Production
Six young women programmed the world's first all-electronic programmable computer, ENIAC, as part of a secret US WWII project. They changed the world, but were never introduced and never received credit. These pioneers deserve to be known and celebrated: Betty Snyder Holberton, Jean Jennings Barik, Kay McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum, and Frances Bilas Spence.
A fascinating account of the presidency of Andrew Jackson, who was both one of America's great presidents and a borderline tyrant. The seventh president shook up the glossy world of Washington, DC with his "common-man" methods and ideals, but also oversaw one of the most controversial events in American history: the forced removal of Indian tribes, including the Cherokees, from their homes.
Public health scientists and clinicians tout vaccines as one of the greatest achievements of modern medicine. But for many ordinary Americans vaccines have become controversial. Young parents are concerned at the sheer number of shots — some 26 inoculations for 14 different diseases by age 6 — and follow alternative vaccination schedules. Other parents go further. In communities like Ashland, Oregon, up to one-third of parents are choosing not to vaccinate their kids at all. This is the vaccine war: On one side sits scientific medicine and the public health establishment; on the other a populist coalition of parents, celebrities, politicians and activists.
It’s been almost a year since a devastating earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, leaving the country’s once popular energy program in shambles. In response, Germany decided to abandon nuclear energy entirely. Should the U.S. follow suit? FRONTLINE correspondent Miles O’Brien examines the implications of the Fukushima accident for U.S. nuclear safety, and asks how this disaster will affect the future of nuclear energy around the world. In particular, he visits one emerging battleground: The controversial relicensing of the Indian Point nuclear plant, located only 38 miles from Manhattan. What lessons can be learned from the disaster in Japan?
A small group of girls in one of the most remote forests left on earth attend a radical high school where they learn to protect the threatened forest and forge a better future for themselves. Set in the untamed wilds of the Mbaracayu Reserve in rural Paraguay, this intimate verite documentary offers a rare glimpse of a disappearing world where timid girls grow into brave young women even as they are transformed by their unlikely friendships with one another.
