Imagine a world overrun by 9-foot flightless birds, 17-foot giant Beavers and predatory marsupial lions as tall as elephants! Two million years ago, these enormous creatures - Mega Beasts - roamed the continents in bursting populations. Despite the fact that each gargantuan species is now extinct the mystery of their demise lives on. Watch the most rivetingly realistic computer animation available as What Killed the Mega Beast? takes you on a fascinating journey through time. Now you too can attempt to solve one of the greatest riddles ever, one that to this day keeps scientists from Patagonia to Colorado to New Zealand debating and searching for answers. Join us as we explore these questions: Is it the "Chill Theory" which argues that profound climatic change accounts for the death of the Mega Beasts? Is it the fact that big animals adapt to environmental changes less easily than do smaller ones? What if a "killer virus" swept away these extraordinary, fearsome beings? Or, finally, as those who ascribe to the "Kill Theory" assert, is it possible that the Mega Beasts were slaughtered by a creature more terrifying than any other - man?

The hands of an archaeologist carefully brush away the earth caked on strange, unrecognizable objects. Slowly the shapes emerge as a foot, a skull and femur. The wide-open mouth of a skeleton stares up at the camera. This is Herculaneum in the Gulf of Naples at the foot of the world's most unpredictable and complex active volcano, Vesuvius. And these are the remains of over 300 skeletons found huddled in twelve vaults down on the beach, which have lain here since Vesuvius' most famous eruption in 79AD when the whole city was buried under 30 metres of ash and pumice.

Five tons of boundless strength and wary intelligence, it can toss tree trunks in anger or pick up a five cent piece in curiosity. Our largest land animal - the Elephant - is profiled in this master reference to the world’s greatest living creatures. This majestic animal has few natural enemies, but a beast of such extraordinary size needs some extraordinary features to deal with gravity, the searing rays of the sun, and a king-size appetite. The "Ultimate Guide" shows you how the elephant uses the ultimate nose, its trunk, and other body parts in its quest to stay upright, stay cool, and find a square meal. You'll also see evidence that this intelligent giant may have feelings, and even a sense of humour. Using cutting edge computer animation, journey into the past of the Elephant’s family tree, discover nature’s successes and failures, witness intimate wildlife behaviour and see startling comparison’s of size and speed. Narrated by Will Lyman.

Here find confidential stories from the top secret files of the Pentagon: A nuclear bomb is lost off the East Coast! Could it suddenly wipe out an entire city? This bomb is still capable of a nuclear explosion, and it has never been recovered. Plus… earth shattering sky quakes rattle Los Angeles. Are they being caused by a top secret spy plane?

Time - what is it? St. Augustine wrote, "What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know. But if I want to explain it to someone, I do not know." Perhaps we should ask: Did time have a beginning? A very old question, indeed. But how can we imagine a world before time began?

The Ultimate Guide to Sharks - Sleek, powerful, menacing, feared. Come face-to-face with the world's most dangerous predators to uncover their mysterious killing cycles.
Witness first-ever footage of the prehistoric-looking Greenland shark from the Arctic Circle. Get an intimate look at the goblin shark, once thought to be extinct. Encounter
the gentle whale shark, the wobbegong, tiger, hammerhead, and nurse sharks and many more. Hear the extraordinary story of one man who survived and attach by a Great White to become a leading authority on this magnificent animal.

These are the world's largest reptiles, and crocodiles must surely rank among the most spectacular of nature's predators. They can strike without warning from point- blank range, delivering sixteen tons of crushing force in the blink of an eye. But hidden behind the serrated jaws and steely gaze is another, more intriguing story. From the tiniest blood vessels to the mightiest monster, the Ultimate Guide follows the crocodile story down the ******cope and back through time. Prepare to sit back and learn the secrets of one nature's oldest and most successful designs.

Each mummy is an encyclopedia: A tooth can tell you when they were sick, a hair, what they ate, an x-ray can tell you how they died and CAT-Scans are what we use for the details. Sometimes they reveal that the embalmers weren't always very careful… But in some degree they've all cheated time, so secrets are what they would whisper… if they could whisper. The well-known author of two excellent popular presentations of current Egyptology, Bob Brier skillfully gives voice to his objects of affection: mummies from Asia, Europe, and South America. Brier also shows us how mummies fascinated people in all times and places and have been incomparable source materials for medical, scientific, and religious history. Brier is certainly the right person to present this show since he has a genuine talent and enthusiasm for palaeopathology–the study of ancient human remains. His own research has culminated in the mummification of a modern human, on view in the series. Brier offers insight on mummy-making in ancient Egypt, ancient Peru, and in the Soviet Union, where V.I. Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, was mummified and became a national icon. Ground zero for our knowledge of mummy preparation in Egypt is the Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt ca. 450 BCE and described in detail three methods of mummification available in different price ranges. Despite Hollywood's portrayal of mummies, there's no need to think of them as stalkers from an ancient land, Brier assures us. Yes, some certainly were buried alive, murdered, sacrificed, but they're not out for revenge on anybody in our time. Relax, get to know a few mummies, and you'll assuredly find a familiar figure, even make a friend.

At times, dogs appear to move and react like wild animals. Yet they are, by definition, domesticated. In perhaps only fourteen thousand years, humans have modified and manipulated a single species to create more than four hundred breeds. But for all their variety of appearance, all dogs are simply mutations of their closest ancestral relative… the wolf. How did the dog come to be so successfully domesticated from its wild ancestors? Dr. Rodney Honeycutt discusses the genetics of domestication and some of the special qualities of the dog, such as its phenomenal senses of hearing, smell, and taste.

The experts say this is the beginning of the golden age of microbiology. Industry, medicine, the definition of life itself, are all being changed by single-celled creatures you and I can't even see. But the news is not all good. Many people are spooked by the diseases caused by bacteria: Pneumonia, Salmonella, meningitis… all caused by bacteria and passed among us every day. Infectious diseases are the greatest cause of illness and death in human history. Bacteria can make us deathly sick and often kill us. And just when we develop medicines to kill the germs, they do what they do best… mutate, find ways to resist our medicines. Now we are bombarded with products that promise to kill these germs. The number of new antibacterial products has tripled. But does the use of these products just make the germs even more resistant?