Seasons & episodes

S29 · E1Search for a Safe Cigarette 2001-10-02 · 55 min＋

The program chronicles the tobacco industry's decades long effort to create a "safer" cigarette.

S29 · E218 Ways to Make a Baby 2001-10-09 · 55 min＋

The program investigates the brave new world of assisted reproduction.

S29 · E3Secrets of the Mind 2001-10-23 · 55 min＋

This NOVA program delves into the mind-tingling efforts of neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran to discover how the brain works.

S29 · E4Sex: Unknown 2001-10-30 · 55 min＋

The film investigates the complicated world of gender identity.

S29 · E5Russia's Nuclear Warriors 2001-11-06 · 55 min＋

NOVA takes an intimate look at the men who are in control of Russia's nuclear missiles, standing just a heartbeat from the top Russian politicians and Armageddon. Hosted by Vladimir Pozner, Russia's top television journalist, this startling film shows that despite low pay and the tedious existence that these soldiers and their families live with, these men are motivated by a strong sense of patriotic duty and responsibility for the ultimate powers of destruction at their fingertips, in a job that requires complete perfection.

S29 · E6Bioterror 2001-11-13 · 55 min＋

The film follows three New York Times reporters as they delve into the murky past of bioweapons research and grapple with the current threat of anthrax and other attacks.

S29 · E7Life's Greatest Miracle 2001-11-20 · 55 min＋

A sequel to the most popular NOVA of all time, "Miracle of Life," the program once again uses the extraordinary microimagery of Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson to track human development from embryo to newborn.

S29 · E8Methuselah Tree 2001-12-11 · 55 min＋

Marked by striking imagery and a poetic style, the film dramatizes the life cycle of the world's oldest living thing, the bristlecone pine of California's White Mountains.

S29 · E9Flying Casanovas 2001-12-25 · 55 min＋

The program, with Sir David Attenborough narrating, celebrates the extraordinary antics male bowerbirds get up to when courting a female.

S29 · E10Death Star 2002-01-08 · 55 min＋

The program probes the deep mysteries of gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful celestial explosions since the big bang.

S29 · E11Neanderthals on Trial 2002-01-22 · 55 min＋

The film probes the enigma of our Neanderthal cousins and the roots of our own ancestry.

No episode summary available yet.

S29 · E13Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies 2002-02-05 · 55 min＋

The program chronicles the lives and covert activities of the so-called "atom spies" in the 1940's, including the big one that got away, Theodore Alvin Hall.

S29 · E14The Missing Link 2002-02-26 · 55 min＋

A paleontological tour-de-force and suspenseful scientific detective story, the program documents the search for the ancestor of all four-limbed animals, including humans.

S29 · E15Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance 2002-03-26 · 55 min＋

In October and November 1999, NOVA journeyed into ice-choked Antarctic waters and onto the shores of rugged Elephant and South Georgia Islands as we followed in the footsteps of Sir Ernest Shackleton. This legendary explorer's 1914-1916 Endurance expedition is one of the greatest survival stories of all time. Then, in April 2000, we returned to document Shackleton's final trial -- the crossing of South Georgia -- by three of the world's most distinguished mountaineers, Reinhold Messner, Conrad Anker and Stephen Venables. Follow the expeditions as they unfolded in real-time on this Web site, and also watch for a NOVA Giant Screen Film Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure, as well as a NOVA program, "Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance," which originally aired on March 26, 2002.

S29 · E16Why the Towers Fell 2002-04-30 · 55 min＋

Can lessons learned from the Twin Towers' collapse make new buildings safer?

S29 · E17Fire Wars 2002-05-07 · 55 min＋

In the program, NOVA accompanies the men and women of a wildland firefighting crew known as the Arrowhead Hotshots as they battle one of the most destructive wildfire seasons ever, the summer of 2000.