Sarah Holt
Director
NOVA (1974)
Season 2
PBS' premier science series helps viewers of all ages explore the science behind the headlines. Along the way, NOVA demystifies science and technology, and highlights the people involved in scientific pursuits.
Released March 3, 1974
Episode 55 min
10+
Genres: Documentary
Keywords: tmdb.nature, imdb.scene-during-end-credits, imdb.science-and-technology-documentary, imdb.science, imdb.scientist, awards.emmy-award-winner, awards.emmy-award-nominated + 7 more, tmdb.candid, tmdb.inspirational, tmdb.factual, tmdb.dramatic, tmdb.informative, tmdb.instructive, imdb.nature-documentary
Watch Providers: Amazon Prime Video, PBS, PBS, Hoopla, Spectrum On Demand + 4 more, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, PBS America Amazon Channel, PBS Documentaries Amazon Channel, YouTube TV
Production Companies: WGBH Boston
Network: PBS
Country: United States
Languages:
English
S2E1 - 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.
Nov. 3, 1974, midnight
S2E2 - 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.
Nov. 10, 1974, midnight
S2E3 - The Hunting Of The Quark
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.
Nov. 17, 1974, midnight
S2E4 - The Secrets Of Sleep
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.
Nov. 24, 1974, midnight
S2E5 - 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.
Dec. 1, 1974, midnight
S2E6 - The Men Who Painted Caves
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.
Dec. 8, 1974, midnight
S2E7 - 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.
Dec. 15, 1974, midnight
S2E8 - War From the Air
Jan. 5, 1975, midnight
S2E9 - 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.
Jan. 12, 1975, midnight
S2E10 - The Rise And Fall Of DDT
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.
Jan. 19, 1975, midnight
S2E11 - 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.
Feb. 2, 1975, midnight
S2E12 - The Lysenko Affair
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.
Feb. 9, 1975, midnight
S2E13 - The Tuaregs
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.
Feb. 16, 1975, midnight
S2E14 - The Plutonium Connection
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.
March 9, 1975, midnight
S2E15 - The Other Way
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.
March 16, 1975, midnight
S2E16 - The Lost World Of The Maya
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.
March 30, 1975, midnight
S2E17 - 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.
April 6, 1975, midnight
Network: PBS
Episode Runtime: 55 min.
Season Runtime: 55715 min.
Released: March 3, 1974
Last Air Date: Nov. 12, 2025, midnight
Next Air Date: Jan. 21, 2026, midnight
Status: Returning Series
Certification: TV-PG
Common sense age: 10+
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