The BEST episodes of Modern Marvels season 13
Every episode of Modern Marvels season 13, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Modern Marvels season 13!
Celebrating ingenuity, invention and imagination brought to life on a grand scale, MODERN MARVELS tells the fascinating stories of the doers, dreamers and sometime-schemers who created everyday items, technological breakthroughs and man-made wonders.
#1 - Renewable Energy
Season 13 - Episode 37 - Aired 9/20/2006
Take an in-depth look at the most proven and reliable sources: solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, and tidal power. From the experimental to the tried-and-true, renewable energy sources are overflowing with potential... just waiting to be exploited on a massive scale.
#2 - Snow
Season 13 - Episode 54 - Aired 12/10/2006
It is the bane of every suburban parent and the joy to every school kid. Born in a swirling storm cloud through a process called nucleation, the characteristics of snow flakes are threatened by pollution trapped in the clouds.
#3 - Nuts
Season 13 - Episode 30 - Aired 8/2/2006
Pintsized as a pea or big as a bowling ball, nutritional, durable, and versatile, nuts have been a staple of the human diet since time began, and archaeological evidence places them among our earliest foods. Nuts sustained the imperial armies of Rome and China, the royal navies of England and Spain, and the native tribes that roamed the American wilderness.
#4 - Water
Season 13 - Episode 33 - Aired 9/6/2006
Water, the most needed substance for life, so powerful it can carve our landscape, yet so nurturing it can spawn life and support its intricate matrix.
#5 - World's Strongest
Season 13 - Episode 46 - Aired 10/18/2006
Strength...a powerful word, but what does it mean? How is it measured? Why are some things simply stronger than others. How strong is a rope, a tractor, a diamond, a tugboat or even plastic. How and why strength matther to us every day.
#6 - Mummy Tech
Season 13 - Episode 31 - Aired 8/23/2006
After thousands of years, Egyptian mummies are speaking from the grave. With the use of state-of-the-art computer tomography scanning we explore inside a 2,000-year-old mummified body of an Egyptian child.
#7 - Distilleries 2
Season 13 - Episode 45 - Aired 10/11/2006
It's an art, it's a science and it's a marriage of vapor and water. From the elite to the illegal, the banned, to the celebrated, the distillation of spirits is a 50 billion dollar a year business. Visit brandy, liqueur, moonshine, and absinthe distilleries to see how this magic is done.
#8 - Ink
Season 13 - Episode 43 - Aired 10/4/2006
Invented by the Chinese in about 3000BC, it spread the word of God and war. It set us free and spelled out our rights. It tells stories, sells products and solves crimes. It's ink and it's everywhere!
#9 - Sea Stealth
Season 13 - Episode 41 - Aired 9/27/2006
It's one thing to make a 60-foot-long jet aircraft seem invisible, but quite another to hide a 400-foot-long warship from the prying eyes of an enemy. Explore the challenging world of stealth technology at sea and how modern engineering can make our largest warships appear to be tugboats or fishing vessels
#10 - Air Stealth
Season 13 - Episode 42 - Aired 9/27/2006
They are the swarthy eagles of the sky: Past, present, and future advances in stealth military aircraft
#11 - Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway
Season 13 - Episode 40 - Aired 9/26/2006
The Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway is comprised of a system of canals, land cuts, and a series of natural and artificial barrier islands, which provide a protected passage for low-draft vessels wishing to avoid the tumultuous currents of the Atlantic Ocean
#12 - Cities of the Underworld
Season 13 - Episode 39 - Aired 9/21/2006
Teamed with leading archeologists and experts, peel back the layers of the past--to reveal a hidden history that hasn't seen the light of day for ages.
#13 - Freight Trains
Season 13 - Episode 38 - Aired 9/20/2006
Explore the history of freight transportation from its humble beginnings as tramways in mines to complex system of rails that stretches to every corner of the nation.
#14 - Building in the Name of God
Season 13 - Episode 36 - Aired 9/18/2006
The greatest religious structures are marvels of engineering, technology, and invention, representing not only the glory of God, but also the ingenuity of man.
#15 - Copper
Season 13 - Episode 35 - Aired 9/13/2006
It transports electricity, water, and heat. It brings music to our ears and beauty to our eyes. Copper--its impressive traits, long history, and how it's mined. This versatile metal’s most famous attribute is its ability to conduct electricity.
#16 - Levees
Season 13 - Episode 32 - Aired 8/30/2006
From collapsing floodwalls in New Orleans to high-tech mechanical storm surge barriers in Europe, we'll explore the 2,500-year history of keeping rivers and tides at bay by erecting levees.
#17 - Super Tools: Skyscraper
Season 13 - Episode 28 - Aired 7/27/2006
Skyscrapers are an extraordinary feat of human engineering: exposing millions of pounds of concrete and steel to the enemy forces of wind and gravity. Starting with the foundation and on through the support structures and concrete flooring, every piece of these superstructures has to be super-strong. Go behind the scenes with the five tools that make these buildings possible: the foundation drill rig, the tower crane, the impact wrench, the power trowel, and the total station.
#18 - The Final Farewell to the F-14 Tomcat
Season 13 - Episode 47 - Aired 11/1/2006
Hosted by Terry Deitz, a former Tomcat pilot, this special explores the legacy of one of the greatest fighter jets ever built. Witness first hand the last F-14 catapult launches and arrested trap landings aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Hear what the aviators and sailors who have flown and maintained this iconic aircraft over the years have to say about its long lived active duty career. Deitz will ride shotgun one last time before the F-14 is retired. Then reflect with veteran pilots, Navy brass, and airplane enthusiasts as the world bids farewell at the F-14 Memorial and Final Flight Ceremony at the Naval Air Station in Oceana, VA.
#19 - Tobacco
Season 13 - Episode 48 - Aired 11/8/2006
Discovered around 18,000 years ago, tobacco was first cultivated in the Andes between 5000 and 3000 B.C. At a modern tobacco farm in North Carolina, a farmer will show how the crop is harvested and cured and visit the Fuente cigar plantation in the Dominican Republic. While tobacco has brought pleasure to countless smokers the world over--it has sent millions to an early grave. In an interview with the Surgeon General, explore this leading public health issue. The show will also look at smokeless methods of consumption as well as explore the use of nicotine replacement therapy.
#20 - The Supermarket
Season 13 - Episode 49 - Aired 11/15/2006
Our basic need and desire for food has made the supermarket one of the great success stories of modern retailing. Making customers' visits to the market as efficient as possible has led to bar coding and a scale that recognizes the type of produce placed on it. Explore the psychology of the supermarket including store layout, lighting, music and aromas that trigger the appetite. With a growing percentage of the public interested in eating healthier foods, organic grocers are carving out an increasingly large niche.
#21 - Breakfast Tech
Season 13 - Episode 50 - Aired 11/28/2006
It slices and squeezes, sorts and sizes, mixes and cooks. Every morning we count on it to keep our orange juice fresh, our eggs whole, our cereals flaked, and our McGriddle syrupy--this is Breakfast Tech.
#22 - Wine
Season 13 - Episode 52 - Aired 11/29/2006
A glass a day is said to keep the doctor away. A defeated Napoleon drowned his sorrows in it; Thomas Jefferson became obsessed with it. Wine is an integral part of our culture and more wine is consumed today than ever before. Supermarket shelves that once carried only box wine and jugs are now lined with wines from Australia, Chile, and South Africa. Aerial imaging and infrared photography once used by NASA to map the moon is now employed by wineries to analyze soil, vine vigor, and even disease. Paying tribute to wine's unique history we will travel the world over to explore wineries, the worlds' most historic wine cellar and the oldest restaurant in Paris.
#23 - Harvesting 2
Season 13 - Episode 51 - Aired 11/29/2006
In America's orchards and farm fields, the constant struggle between hand labor and mechanization has produced dozens of efficient and sometimes bizarre harvesting methods. Learn the secrets of the orchard manager and his ladder crew as they check fruit pressures and barometric readings. Visit California's largest fruit packing house and try to keep up with 10-fruit-per-second conveyors. Then off to the corn fields of Nebraska and the cranberry marshes of central Wisconsin. Finally go underground to the world's largest mushroom farm where the harvest takes place in limestone caverns that run some 150 miles. From fruit tree picking platforms to cranberry beaters and corn pickers, farmers constantly strive to speed the harvest.
#24 - Tea
Season 13 - Episode 55 - Aired 12/13/2006
After water, tea is the second most popular drink in the world. It has been around as a drink for 5000 years, and 6 billion pounds of tea are harvested annually.
#25 - Copper Kings
Season 13 - Episode 19 - Aired 6/12/2006
More than a century ago two men controlled nearly all of U.S. copper production, transforming Butte, Montana from a washed-up gold-mining camp into a global powerhouse. William Clark, a ruthless banker known for preying on the misfortune of miners and Marcus Daly, a self-made man with a knack for knowing where to dig, created huge empires and lived like kings, while fighting a ferocious, personal, battle that lasted nearly 25 years.