How do you weigh a whale? We go to Shamu's Tank at Sea World to find out. How does your speedometer work? Off to GM's test track for the answer. We'll look at the five most common areas of measurement in our everyday lives: distance, time, speed, weight, and temperature. We visit the National Institute of Standards and Technology to find out where common measurements come from and how standards for those measurements are set. Next, we'll go inside Stanley Tools where we'll see how they guarantee every measuring tape gives the right distance every time. And while we're measuring time, we'll learn why a $5 kid's watch is more accurate than a $10,000 luxury brand.

The machines that helped build our world have been powered by hydraulics, a compact system of valves, hoses, and pumps that transmits forces from point to point through fluid. This basic concept of powerful force transmission through fluid provides the drive for most machines today. From the ancient Roman mastery of the aqueduct to Universal Studios, a veritable hydraulic theme park, we see how hydraulics power industry, keep planes flying, and make that 3-point-turn a U-turn.

They dig, scoop, suck, and spew an ocean of silt and sediment. Dredgers are the mechanical beasts that fuel the world's economic engine by clearing and deepening ports for mega-container ships. The roots of dredging go back as far as the Egyptians, who used their hands to open channels on the Nile to keep crops watered. The Romans, who used harbor dredging to keep a tight fist on Europe, pioneered the "spoon and bag" dredge to speed up the process. Steam power brought about the first large-scale dredges and helped create the Panama Canal. We'll go aboard two of the largest US dredgers and see how they keep waters moving. And in Holland, we meet the biggest players of the dredging world and witness the launching of the largest dredge ever built. From there, we head to Dubai in the Middle East, where 90 square miles of new islands were dredged from the sea and will now create a pleasure world for the rich and powerful.

Dynamite explodes hills to bits, drills divide sheer stone walls, 400,000-pound blocks are pulled from pits by giant cranes, and men work around the clock to wrest rock out of the earth. Not diamonds or gold...rock, the raw material of civilization! Without rock, modern society wouldn't exist. Roads, sewers, dams, bridges, buildings, paint, glue, make-up, antacids, and even chewing gum need crushed stone. From ancient days to the present, we explore the evolution of quarrying techniques.

For a soft, fuzzy, white fiber, cotton has played a starring role in history. As well as being one of the most useful of materials, cotton has created empires, helped launch at least one civil war, jumpstarted the Industrial Revolution, and become the world's most ubiquitous fabric (you must be wearing at least a piece of it right now). Follow the jaunt cotton makes "from dirt to shirt," as they say in the textiles trade, and the lesser-known journey it makes into thousands of products, including gunpowder, cattle feed, plastics, photographic film, lipstick, and ice cream. We also examine cotton's historical place beginning with its ancient origins and examine the many innovations in which cotton had a hand, like the cotton gin, which separated cotton from seed and also had a hand in both oppression and progress in both America and England. And don't forget that evil critter, the boll weevil!

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the aging U.S. infrastructure is in danger of collapse. Learn about a company in Missouri that uses a trench-less technology to rebuild corroded sewer pipes from the inside out while engineers at General Motors Proving Grounds lead the battle against corrosive road de-icing salts. Discover how the tiny termite is teaching us how to turn agricultural waste into ethanol at a fraction of the current cost.

Modern Marvels is going big, and counting down. We take the "best of" Modern Marvels and give you the MEGA Top 10 countdown. On this edition: Awe-Inspiring Machines--featuring the top ten mightiest, strangest, and most unique innovations from our archives.

From a giant machine press that stamps out an entire car body to a 125-ton chainsaw that cuts through the world's hardest rock; from a huge telescope that glimpses the ends of the known universe to the world's largest rock crusher. Join us for a workout of the world's largest machines, and take a long look through the lens of the world's biggest optical telescope, the Keck Observatory, atop 13,800-foot Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

How do you weigh a whale? We go to Shamu's Tank at Sea World to find out. How does your speedometer work? Off to GM's test track for the answer. We'll look at the five most common areas of measurement in our everyday lives: distance, time, speed, weight, and temperature. We visit the National Institute of Standards and Technology to find out where common measurements come from and how standards for those measurements are set. Next, we'll go inside Stanley Tools where we'll see how they guarantee every measuring tape gives the right distance every time. And while we're measuring time, we'll learn why a $5 kid's watch is more accurate than a $10,000 luxury brand.

The machines that helped build our world have been powered by hydraulics, a compact system of valves, hoses, and pumps that transmits forces from point to point through fluid. This basic concept of powerful force transmission through fluid provides the drive for most machines today. From the ancient Roman mastery of the aqueduct to Universal Studios, a veritable hydraulic theme park, we see how hydraulics power industry, keep planes flying, and make that 3-point-turn a U-turn.

They dig, scoop, suck, and spew an ocean of silt and sediment. Dredgers are the mechanical beasts that fuel the world's economic engine by clearing and deepening ports for mega-container ships. The roots of dredging go back as far as the Egyptians, who used their hands to open channels on the Nile to keep crops watered. The Romans, who used harbor dredging to keep a tight fist on Europe, pioneered the "spoon and bag" dredge to speed up the process. Steam power brought about the first large-scale dredges and helped create the Panama Canal. We'll go aboard two of the largest US dredgers and see how they keep waters moving. And in Holland, we meet the biggest players of the dredging world and witness the launching of the largest dredge ever built. From there, we head to Dubai in the Middle East, where 90 square miles of new islands were dredged from the sea and will now create a pleasure world for the rich and powerful.

Dynamite explodes hills to bits, drills divide sheer stone walls, 400,000-pound blocks are pulled from pits by giant cranes, and men work around the clock to wrest rock out of the earth. Not diamonds or gold...rock, the raw material of civilization! Without rock, modern society wouldn't exist. Roads, sewers, dams, bridges, buildings, paint, glue, make-up, antacids, and even chewing gum need crushed stone. From ancient days to the present, we explore the evolution of quarrying techniques.

For a soft, fuzzy, white fiber, cotton has played a starring role in history. As well as being one of the most useful of materials, cotton has created empires, helped launch at least one civil war, jumpstarted the Industrial Revolution, and become the world's most ubiquitous fabric (you must be wearing at least a piece of it right now). Follow the jaunt cotton makes "from dirt to shirt," as they say in the textiles trade, and the lesser-known journey it makes into thousands of products, including gunpowder, cattle feed, plastics, photographic film, lipstick, and ice cream. We also examine cotton's historical place beginning with its ancient origins and examine the many innovations in which cotton had a hand, like the cotton gin, which separated cotton from seed and also had a hand in both oppression and progress in both America and England. And don't forget that evil critter, the boll weevil!

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the aging U.S. infrastructure is in danger of collapse. Learn about a company in Missouri that uses a trench-less technology to rebuild corroded sewer pipes from the inside out while engineers at General Motors Proving Grounds lead the battle against corrosive road de-icing salts. Discover how the tiny termite is teaching us how to turn agricultural waste into ethanol at a fraction of the current cost.

Modern Marvels is going big, and counting down. We take the "best of" Modern Marvels and give you the MEGA Top 10 countdown. On this edition: Awe-Inspiring Machines--featuring the top ten mightiest, strangest, and most unique innovations from our archives.

From a giant machine press that stamps out an entire car body to a 125-ton chainsaw that cuts through the world's hardest rock; from a huge telescope that glimpses the ends of the known universe to the world's largest rock crusher. Join us for a workout of the world's largest machines, and take a long look through the lens of the world's biggest optical telescope, the Keck Observatory, atop 13,800-foot Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

How do you weigh a whale? We go to Shamu's Tank at Sea World to find out. How does your speedometer work? Off to GM's test track for the answer. We'll look at the five most common areas of measurement in our everyday lives: distance, time, speed, weight, and temperature. We visit the National Institute of Standards and Technology to find out where common measurements come from and how standards for those measurements are set. Next, we'll go inside Stanley Tools where we'll see how they guarantee every measuring tape gives the right distance every time. And while we're measuring time, we'll learn why a $5 kid's watch is more accurate than a $10,000 luxury brand.

The machines that helped build our world have been powered by hydraulics, a compact system of valves, hoses, and pumps that transmits forces from point to point through fluid. This basic concept of powerful force transmission through fluid provides the drive for most machines today. From the ancient Roman mastery of the aqueduct to Universal Studios, a veritable hydraulic theme park, we see how hydraulics power industry, keep planes flying, and make that 3-point-turn a U-turn.

They dig, scoop, suck, and spew an ocean of silt and sediment. Dredgers are the mechanical beasts that fuel the world's economic engine by clearing and deepening ports for mega-container ships. The roots of dredging go back as far as the Egyptians, who used their hands to open channels on the Nile to keep crops watered. The Romans, who used harbor dredging to keep a tight fist on Europe, pioneered the "spoon and bag" dredge to speed up the process. Steam power brought about the first large-scale dredges and helped create the Panama Canal. We'll go aboard two of the largest US dredgers and see how they keep waters moving. And in Holland, we meet the biggest players of the dredging world and witness the launching of the largest dredge ever built. From there, we head to Dubai in the Middle East, where 90 square miles of new islands were dredged from the sea and will now create a pleasure world for the rich and powerful.

Dynamite explodes hills to bits, drills divide sheer stone walls, 400,000-pound blocks are pulled from pits by giant cranes, and men work around the clock to wrest rock out of the earth. Not diamonds or gold...rock, the raw material of civilization! Without rock, modern society wouldn't exist. Roads, sewers, dams, bridges, buildings, paint, glue, make-up, antacids, and even chewing gum need crushed stone. From ancient days to the present, we explore the evolution of quarrying techniques.

For a soft, fuzzy, white fiber, cotton has played a starring role in history. As well as being one of the most useful of materials, cotton has created empires, helped launch at least one civil war, jumpstarted the Industrial Revolution, and become the world's most ubiquitous fabric (you must be wearing at least a piece of it right now). Follow the jaunt cotton makes "from dirt to shirt," as they say in the textiles trade, and the lesser-known journey it makes into thousands of products, including gunpowder, cattle feed, plastics, photographic film, lipstick, and ice cream. We also examine cotton's historical place beginning with its ancient origins and examine the many innovations in which cotton had a hand, like the cotton gin, which separated cotton from seed and also had a hand in both oppression and progress in both America and England. And don't forget that evil critter, the boll weevil!

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the aging U.S. infrastructure is in danger of collapse. Learn about a company in Missouri that uses a trench-less technology to rebuild corroded sewer pipes from the inside out while engineers at General Motors Proving Grounds lead the battle against corrosive road de-icing salts. Discover how the tiny termite is teaching us how to turn agricultural waste into ethanol at a fraction of the current cost.

Modern Marvels is going big, and counting down. We take the "best of" Modern Marvels and give you the MEGA Top 10 countdown. On this edition: Awe-Inspiring Machines--featuring the top ten mightiest, strangest, and most unique innovations from our archives.

From a giant machine press that stamps out an entire car body to a 125-ton chainsaw that cuts through the world's hardest rock; from a huge telescope that glimpses the ends of the known universe to the world's largest rock crusher. Join us for a workout of the world's largest machines, and take a long look through the lens of the world's biggest optical telescope, the Keck Observatory, atop 13,800-foot Mauna Kea in Hawaii.