The BEST episodes of Modern Marvels season 14

#1 - Rocks

Season 14 - Episode 41 - Aired 12/3/2007

From the Stone Age, to the Space Age, we've built our world from rocks. With moon rocks located at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

#2 - Engineering Disasters of the 70's

Season 14 - Episode 19 - Aired 5/31/2007

To error is human, but when it results in the loss of life, it's a disaster. Learn about the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the Buffalo Creek Dam disaster, and the explosion of a tanker in Los Angeles harbor.

#3 - Star Wars Tech

Season 14 - Episode 30 - Aired 9/3/2007

#4 - Welding

Season 14 - Episode 14 - Aired 5/9/2007

It was a science first conjured amid the fiery ovens of ancient blacksmiths; today more than 50% of all U.S. products require some form of welding. Whether via electricity, flammable gases, sonic waves, or sometimes just raw explosive power, welding creates powerful bonds between metal unmatched by any other joining process. From high atop emerging 60-story towers on the Las Vegas strip to oil platforms hundreds of feet below the ocean, discover how welders forge the backbone of civilization. Learn about exciting new applications: how sound waves create bulletproof welds for contemporary body armor; the technologies behind robotic welding systems; and the knee-rattling impact of an explosion weld, the most powerful method of all.

#5 - Early machine guns

Season 14 - Episode 35 - Aired 10/1/2007

Evolution of rapid-fire guns. Included: use of machine guns in the American Civil War.

#6 - Canning

Season 14 - Episode 3 - Aired 1/31/2007

Canning is the method of a preserving and packaging food, without which civilization would never have ventured beyond the local food supply.

#7 - Balls

Season 14 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/17/2007

Examining the technology and evolution of balls used in sports. Included: a tour of the Wilson Football Factory Ohio; the Rawlings baseball factory Costa Rica and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. And also "juego de pelota" - the ancient Mesoamerican ball game.

#8 - World's Strongest 2

Season 14 - Episode 17 - Aired 5/23/2007

What does it take to become "the world's strongest"? You'll find out on this episode of Modern Marvels. With life-saving boron carbide body armor and MegaFly - a giant ram air parachute.

#9 - Aluminum

Season 14 - Episode 24 - Aired 7/25/2007

This useful metal was once considered more valuable than gold. Watch as aluminum is stretched, pounded, melted and turned into foam. Did you know that aluminum is made out of a powder? Visit the widest rolling mill in the world where skins for the largest jets are made, then it’s off to NASA to observe how aluminum is used to make reflective mirrors for telescopes. Discover the process of making aluminum foil and learn why aluminum baseball bats are better than wood.

#10 - World's Sharpest

Season 14 - Episode 36 - Aired 10/11/2007

The Katana blade of the Samurai is the world's sharpest sword. We'll craft one from scratch to reveal the secret of its legendary cutting ability. We'll also visit Cutco Cutlery, where the sharpest for chopping food in your kitchen are made.

#11 - Environmental Tech

Season 14 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/24/2007

From the prairies of Saskatchewan to a Manhattan skyscraper we’ll see the 21st Century’s cutting-edge “green” technologies in action. New technologies such as carbon sequestration and bioremediation take on our most daunting environmental crises, from global warming and deforestation to nuclear waste.

#12 - '60's Tech

Season 14 - Episode 16 - Aired 5/16/2007

A look at the technology behind some of the 1960s greatest inventions. With color television, transistor radios, satellite broadcasting, touch-tone phones, lava lamps, the Ford Mustang, and toys like Etch-a-Sketch and the Super Ball.

#13 - It Came from Outer Space

Season 14 - Episode 15 - Aired 5/16/2007

What do remote controlled robots, Tempurpedic mattresses, polarized glasses and metallized blankets have in common? They are all civilian inventions among the thousands derived from technologies used in space exploration.

#14 - Weapons of Mass Destruction

Season 14 - Episode 8 - Aired 2/21/2007

Nuclear and biological Weapons of mass destruction are examined. With a computer-generated depiction of a dirty-bomb attack in Seattle and how scientists identify biological agents.

#15 - More Military Movers

Season 14 - Episode 12 - Aired 4/18/2007

Soldiers, machines, and supplies are only effective if they arrive at the battlefield in time. Explore the history and the technology behind the machines that do the heavy moving in times of war.

#16 - Truck Stops

Season 14 - Episode 20 - Aired 6/13/2007

Today truck stops are bigger and better than ever. How have these mega pit stops catered to heavy haulers since the 1920s all the way to todays high-tech travel centers.

#17 - Cheese

Season 14 - Episode 22 - Aired 6/27/2007

From the giant cheese factories of Wisconsin to the goat farms of Northern California,

#18 - Sticky Stuff

Season 14 - Episode 25 - Aired 7/30/2007

A look at everyday stuff that is sticky including VHB tape, velcro, stealth rubber, cling wrap, and asphalt.

#19 - Chocolate

Season 14 - Episode 26 - Aired 8/6/2007

It's America's favorite flavor. We eat over three and a half billion pounds of it each year.

#20 - Bedroom Tech

Season 14 - Episode 27 - Aired 8/13/2007

We spend 1/3 of our lives in the bedroom, explore the technologies that help to ensure we wake up on the right side of the bed.

#21 - Vacuums

Season 14 - Episode 28 - Aired 8/23/2007

On this episode of Modern Marvels we'll see giant-sized vacuums that clean up after disasters like Hurricane Katrina and 9-11. Beneath the sea we'll meet The Super Sucker, an underwater vacuum that saves coral reefs by suctioning up invasive alien algae.

#22 - Engineering Disasters 21

Season 14 - Episode 37 - Aired 10/25/2007

A steam pipe explosion rocks New Yorkers on a summer day in Midtown Manhattan. Boston's Big Dig highway project suffers a major setback when sections of a tunnel ceiling fall onto the roadway. Rush hour in Minnesota turns deadly, as a bridge plunges into the Mississippi River.

#23 - Acid

Season 14 - Episode 34 - Aired 10/1/2007

It is the most widely produced chemical in the world and possibly the most dangerous. Take a look at the many uses of acid. See how the military harnesses acid to make the explosive “Comp B-4.” Visit a sulfuric acid plant to see how acid can take the stain out of stainless steel and learn how it can be mixed to dissolve precious metal. At the Heinz vinegar plant discover why acid’s sour taste is sweet. Finally, learn how acid loving bacteria in Yellowstone National Park may hold the key to a biological industrial revolution and meet a mad scientist who will demonstrate how acid can hollow out a penny and turn a hot dog to sludge!

#24 - Deep Freeze

Season 14 - Episode 33 - Aired 9/25/2007

Modern Marvels: Deep Freeze takes the technology of cold to the extreme: A 12-story ice box filled with 135 million pounds of ice cream, arctic vaults that store billions of seeds and learn how scientists have mastered temperatures of minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

#25 - Pumps

Season 14 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/7/2007

The history of the pump is chronicled. Pumps used in water distribution in Southern California - The Colorado River Aqueduct, a robotic cow-milking pump and a pump used in heart surgery.