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This week on National Geographic Weekend host Boyd Matson speaks with guests about tragedy and triumph on Mount Everest, surviving an eagle attack, revisiting Machu Picchu 100 years after Hiram Bingham, long-distance polar bear swims, making electricity from a can of soda, a movie made on YouTube, uncovering treasures of the deep, saying goodbye in Thailand, and keeping your head amidst headhunters.

HOUR 1

• National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis joins Boyd to talk about the early explorers who took it upon themselves to conquer the world’s tallest mountain and a final frontier of exploration: Mount Everest. Davis gives a sneak peak of his upcoming book Into the Silence.

• Being a filmmaker often means getting up-close and personal with your subjects, sometimes even at your own risk. National Geographic Emerging Explorer Adrian Seymour tells Boyd about his dangerous encounter with an angry eagle during a trip to Venezuela.

• One hundred years ago this month, Hiram Bingham uncovered the city of Machu Picchu. Now, on the centennial of this great discovery, his granddaughter Abigail Bingham Endicott joins Boyd to talk about her own awe and fascination with the ancient city and her insight on the return of the city’s artifacts to Peru.

• Hiram Bingham was a professor-turned-explorer whose bravado made him the inspiration for the beloved Indiana Jones character of Hollywood. Christopher Heaney, author of Cradle of Gold: The Story of Hiram Bingham, a Real-Life Indiana Jones, joins Boyd to talk about Bingham’s pursuit of the unknown and the future of Machu Picchu.

• This week David Braun, editor of National Geographic Daily News, joins Boyd to talk about a polar bear that set a sad, yet impressive, world record.

HOUR 2

• Can you imagine a research camp lit by soda? National Geographic Emerging Explorer Thomas Culhane can. Culhane and National Geographic grantee and paleoanthropologist Lee Berger join Boyd to talk about a new technology that may allow those with few resources to have a sustainable light source, turning garbage into energy.

• One day, lived and filmed by people all over the world, resulted in 4,500 hours of video and a challenge to turn thousands of submissions into an artfully constructed movie. Director Kevin McDonald took on that challenge and created the film Life in a Day.

• From ancient wine to ancient life, National Geographic Emerging Explorer Katy Croff Bell has been a part of many types of undersea exploration. Bell joins Boyd in the studio to talk about her team’s discoveries in the ocean depths, from lost shipwrecks to life where life should not exist.

• Carl Hoffman, author of the article “Last Goodbye in Chiang Mai” in the August issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine, joins Boyd to talk about visiting his father in a remote corner of Thailand for the last time.

• Boyd talks about the strange combination of ancient headhunters and Southern Baptist quartet music.