

Blood Sugar Rising follows the diabetes epidemic in the U.S. Diabetes and pre-diabetes affect over 100 million people in the US, costing more than $325 billion each year. Blood Sugar Rising puts human faces to these statistics, exploring the history and science of the illness through portraits of Americans whose stories shape the film.

In Matter of Mind: My Parkinson’s, three people navigate their lives with resourcefulness and determination in the face of a degenerative illness, Parkinson’s disease. An optician pursues deep brain stimulation surgery; a mother raising a pre-teen daughter becomes a boxing coach and an advocate for exercise; and a cartoonist contemplates how he will continue to draw as his motor control declines.

Whether you’re on social media or surfing the web, you’re probably sharing more personal data than you realize. That can pose a risk to your privacy – even your safety. But at the same time, big datasets could lead to huge advances in fields like medicine. Host Alok Patel leads a quest to understand what happens to all the data we’re shedding and explores the latest efforts to maximize benefits – without compromising personal privacy.

Matter of Mind: My Alzheimer’s is an intimate portrayal of three families confronting the unique challenges of Alzheimer’s and how this progressive neurodegenerative disease transforms roles and relationships. Whether it's a partner caring for a loved one or an adult child shifting into being their parent's caregiver, these stories show how families evolve when a loved one is diagnosed.

Matter of Mind: My ALS follows three people living with the fatal illness ALS, in an intimate exploration of the complex choices confronting them and the different paths they find.