如何才能战胜最凶猛的野兽；如何学会驾驭火；如何制造工具；如何躲避天灾人祸；并最终从一种猿猴似的生物、演变成了地球的主宰？想要揭开我们祖先的秘密，只有回顾发生在几百万年前所经历的生存之战，才能为我们解开谜底。 　　为了揭开人类进化的谜底，科学家来到了南非。非洲的独特之处就在于到处都是化石，人类进化史上的每一个重大事件都源自这块大陆。 　　在约翰内斯堡西面的格拉迪斯维尔洞穴内，科学家发现了数百具动物骨骼化石，其中有三具是人类家族中的早期成员。其中之一是我们的直系祖先，也就是大约20万年前、生活在非洲平原上的早期智人。 　　不过，早期智人并不是第一个具备人类特征的生物。在非洲，考古学家还发现过另外两种有着人类特征的动物遗骸——阿法南猿和直立人。然而毕竟，我们的祖先只有一个，只有一种生物能够存活、并演化成为现代人。 　　经科学家对三种生物的研究发现，促使人类发展突飞猛进，以至在短短的7万5千年里，我们从原始的穴居人变成了地球上最强大的物种的原因之一，可能是某种灾难的降临，迫使那些最有能力、最聪明、最有想象力的人类祖先学会了适应花茎，存活下来。灾难的降临原本意味着人类会灭绝，但实际上，却可能造就了现代人类。 　　就这样，一场原本可能让人类灭绝的灾难、或许恰恰造就了今天的我们。它促使人类的创造力全面爆发、加快了漫长的人类进化历程，也使得人类与其它动物有了本质的区别。

纪录片《人类的进化》由法国导演雅克·马拉泰尔拍摄，讲述了人类早期文明的几个重要节点，从游牧生活向定居生活转变，从所有制的概念产生到文字的诞生。

很多科学家曾经认为，当人类将自身与奇妙的自然隔离开来的时候，进化的历程也随之停止了。但随着人类基因图谱的绘制，科学家们得以详细地了解人类的整个进化史。他们发现了一个令人吃惊的事实：在近5万年内，人类不仅在继续进化，其速度还比历史上任何时期都要快。爱丽丝?罗伯茨博士将带我们探索人类在未来将如何进化，并提出一个疑问：如果我们能控制动植物的进化过程，那么我们可以掌控自身的进化之路吗？

Where did we come from? What makes us human? An explosion of recent discoveries sheds light on these questions, and NOVA's comprehensive, three-part special, "Becoming Human," examines what the latest scientific research reveals about our hominid relatives. 　　Part 1, "First Steps," examines the factors that caused us to split from the other great apes. The program explores the fossil of "Selam," also known as "Lucy's Child." Paleoanthropologist Zeray Alemseged spent five years carefully excavating the sandstone-embedded fossil. NOVA's cameras are there to capture the unveiling of the face, spine, and shoulder blades of this 3.3 million-year-old fossil child. And NOVA takes viewers "inside the skull" to show how our ancestors' brains had begun to change from those of the apes. 　　Why did leaps in human evolution take place? "First Steps" explores a provocative "big idea" that sharp swings of climate were a key factor.

In "Last Human Standing," the final program of the three-part series "Becoming Human," NOVA examines the fate of the Neanderthals, our European cousins who died out as modern humans spread from Africa into Europe during the Ice Age. Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals or exterminate them? The program explores crucial evidence from the recent decoding of the Neanderthal genome. 　　How did modern humans take over the world? New evidence suggests that they left Africa and colonized the rest of the globe far earlier, and for different reasons, than previously thought. As for Homo sapiens, we have planet Earth to ourselves today, but that's a very recent and unusual situation. For millions of years, many kinds of hominids co-existed. At one time Homo sapiens shared the planet with Neanderthals, Homo erectus, and the mysterious "Hobbits"–three-foot-high humans who thrived on the Indonesian island of Flores until as recently as 12,000 years ago. 　　"Last Human Standing" examines why "we" survived while those other ancestral cousins died out. And it explores the provocative question: In what ways are we still evolving today?

In "Birth of Humanity," the second part of the three-part series "Becoming Human," NOVA investigates the first skeleton that really looks like us–"Turkana Boy"–an astonishingly complete specimen of Homo erectus found by the famous Leakey team in Kenya. These early humans are thought to have developed key innovations that helped them thrive, including hunting large prey, the use of fire, and extensive social bonds. 　　The program examines an intriguing theory that long-distance running–our ability to jog–was crucial for the survival of these early hominids. Not only did running help them escape from vicious predators roaming the grasslands, but it also gave them a unique hunting strategy: chasing down prey animals such as deer and antelope to the point of exhaustion. "Birth of Humanity" also probes how, why, and when humans' uniquely long period of childhood and parenting began.

One of our favourite natural history subjects, the good old dinosaur, gets a makeover and then some in this fantastically ambitious and groundbreaking documentary. Based on cutting-edge palaeontology and the latest fossil records, DINOTASIA presents a series of vignettes about dinosaurs - both familiar faces and some we have only found out about in the past ten years. The film uses CGI to bring the stories to life, but draws on animation's birth in silent film and early Disney to create proper, traditional visual storytelling. Werner Herzog narrates, reuniting with the team behind GRIZZLY MAN and CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS.

科学狂人把美女变成怪物

The two sequels to Timo Rose's Mutation, condensed into one feature length horror/sci-fi epic with added digital effects.