The 'Man vs. Wild' host's career just got a little wilder.

Discovery announced that Bear Grylls will host six episode of a new survival show called 'Worst Case Scenario,' based on the popular line of books published by Quirk Books.

The show will put Grylls in a series of heightened and dangerous situations to teach viewers how to survive them or at least walk away with most of your limbs still intact.

This isn't the first time the book series has gotten the TV treatment. TBS turned the book series into a reality information show that only lasted two seasons and featured a fresh-faced Mike Rowe before he found infamy as the host of Discovery's 'Dirty Jobs'.

A little while ago, we mentioned that 'Cash Cab' was being released as an app for the iPhone. I couldn't resist picking it up and writing a quickie review, mostly because I was once a contestant on the show. Honest.

The game itself is pretty cool, particularly if you like trivia. It simulates riding to various NYC touristy locations (Empire State Building, South Street Seaport, etc.) while being asked questions. This is different than the live show which uses bars and restaurants.

Sadly, the game does not offer cool 3D graphics of Ben Bailey. It does, however, ask various trivia questions while simulating a cab ride. There is a map showing your current location and length of time to your destination, so there is a time limit. Like it's live counterpart, the game also allows a shout out and to phone a friend, but the friend has to be selected from one of the built-in friends within the game.

There is a free version of the game available in the iTunes App Store if you want to try before you buy. Due to my personal connection, I decided to splurge the $2.99. My only regret in my experience playing both the live game and the one for the iPhone is that I forgot to tip the cab driver for a great journey.

The Captain is gone -- but he won't be forgotten.

Capt. Phil Harris, the tough-as-nails fishing boat captain of Cornelia Marie on the series 'Deadliest Catch,' will be the subject of an upcoming Discover Channel special, according to Variety.

Harris, 53, suffered a massive stroke Jan. 29 while in port off-loading at St. Paul Island, Alaska and died Tuesday.

According to the report, no official deal has been made; however, both the channel and executive producer Thom Beers have confirmed that a special is likely, at the very least.

There's nothing more shocking than real reality. Death is real. Steve Irwin dying on the job, for instance, was a huge shock. Here's another dose of harsh reality. The star of Discovery Channel's 'Deadliest Catch,' Phil Harris, has died from a stroke. He had been at work on January 29, loading a catch like usual, when he suffered the stroke. After being flown to Anchorage for treatment, he succumbed despite having shown some improvement.

In a statement on the Discovery Channel web site, his grown children, Jake and Josh, explained, "It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to our dad -- Captain Phil Harris. Dad has always been a fighter and continued to be until the end. For us and the crew, he was someone who never backed down."

The family reality show that would never say die just died.

TLC has officially canceled the long-running 'American Chopper', which has been on the air since 2003 when it first found footing on the Discovery Channel. The show's final episode will air on Thursday.

Say what you will about the series running past its prime, but both the show and its subjects have been through a hell of a lot of mayhem. The shop played host to a ton of thick, rich drama, capping with the final season in which Paul Jr. leaves the shop on very heated terms and eventually led to Paul Sr. suing his son for a $1 million in back company stock.

If you're curious to know how things will wrap up, check out a preview of the final episode at Turbo.Discovery.com.

Professor Stephen Hawking has more letters after his name to forge his own alphabet. And, now he has his own television series heading our way from Discovery.

According to a release from the network, Hawking (Ph.D., CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA...See what I mean?) is the centerpiece of Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking -- will explore the major questions confronting modern science and physics. How did our universe begin? Could alien life be found on distant planets? Does our galaxy have a life expectancy? Hawking will lead an audience in a layman friendly exploration of those questions in the four part series.

It's Hawking taking up the mantle of the late astronomer Carl Sagan and his 1980 PBS series, Cosmos. The above video looks back affectionately on that show with a little music remix. In the original show, Sagan would explain the seemingly unexplainable every week.

The only way a 3D version of ESPN could be cooler is if ESPN aired some kind of awesome competition at the X-Games that involved skateboarders and sharks.

So until some stoned extreme sports team organizer invents "sharkboarding," we'll just have to settle with a three-dimensional Discovery Channel.

The network is teaming with Sony and IMAX to launch its own 3D, 24-hour channel by 2011. It doesn't say exactly what the programming will entail, but expect a lot of giant man-eating animals trying to jump out of your TV and claw their way up the food chain.

Are you the kind of person who watches Cash Cab (and you do because admit it, you can't not watch it when it's on) and thinks you could do ten times better than the dunderheads that Ben Bailey just picked up?

Do you know the answer to every question before they fly out of the host's mouth faster than a New York cabbie hurling a curse word out of his window during bumper-to-bumper gridlock?

Then prove it. Put your iPhone where your mouth is because Discovery and Capcom have released a new Cash Cab game app for the device.

As December rolls around, your kids will want to watch the usual line-up of holiday specials. But, I'm guessing they wouldn't mind watching a T-Rex hunt down and tuck into a Triceratops, whatever the time of year.

Discovery Channel will put cutting-edge imaging technology to bring giant lizards to life inside and out with Clash of the Dinosaurs. Premiering December 6 at 8 p.m. (ET/PT), the four-part series looks inside the body of a dinosaur to with cinematic photo-real 3D graphics.

According to Discovery's announcement, consulting anatomy and paleontology experts help to peel back the skin, muscles and bones of the creatures to show how they thrived. So, on second thought, maybe the kids should stick with A Year without a Santa Claus.

If you want to take a trip to Paradise Estate or Dream Valley, get ready to ride: More than 25 years after Hasbro introduced the ultimate reason for pre-tween girls to jump up and down shrieking, "They are so cute!" a new TV venture is saddling up to put a 'My Little Pony' series into its stable.

Per the Hollywood Reporter, Hasbro Studios -- a collaboration between the legendary game and toy manufacturer and the Discovery Channel -- is betting on 'My Little Pony' for its first successful production. Presumably most of the colorful, valiant and courageous equines beloved by legions of girls (and adult collectors) would appear in the show, including Pinkie Pie, Toola-Roola, Rainbow Dash, Sweetie Belle the unicorn and Starsong, a pegasus.

Nothing says "holiday season" like tornadoes, ghosts and animal dung. So, Discovery Channel is running marathons of their reality shows to make the yuletide season gay.

The network's scheduling release states that Mythbusters, Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs, Storm Chasers and Ghost Lab will each get a turn offering guys something to watch while they undo their belts after the big meal (and while the ladies do the dishes).

Here's the programming slate for when you're not watching football or A Year without a Santa Claus:

Nov. 26: Thanksgiving Day: Mythbusters – 9 a.m. ET/PT – 3AM ET/PT
Nov. 27: Day after Thanksgiving: Deadliest Catch – 9 a.m. – 3 a.m.
Nov. 28: Dirty Jobs – 10 a.m. – 3 a.m.
Nov. 29: Storm Chasers – 1 p.m. – 3 a.m.

Dec. 24: Christmas Eve: Dirty Jobs – 9 a.m. – 3 a.m.
Dec. 25: Christmas Day: Mythbusters – 9 a.m. – 3 a.m.
Dec. 26: Deadliest Catch – 9 a.m. – 3 a.m.

Dec. 31: New Year's Eve: Ghost Lab – 10 a.m. – 3 a.m.
Jan. 1, 2010/New Year's Day: Mythbusters – 9 a.m. – 3 a.m.

Battling the elements in the Discovery Channel's 'Man vs. Wild' and braving the tumultuous seas of 'Deadliest Catch' are no longer limited to the imagination, as both popular shows are heading to stores as video games.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Discovery Communications is working with video game publisher Crave to adapt both series. The 'Deadliest Catch' video game is expected to hit shelves for Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS by spring 2010. The 'Man v. Wild' video game will be available on those systems, as well as X-Box 360, but isn't expected until toward the end of 2011.

The Mythbusters crew aren't scientists, but they sort of play them on TV -- submitting everything from movie stunts to common household sayings to proven analytic methods.

Of course, it's more fun to determine whether you can cut a tree in half with a machine gun than it is to test the effectiveness of a new polymer, so Mythbusters gets a TV show -- and your average scientists don't.

To celebrate Mythbusters' completion of its seventh series of episodes on Discovery Channel, series stars Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage hosted a set visit of their testing and production facilities in an industrial park just outside San Francisco's Mission District.

Hyneman led the tour himself through M5 Industries -- a former visual effects house turned production shop for the popular debunking series.

Sorry for the lame headline.

We're in the middle of the Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week celebration, a whole of programming involving sharks, sharks, sharks, sharks, and the people who love/fear them. But David Zurawik over at The Baltimore Sun doesn't understand why some people get excited about it. He wants someone to explain its appeal.

I almost chose the above pic for this week's "What the heck is this?," but realized it would be too obscure for readers to get. What is it? It's a bloody pair of chewed up shorts, and it's part of the press kit for Discovery Channel's "Shark Week." James Hibberd over at The Hollywood Reporter gives a rundown on what the kit looks like up close. It includes Hibberd's obituary.

I once got a "Shark Week" T-shirt from the network but nothing like this.