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NOVA Season 29

NOVA

Season 29

October 2, 2001 17 episodes

All Episodes

Search for a Safe Cigarette
E1
Guide

E1. Search for a Safe Cigarette

55m Oct 2, 2001

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

18 Ways to Make a Baby
E2
Guide

E2. 18 Ways to Make a Baby

55m Oct 9, 2001

The program investigates the brave new world of assisted reproduction.

Secrets of the Mind
E3
Guide

E3. Secrets of the Mind

55m Oct 23, 2001

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

Sex: Unknown
E4
Guide

E4. Sex: Unknown

55m Oct 30, 2001

The film investigates the complicated world of gender identity.

Russia's Nuclear Warriors
E5
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E5. Russia's Nuclear Warriors

55m Nov 6, 2001

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.

Bioterror
E6
Guide

E6. Bioterror

55m Nov 13, 2001

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.

Life's Greatest Miracle
E7
Guide

E7. Life's Greatest Miracle

55m Nov 20, 2001

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.

Methuselah Tree
E8
Guide

E8. Methuselah Tree

55m Dec 11, 2001

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.

Flying Casanovas
E9
Guide

E9. Flying Casanovas

55m Dec 25, 2001

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

Death Star
E10
Guide

E10. Death Star

55m Jan 8, 2002

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

Neanderthals on Trial
E11
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E11. Neanderthals on Trial

55m Jan 22, 2002

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

Fireworks
E12
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E12. Fireworks

55m Jan 29, 2002
Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies
E13
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E13. Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies

55m Feb 5, 2002

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.

The Missing Link
E14
Guide

E14. The Missing Link

55m Feb 26, 2002

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.

Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance
E15
Guide

E15. Shackleton's Voyage of Endurance

55m Mar 26, 2002

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.

Why the Towers Fell
E16
Guide

E16. Why the Towers Fell

55m Apr 30, 2002

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

Fire Wars
E17
Guide

E17. Fire Wars

55m May 7, 2002

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.

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