Buried in mud beneath the shallow waters of Matagorda Bay in Texas, lay a glorious remnant of one of the most ill-fated voyages of the Age of Discovery. After years of searching the area, nautical archaeologists doing a magnetometer survey honed in on a promising site. And on the first day of diving, they were astounded to feel the distinctive outlines of a cannon, and sense the massive size of the wreck. When the cannon was hauled from the water, their hunch was confirmed: This ship, called La Belle, belonged to the 17th Century French explorer Robert Cavelier de La Salle. NOVA follows the building of a coffer dam and subsequent complete excavation of this remarkable site. Preserved were not only armaments and trade beads, but also a wealth of organic material—the wooden hull, leather shoes, and even a skeleton—that brings the voyage to life.

NOVA chronicles a year in the life of a bee colony with stunning images that take viewers inside the innermost secrets of the hive. The documentary team spent a year developing special macro lenses and a bee studio to deliver the film's astonishing sequences. These include the "wedding flight" of the colony's virgin queen as it mates in mid-air with a drone; the life-and-death battle between two rival queens for the colony's throne; and the defeat and death of a thieving wasp at the entrance to the hive. The show also explores such mysteries as the famous "waggle dance" with which scout bees signal the exact direction and distance of nectar sources to the rest of the hive. A vivid picture emerges of the bee's highly organized social life, revolving around the disciplined sharing of construction tasks, the collection of nectar, and warding off enemies. "Tales From the Hive" pushes the boundaries of wildlife filmmaking and opens up an unforgettable window on a strange and complex insect world.

The film tells the fascinating story of the invention of the Black-Scholes Formula, a mathematical Holy Grail that forever altered the world of finance and earned its creators the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics.

The program follows a French-led expedition to recover thousands of porcelain and other artifacts from a centuries-old Chinese shipwreck off the coast of Brunei.

The program investigates the mysterious disappearance -- and, half a century later, reappearance -- of Stardust, a civilian aircraft that crashed in the Andes in 1947.

The program investigates the brave new world of assisted reproduction.

In October and November 1999, NOVA journeyed into ice-choked Antarctic waters and onto the shores of rugged Elephant and South Georgia Islands as we followed in the footsteps of Sir Ernest Shackleton. This legendary explorer's 1914-1916 Endurance expedition is one of the greatest survival stories of all time. Then, in April 2000, we returned to document Shackleton's final trial -- the crossing of South Georgia -- by three of the world's most distinguished mountaineers, Reinhold Messner, Conrad Anker and Stephen Venables. Follow the expeditions as they unfolded in real-time on this Web site, and also watch for a NOVA Giant Screen Film Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, as well as a NOVA program, "Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance," which originally aired on March 26, 2002.

In 1909, Louis Bleriot undertakes a heroic first-ever flight over the English Channel.