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The Best Episodes of NOVA Season 45

Every episode of NOVA Season 45 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of NOVA Season 45!

Binge this in 21h 5m•Peaking at 8.9/10

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.

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Episode Rankings

  1. #1 Fan Favorite
    NOVA Season 45 Episode 102 - NOVA Wonders What's Living in You?
    8.9/10(9 votes)

    S45:E102

    Whether they make you fat, fart, or freak out, microbes play a central role in your life. Right beneath your nose—on your face, in your gut, and everywhere in between—trillions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi are so abundant in your body, they outnumber your human cells. But these aren’t just nasty hitch-hikers. Many are crucial to your survival.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  2. NOVA Season 45 Episode 17 - Apollo's Daring Mission
    8.4/10(57 votes)

    S45:E17

    Apollo astronauts and engineers tell the inside story of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon. The U.S. space program suffered a bitter setback when Apollo 1 ended in a deadly fire during a pre-launch run-through. In disarray, and threatened by the prospect of a Soviet Union victory in the space race, NASA decided upon a radical and risky change of plan: turn Apollo 8 from an earth-orbit mission into a daring sprint to the moon while relying on untried new technologies. Fifty years after the historic mission, the Apollo 8 astronauts and engineers recount the feats of engineering that paved the way to the moon.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  3. NOVA Season 45 Episode 16 - World's Fastest Animal
    8.3/10(45 votes)

    S45:E16

    See the world through the eyes of nature’s fastest animal: the peregrine falcon. Though once perilously endangered in the U.S., this spectacular predator is now thriving again in American cities and on every continent but Antarctica. What is the secret to its predatory prowess? Join expert falconer Lloyd Buck as he trains a captive peregrine and puts its hunting skills to the test.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  4. NOVA Season 45 Episode 6 - Decoding the Weather Machine
    8.1/10(169 votes)

    S45:E6

    Disastrous hurricanes. Widespread droughts and wildfires. Withering heat. Extreme rainfall. It is hard not to conclude that something’s up with the weather, and many scientists agree. It’s the result of the weather machine itself—our climate—changing, becoming hotter and more erratic. In this 2-hour documentary, NOVA will cut through the confusion around climate change.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  5. NOVA Season 45 Episode 1 - Black Hole Apocalypse
    8.0/10(1064 votes)

    S45:E1

    Astrophysicist and novelist Janna Levin talks about black holes and their importance to the universe.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  6. NOVA Season 45 Episode 104 - NOVA Wonders Can We Build a Brain?
    8.0/10(8 votes)

    S45:E104

    Artificially intelligent machines are taking over. They’re influencing our everyday lives in profound and often invisible ways. They can read handwriting, interpret emotions, play games, and even act as personal assistants. They are in our phones, our cars, our doctors’ offices, our banks, our web searches…the list goes on and is rapidly growing ever longer.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  7. NOVA Season 45 Episode 9 - Operation Bridge Rescue
    7.9/10(62 votes)

    S45:E9

    Follow the race to rebuild the Old Blenheim Bridge in New York State, an icon of 19th century American engineering, destroyed by Hurricane Irene in 2011. Watch a team of elite craftsmen faithfully reproduce the massive, intricate wooden structure under grueling time pressure as flooding threatens their worksite.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  8. NOVA Season 45 Episode 8 - Transplanting Hope
    7.8/10(44 votes)

    S45:E8

    NOVA takes you inside the operating room to witness organ transplant teams transferring organs from donors to recipients. Meet families navigating both sides of a transplant, and researchers working to end the organ shortage. Their efforts to understand organ rejection, discover ways to keep organs alive outside the body, and even grow artificial organs with stem cells, could save countless lives.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  9. NOVA Season 45 Episode 12 - Addiction
    7.8/10(48 votes)

    S45:E12

    Hear firsthand from individuals struggling with addiction and follow the cutting-edge work of doctors and scientists as they investigate why addiction is not a moral failing, but a chronic, treatable medical condition. Easy access to drugs like heroin, fentanyl, and even prescription medications like OxyContin has fueled an epidemic of addiction—the deadliest in U.S. history.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  10. NOVA Season 45 Episode 13 - Flying Supersonic
    7.8/10(59 votes)

    S45:E13

    NOVA takes you inside the historic international race to develop the first supersonic airliner, the Concorde. Hear stories from those inside the choreographed effort to design and build Concorde in two countries at once—and the crew members who flew her. Then, follow Concorde’s legacy to a new generation of innovators reviving the dream of supersonic passenger travel today.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  11. NOVA Season 45 Episode 103 - NOVA Wonders Are We Alone?
    7.7/10(8 votes)

    S45:E103

    The search for extraterrestrial life is an age-old quest. But recent breakthroughs make today an era unlike any in the history of astronomy. From the exhilarating probing of our own solar system and the Kepler mission’s astounding discovery of thousands of extrasolar planets, to the next-generation telescopes under development, the prospects for finding life beyond Earth have never been stronger.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  12. NOVA Season 45 Episode 105 - NOVA Wonders Can We Make Life?
    7.7/10(11 votes)

    S45:E105

    "It's alive!" Since Dr. Frankenstein spoke those famous words, we've been alternately enthralled and terrified by the idea of creating life in the lab. Now, a revolution in genetic engineering and thrilling innovations in synthetic biology are bringing that dream—or nightmare, as the case may be—closer to reality. New tools allow researchers to use cells to create their own DNA.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  13. NOVA Season 45 Episode 106 - NOVA Wonders What's the Universe Made Of?
    7.7/10(10 votes)

    S45:E106

    The universe is hiding something. In fact, it is hiding a lot. Everything we experience on Earth, the stars and galaxies we see in the cosmos—all the “normal” matter and energy that we understand—make up only 5% of the known universe. Find out how scientists are discovering new secrets about the history of the universe, and why they’re predicting a shocking future.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  14. NOVA Season 45 Episode 7 - Rise of the Superstorms
    7.6/10(61 votes)

    S45:E7

    In just one devastating month, Houston, Florida, and the Caribbean were changed forever. In summer 2017, three monster hurricanes swept in from the Atlantic one after another, shattering storm records and killing hundreds of people. As the planet warms, are these superstorms the new normal? How well can we predict them?

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  15. NOVA Season 45 Episode 4 - Great Escape at Dunkirk
    7.4/10(79 votes)

    S45:E4

    How courage and ingenuity saved Allied troops during the epic Dunkirk operation in 1940.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  16. NOVA Season 45 Episode 10 - Volatile Earth: Volcano on Fire
    7.4/10(34 votes)

    S45:E10

    Climb with volcano experts to the summit of Nyiragongo, a highly active volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Twice in recent memory it has erupted, devastating Goma, a neighboring city of 1 million people. To investigate when it might erupt next, scientists climb into its crater toward a bubbling lava lake to deploy sensors and monitor the volcano’s activity.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  17. NOVA Season 45 Episode 14 - Last B-24
    7.4/10(66 votes)

    S45:E14

    Dive to the bottom of the Adriatic Sea in search of the Tulsamerican, a B-24 bomber that crashed off the coast of Croatia during World War II. In 2010, divers located the plane. Now the Department of Defense, aided by the Croatian Navy and some of the world’s leading underwater archaeologists, sets to work investigating the wreckage.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  18. NOVA Season 45 Episode 2 - The Impossible Flight
    7.2/10(82 votes)

    S45:E2

    For the first time, two intrepid pilots fly a solar-powered airplane around the world.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  19. NOVA Season 45 Episode 3 - First Face of America
    7.2/10(295 votes)

    S45:E3

    Discover remains of a 13,000 year-old teenager in an underwater cave in Mexico.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  20. NOVA Season 45 Episode 15 - Thai Cave Rescue
    7.2/10(144 votes)

    S45:E15

    In July 2018, the world held its breath as an international team of cave divers endeavored to rescue 12 boys and their soccer coach stranded deep in a flooded cave in Thailand. Follow the harrowing operation and discover the scientific ingenuity that made the rescue possible.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  21. NOVA Season 45 Episode 5 - Prediction by the Numbers
    7.0/10(405 votes)

    S45:E5

    Discover why some predictions succeed and others fail as experts forecast the future.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  22. NOVA Season 45 Episode 11 - Volatile Earth: Volcano on the Brink
    6.9/10(33 votes)

    S45:E11

    Explore Nyamuragira, one of the world’s most active and mysterious volcanoes in Africa. Decades of civil strife have prevented scientists from investigating the volcano, but a brief pause allows an international team of experts to fly by helicopter to the summit to investigate. Discover the volcano’s hidden dangers and probe whether magma pressure is building up to threaten another eruption.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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  23. NOVA Season 45 Episode 101 - NOVA Wonders What Are Animals Saying?
    0.0/10(0 votes)

    S45:E101

    From singing whales and squeaking bats to thumping spiders and clicking dolphins, the world is filled with the exotic sounds of our fellow creatures. What are they saying? Can we decode their own communications? NOVA Wonders follows researchers around the globe who are deciphering an amazing array of clues that reveal how animals share information critical to their survival.

    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown

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Season 45 Ratings Summary

"NOVA Wonders What's Living in You?" is the best rated episode of "NOVA" season 45. It scored 8.9/10 based on 9 votes. Directed by Unknown and written by Unknown, it aired on 5/2/2018. This episode is rated 0.5 points higher than the second-best, "Apollo's Daring Mission".