Nature “The Loneliest Animals” at 7 pm
The loneliest animals are the most endangered species on the planet. Collected and protected by dedicated scientists, these animals represent the end of the line for their species. In many cases, intensive captive breeding programs have been launched with the aim of sustaining these animals and the hope of returning them to the wild. Viewers will be taken into high-security, high-tech labs where scientists attempt to breed new generations and into the field to discover what forces have led to the demise of entire species. Featured animals include Yangtze turtles under 24-hour surveillance; a baby Sumatran rhino; a special collection of lemurs; the Spix’s macaw, a bird declared extinct in the wild in 2000; and “Lonesome George,” a giant tortoise from the Galapagos, who is the last of his kind.

NOVA “Smartest Machine On Earth“ at 8 pm
What’s so special about human intelligence and will scientists ever build a computer that rivals the flexibility and power of a human brain? In “Artificial Intelligence,” NOVA takes viewers inside an IBM lab where a crack team has been working for nearly three years to perfect a machine that can answer any question. The scientists hope their machine will be able to beat expert contestants in one of the USA’s most challenging TV quiz shows — Jeopardy, which has entertained viewers for over four decades. “Artificial Intelligence” presents the exclusive inside story of how the IBM team developed the world’s smartest computer from scratch. Now they’re racing to finish it for a special Jeopardy airdate in February 2011. They’ve built an exact replica of the studio at its research lab near New York and invited past champions to compete against the machine, a big black box code — named Watson after IBM’s founder, Thomas J. Watson. But will Watson be able to beat out its human competition?

Secrets of the Dead “The World’s Biggest Bomb“ at 9 pm
Beginning in the 1950s, American and Soviet scientists engaged in a dangerous race to see who could build and detonate the world’s largest bomb.

Nature “Echo: An Elephant To Remember” at 7 pm
Echo, the elephant matriarch, was the subject of many NATURE films and the leader of a carefully studied herd of elephants in Africa. Last year, she died of natural causes. This film is a look back at this remarkable animal through extraordinary footage and interviews with the researchers that cared for and studied this amazing herd.

“Battle For The Elephants” at 8 pm
In 2012, the world witnessed the greatest slaughter of elephants since an international ban on the ivory trade was first put in place in 1989. According to some sources, as many as 50,000 elephants were killed across Africa for their tusks. Who is perpetrating the wholesale slaughter of elephants? What is driving the decimation of elephant herds and why is it happening now? What happened to the ban on the trade? Now, National Geographic follows five people, each of whom is waging a battle for the elephant. Their stories reveal that this is an epic tale of supply and demand, of passion and profit, of love and loss, themes borne out in the quests of our five main characters and the many others whose paths they cross.

NOVA “Japan’s Killer Quake” at 9 pm
In its worst crisis since World War II, Japan faces disaster on an epic scale: a rising death toll in the tens of thousands, massive destruction of homes and businesses, shortages of water and power, and the specter of nuclear reactor meltdowns. The facts and figures are astonishing. The March 11th earthquake was the world’s fourth largest earthquake since record keeping began in 1900 and the worst ever to shake Japan. The seismic shock wave released over 4,000 times the energy of the largest nuclear test ever conducted; it shifted the earth’s axis by 6 inches and shortened the day by a few millionths of a second. The tsunami slammed Japan’s coast with 30 feet-high waves that traveled 6 miles inland, obliterating entire towns in a matter of minutes. JAPAN’S KILLER QUAKE combines authoritative on-the-spot reporting, personal stories of tragedy and survival, compelling eyewitness videos, explanatory graphics and exclusive helicopter footage for a unique look at the science behind the catastrophe.

Nature “Crows” at 7 pm
Crows do not have the best of reputations. They are generally dismissed as spooky – Hitchcock used them quite successfully to frighten moviegoers, or as a general nuisance – scarecrows were, after all, invented to scare crows away from crops. But their image is about to take a real turn. New research has shown they are among the most intelligent animals in the world, able to use tools as only elephants and chimpanzees do, and to recognize each other’s voices and 250 distinct calls. They are very social, mate for life and raise their young for up to five years. And they are able to recognize individual humans and pick them out of a crowd up to two years later. Crow experts from around the world sing their praises and present us with captivating new footage of crows as we have never seen them before.

NOVA “Mind Of A Rampage Killer” at 8 pm
This program is part of KLRU’s & PBS’ After Newtown specials. Find out more
What makes a person walk into a theater or a church or a classroom full of students and open fire? What combination of circumstances compels a human being to commit the most inhuman of crimes? Can science in any way help us understand these horrific events and provide clues as to how to prevent them in the future? As the nation tries to understand the tragic events at Newtown, NOVA correspondent Miles O’Brien separates fact from fiction, investigating new theories that the most destructive rampage killers are driven most of all, not by the urge to kill, but the wish to die. Could suicide and the desire to go out in a media-fueled blaze of glory be the main motivation? How much can science tell us about a brain at risk for violence? Most importantly, can we recognize dangerous minds in time — and stop the next Newtown?

Nature “Cold Warriors: Wolves And Buffalo” at 7 pm
For thousands of years, wolves hunted buffalo across the vast North American plains until the westward settlement of the continent saw the virtual extinction of these vast herds and their eternal predators, the wolves. However, this ancient relationship was not lost altogether and continues uninterrupted in just one location — on the northern edge of the continent’s central plains in a place named Wood Buffalo National Park. Today the ancestors of those ancient buffalo and wolves still engage in epic life and death dramas across this northern land. Packs of wolves up to 30 strong hunt the largest land mammals on the continent — buffalo. By getting to know a specific pack of wolves and the individuals that make up the pack, we get a sense of how these two animal species (wolves and buffalo) live together in what seems like a forgotten corner of the world.

NOVA “Earth From Space” at 8 pm
This film reveals a spectacular new space-based vision of our planet. Produced in extensive consultation with NASA scientists, NOVA takes data from earth-observing satellites and transforms it into dazzling visual sequences, each one exposing the intricate web of forces that sustains life on earth. Viewers witness how dust blown from the Sahara fertilizes the Amazon; how a vast submarine “waterfall” off Antarctica helps drive ocean currents around the world; and how the sun’s heating up of the southern Atlantic gives birth to a colossally powerful hurricane. From the microscopic world of water molecules vaporizing over the ocean to the magnetic field that is bigger than Earth itself, this show reveals the astonishing beauty and complexity of our dynamic planet.

Nature “Attenborough’s Life Stories, Our Fragile Planet” at 7 pm
In honor of Sir David Attenborough’s 60th anniversary on television, this three-part miniseries focuses on three fields that David Attenborough feels have been transformed most profoundly: film-making, science and the environment. In “Our Fragile Planet,” Sir David Attenborough reflects on the dramatic impact that human beings have had on the natural world during his lifetime. He tells surprising, entertaining and deeply personal stories of the changes he has seen, the pioneering conservationists in whose footsteps he has followed, and the revolution in attitudes towards nature that has taken place around the globe.

NOVA “Building Pharaoh’s Chariot” at 8 pm
Historians claim that the chariot launched a technological and strategic revolution, and was the secret weapon behind Egypt’s greatest era of conquest known as the New Kingdom. In this film, a team of archaeologists, engineers, woodworkers and horse trainers join forces to build and test two highly accurate replicas of Egyptian royal chariots. They discover astonishingly advanced features, including spoked wheels, springs, shock absorbers, anti-roll bars and even a convex shaped rear mirror, leading one of them to compare the level of design to the engineering standards of 1930′s-era Buicks! By driving our pair of replicas to their limits in the desert outside Cairo, NOVA’s experts test the claim that the chariot marks a crucial turning point in ancient military history.

Life on Fire “Pioneers Of The Deep” at 9 pm
In the vast emptiness of the Pacific Ocean, tectonic movements construct or swallow islands. In the Tongan archipelago, two little-known animals have learned to cope with these ephemeral lands risen from the ocean depths: the sooty tern, a seabird that never dares wet its wings for fear of drowning, and the Alvin shrimp, a blind crustacean that manages to find its way around the abyss. When an underwater volcano becomes an island, the fates of these two extraordinary paradoxes are linked.