Greatest Discoveries with Bill Nye

Bill Nye considers fossils, from dinosaurs to Lucy and Laetoli footprints, life near hydrothermal vents, the classification of species and the theory of natural selection.

Earth is always changing, and Earth's species must continually adapt. Host Bill Nye gives an inside look at planet Earth, from its inner core to its protective magnetic field. Discover how earthquakes and volcanoes help explain plate tectonics and the dynamic geology of oceans and continents. Learn how the Earth's atmosphere gives scientific insight about weather and climate, and look at forms of radiation and the potential dangers from harmful gases and geologic changes.

From the first systematic examination of the human body through dissection in the 16th century to the 20th-century discoveries of how vitamins, insulin, and the antibiotics can help overcome deadly disorders and diseases; and modern-day discoveries about genetics and cancer and the causes of AIDS.

Nye covers Einstein's theory of general relativity, demonstrates how Hubble determined that the universe is expanding, and discusses the 20th-century advancements that help us understand gamma ray bursts, black holes, pulsars, and quasars. Highlights include Edmond Halley, whose discovery of comets orbiting the sun proved that gravity works in space, and Alexander and Caroline Herschel, whose map of the sky brought new understanding of the universe.

Host Bill Nye looks back over the past two centuries, in which chemistry has brought us from a time when atoms were a hypothesis to an age where scientists may be able to combine particles on the atomic level into micro-machines. Learn how electricity transforms chemicals, elements can combine into more complex molecules, and the combination of nonliving substances produced organic compounds that led to pharmacology. Nye examines the second half of the 19th century, a time dominated by discoveries relating to light, electrons, radioactivity, and the periodic table of the elements as well as 20th century advances in science.

It took 150 years to progress from Mendel's experiments with peas to the complete sequencing of the human genome. Host Bill Nye explores why certain traits are passed through families and species. He discusses the process by which scientists came to understand that inherited information is passed according to rules. Featuring discoveries related to DNA and its breakthrough as the chemical basis of genetic information, as well as a set of instructions for making the essential proteins of life. Nye also explains that RNA is the messenger that carries the instructions from living cells to enable protein production. Nye visits FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., where DNA becomes personal. The discovery that DNA sequences are unique to each individual ushered in the era of criminal forensics, playing an important role in courtrooms ever since.

Bill Nye selects, in no particular order, the top ten of the 100 greatest discoveries: Newton's laws of motion, microorganisms, penicillin, germ theory, laws of inheritance, the Earth moves, the periodic table of elements, e=mc2, general relativity and natural selection.