• Premiered: Mar 1974
  • Episodes: 1034
  • Followers: 306
  • Running
  • PBS
  • Wednesday at 21
  • Documentary

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Season 15
15x1
Top Gun and Beyond
Episode overview
Air date
Jan 19, 1988
Today's sophisticated fighter jets can almost fly themselves, but well-trained pilots are still needed to win air battles. NOVA looks at how planes and pilots are adapting to high technology.
15x2
How to Create a Junk Food
Episode overview
Air date
Jan 26, 1988
Julia Child introduces NOVA's behind-the-scenes look at how science aids in the creation of snack foods.
15x3
Buried in Ice
Episode overview
Air date
Feb 02, 1988
Scientists investigate the frozen remains of members of the 19th century Franklin Expedition to the Canadian Arctic and ask why all perished.
15x4
Why Planes Burn
Episode overview
Air date
Feb 09, 1988
Airplane fires are often deadly. NOVA looks at efforts to make fires aboard planes less likely and more survivable.
15x5
Battles in the War on Cancer: A Wonder Drug on Trial
Episode overview
Air date
Feb 23, 1988
In part one of a two-part special presentation, NOVA reports on the trials to determine whether the new drug Interleukin-2—the first to make use of the body's own disease-fighting .. show full overview
15x6
Battles in the War on Cancer: Breast Cancer - Turning the Tide
Episode overview
Air date
Mar 01, 1988
Breast cancer claims the lives of four American women every hour. Jane Pauley of NBC News hosts and narrates this NOVA report on stepped-up efforts to reduce the death rate from this all-too-common killer.
15x7
Mystery of the Master Builders
Episode overview
Air date
Mar 08, 1988
Princeton professor and author Robert Mark tracks down the engineering secrets of some of the beautiful buildings in the world including Notre Dame in Paris, St. Paul in London and the Roman Pantheon.
15x8
Whale Rescue
Episode overview
Air date
Mar 15, 1988
It was a blustery day in December 1986, and the New England Coast was in the midst of a winter storm, accompanied by strong on-shore gales and an unusually high tide—conditions perfect .. show full overview
15x9
The Man Who Loved Numbers
Episode overview
Air date
Mar 22, 1988
NOVA explores the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a poor clerk from India who astounded mathematicians in the 1910s with his brilliant insight into the world of numbers.
15x10
Race for the Superconductor
Episode overview
Air date
Mar 29, 1988
NOVA charts an electronics revolution in the making as Japan and the United States race to develop a material that will conduct electricity at room temperature with zero resistance.
15x11
Can You Still Get Polio?
Episode overview
Air date
Apr 05, 1988
Most cases of polio in this country are caused by the vaccine designed to prevent it. NOVA examines the controvery surrounding the nation's vaccine policy.
15x12
Pioneers of Surgery: The Brutal Craft
Episode overview
Air date
Sep 06, 1988
Part one of a four-part series on the pioneers of modern surgery relives the early days, when surgery was practiced without the benefit of anaesthesia or antisceptics and patients usually died.
15x13
Pioneers of Surgery: Into the Heart
Episode overview
Air date
Sep 13, 1988
Once unthinkable, open-heart surgery is now an everyday miracle. NOVA looks at the brave doctors and patients who make it possible.
15x14
Pioneers of Surgery: New Organs for Old
Episode overview
Air date
Sep 20, 1988
From kidneys to hearts, NOVA examines the daring attempts to replace diseased organs with transplanted ones.
15x15
Pioneers of Surgery: Beyond the Knife
Episode overview
Air date
Sep 27, 1988
Surgeons have always been eager to help patients, even at the risk of killing them. NOVA looks at some of the excesses of surgery, and at how new drugs and technologies are rendering some operations obsolete.
15x16
Can the Vatican Save the Sistine Chapel?
Episode overview
Air date
Oct 04, 1988
Science meets art in the controversial effort to restore Michelangelo's famous Sistine Chapel frescoes.
15x17
Can the Next President Win the Space Race?
Episode overview
Air date
Oct 11, 1988
Thirty years after Sputnik, the United States space program is mired in uncertainty, while the Russians, Europeans, Japanese and others sprint onward and upward.
15x18
Do Scientists Cheat?
Episode overview
Air date
Oct 25, 1988
NOVA examines the troubling question of scientific fraud: How prevalent is it? Who commits it? And what happens when the perpetrators are caught?
15x19
Who Shot President Kennedy?
Episode overview
Air date
Nov 15, 1988
Using previously unavailable technology, NOVA probes the available evidence surrounding the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.
15x20
The Light Stuff
Episode overview
Air date
Nov 22, 1988
Reliving a Greek myth takes an effort of mythic proportions, as NOVA reveals in its behind-the-scenes report of a human powered-flight across the Aegean Sea, a journey that symbolically .. show full overview
15x21
The All-American Bear
Episode overview
Air date
Dec 06, 1988
The life of the shy, intelligent black bear in the wild—foraging, mating, playing and constantly preparing for its remarkable hibernation—is captured for the first time on film by NOVA.
15x22 Season finale
Can We Make a Better Doctor?
Episode overview
Air date
Dec 13, 1988
NOVA embarks on a 10-year project to profile—in its entirety—the education of a doctor. In the premiere episode, we follow a handful of students as they start their freshman year at .. show full overview

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