Name: Breakthrough |
Uploaded: 2020-11-05 00:00:00
Duration: 22 min 14 s
Description: How did the western United States become a hotspot for unwieldy and devastating forest fires? Learn how the history of forest management and loss of public trust, coupled with climate change, have led to the conditions driving mega-fire nearly year-round.

Take a deeper look at some of the recent developments in physics, astronomy and other sciences.

This year we said goodbye to one of our most intrepid planetary explorers, the Opportunity rover. Take a look back at its storied 15-year mission on Mars, and how it revolutionized our understanding of not just the red planet, but our solar system at large.

Opportunity: A Life on Mars

El León es conocido como el Rey de la Selva. Pero fueron los tigres dientes de sable los que gobernaron las Américas en el pasado. Sus fósiles nos cuentan la vida violenta y casi humana de esta misteriosa especie.

Lucha Entre Dientes De Sable

The Greenland ice sheet, the last remnant of the Ice Age, is melting at an unprecedented rate. Today, scientists and researchers from all over the world are paying close attention to what could become a global catastrophe.

Greenland is Melting

For all of human history, the Sun, our home star, has measured our days and our seasons while fueling all life on Earth. Yet it remains an enigma. NASA's Parker Probe Plus is on a mission to change that -- flying through dangerous radiation to become the closest spaceship to orbit our Sun.

Touching the Sun

Wildfires have greatly increased in size and intensity over the past few years. After record-setting conflagrations erupted in the region’s prized forests, new tools using cutting-edge technology are being developed to help save property and lives.

Extreme Wildfire Combat

Lions may be known as the kings of the jungle, but it was saber-tooth cats that ruled over the Americas. New fossil evidence is shinning a light on the violent lives of these mysterious species.

Saber-Tooth Brawl

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius is renowned for its decimation of Pompeii, but nearby, an equally impressive Roman settlement known as Herculaneum was lost to history. Today, the latest in technology is opening a wind to the past, as scientists digitally "unravel" the Herculaneum Scrolls.

Herculaneum Scrolls: Unraveling History

Rip currents can appear without warning, turning an ideal beach outing into a horrific scene of chaos and panic. But groundbreaking new research could teach thousands of potential victims how to spot and escape these silent killers before it's too late.

Escaping Rip Currents

The real impact of global warming is now being felt in communities around the world. Climate scientists explain what to expect where you live, and what steps might still be taken to reverse the climate crisis.

Climate Crisis

A ballistic missile test by India recently shot down one of its own communications satellites. With over 900,000 pieces of debris currently orbiting planet Earth, space trash has become a very real threat to ongoing missions.

Space Junk Dangers

Hayabusa2 became the first spacecraft to take subsurface samples of an asteroid. How did they do it? Easy, just blow a crater on the surface! The probe now has its final sample and will begin its journey back home in the coming months.

Hayabusa2: Asteroid Explosion

66 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, causing a dinosaur mass extinction. With over 700,000 asteroids in space, what's in store for humanity and our planet if it happens again?

Modern Day Killer Asteroid

One of the oldest known hominins in southern Africa. An almost complete skeleton dates back more than three million years. Found in 1994 in the Sterkfontein Caves near Johannesburg in South Africa, which form part of the “Cradle of Humankind”.

Little Foot: Exploring Our Origins

Heart disease is the number one cause of death worldwide, but there are researchers frantically working to change that. Meet the people inventing the future of cardiac health, from new ways of imaging the body to the possibility of 3D printing a functioning heart.

Fixing A Broken Heart

The Tyrannosaurus Rex is known as the king of the dinosaurs, but how did its reign begin? Meet Moros Intrepidus, a 180 lb., deer-sized ancestor to the T-Rex. Learn how the latest in paleontology can now link this small dinosaur to the 19,000-pound Scotty, the largest T-Rex ever discovered.

T-Rex Timeline

A non-profit organization established in 2011 is aiming to land the first Israeli spacecraft on the Moon. This is the story of their attempt and the excitement of being the first private company to have a spacecraft launched with the intention of going to and landing on the moon.

Private Moonshot

How close are we to rendering infertility a problem of the past? Scientists believe that they are steps away from making healthy babies from stem cells, opening the doors for those with health limitations to become parents. But what are the legal and ethical implications of this breakthrough?

Making Babies

Wiped off the face of the Earth by humans nearly a century ago, geneticists are now working on resurrecting the enigmatic Tasmanian Tiger.

Resurrecting Tasmanian Tigers

Great white sharks are one of the most feared predators on Earth, and yet we know very little about them. Science is now revealing the mysteries of this perfect predator through evolutionary biology.

Shark Family Tree

For the first time, scientists have captured a photograph of a black hole. The image verifies one of the most important theories in physics and will help unlock the greatest mysteries of the cosmos.

The First Picture of a Black Hole

How long does it take for life to rebound after a major mass extinction? Scientists in Svalbard dig through fossil clues for surprising revelations about our Earth's history.

Recovering From Extinction

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft has just completed one of the most intricate procedures in space exploration. The first mission to deliver rovers onto an asteroid has now descended to its surface for a sample, before returning back to Earth in 2020.

Direct From An Asteroid

The New Horizons spacecraft revolutionized our understanding of the solar system as it rocketed past Pluto. Now, four billion miles since its launch, the craft approaches its next target…Ultima Thule.

New Horizons: The Kuiper Belt Target

The fate of the Mars InSight lander will all come down to a fiery seven-minute freefall into the Red Planet. Will it survive and reveal new insight into our planetary neighbor, or will the atmosphere of Mars prove to be too much for our new planetary explorer?

Mars InSight: Seven Minutes to Touchdown

The Mars InSight lander is on a 6-month journey to the Red Planet, with hopes of uncovering some of our planetary neighbor's secrets. Digging deep into Martian soil, the lander will measure marsquakes and also study the deep interior of Mars - perhaps revealing the origins of the planet.

Drilling For Marsquakes: Mars InSight

Einstein was correct about gravitational waves. Here is a short primer on these up-to-now-only theoretical waves. And you will find out how we have finally confirmed Einstein's theory and what the research into gravitational waves will tell us about the beginnings of our Universe.

Gravitational Waves

Only 20 years ago, on July 5, 1996, scientists cloned a sheep, Dolly. Now genetics has advanced to gene editing, a technique that is promising to pave the way for curing genetically carried illnesses, like certain cancers. But how does it all work? And what are the challenges?

What is CRISPR?

New information from the eye of the Greenland Shark confirms it is the longest living vertebrate on Earth. Find out what qualities the shark has, and how looking at Sea Squirts (Tunicates) is also helping scientists understand more about the aging process.

The Mystery Of The Longest Living Vertebrate

NASA may have just gotten one step closer to answering the question: are we alone? The Spitzer Telescope has made a groundbreaking discovery of exoplanets that could be similar to our own. And as Kepler also continues its search, our understanding of the universe continues to be redefined.

Exoplanets

New evidence from NASA's Dawn mission to Ceres, a dwarf planet the size of Texas, is changing our understanding of not only the Asteroid Belt but may also hold the key to deciphering the early life of our solar system.

Asteroid Belt Discovery

Gravitational Waves from three billion light years away have reached Earth -- the latest discovery from a new branch of astronomy that one day could give us a front-row seat to the Big Bang.

Gravitational Waves: Rewinding Time

As scientific studies confirm sea level changes throughout the globe, major coastal cities like Miami are now fighting back against these rising tides, before it's too late. Parts of Miami Beach are under serious threat, with major economic and social dangers looming large.

Miami Beach Underwater

As the number of people affected by Alzheimer's Disease continues to grow at an unprecedented pace, researchers worldwide are racing to discover a cure. While stopping the disease is the ultimate goal, could a team in the UK have cracked a method to reverse Alzheimer's Disease?

Reversing Alzheimer's

Geologists in New Zealand created a stir earlier this year when they declared their discovery of the eighth continent of the world. Learn how was it formed and how something so massive could remain undetected until now.

The Eighth Continent: Zealandia

Discovered in 2013, new and puzzling finding of small-skulled fossils of Homo naledi have scientists trying to understand whether Homo sapiens lived at the same time as Homo naledi, and how Homo naledi communities may have lived.

Homo Naledi

New evidence suggests humans arrived in North America far earlier than previously thought, and that they may have traveled along paths now buried deep beneath the sea.

The Earliest Americans

Twenty years after its launch, we bid farewell to the Cassini spacecraft as it plunges into Saturn’s atmosphere in a planned death spiral. Productive right to the end, Cassini has rewritten the textbook on not only Saturn and its moons, but our whole solar system as well.

Cassini: The Grand Finale

An extraordinary new discovery of a dinosaur fossil so pristine and complete, that it shows off the texture, patterns, and color of a prehistoric giant. Discover this brand new species that roamed during the late Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

World's Best Dinosaur Fossil

The coronavirus is spreading at frightening speeds from Wuhan, China, to the rest of the world. How did this virus develop, and how close are we to finding an effective vaccine?

The Coronavirus Epidemic

Is it possible that there is a hidden planet within our own solar system? New evidence suggests that the fabled Planet X, or Planet 9, may indeed exist… but where? Meet the teams racing to discover and redefine our planetary neighborhood.

Search for Our Sun's Lost Planet

Officially designated as a pandemic, it seems as if COVID-19 has taken over the world. Lucky for us, this isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with a serious virus outbreak. Experts share the methods currently in place to slow down this infectious disease.

Coronavirus: Combating the Outbreak

According to current estimates, a widely available COVID-19 vaccine will likely be available within the next 12 months. Why so long? Learn how vaccines are developed and explore the current state of the coronavirus landscape, guided by the scientists on the ground trying to find a solution.

Coronavirus: Race For a Vaccine

As the COVID-19 pandemic ramps up globally, every day brings new information about the disease. Learn what the virus does to the human body, and hear from the medical experts searching for techniques to treat the illness.

Coronavirus: Treating the Disease

With countries racing to combat COVID-19 and communities across the world on lockdown, the world's attention has been directed towards medical solutions to this disease outbreak. However, there's another largely unseen health factor currently at play: our mental well-being.

Coronavirus: Psychology of a Pandemic

Hundreds of millions of people around the world could run out of water soon. Experts are desperately searching for solutions to stave off "Day Zero" when the taps will run dry. But the recent discovery of a massive aquifer hidden beneath the U.S. coastline may offer the greatest hope for humanity.

World Without Water

On August 2, 2020, two NASA astronauts plunged back to Earth aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule. Witness their historic flight, from the first manned launch from the US in nearly a decade to the first splashdown attempt since the Apollo era.

Flight of the Dragon (Mission Update)

Bats are getting their share of the blame for the COVID-19 pandemic, but are they really at fault?

Coronavirus: Don't Blame Bats

Capture teams from the U.S. National Park Service track down and relocate wolves to Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior under an ambitious initiative to restore balance to a wilderness ecosystem.

Return of the Wolves

Could a 75 million-year-old dinosaur skull that has been sitting in a museum for over 20 years hold the first-ever dinosaur DNA discovered by humans? Follow an international team of scientists as they try to unlock the mystery of dinosaur DNA sequences.

Raising Dinos From The Dead

The latest developments in space technology continue to reveal the wonders of our solar system. With new moons recently spotted orbiting Saturn, the gas giant has taken the lead in our cosmic neighborhood's moon count.

Saturn: The Moon King

Meet Perseverance, NASA's latest rover, as it heads to Mars to answer one question: did life exist on the red planet? On the way, it will lay the foundation for human exploration of our closest neighbor.

Hunting For Martian Life: The Perseverance Rover

OSIRIS-REx is NASA's first asteroid-sampling spacecraft on an asteroid called BENNU. It attempts a "touch-and-go" (TAG) sample collection which involves a series of maneuvers that will bring the spacecraft down to the asteroid's surface.

OSIRIS-REx: Asteroid Hunter

Watch as the Mars Perseverance Rover makes its historic landing on the Red Planet. We take you inside the harrowing February 18, 2021 landing, the science mission, and cutting-edge technology, including the first-ever Martian helicopter.

Mars Perseverance: The Hunt Begins

Archaeologists and geneticists are uncovering surprising details about one of the most mysterious civilizations in Pre-Incan South America. While many are familiar with the Incas…few have heard of the Chachapoya, the people known as the Cloud Warriors, a mysterious pre-Incan Peruvian culture.

Peru's Mysterious Cloud Warriors

How did the western United States become a hotspot for unwieldy and devastating forest fires? Learn how the history of forest management and loss of public trust, coupled with climate change, have led to the conditions driving mega-fire nearly year-round.

The West is Burning

The North Atlantic Right Whale is on the verge of extinction. The leading cause of death and injury to the whales is from ship strikes or entanglement in fishing lines. In this Breakthrough episode, we will hear from the leading experts and biologists who are racing to save this species.

Saving the Right Whale

By examining countless Megalodon teeth from around the world, scientists have concluded that "meg" was able to achieve its gargantuan proportions by starting its carnivorous diet early -- in the womb.

Decoding Megalodon

Our bodies are habitats for bacteria, and many of the microbes are beneficial to us. Scientists believe that within a few decades many useful microbes will have disappeared … so they want to create a vault for Human Microbiota like a Noah's Ark for the future of the human species.

Noah's Ark for the Humans

Drones have already conquered Earth, and now they're heading out into the solar system. The Mars Helicopter, Ingenuity is proving to be successful and will pave the way for Dragonfly, a future daring mission to Titan.

Drones in Space: Mars to Titan

65 million years ago, an immense space rock slammed into Earth, creating the equivalent of nuclear winter, killing all of the dinosaurs. Now, a team of scientists believes there was a witness to the catastrophe …a survivor that walked alongside T-rex … and that also allowed humans to be here today.

First Human Link

From their unique predatory behaviors to the web masterpieces they weave, science is revealing big breakthroughs about spiders and their super strong and flexible silks.

Super Spider Silk

Nearly a century after the discovery of King Tut's tomb, archaeologists uncover the lost city of Luxor revealing new details about life in the Golden Era of ancient Egypt.

Egypt's Lost City

A dog's sense of smell can do amazing things. Dogs can help humans sniff out all kinds of things that improve our lives, explosives, missing persons, illegal drugs. Now the latest research is revealing that dogs can detect disease, even cancer.

Secrets of a Dog's Nose

A team of scientists embarks on a quest to explore the mesopelagic zone or ocean twilight zone which sits beneath the surface layer of the ocean and stretches around the world. This mysterious region just might hold the key to climate change and the planet’s future.

Ocean Twilight Zone

The ICARUS system monitors the movements and behaviors of Earth’s creatures from space. An antenna mounted on the International Space Station receives data from tiny trackers attached to animals and birds, opening the door to new discoveries that can warn us of natural disasters and outbreaks.

ICARUS: Tracking Creatures From Space

For the first time in decades, NASA is sending two new missions to Venus designed to study and explore the planet’s atmosphere and earth-like composition. Together, DAVINCI and VERITAS will provide a new, 360º view of Venus -- its history, and perhaps a window into Earth’s past as well.

Voyage To Venus

This is the epic story of the James Webb Space Telescope, told first-hand by the scientists who developed it. Building the largest, most advanced, and most expensive telescope ever made does not come without its challenges. But seeing further into space than ever before will be worth the struggle.

Building The James Webb Telescope

New research reveals how incredible these ancient, unchanged reptiles really are - partly because of what’s called negligible senescence. This means that Alligators show almost no signs of aging -- regardless of how long they live - and that they are “biologically immortal.”

Immortal Alligators

Astronomers linked radio dishes around the world to create the “Event Horizon Telescope” and have utilized this tool to photograph a supermassive black hole in the heart of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Its name is “Sagittarius A Prime” and it is over 4 million times more massive than the Sun.

Capturing A Black Hole In Our Milky Way

Forecasting volcanic eruptions is notoriously challenging, but teams of scientists from around the globe may soon be utilizing cosmic rays to diagnose when a volcano is about to blow.

Into the Volcano

The dawn of a new era in astronomy has begun as the world gets its first look at the full capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. These first images from the world’s largest and most powerful space telescope demonstrate Webb at its full power.

First Images: The James Webb Telescope

This is an inside look at NASA's groundbreaking Artemis Program, the spacecraft, and the people who will bring humanity one step closer to the moon, Mars, and beyond.

Artemis: First Launch

While humans debate which is worse, dwindling resources or planet-killing celestial bodies, new breakthroughs in extra-planetary surveying and rocket propulsion are revealing the dichotomy of asteroids; those that might provide a new source of precious metals and those that can outright kill us.

Year of the Asteroid

Anyone stuck in traffic has fantasized about lifting off and transforming their car into a helicopter. A sleek ride, capable of circumventing the chaos of city driving, soaring above coastal roads, or even the coast itself. Those days are upon us as flying cars move out of the realm of fantasy.

Tomorrow's Flying Cars

For the first time in history, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has pierced the Sun’s corona and is orbiting above its surface. Scientists have a front-row seat to better understand the sun and predict huge solar eruptions that can cause serious damage when they hit Earth.

Voyage Into the Sun

With new state-of-the-art tools and technologies that include curious underwater vehicles and hydrodynamic modeling, scientists have hope of better understanding the threats to coral communities while finding the source to restock reefs worldwide.

Reefs of Hope

Humanity is closer than ever before to a perpetual clean power source after a team of scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain. We now know one thing is possible, we can reach ignition.

Fusion: Harnessing the Power of Stars

We’ve known about them for centuries and have been photographing them for decades, but a new pair of missions will be launching to bring us closer than we’ve ever been to Jupiter’s icy moons. Revealing answers to what may be astronomy’s biggest question…do the conditions for life exist beyond Earth?

Jupiter's Moons and the Search for Life

Earthquakes can leave a path of destruction with no warning. Through the latest technology, scientists are scrambling for a breakthrough that can forecast where and when earthquakes will strike next.

Forecasting the Big One

A giant mass of floating seaweed is invading popular beaches in the US and Caribbean! At sea, the sargassum belt is a floating ecosystem, but when it hits the shore it turns toxic. Scientists are racing to figure out how to protect the coast while tracking and studying this natural wonder.

The Great Seaweed Invasion

Launched in 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returns to Earth after a 7-year journey with NASA’s very first asteroid sample. Rocks and dust collected in 2020 from the asteroid Bennu will provide scientists with key evidence from the birth of our solar system—about 4.5 billion years ago.

OSIRIS-REx: The Return

It’s been called the most significant breakthrough of the century. For the first time, scientists are using a new type of astronomy to detect gravitational waves all around us, opening a window into the history of our universe that could someday lead to time travel.

Gravitational Waves: A New Universe

In Antarctica, a state-of-the-art robotic penguin, called ECHO, is changing the way scientists monitor wildlife. The autonomous yellow robot has been integrated into the penguin colony and is using remote sensing technology to monitor these now-endangered penguin colonies.

ECHO: The Penguin’s Bodyguard

Get ready for humanity's first deep dive into an alien ocean world! NASA's Europa Clipper heads to Jupiter's icy moons to explore the ultimate question: Is there life beyond Earth?

Europa Clipper: Mission to an Alien Ocean

Sixty years ago, Mariner 4 sent back the first images of Mars. It's a trip NASA has made twenty more times since. Robots—probes, landers, rovers, and even helicopters—are searching for signs of life on the Red Planet, and paving the way for us to follow. Our journey to Mars has already begun.

Pathways to Mars

Asteroids. Mountains of rock that hurtle through space, capable of mass destruction. A series of space missions are targeting them. Could these potential planet killers also reveal the origins of life itself? And can humanity protect itself against them?

Asteroid Impact

This is an inside look at how teams of scientists, engineers and surgeons—and their courageous test subjects—are using Brain-Computer Interfaces to bring hope and increased independence to patients living with conditions like paralysis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and blindness.

Brain-Computer Interface: The Digital Mind

Humans are not the strongest. Our senses are nothing special. But our intelligence is letting us wield the power of evolution. Scientists are unlocking the mysteries of the natural world to improve our lives, our health and our future.

Engineering Life

For thousands—or even millions—of years, they ruled the food chain. And they still fascinate us. Creatures synonymous with the hunt: Saber Teeth, Mega Jaws, even a Tyrant King. How did they win evolution’s race—and what brought their reign to an end?

Superpredators

Data centers already devour massive amounts of energy. AI is making their power consumption skyrocket. Energy bills are already rising. Brownouts will be next. Do we have the juice to power a digital world? Researchers are looking for groundbreaking solutions.

Data Center Energy Crisis

Explore the rockets, landers, vehicles, and space capsule paving the way for future Artemis missions to the lunar surface. And meet the engineers—and the machines—behind NASA's Commercial Lander Payload Services (CLPS) missions, which are revolutionizing humanity’s relationship with the Moon.

Artemis II: Ready for the Moon

On a faraway island ruled by giant dragons since prehistoric times, archaeologists uncover the tiny remains of ancient humans and ignite fierce controversy. These fossils reveal a long-lost world and a spellbinding chapter of human evolution: the life and times of Homo floresiensis, the Hobbits.

Land of the Hobbits

They have opened our eyes to the biggest breakthroughs in astronomy, from black holes to lost planets to the birth of stars. As we build bigger and better telescopes, they have become our eyes in the sky, peering ever further into the darkness and giving us answers about our place in the universe.

Telescopes: The Truth is Out There

Science breaks down boundaries and grows knowledge. Achievements build on one another and provide stepping stones to the future. From the latest in biotech to secrets buried in the Earth's surface to outer space, these are the Breakthroughs that have made history—and changed it forever.

Game Changers

Findings of small-skulled fossils uncover more about when and how ancient beings lived; Dive further into archaeologists' discovery of Egypt's Lost City of Luxor.