Season 14
(1987)
Cast
Episodes
Countdown to the Invisible Universe 0.0
January 20, 1987
NOVA scans the universe with the infrared eye of IRAS—the Infrared Astronomical Satellite—and discovers never-before-se…
Children of Eve 0.0
January 27, 1987
NOVA examines a controversial theory that traces our ancestry to a small group of women living in Africa 300,000 years …
Why Planes Crash 0.0
February 3, 1987
Between 60 and 80 percent of all commercial airplane accidents are attributable to pilot error. NOVA looks at some shoc…
Orangutans of the Rain Forest 0.0
February 10, 1987
NOVA cameras travel to Borneo, one of the last habitats of the wild orangutans, where scientists study the endangered a…
Freud Under Analysis 0.0
February 17, 1987
Fifty years after his death, the creator of psychoanalysis is still the subject of intense debate. Was Freud right or w…
The Hole in the Sky 0.0
February 24, 1987
NOVA travels to Antarctica with an emergency scientific expedition to study a baffling "hole" in the Earth's protective…
Confessions of a Weaponeer 0.0
March 3, 1987
Harvard chemist George Kistiakowsky was an anti-Bolshevik soldier in 1919 Russia, an atomic bomb scientist at Los Alamo…
Great Moments from NOVA 0.0
March 10, 1987
NOVA presents two hours of the best from its 14 seasons of exciting science coverage. A "talking" chimp, an exploding v…
Will the World Starve? 0.0
March 24, 1987
All over the world, farmers are taking more from the soil than they return. NOVA reports on the soil crisis in world ag…
The Desert Doesn't Bloom Here Anymore 0.0
March 31, 1987
In rich and poor countries alike, once-productive farms are turning to desert because of mismanagement of water resourc…
Rocky Road to Jupiter 0.0
April 7, 1987
In a case study of the strengths and weaknesses of the United States space program, NOVA chronicles the ambitious and l…
Death of a Star 0.0
October 6, 1987
Why do stars explode and how is the energy generated? What is the effect of all those little “aftermath” particles floa…
Spy Machines 0.0
October 13, 1987
On the 25th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, NOVA investigates the spy planes and satellites that played a crit…
Hidden Power of Plants 0.0
October 20, 1987
Plants produce some of the world's most potent chemicals in the fight against disease. NOVA follows the urgent efforts …
Japan's American Genius 0.0
October 27, 1987
Is Detroit inventor Stanford Ovshinsky the new Thomas Edison? Japanese industries are betting that the genius behind am…
A Man, A Plan, A Canal, Panama 0.0
November 3, 1987
The Panama Canal opened in 1914 after a 30-year effort that dwarfed the building of the pyramids. Historian David McCul…
Volcano! 0.0
November 10, 1987
Millions live in the shadows of nature's ticking time-bombs—volcanos. NOVA accompanies scientists who are developing ne…
How Good is Soviet Science? 0.0
November 17, 1987
Princeton professor and author Robert Mark tracks down the engineering secrets of some of the beautiful buildings in th…
Ancient Treasures from the Deep 0.0
December 1, 1987
NOVA joins underwater archaeologists as they explore the oldest shipwreck ever excavated, a richly-laden merchant vesse…
Riddle of the Joints 0.0
December 8, 1987
A trail of evidence leading from a medieval abbey to a small town in Connecticut sheds new light on rheumatoid arthriti…
Secrets of the Lost Red Paint People 0.0
December 15, 1987
NOVA follows archaeologists as they unearth clues, some 7,000 years old, about an unknown, mysterious and advanced sea-…