November 1974 - April 1975
Why Do Birds Sing?
NOVA travels to forests and marshes to discover why birds sing
and finds surprising parallels with the acquisition of speech
in humans.
Original broadcast date: 11/03/74
Topic: animal biology/behavior
How Much Do You Smell?
Many insects and some mammals use smell as a primary means of
communication. NOVA explains how, for example, the entire
economy of an ant's nest is organized by smell, and how some
moths use smell for population control—an ability we is
now beginning to understand.
Original broadcast date: 11/10/74
Topic: animal biology/behavior
Hunting of the Quark (The)
Smashing matter into ever smaller pieces in an attempt to find
its fundamental building blocks has produced a confused
nightmare of particles. NOVA looks at this on-again, off-again
story—one of sciences's most mysterious—and, one
of the most expensive, involving some of the biggest machines
in the world.
Original broadcast date: 11/17/74
Topic: physics
Secrets of Sleep (The)
Most of us spend one-third of our lives in a state of which we
understand remarkably little—some people sleep for only
a few minutes a night, and function perfectly well, while
others declare that eight hours isn't enough. NOVA explores
traditional notions about how much sleep we need; looks at
effects of the sleeping pill, and, perhaps the most baffling
of all aspects of sleep—dreaming.
Original broadcast date: 11/24/74
Topic: human biology/behavior
Inside the Golden Gate
NOVA joins a team of U.S. Geological Survey scientists on a
mission to find out just how San Francisco Bay works: its
physics, its chemistry and its biology.
Original broadcast date: 12/01/74
Topic: geology
Men Who Painted Caves (The)
Just why did Cro-Magnon man living in France's Dordogne Valley
some 15,000 years ago take time out from the desperate
business of survival to paint pictures in inaccessible corners
of his cave dwellings? NOVA joins French and American
archeologists as they piece together the lifestyle of these
hunters of the last great Ice Age, and try to interpret the
meaning of their cave art.
Original broadcast date: 12/08/74
Topic: anthropology/ancient
Red Sea Coral
NOVA joins a group of English biologists living literally on a
platform in the middle of the Red Sea, who for several years
have been studying the crown-of-thorns starfish, notorious for
the devastation it has wrought on the coral reefs of Australia
and the Pacific.
Original broadcast date: 12/15/74
Topic: animal biology/behavior
War From the Air
NOVA explores how science and technology play a major role in
the design of weapons of war and the development of strategies
for their use.
Original broadcast date: 01/05/75
Topic: technology/weapons & warfare
What Time is Your Body?
Have you ever sensed that your body reacts differently at
different times of the day? NOVA examines the best and
worsetimes for work, good times for sex drives and your body's
most reactive time of day for alcohol consumption.
Original broadcast date: 01/12/75
Topic: human biology/behavior
Rise and Fall of DDT (The)
Has the case against DDT been proven? A strange question,
perhaps, to be asking one year after the US has banned the
insecticide, but NOVA dares to ask. Tracing the history of DDT
from its discovery through its banning in the States, NOVA
asks whether America overreacted with its total ban of this
once acclaimed "wonder" chemical.
Original broadcast date: 01/19/75
Topic: environment/ecology
Take the World From Another Point of View
NOVA profiles two very different scientists: Richard Feynman,
a theoretical physicist, at the pinnacle of his career—a
Nobel prizewinner; and Richard Lewontin, a biologist and
highly regarded population geneticist from Harvard
University.
Original broadcast date: 02/02/75
Topic: biography
Lysenko Affair (The)
NOVA explores T.D. Lynsenko's rise to power in the Soviet
Union in the early 20th century, and how it affected plant
genetic research in the USSR.
Original broadcast date: 02/09/75
Topic: plants/agriculture
Tuaregs (The)
High in the Hoggar Mountains, in the exact center of the
Sahara desert, lives Sidi Mohammed and his family: children,
grandchildren, cousins and a few former slave women. Their
environment, one of the most ungenerous on earth, provides
them with almost nothing. NOVA examines the changing lifestyle
of Sidi Mohammed.
Original broadcast date: 02/16/75
Topic: anthropology/culture
Plutonium Connection (The)
How likely is it that a terrorist group will steal plutonium
intended for nuclear reactor fuel and put together a blackmail
weapon of unprecedented power in the shape of a homemade atom
bomb? That question is posed by Theodore Taylor, former A and
H bomb designer at Los Alamos, in a recent book, The Curve of
Binding Energy. NOVA investigates just how easy it would be to
design a bomb using unclassified information.
Original broadcast date: 03/09/75
Topic: technology/weapons & warfare
Other Way (The)
Since the Industrial Revolution, bigger has been better. NOVA
profiles E.F. Schumacher, the author of Small is Beautiful,
who thinks that enough is enough; that the time has come for
technology to return to a human scale, where the ability to
create is returned from the machine to people.
Original broadcast date: 03/16/75
Topic: biography
Lost World of the Maya (The)
For over a thousand years the Mayan civilization grew and
flourished in the rain forests of Central America. Discovered
and finally destroyed by the Spanish Conquistadors, it was
lost again until explorers brought it to light in the 19th
century. Eric Thompson, an archaeologist who has had a 45 year
love affair with the Maya, takes NOVA on a pilgrimage through
the Mayan world, visiting, on the way, all the great ruined
cities he has known for half a century.
Original broadcast date: 03/30/75
Topic: anthropology/ancient
Will The Fishing Have to Stop?
Fish is an excellent source of protein; it could help ease the
growing international food shortage. But in 1972 the total
world fish catch dropped. NOVA explores the possible reasons
for this decline.
Original broadcast date: 04/06/75
Topic: environment/ecology
