Welcome to the companion Web site to "Search for a Safe Cigarette,"
originally broadcast on October 2, 2001. The program chronicles the tobacco industry's
decades long effort to create a "safer" cigarette.
Here's what you'll find online:
Anatomy of a Cigarette
At first glance, a cigarette may look simple—a tube of paper with tobacco in it. But each of a cigarette's myriad elements has been carefully engineered for a specific purpose. In this interactive feature, take apart an online version of a conventional cigarette and compare it with two "safer" cigarette designs.
"Safer" Cigarettes: A History
Review the checkered pedigree of the so-called safer cigarette in this excerpt from Wall St. Journal reporter Tara Parker-Pope's new book, Cigarettes: Anatomy of an Industry From Seed to Smoke.
The Dope on Nicotine
Smokers are well aware of the nicotine fix, but how does this poisonous alkaloid work in the brain? Illustrated with striking animation stills created by Dr. Gayle Gross de Núñez, President of Cajal Medical Illustration and Dr. Rochelle Schwartz-Bloom, a pharmacology professor at Duke University Medical Center, this piece traces nicotine's life cycle in the brain.
On Fire (Hot Science)
This virtual laboratory lets you explore the basics of combustion, including how a fire ignites, what a flame is made of, and how burning molecules rearrange themselves.
NOVA Online is produced for PBS by the WGBH Science Unit
Major funding for NOVA is provided by the Park Foundation, Sprint, and Microsoft. Additional funding for Search for a Safe Cigarette was provided by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
