Episode guide
NOVA: Season 5
21 episodes · premiered Jan 4, 1978
TMDB has no overview for this season.
- Episode 1: In The Event of Catastrophe Jan 4, 1978 · 55m Can a nuclear war be survived? Some members of the defense community say yes. NOVA explores the possibility.
- Episode 2: The Green Machine Jan 11, 1978 · 55m Botany is a neglected science and plants are all around us, but unfamiliar. NOVA examines our state of knowledge of how plants work: growth hormones, responses to light and shade…
- Episode 3: Blueprints in the Bloodstream Jan 18, 1978 · 55m It has been known since the turn of the century that there are four human blood groups, based on different red cells and serum characteristics. NOVA looks at the more recent discovery that…
- Episode 4: One Small Step Jan 25, 1978 · 55m Part one of a two-part series on the subject of man in space, NOVA examines the history of NASA—from the origin of the space race through the triumph of the Apollo programs. By tracing the…
- Episode 5: The Final Frontier Feb 1, 1978 · 55m Second of the two-part series on space programs, NOVA looks ahead to the future, post-Apollo and the role that man in space will play, including the possibility of space colonization—huge…
- Episode 6: BaMiki BaNdula: Children of the Forest Feb 15, 1978 · 55m In the rain forests of Zaire, in the heart of Africa, live the Mbuti Pygmies. The Pygmy way of life has always been extraordinarily difficult to capture on film, though many have tried…
- Episode 7: Trial of Denton Cooley Feb 22, 1978 · 55m In a dramatic docudrama, NOVA reconstructs the controversial lawsuit raised against renowned heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley when one of his patients died after heart surgery, and examines…
- Episode 8: The Great Wine Revolution Mar 1, 1978 · 55m A science-based revolution in the making of wine is underway. NOVA traces the secrets of the aging process and science's involvement with the predicting of mass production high-quality…
- Episode 9: The Case of the Ancient Astronauts Mar 8, 1978 · 55m NOVA investigates the theories of von Daniken and others that the Earth has been visited by intelligent beings from outer space. Among claims examined are: that the building techniques…
- Episode 10: The Mind Machines Mar 22, 1978 · 55m Today's scientists may be creating their own successors. Work being done in Artificial Intelligence (AI), a branch of computer science, only suggest that in the not too distant future…
- Episode 11: Icarus' Children Mar 29, 1978 · 55m In the summer of 1977 Paul MacCready, a California scientist and businessman, won the coveted Kremer Prize. His achievement was to design and build an airplane which completed, unaided, a…
- Episode 12: Still Waters Apr 12, 1978 · 55m NOVA shows a year in the life of a beaver pond and includes almost every life form that exists in, on, under, around and above the water, from the microscopic plant life of summer to the…
- Episode 13: Battle for the Acropolis Apr 19, 1978 · 55m The fortified plateau above Athens known as the Acropolis is the site of some of the most remarkable architecture in the world: its marble structures built in the fifth century BC…
- Episode 14: The Road to Happiness. : The Life and Times of Henry Ford May 3, 1978 · 55m Henry Ford, a great friend of Edison, was a film enthusiast who amassed some one and a half million feet of film during his lifetime. Deposited in the National Archives and known as the…
- Episode 15: Laser : Light of the 21st Century May 10, 1978 · 55m When first invented 18 years ago, lasers were called "a solution looking for a problem;" nobody could think what to do with them. But in fact research scientists immediately began to…
- Episode 16: Insect Alternative May 24, 1978 · 55m In a world that each year loses up to 40 percent of its crops to insects, some form of pest control is desperately needed. But chemical pesticides have backfired. Pesticide-resistant…
- Episode 17: The Desert's Edge May 31, 1978 · 55m For thousands of years people have managed to live in deserts all over the world. But in recent years, a growing population and the demands of the international market have put more stress…
- Episode 18: The Tsetse Trap Jun 7, 1978 · 55m NOVA explores Bovine sleeping sickness. Spread by a fly, it is a deadly disease that poses a threat to Africa's cattle.
- Episode 19: Memories From Eden Jun 14, 1978 · 55m Traditionally zoos were designed neither for people nor animals; barred cages taught people more about their separation from nature than about an animal and its habitat. But just as man…
- Episode 20: A Whisper from Space Jun 21, 1978 · 55m In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, two radio astronomers at Bell Telephone Laboratories, discovered faint, but ever-present, microwave signals from space—the most ancient and most…
- Episode 21: Alaska: The Closing Frontier Jun 28, 1978 · 55m Congress is currently considering a proposal that would double the size of America's national park system by designating a sizeable chunk of Alaska as off-limits to developers. NOVA…