The Nature of Things Season 48 Episodes

Episode 1

The Hobbit Enigma

One of the greatest controversies in science today: just what did scientists really find when they uncovered the tiny, human-like skeleton of a strange creature on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003?

Episode 2

Rodney's Robot Revolution

Has the time come to meet an artificially intelligent robot? Engineer and inventor Rodney Brooks thinks so. Forget about all those shiny robotic home-helpers of the past-Brooks is out to design a robot that can think for itself.

Episode 3

The Adventurers: The Last Nomads

Linguist Ian Mackenzie has tracked the last true nomadic hunting and gathering people on earth - the Penan of Borneo. Their way of life is quickly disappearing as aggressive logging interests swallow up their forest habitat.

Episode 4

The Adventurers: The Everlasting Oasis

University of Toronto archaeologist Tony Mills travels to the eastern desert of Egypt where he and other archaeologists have unearthed an untouched marvel: a site of over 400,000 yrs of uninterrupted human habitation.

Episode 5

The Adventurers: A Story Told in Stone

Archeologist Edmundo Edwards pulls back the vines and trees of the jungle to find huge stone cities that sprawled across the interiors of Tahiti, Raivavae and the Marquesas Islands.

Episode 6

The Suzuki Diaries

45 mins

Suzuki and his youngest daughter, Sarika, travel to Europe to explore what a sustainable future might look like, and to see if two different generations can find reason for hope.

Episode 7

The Adventurers: The Lost People of the Baja

Canadian paleo-pathologist Eldon Molto is leading the search for clues of the mysterious Pericu people of Baja California, Mexico - a fierce, primitive tribe that disappeared over a century ago, after being exposed to European disease.

Episode 8

The Brain That Changes Itself

Based on the best-selling book by Toronto psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Norman Doidge, a look at how we view the human mind.

Episode 9

Gone Sideways

60 mins

A light-hearted look at serendipity in science, from life-saving cancer cures to the x-ray machine and the discovery of North America.

Episode 10

Black Wave: In the Wake of the Exxon Valdez

A saga about what happens when ordinary people struggle for justice against a huge corporation that has destroyed both their environment and their livelihoods.

Episode 11

Supercar: Building the Car of the Future

60 mins

The internal combustion engine that powers most automobiles is not a sustainable technology, primarily in an efficiency, cost and environmental perspective. Newer technologies will have to come into vogue if society's love affair with the car can continue. Some of these technologies are on the fuel side of the equation. New fuel technologies include hybrid electric/internal combustion, parallel hybrid, 100% electric, hydrogen cell and 100% hydrogen. Even if internal combustion engines are in use, ethanol blends can be used as the fuel. Some of the technologies are on the body material side, making the car lighter and easier to propel. The next generation of automobile may use smart technologies where the human factor is taken out of the equation, leading to the car making smarter and thus more efficient and safer choices. And a group at MIT are working on an entire new infrastructure of compact folding electric vehicles called the "city car", much like existing bicycle sharing programs. Low cost, power, range, safety, performance, engineering efficiency, widespread fueling infrastructure and fuel availability, and environmental sustainability are just a few of the goals for which the chosen technologies will have to aspire. Although no technology has come to the forefront as the answer, many of the myths of some of these technologies in not meeting these goals are debunked.

Episode 12

Living City: A Critical Guide

60 mins

Urban affairs columnist Christopher Hume discusses Canadian cities, both their history and current state. He speaks of what makes a good city: sustainability, compactness, walk-ability, a functioning infrastructure, the quality of design both at the urban and individual structure level, and especially for larger cities an efficient transportation network especially of non-single occupant vehicles. For those cities that have gone through difficult times of late, he also speaks of leveraging the public realm for urban revitalization. He takes an east to west cross country train trip making stops in six cities - Halifax, Montréal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver - and uses examples from each to highlight what works and what doesn't.

Episode 13

Inuit Odyssey

Canadian Arctic anthropologist Niobe Thompson takes us on a visually stunning journey across the North, tracing the origins of the modern Inuit.

Episode 14

American Savannah

60 mins

The perfect lawn is the American dream. Lawn quality grass is now the largest crop in North America. It was not always the case, as the concept of the lawn originated with the British aristocracy. The aesthetic of the lawn took off simultaneously in North America when the game of golf became widespread. The perfect lawn has become a status symbol and a source of peer pressure and competition between homeowners. But it has also imprinted on the minds of western society a sense of safety and security - a place where one's home is. All this comes at a hefty cost: in money, in time, in loss of plant biodiversity, in the use of environmentally unfriendly lawn maintenance equipment such as gasoline powered mowers, in the overuse of chemicals many of those being heavily toxic to the ecology, and in the abundance of precious water required, a problem especially in the water depleted sun-belt. It is also a big industry in such areas as genetic engineering, as lawn grasses are not native species. Even with the greening of the lawn industry, the question remains: is this way of life sustainable?

Episode 15

Arctic Meltdown: A Changing World

From new companies rushing to claim the Arctic's plentiful resources to the effect climate change has had on animals as well as plant life. As the Arctic meltdown continues at an ever accelerating pace, who will protect it?

Episode 16

Arctic Meltdown: The Arctic Passages

Until recently, only a few ships braved travel through these ice-strewn waters. More and more ships cross these seas each year and with more traffic come higher risks.

Episode 17

Arctic Meltdown: Adapting to Change

A look at two different Arctics - one that is the storybook land of ice, snow and polar bears and the other that is covered with petroleum plants and pipelines carrying fossil fuels.