8:00A
4:00P
12:00A
Modern Marvels
The Junkyard
It's the place where one man's trash is truly another man's treasure. Enter the strange and mysterious world of the junkyard, where many pieces actually do add up to a whole. Uncover how junkyard operators create order out of seemingly random piles of junk.
9:00A
5:00P
1:00A
Modern Marvels
Stink
Just the whiff of a foul odor can make your head spin, your eyes water, your stomach turn--it can even send you hurling. From cesspools, military stink bombs, and rancid rotting meat... to cow farms and landfills... to bad breath, B.O and beyond, the world is full of stink--and we've spent centuries battling the funk. So how do we deal with these horrific odors? Hold your breath cause these sensational stories are gonna STINK!
10:00A
6:00P
2:00A
Modern Marvels
Underwear
From itchy woolen union suits to comfortable briefs and boxers learn how our undergarments have evolved over the last 100 years. A visit to the Jockey factory will show us how men's briefs go from the loom to finished sewn product. Learn how fire retardant underwear can save lives and how some materials actually enhance athletic performance. Did you know that there are socks that can actually banish foot odor? Next, enter the world of the fifteen-billion dollar brassiere industry. Finally see how underwear keeps race car drivers cool in 140 degree temperatures.
11:00A
7:00P
3:00A
Modern Marvels
What's in Your Pocket
Teddy Roosevelt carried a revolver. The night they each died, Abraham Lincoln carried a $5 Confederate note and nine newspaper clippings, while John Wilkes Booth carried a candle and pictures of five women, including his fiancee. Why? Most people don't even think about it anymore. We simply put what we were carrying yesterday, and the day before that, back into our pockets. Do we really need everything we carry with us? In this hour we will take a look at the items we found in peoples' pockets all across America. Not cell phones, which everybody has, but more intimate items. Personal things...both valuable and cheap. Work aids...both simple and high-tech. Even food! And we'll not only see what they must have in their possession, but how some of it is made. Why does a search and rescue fireman carry a hockey puck? We'll also discover how they make and carry a "personal escape" bailout system.
12:00P
8:00P
4:00A
Modern Marvels
Coin Operated
Every 15 minutes, Americans insert over 3.5 million coins into vending machines. We'll visit a sprawling factory that mass produces the latest in high-tech vending machines, and a small company that makes a giant gumball machine that holds 40,000 gumballs. Then, there's the dreaded parking meter, including new ones that can take credit cards and text message for help when they are being robbed or vandalized. We'll visit America's last pinball factory, and see what strange coin operated fare kept people amused 100 years ago. Is coin counting Coinstar the ultimate coin operated machine? We'll follow their coins all the way to a Brinks warehouse. Our last stop is Marvin's Marvelous Mechanized Museum, housing some of the weirdest coin-op machines ever invented. If seeing a life-sized, robotic old man vomit is your idea of entertainment, drop a couple of quarters into "Dr. Ralph Bingenpurge". Now, that's money well spent.
1:00P
9:00P
5:00A
Modern Marvels
Coin Operated II
Tens of millions of them all over the world--soda and snack machines, parking meters and payphones, video games and vending machines... and they all use coins--but for how long? Examine the historic one-armed bandits and the 21st century, cutting edge, computerized slot machines that occupy Vegas casinos and get an exclusive look at their inner workings in a never-before-seen factory in Reno, Nevada. Search out some of the wackiest, strangest vending machines on the planet that sell everything from bottles of wine to dog washes. Get a close-up look at the famous binoculars located at popular tourist sites around the world, as well as a unique company that collects and cleans the coins thrown into fountains for good luck. But it all starts and ends in the historic halls of the U.S. Mint, where coins are made and destroyed. Will coins one day become obsolete?
2:00P
10:00P
6:00A
Modern Marvels
Sticky Stuff
Bees do it. Chemists do it. Even Photocopiers do it. And if it s not done enough, the world will become unglued...literally. From Velcro hooks to Gecko feet, making things that stick is no easy task. Come revel in the oozing, seeping mystery of a sticky rubber--25 years in the works--that lets an athlete climb a 200 foot stone wall; or a roll of tape so strong it sticks together skyscrapers, even in winds of 240 MPH. We'll also see how electrostatics makes cling wrap cling, bee glue stuck ancient mummies together, and how the tar that trapped Woolly Mammoths now seals our roofs.
3:00P
11:00P
7:00A
Modern Marvels
Failed Inventions
Join us for a salute to the dreamers and schemers who brought the world an odd assortment of flawed ideas--like flying, swimming, and jet-powered automobiles, flying rocket belts, and radium-filled clothes that promised to inflate the owner's sagging love life! And we explore the minds of the off-kilter geniuses who thought up these off-the-mark concepts. Some tinkerers' musings were merely ahead of their time and deemed flops during the inventor's lifetime, but others were just plain bad!