The charismatic beaver is more than a charming, vegetarian stream-dweller. it’s actually a master architect, capable of restoring rivers, bringing back dwindling fish populations and even preventing wildfire. Travel with host Joe Hanson to Central Oregon where a group of scientists set up a kind of beaver laboratory to learn more about the crepuscular creatures.

The Bonneville Salt Flats are perfect for speed. Every year, cars and motorcycles break land speed records on the flat expanse of the Bonneville Salt Flats. It’s been a tradition for more than a century, and racers have built a thriving community around the salt races. But how did these salt flats form, and why are they disappearing now?

Every spring, the beaches of Delaware Bay play host to one of the world’s wildest parties. Millions of prehistoric crabs (and hundreds of thousands of birds) converge here. These horseshoe crabs spend most of their lives in the ocean depths. But every May and June, their spindly little legs will carry them 60 miles or more to congregate on sandy beaches up and down the Atlantic coast.

Roller coasters have the power to heal. Host Joe Hanson explores the world of coasters, exploring the safety protocols ride engineers consider in designing them and the impact they have on the human body. We learn about how the experience of riding coasters can have positive impacts in our lives.

Texas is an oil state, right? Yes! But it’s also a wind state. If Texas were a country it would be fifth in the world for wind energy generation. Take a trip through wind country with host Joe Hanson as he explores a wind farm in his home state of Texas.

Avalanches are mysterious and complex and the science of these natural phenomena is incomplete. But one thing that is known is how to prevent them. To do that, you have to do something counterintuitive — you have to start them.

Traffic is one of the biggest problems plaguing cities today. Idling cars cause increased emissions, more traffic means more accidents, and it is, of course, annoying. Meet traffic scientist, Dr. Alex Bayen who is working to solve traffic with automation.

It’s a mile long and 150 feet high, and covered in the most spectacular ice falls anyone has ever seen. And it’s all human made. The Ouray Ice Park is the world’s premiere location for ice climbing and attracts visitors from around the world. Nobody has ever attempted to create anything on this scale. How do they do it?

The prairie landscape has come to symbolize the American heartland. But an ecosystem that once covered a vast swath of the continent has all but disappeared. Just a tiny fraction remains. But researchers and conservationists in Oklahoma may have hit upon two surprising keys to saving this lost ecosystem: bison and fire. Their efforts could help restore degraded grasslands around the world.

The three human figures and two animals that make up the Blythe Geoglyphs – or Blythe Giant Intaglios – are enormous. So big in fact, that they can’t be fully appreciated from the ground. But the figures were carved into the earth long before air travel was invented. So who made them…and why?