NaN/100 votesLoading...#1 - Mirror Neurons, Hurricanes, Sand Dunes
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 1/25/2005
Topics include: Getting worked up over mirror neurons, new tools for predicting hurricanes, the sounds that sand dunes make, and a profile of MIT robot designer James McLurkin.
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#2 - Tenth Planet, Twin Primes, Bird Flu
Season 1 Episode 5 - Aired 1/10/2006
Featured segments include: a possible tenth planet in our solar system, the twin prime conjecture, a possible reappearance of the ivory-billed woodpecker, a look at the bird flu and whether it will move to people, the growing of meat in a laboratory culture, an update on stem cells, the link between hurricanes and global warming, and a profile of cancer researcher Tyler Curiel.
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#3 - Asteroid
Season 2 Episode 1 - Aired 10/3/2006
The Apophis asteroid, the size of a football stadium, is headed towards Earth and should arrive in 2036.Island of Stability: The long road to creating element 114.Obesity: The biology of eating.Profile: Karl Iagnemma: A look at MIT roboticist and fiction writer Karl Iagnemma.
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#4 - Mass Extinction
Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 11/21/2006
What caused the greatest mass extinction nearly 250 million years ago?1918 Flu: The 1918 flu virus is revived and decoded in the hopes that we can learn from it before the next pandemic.Profile: Cynthia Breazeal: A look at MIT social roboticist Cynthia Breazeal.Papyrus: Can we use space-age technology to read papyri fragments that are almost 2,000 years old?
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#5 - Sleep
Season 2 Episode 4 - Aired 7/10/2007
Sleep may play an important role in strengthening memories.CERN: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) nears completion at the international particle physics lab in Geneva, Switzerland.Emergence: Scientists try to understand a phenomenon called emergence, which allows a flock of birds or a school of fish to maintain such impressive order.Profile: Julie Schablitsky: A profile of University of Oregon archaeologist Julie Schablitsky, whose research is helping to rewrite the history of the Old West.
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#6 - Dino Blood?
Season 2 Episode 5 - Aired 7/24/2007
A paleobiologist has discovered preserved blood vessels and red blood cells in a 68-million-year-old dinosaur bone.Epigenetics: It seems that diet and lifestyle actually change the expression of our genes.Kryptos: A sculpture called Kryptos in the courtyard of CIA headquarters, contains a code that has yet to be fully broken.Profile: Arlie Petters: A look at Duke University Professor of Mathematics and Physics, and his research in the field of gravitational lensing.
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#7 - Dark Matter, Mice, Crowd Wisdom
Season 3 Episode 1 - Aired 6/25/2008
Dark Matter - Turns out most of the universe is held together by a mysterious, invisible substance. Of Mice and Memory - Mice placed in enriched environments can recover lost memories, giving hope to those who study Alzheimer's. Profile: Hany Farid - This self-proclaimed "accidental scientist" is a digital detective inventing new ways to tell if photos have been faked. Wisdom of the Crowds - Ask enough people to estimate something, and their combined guesses will get you surprisingly close to the right answer.
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#8 - Personal Genome; Digital Art Authentication; Carbon Sequestration; Pardis Sabeti Profile
Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 7/2/2008
Personal DNA Testing - Genetic testing to assess risk factors for a handful of serious illnesses is now commercially available. But is it a good idea? Art Authentication - See how clever computer algorithms can distinguish a master fake from a masterpiece. Capturing Carbon - An eighth-grader's science fair project prompts her scientist father to develop a new way to pull excess carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Profile: Pardis Sabeti - By night she's a rocker. By day, she's a Harvard geneticist tracking the evolution of the human genome.
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#9 - Saving Hubble, First Primates, Iraqibacter
Season 3 Episode 3 - Aired 7/9/2008
Saving Hubble - Two teams of spacewalkers take on the risky mission of reviving the ailing Space Telescope. First Primates - Our most distant primate ancestors, which lived about 55 million years ago, were tree-dwellers the size of mice. Profile: Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa - He jumped the fence from Mexico to work as a farmhand and ended up a leading brain surgeon. Killer Microbe - A relatively benign bug becomes a highly lethal pathogen, known to U.S. soldiers as Iraqibacter.
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#10 - Bird Brains, Space Storms, Smart Bridges
Season 3 Episode 4 - Aired 7/16/2008
Bird Brains - Clues to the origins of human language are turning up in the brains of birds. Space Storms - Behind the dazzling display of the aurora borealis are space storms that could turn the lights off here on Earth. Profile: Yoky Matsuoka - A former tennis prodigy aims to create advanced prosthetic limbs controlled by human thought. Smart Bridges - Can we engineer bridges that tell us what's wrong with them before it's too late?
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#11 - Leeches; SETI; Stem Cells; Edith Widder
Season 3 Episode 5 - Aired 7/23/2008
Leeches - A century after falling out of favor, medicinal leeches are back in hospitals, sucking away on patients' wounds. SETI - Astronomers have their radio telescopes tuned to receive signals from alien worlds. But is anybody out there? Stem Cells Breakthrough - Three separate teams overcome a biomedical hurdle—creating stem cells without the use of human embryos. Profile: Edith Widder - Meet a marine biologist and explorer who has engineered new ways to spy on deep-sea creatures.
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#12 - Aging, Space Elevator, Maya from Space
Season 3 Episode 7 - Aired 8/6/2008
Aging - Will research into "longevity genes" help us live longer and healthier lives? Space Elevator - Can we build a 22,000-mile-high cable to transport cargo and people into space? Maya - NASA archeologists use satellites to pinpoint ancient ruins buried deep in the jungle. Profile: Bonnie Bassler - Her insight into how bacteria "talk" has launched a revolution in biological and medical research.
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#13 - Mass Extinction, 1918 Flu, Papyrus
Season 3 Episode 8 - Aired 8/13/2008
Mass Extinction - What caused the mother of all extinctions 250 million years ago? 1918 Flu - A virus that killed up to 50 million people is brought back to life to decipher its deadliness. Profile: Cynthia Breazeal - A daring engineer designs robots to communicate and interact the way people do. Papyrus - Scraps of writings from a garbage dump in ancient Egypt reveal what life was like 2,000 years ago.
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#14 - Asteroid, Island of Stability, Karl Iagnemma
Season 3 Episode 9 - Aired 8/20/2008
Asteroid - Will a doomsday rock the size of the Rose Bowl hit Earth in 2036? Island of Stability - Follow the decades-long quest to create the elusive element 114. Obesity - Examine the biology behind the compulsion to eat. Profile: Karl Iagnemma - An innovative MIT roboticist is also an acclaimed fiction writer.
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#15 - T-Rex Blood, Epigenetics, Kryptos
Season 3 Episode 10 - Aired 8/20/2008
T-Rex Blood? - Preserved soft tissue, including possible blood vessels and red blood cells, are turning up in dinosaur fossils. Epigenetics - Our lifestyles can change the way our genes are expressed, leading even identical twins to become distinct as they age. Kryptos - A coded sculpture at CIA headquarters has yet to be fully broken. Profile: Arlie Petters - A boy from a rural village in Belize grows up to become a world-class mathematician and cosmologist.
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#16 - Hunt for Alien Earths / Art Authentication / Maydianne Andrade / Autism Genes
Season 4 Episode 2 - Aired 7/7/2009
Join astronomers hunting for Earth-like planets, see how computers distinguish authentic art from forgeries, meet a spider biologist who studies sexual cannibalism, and learn about genes that may be involved in causing autism.
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#17 - Marathon Mouse/Dinosaur Plague/Franklin Chang-Díaz/Space Storms
Season 4 Episode 3 - Aired 7/14/2009
Watch how an "exercise pill" turns couch-potato mice into athletes, explore a controversial new theory of what killed the dinosaurs, meet the first Latino-American astronaut, and find out why the beautiful northern lights signal a threat to our electronic society.
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#18 - Picky Eaters/Capturing Carbon/Sea Lions and Walruses/Sangeeta Bhatia
Season 4 Episode 4 - Aired 7/21/2009
Discover why picky eaters may have a genetic excuse, learn about a new strategy for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, see just how intelligent marine mammals can be, and meet a biomedical engineer who has figured out a way to make tiny livers in her lab.
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#19 - Moon Smasher/Secrets in the Salt/Bird Brains/Lonnie Thompson
Season 4 Episode 5 - Aired 7/28/2009
Follow a NASA satellite looking for water on the moon, see what ancient salt deposits reveal about life 250 million years ago, learn how bird brains are remarkably similar to our own, and meet a climatologist who digs for clues to climate change in the world's highest glaciers.
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#20 - Public Genomes/Algae Fuel/Arctic Ocean Seafloor/Yoky Matsuoka
Season 4 Episode 6 - Aired 8/18/2009
Explore the controversies behind genetic testing and genome sequencing, learn about algae fuel, follow an expedition to the Arctic Ocean seafloor, and meet a woman engineer designing prosthetic limbs controlled by human thought.
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#21 - Saving Hubble Update/Gangster Birds/Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa/How Memory Works
Season 4 Episode 7 - Aired 8/25/2009
Get an astronaut's view of the Hubble repair mission, find out why cowbirds are called "gangster birds," meet a Mexican immigrant farmworker-turned-brain surgeon, and learn how neuroscientists are finding ways to erase memories.
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#22 - Earthquakes in the Midwest/Sleep/Sang-Mook Lee/First Primates
Season 4 Episode 8 - Aired 9/1/2009
Using new data from cave stalagmites and the Mississippi riverbed to understand how and why earthquakes strike in the heartland; the crucial role sleep plays in strengthening memories and facilitating learning; a profile of marine geologist Sang-Mook Lee; paleontologist Jonathan Bloch, who thinks that tiny bones embedded in limestone may be the evolutionary evidence of the creatures that evolved into primates.
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#23 - Phoenix; Mammoth Mystery; Judah Folkman Tribute
Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 7/30/2008
Phoenix Mars Lander - NASA's latest robot has already found frozen water and is looking for more signs that the Red Planet could support life. Brain Trauma - Even so-called "mild" head injuries turn out to be anything but. Mammoth Mystery - A pair of mammoth skeletons is found locked together by their tusks. What happened? Profile: Judah Folkman - Once scorned for his ideas about how cancer grows, the late Judah Folkman is now hailed as a visionary.
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6.3/1020 votesLoading...#24 - What Are Animals Thinking?
Season 6 Episode 5 - Aired 11/7/2012
Probe animal morality, the "swarm intelligence" of a beehive, the amazing navigation talents of pigeons, and more.
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6.6/1042 votesLoading...#25 - What's the Next Big Thing?
Season 5 Episode 6 - Aired 2/23/2011
In this episode of NOVA scienceNOW, come face to face with social robots that understand human feelings, carry on conversations, even make jokes. Then travel to Haiti, where geologists investigate the 2010 earthquake not long after it struck for clues to how to better forecast future quakes. Afterwards, join engineers at General Motors who are testing tiny, two-wheeled cars called EN-Vs, which one day might drive themselves through city streets. Learn about proposals for making our outdated electric grid "smart." And meet Nebraska native Jay Keasling, a pioneer in synthetic biology who shares his work on developing "designer" microbes that produce biofuels and medicines.
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The Worst Episodes of NOVA scienceNOW
Every episode of NOVA scienceNOW ranked from worst to best. Explore the Worst Episodes of NOVA scienceNOW!
NOVA scienceNOW is a News magazine version of the long-running and venerable PBS science program Nova. Premiering on January 25, 2005, the series was originally...
Genres:DocumentaryNews
Network:PBS
Worst Episodes Summary
"Mirror Neurons, Hurricanes, Sand Dunes" is the worst rated episode of "NOVA scienceNOW". It scored N/A/10 based on 0 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 1/25/2005. This episode scored NaN points lower than the second lowest rated, "Tenth Planet, Twin Primes, Bird Flu".