January 1982 - January 1983

Salmon on the Run
NOVA captures the breathtaking power and determination of these amazing creatures and examines how business and technology are changing the fishing industry—and the salmon itself.
Original broadcast date: 01/10/82
Topic: animal biology/behavior

Test-Tube Babies: A Daughter For Judy
NOVA presents a dramatic, exclusive film of the first "test-tube" baby born in America, Elizabeth Jordan Carr. NOVA follows the pregnancy from the start, presenting the only view on American TV of the extraordinary medical procedures used to remove and fertilize the egg, and of the historic birth, December 28, 1981 in Norfolk, VA.
Original broadcast date: 01/17/82
Topic: medicine/health care & surgery

Field Guide to Roger Tory Peterson (A)
NOVA takes an intimate look at Robert Tory Peterson, the man whose best-selling guide books to ornithology have played a pivotal role in turning birdwatching into a mass sport.
Original broadcast date: 01/24/82
Topic: biography

Hunt For The Legion Killer (The)
One of the biggest investigations in medical history began when a mysterious killer disease broke out during independence celebrations in Philadelphia in 1976: Legionnaire's Disease. NOVA traces the search for a cause and cure—a search bedeviled by false trails, accusations of incompetence and cover-up, and increasing urgency as the death toll mounted.
Original broadcast date: 01/31/82
Topic: medicine/disease & research

Finding A Voice
What is it like not to be able to communicate with others? NOVA explores the severest of speech disabilities with Dick Boydell—born with cerebral palsy, confined to a wheel chair and unable for 30 years to say more than "yes" or "no" and investigates some of the new technology that gives the speechless a "voice."
Original broadcast date: 02/07/82
Topic: technology/engineering

Television Explosion (The)
NOVA explores the past, present, and future of American television including the potential of cable, the Columbus, Ohio, two-way TV experiment, the array of new techniques and their potential social impact. Will the new video technology let people see what they really want, rather than what the networks want?
Original broadcast date: 02/14/82
Topic: technology/engineering

Life: Patent Pending
NOVA shows how scientists go about creating new forms of life, and investigates the impact of the gene bonanza on industry, medicine, and the universities themselves. NOVA reveals that other countries are plowing far more resources than the US into the burgeoning industry.
Original broadcast date: 02/28/82
Topic: genetics

Palace of Delights
NOVA visits San Francisco's Exploratorium—part laboratory, part school, part three-ring circus—run by an unlikely collection of physicists and high school students.
Original broadcast date: 03/07/82
Topic: science/methods, ethics & education

Animal Imposters
In this vivid study of mimicry and camouflage NOVA shows dramatically how snakes, butterflies, fish, turtles and many other kinds of animals, both predators and their intended victims, use remarkable forms of deception to achieve their goal: to eat, or avoid being eaten.
Original broadcast date: 03/14/82
Topic: animal biology/behavior

Aging: The Methuselah Syndrome
What is aging? Why does it happen? Can it be stopped? NOVA presents a startling report on research into the processes which make us age and how to control them.
Original broadcast date: 03/28/82
Topic: human biology/behavior

Case Of The UFOs (The)
For the first time on television a rigorous, scientific investigation into the fact, fiction, and hoax of unidentified flying objects. With vivid film and accounts from several eyewitnesses including astronauts, NOVA sifts the evidence for and against the existence of UFOs.
Original broadcast date: 10/12/82
Topic: unexplained phenomena

Fragile Mountain (The)
The Himalayas, highest peaks in the world, are crumbling. People are making them crumble, and people are the victims, as NOVA reveals in this breathtaking documentary.
Original broadcast date: 10/19/82
Topic: environment/ecology

Here's Looking At You Kid
Of the 70,000 Americans hospitalized annually for severe burns, one-third are children. NOVA tells the story of extraordinary personal resilience in an 11-year-old boy's fight to recover from burns suffered over 73 percent of his body.
Original broadcast date: 11/09/82
Topic: medicine/health care & surgery

Adventures of Teenage Scientists
NOVA introduces some of the winners of the 1982 Westinghouse Science Talent Search: high school students whose interests range from silkworms to solar cells. With education facing a deepening financial crisis, will this year's group of well-trained young scientists be among the last of the best and the brightest?
Original broadcast date: 11/16/82
Topic: science/methods, ethics & education

Cobalt Blues (The)
An investigative report on US dependence on foreign sources of strategic minerals, vital to the aerospace and steel industries, which examines and questions Reagan Administration policies toward those international sources.
Original broadcast date: 11/23/82
Topic: technology/energy

Goodbye Louisiana
NOVA reports on the staggering water problems of Southern Louisiana—where the mighty Mississippi is threatening to change its course, and where last year 49 square miles of coastline disappeared into the Gulf of Mexico.
Original broadcast date: 11/03/82
Topic: environment/ecology

Whale Watch
NOVA follows the great grey whales along their annual marathon migration from the Acrtic to the Mexican coast and reveals little known facts about the mating and feeding habits of the gentle giants.
Original broadcast date: 12/07/82
Topic: animal biology/behavior

Tracking The Supertrains
While America's passenger-train service deteriorates, trains in Japan and Europe are speeding ahead at over 150 miles per hour. NOVA reports that the super-fast trains are finally coming to America.
Original broadcast date: 12/14/82
Topic: technology/engineering

Making of a Natural History Film (The)
To celebrate its 10th broadcast season, NOVA repeats the very first NOVA program every aired, a fascinating and delightful program about how wildlife films are made.
Original broadcast date: 01/04/83
Topic: photography/film