Episodes
Episode: 17x01 | Airdate: Oct 3, 1989
Exposing four essential public infrastructure systems that city dwellers depend on: electricity, water, sewage and sanitation. Filmed in New York City and hosted by Judd Hirsch.
Episode: 17x02 | Airdate: Oct 10, 1989
In this profile of former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, NOVA follows events as they unfold in a unique behind-the-scenes account of a man who speaks his mind on AIDS, smoking and abortion.
Episode: 17x03 | Airdate: Oct 17, 1989
Five architects compete for the approval of architecture-obsessed Chicagoan's in the contest to build the city's new public library. NOVA looks at the strengths and weakness of each of the surprisingly varied entries.
Episode: 17x04 | Airdate: Oct 24, 1989
The atomic bomb might have ended World War II, but radar was the quiet miracle that won battles. NOVA tells the little-known wartime history of radar.
Episode: 17x05 | Airdate: Oct 31, 1989
Biologists around the world gear up to decode the three-billion-letter genetic message that describes how humans are made. Ethicists warn that it may not be such a good idea.
Episode: 17x06 | Airdate: Nov 7, 1989
NOVA studies hurricanes—the lurking giants waiting to destroy many coastal areas—by flying straight into one. Scientists hope that such close-up studies will supply the data to make better predictions.
Episode: 17x07 | Airdate: Nov 14, 1989
Increasingly awash in high water, the romantic city of Venice is counting on high-tech floodgates to save it from drowning. Environmentalists worry that the gates may destroy the fragile lagoon that surrounds the city.
Episode: 17x08 | Airdate: Nov 21, 1989
NOVA explores the science of musical sound—from what makes a classic violin to how the human brain perceives music. Bells, trumpets, human voices and computers all perform.
Episode: 17x09 | Airdate: Dec 5, 1989
The 1988 Yellowstone fire may have been one of the worst in human memory, but nature has had eons of experience with such events. NOVA accompanies scientists who are studying the surprisingly rapid recovery from the blaze. Narrated by Peter Thomas.
Episode: 17x10 | Airdate: Dec 12, 1989
NOVA re-enacts a classic case of classroom detection when English schoolboys track down a secret Soviet launch site.
Episode: 17x11 | Airdate: Jan 9, 1990
NOVA reports on the 100-year-old legacy of pollution from mining that poisons the once-pristine waters of the Rocky Mountain states. Acid Rain and economic development also contribute to stress on the West's scarce water supply.
Episode: 17x12 | Airdate: Jan 23, 1990
Using some of the largest machines ever built, American and European physicists race to discover one of the most fundamental and most elusive objects in nature—the top quark.
Episode: 17x13 | Airdate: Feb 6, 1990
NOVA takes the wraps off the art of deception in war—from simple camouflage to the expensive, radar-evading technology embodied in the Stealth bomber.
Episode: 17x14 | Airdate: Feb 13, 1990
NOVA examines an alarming nuclear waste problem at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in eastern Washington state, where 45 years of mismanagement in the nuclear weapons industry will cost billions to correct.
Episode: 17x15 | Airdate: Feb 27, 1990
Covering last year's Exxon Valdez oil spill from an unexplored angle, NOVA focuses on how technology failed in preventing, containing and cleaning up the Alaskan disaster.
Episode: 17x16 | Airdate: Mar 15, 1990
China in the 13th century was the richest, most powerful, most technologically advanced civilization on earth. NOVA looks at how China achieved what it did, and what in Chinese politics, culture and economy kept it from doing more.
Episode: 17x17 | Airdate: Mar 20, 1990
NOVA examines the extraordinary transformation that propelled Europe outward into the world from the 15th to 18th centuries, while China remained the insular middle kingdom.
Episode: 17x18 | Airdate: Mar 27, 1990
East and West came into direct conflict over trade and power in the 19th century. The West won. NOVA explores how Japan was later able to master Western methods, while China was not.
Episode: 17x19 | Airdate: Apr 3, 1990
NOVA covers China's long road to economic and technological equality with the West, punctuated by frequent setbacks such as the 1989 massacre of pro-democratic demonstrations in Beijing.
