NOVA: Season 29

Season 29 overview

The opening sequence examines attempts to modify health, reproduction, and understanding of the human mind. It then confronts the complexity of gender identity.

Key story beats

  1. Safer Cigarette Investigation — The program chronicles the tobacco industry's decades-long effort to create a safer cigarette.
  2. Assisted Reproduction Inquiry — The program investigates the emerging possibilities and complications of assisted reproduction.
  3. Secrets of the Mind — The episode examines efforts by a neuroscientist to discover how the brain works.
  4. Gender Identity Investigation — The film investigates the complicated world of gender identity.
  5. Russia's Nuclear Warriors — The film examines the lives of Russian nuclear missile personnel and their families, focusing on their responsibility for weapons of mass destruction.
  6. Bioterror Threat — The film follows reporters investigating the history of bioweapons research and the current threat of anthrax and other attacks.
  7. Human Development — The program uses microimagery to track human development from embryo to newborn.
  8. Ancient Bristlecone Life — The film presents the life cycle of the world's oldest living thing, a bristlecone pine in California's White Mountains.
  9. Bowerbird Courtship — The program celebrates the elaborate courtship behavior of male bowerbirds.
  10. Gamma-Ray Bursts — The program probes the mysteries of gamma-ray bursts, described as the most powerful celestial explosions since the big bang.
  11. Neanderthal Ancestry — The film examines the mystery of Neanderthals and the roots of human ancestry.
  12. Atomic Spy Secrets — The program chronicles the covert activities of atomic spies during the 1940s, including a major spy who escaped detection.
  13. Four-Limbed Ancestor Search — The program documents the search for the ancestor of all four-limbed animals, including humans.
  14. Shackleton's Endurance — The program retraces the 1914-1916 Antarctic survival expedition and the later crossing of South Georgia by mountaineers.
  15. Lessons from Tower Collapse — The episode asks whether lessons from the collapse of the Twin Towers can make new buildings safer.

Seasons

Interactive Features

Episode Guide

Content sources

Plot analysis generated from content on Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Related entry on Wikidata (Q3071768), public domain (CC0).