NOVA — Season 18
All 21 episodes in airing order, with first-run dates and viewer ratings.
- 01
What happens when a Berkeley hippie turns detective and gets mixed up with the CIA and the KGB? NOVA follows computer sleuth Cliff Stoll as he tracks a data thief through a maze of military and research computers.
- 02
NOVA visits Neptune, the planet that took Voyager 12 years to reach. Mysteries abound in and around this big, blue world at the outer limits of the Solar System. Narrated by Patrick Stewart.
- 03
NOVA chronicles the Voyager space mission – from Earth to the ends of the Solar System. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and dozens of moons star in this epic voyage of exploration and a new view of the Solar System. Narrated by Patrick Stewart.
- 04
Sixty-five years after attempts to ban them, chemical weapons pose more of a threat than ever. NOVA looks at the problem of controlling substances that are easily produced and cruelly effective.
- 05
NOVA examines the troubled past and promising future of blimps, zeppelins, cyclocranes and other species of airships. There's life in the old gasbags yet.
- 06
NOVA looks at the high-stakes quest to predict earthquakes. Despite past disappointments, geologists still hope to divine the clues that precede nature's ultimate upheavals. Narrated by Avery Brooks.
- 07
Robotic weapons that seek out and destroy ships, planes, and other targets are the wave of the future. NOVA questions whether their proliferation may spell an end to superpower invincibility.
- 08
Is the ivory ban in the elephant's best interest? NOVA looks at the controversial strategies to save the world's largest land animal from extinction.
- 09
NOVA investigates the hidden world of direct marketing, pointing out how advertisers know a lot more about people than they think.
- 10
NOVA profiles the llama, alpaca, vicuna and guanaco of South America. At one time nearly extinct, these four members of the camel family are exceptionally well adapted to life in the beautiful high Andes.
- 11
NOVA tracks a mysterious disease that suddenly and fatally attacks the children of a small Brazilian town. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta are called in to crack the case.
- 12
NOVA returns to Mount St. Helens a decade after its cataclysmic eruption to learn how nature is recovering from the disaster.
- 13
An experiment that could mean limitless supplies of energy sets the scientific world on its head. NOVA covers the cold fusion controversy.
- 14
The Hunt for China's Dinosaurs
NOVA covers the most elaborate expedition ever undertaken in the search for dinosaurs—to China's Gobi desert. Paleontologists brave sandstorms, heat and worse to find their fossils.
- 15
NOVA looks at the question of whether present-day birds are dinosaurs. The origin of birds, avian dinosaurs, is explored.
- 16
Tyrannosaurus rex, a kind of dinosaur, recently turned up in a nearly complete skeleton in Montana. NOVA follows the dig to extract the bones and looks at the science and lore of dinosaurs in general.
- 17
The Russian Right Stuff: The Invisible Spaceman
In the first program of a three-part series on the Soviet space program, NOVA profiles the mysterious genius behind the world's first satellite, the first man to orbit the Earth and other early Russian triumphs in space.
- 18
The Russian Right Stuff: The Dark Side of the Moon
NOVA reveals the details of Moscow's secret plan to reach the Moon ahead of the Americans.
- 19
The Russian Right Stuff: The Mission
In an unprecedented insider's look, NOVA covers the training, flight and recovery of a cosmonaut crew that visits the Soviet space station Mir. Unexpected emergencies show that space travel is still far from routine.
- 20
Gregory Peck narrates a scientific voyage around Vancouver Island in search of whales. Humpbacks, Killers, Grays and other whale species make their appearance in spectacular, never-before-seen footage both above and below the waves.
- 21
The computer chess champ matches wits with the human world titleholder.
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