NOVA - Season 15
Run Time: 55 mins
Air Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1988
Average Rating: ⭐ 7 (133 votes)
PBS22 Episodes
Top Gun and Beyond
Season 15 - Episode 1
Today's sophisticated fighter jets can almost fly themselves, but well-trained pilots are still needed to win air battles. NOVA looks at how...
How to Create a Junk Food
Season 15 - Episode 2
Julia Child introduces NOVA's behind-the-scenes look at how science aids in the creation of snack foods.
Buried in Ice
Season 15 - Episode 3
Scientists investigate the frozen remains of members of the 19th century Franklin Expedition to the Canadian Arctic and ask why all perished...
Why Planes Burn
Season 15 - Episode 4
Airplane fires are often deadly. NOVA looks at efforts to make fires aboard planes less likely and more survivable.
Battles in the War on Cancer: A Wonder Drug on Trial
Season 15 - Episode 5
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...
Battles in the War on Cancer: Turning the Tide
Season 15 - Episode 6
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 ...
The Mystery of the Master Builders
Season 15 - Episode 7
Princeton professor and author Robert Mark tracks down the engineering secrets of some of the beautiful buildings in the world including Not...
Whale Rescue
Season 15 - Episode 8
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 a...
The Man Who Loved Numbers
Season 15 - Episode 9
NOVA explores the life of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a poor clerk from India who astounded mathematicians in the 1910s with his brilliant insight ...
Race for the Superconductor
Season 15 - Episode 10
NOVA charts an electronics revolution in the making as Japan and the United States race to develop a material that will conduct electricity ...
Can You Still Get Polio?
Season 15 - Episode 11
Most cases of polio in this country are caused by the vaccine designed to prevent it. NOVA examines the controvery surrounding the nation's ...
Pioneers of Surgery: The Brutal Craft
Season 15 - Episode 12
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 a...
Pioneers of Surgery: Into the Heart
Season 15 - Episode 13
Once unthinkable, open-heart surgery is now an everyday miracle. NOVA looks at the brave doctors and patients who make it possible.
Pioneers of Surgery: New Organs for Old
Season 15 - Episode 14
From kidneys to hearts, NOVA examines the daring attempts to replace diseased organs with transplanted ones.
Pioneers of Surgery: Beyond the Knife
Season 15 - Episode 15
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 ho...
Can the Vatican Save the Sistine Chapel?
Season 15 - Episode 16
Science meets art in the controversial effort to restore Michelangelo's famous Sistine Chapel frescoes.
Can the Next President Win the Space Race?
Season 15 - Episode 17
Thirty years after Sputnik, the United States space program is mired in uncertainty, while the Russians, Europeans, Japanese and others spri...
Do Scientists Cheat?
Season 15 - Episode 18
NOVA examines the troubling question of scientific fraud: How prevalent is it? Who commits it? And what happens when the perpetrators are ca...
Who Shot President Kennedy?
Season 15 - Episode 19
Using previously unavailable technology, NOVA probes the available evidence surrounding the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.
The Light Stuff
Season 15 - Episode 20
Reliving a Greek myth takes an effort of mythic proportions, as NOVA reveals in its behind-the-scenes report of a human powered-flight acros...
The All-American Bear
Season 15 - Episode 21
The life of the shy, intelligent black bear in the wild—foraging, mating, playing and constantly preparing for its remarkable hibernation—is...
Can We Make a Better Doctor?
Season 15 - Episode 22
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 stud...