The Nature of Things(1960–)

Why Is It So?

The Roar of the Crowd

Study of brain cells, how research has helped the understanding of learning and memory. Filmed at the Montreal Neurological Institute, with Dr. Wilder Penfield and Dr. Herbert Jasper

The Future of Science

Professor Donald Ivey probes the attitudes and working habits of scientists

Schizophrenia

Engineering

Man as an Environment

Science Fiction

A special Christmas edition

The Aurora-Borealis

Man as an Environment – Human Body

Kept Alive

Physics and Games – Laws of Probability

The Face of the Moon

Hibernation

Man and His Environment

Eclipse

Animal Communication

The Speed of Light

Monotony

Dr. John Zubec of the University of Manitoba explains his experiments and studies on boredom and its effects on the human mind

The Chemical Senses

The Mohole: Earth's Crust

Laws of Conservation

Photosynthesis

Physics of Clouds

Episode 1

Series consultant Lister Sinclair is host on season's opener on which he explains how scientists approach their work and how The Nature of Things will present scientific items.

Brainwashing

British psychaitrist Dr William Sargeant discusses and illustrates various brainwashing techniques such as weakening of mind.

Tubes To Transistors

Hosts Dr Patterson Hume and Dr Donald Ivey of University of Toronto talk about electronics age brought about by vacuum tube and transistor.

From Water To Land

Palaeontologist Dr Alfred S. Romer of Harvard University explains evolution of lungs, legs, and a new kind of egg in aquatic creatures.

Chemistry Of Salt

Dr Fred H. Knelman of Montreal, talks about sources and chemistry of salt and industrial applications of salt and its components.

Ear Operation

Film of an ear operation from BBC series YOUR LIFE IN THEIR HANDS, with commentary by Dr Hugh Barber, Toronto ear specialist.

The Way The Ball Bounces

Professors Donald Ivey and Patterson Hume demonstrate principles behind bounce in a rubber ball.

Lie Detectors

This program examines autonomic nervous system, how it works, and what it can reveal.

Smoking And Lung Cancer

In cooperation with National Cancer Institute and Canadian Cancer Society, today's show explores results of years of lung-cancer research in Britain and North America.

Science Museum

To commemorate the Canadian Centennial in 1967 it has been proposed that Canada build a national museum of science. The program includes filmed demonstrations of how science and technology can be made meaningful to the general public.

Tornadoes

The Descent of Man

Recent fossil discoveries in Africa have shed new light on the ancestry and evolution of man. Guest Dr. L.S.B. Leakey, renowned British anthropologist and paleontologist, unearthed fossil remains in the Olduvai Gorge that have extended the time scale of human evolution from 500,000 to two million years or more. A deductive story in anthropology and paleontology is told as Dr. Leakey describes his finds and interprets their significance

Isaac Newton

Series consultant Lister Sinclair pays tribute to Sir Isaac Newton. The program attempts to capture the spirit of the time through the words of Newton himself and those of his contemporaries

New Atoms For Old

Car Crashes

What happens in a car crash - to car and to its occupants? What causes a crash?

Bird Migration

Fact & Fiction

Hosts Dr Donald Ivey and Dr Patterson Hume of University of Toronto, contrast observation to synthesis.

Code of Life

Dr Louis Siminovitch, Professor of Medical Biophysics at University of Toronto, discusses what is currently known about heredity.

The Chemistry Of Bread

Baking bread may be a familiar process, but it is by no means a simple one. A very great number of fundamental chemical actions are demonstrated in baking of one loaf of bread

The Infra-Red

Detection of heatwaves by Special infra-red receptors has many industrial, military and other uses.

Human Overpopulation

In aftermath of industrial revolution, with scientific advances offsetting human control, human species has experienced an increase so explosive that grave doubts are now held about future food supply.

Mars

Spiders

Einstein, Man & Mathematician

An examination of personality and achievement of Albert Einstein. Dr Jacob Bronowski of Salk Institute for Advanced Biological Studies at La Jolla, California.

About The Size Of It

Scientist and broadcaster William Whitehead and Dr WE Swinton, Director of Royal Ontario Museum discuss how size differences in animal kingdom are result of their environment and their habits.

Standards For Comparison

Universal standards of measurements are explained in laymen's terms by Dr Patterson Hume and Dr Donald Ivey of University of Toronto.

Excursion Into Hell

Centuries ago, people in warmer parts of earth believed a dread disease was contracted from unhealthy air generated in swamps.

Surgery For Parkinson'S Disease

This program shows surgical techniques used in a new treatment for Parkinson's Disease.

Science In Sports

Host Lister Sinclair and guest Lloyd Percival, sports authority, discuss and demonstrate how various sporting activities can now be precisely measured and how they can thus be improved.

Lasers

Dr Patterson Hume and Dr Donald Ivey explain recent developments of laser beam since 1960, how it works, and its potential uses in medicine, war and communications.

Blood, Sea And Tears

Man still carries around in him an isolated pool of early Palaeozoic ocean that fed his plankton ancestors.

Cartography

Host and writer Lister Sinclair talks about map projection, and problems of taking a spherical object, earth.

The World Of Water

In this program Donald Crowdis, Director of Nova Scotia Museum of Science, talks about water.

Canadian Wildlife: Retreat to the Rockies

"Retreat to the Rockies" with an especial look at bighorn sheep.

Canadian Wildlife: A Celebration of Swans

A study of the rare and beautiful trumpeter swan, which was nearly extinct but has now returned to a reasonably healthy population of about 2,000 through efforts of federal and provincial conservation agencies.

Canadian Wildlife: Arctic Summer

The authentic sights and sounds of wildlife activity in the Arctic during the summer. Animals seen include polar bears and seals.

"Good and Evil"

"Viruses"

"Survival"

The problem of survival in extreme climatic conditions is examined by Dr. William Whitehead.

Eureka

Discussion and demonstration of "accidental" scientific discoveries.[37]

Flight

Lister Sinclair looks at the artificial flight techniques of man and some of the principles of flying used by other species.

"The Quaking Earth"

Pain

"Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics"

Professors Patterson Hume and Donald Ivey dispute Mark Twain's claim that: "There are lies, damn lies and statistics"; or in other words, "you can prove anything with statistics."

Photography

Dr. Walter Clark of the Eastman-Kodak Research Laboratory, and host Lester Sinclair explain what happens after you push the button of your camera.

"Bird Strikes on Aircraft"

At one time, collisions between aircraft and birds usually hurt only the birds. Now, with aircraft flying at supersonic speeds, the impact of collisions is greater. And birds ingested into the engines have caused a number of crashes. The Nature of Things looks at what is being done to eliminate bird strikes on aircraft.

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison wasn't merely a lone inventful genius. He invented modern research team makes possible technology shaping our world.

Human Engineering

Materials

A review of history of man's oldest materials: wood, stone, iron, bronze and glass.

Structure

Defying force of gravity, man has strewn his structures across earth. This program looks at some of them.

Communications

Much of this program deals with basic communications problem of getting a signal through noise.

Canals And Tunnels

The great engineers of past - men like DE Lesseps of Suez fame and Panama infamy and Bradley - whose canals were arteries of industrial revolution, sacrificed health and fortune, and sometimes lives.

Central Power

One test of civilization is ability to organize sources of energy. Central power was something new in 1876.

Man And Machines

The Greek inventor, Alexander Hero, first defined five basic devices which make all machines possible: lever, wedge, wheel, pulley and screw.

Land And Water

This program shows how man changes his environment by shaping land he lives on, reclaiming land from sea, making new lakes and rivers.

Man Aloft

This film looks, sometimes whimsically, at examples of old and modern flying machines.

Portable Power

Man's first "portable power" device was part of his own body, energy from contraction of long molecules in presence of sugar: muscle power.

Machines And Man: Transportation

Are problems of urban transportation insurmountable? The traffic jams which are a regular feature of city life make it appear so.

Machine And Man: Systems Engineering

A system, according to Oxford dictionary, is a whole composed of parts in orderly arrangement, according to some scheme or plan.

Animals And Man

A series studying animal kingdom, and man's place in it, through comparisons of anatomy, function, and behavior.

Animals On Land

How animals get from place to place, including burrowing, crawling, climbing trees, running,.

Animals In The Water

"Animals In The Water" studies fish, crocodiles, seals and whales.

Animal Adaptation

A look at how animals have developed special means of coping with environments - long neck of giraffe, coat of polar bear.

Animal Adaptation

A look at process of natural selection by which animals have developed special means of coping with their environments: long neck of giraffe, coat of polar bear.

Animals And Food

How animals locate, obtain, process and eat food using "anatomical tools": beaks, claws etc.

Animals As Engineers

Animals modify their environments in many ways: by building nests, damming streams.

Animals As Engineers

Program shows how animals modify their environments in many ways; by building nests.

Animal Hands And Tools

Man is known as "toolmaker", although certain other animals do use tools.

Animal Vision And Smell

Different combinations of senses are dominant in activities of different animals: vision and smell in insects, smell and hearing in most mammals, vision and touch in higher primates.

Animal Territory And Aggression

A look at various ways animals and man defend their homes and their young.

Animal Social Behavior

Episode 13

Animal Learning

How much of animal behavior is inherent, and how much is learned?

Episode 15

Episode 16

Banting, Best And Insulin

Season opener: The Nature of Things looks at discovery of insulin by Dr Frederick Banting and Dr Charles Best and deals with current Canadian research into diabetes.

Cancer In Canada

Chances of recovery by a cancer patient in Canada are examined. Guests: Dr James Till, Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital, and Dr Robert Taylor of National Cancer Institute.

Parkinsonism

A look at research which may bring hope to sufferers of a crippling disorder that affects those on the older side of the generation gap. Guests include Dr. Oleh Hornykiewicz, a pioneer in the discovery of the drug L-DOPA.

The Fur Trade

A look at the endangered species of animals used in the fur trade, focusing on the Canadian market

The Harp Seal

The life history of the seal, currently the object of the great spring seal hunt; the physiology and behavior of this unusual Arctic animal, plus an examination of its 8,000-mile migration from Hudson Strait to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and back. Also a look at the seal's unique adaptation for deep diving, currently under study by biologists at the University of Guelph in Ontario

Grouse Country

The world of the colorful bird family admired by hunters and birdwatchers alike.

The Polar Bear

Pictorial life history of the Arctic animals throughout the seasons.

Lobsters and the Sea

A glimpse into the world of an unusual and amusing ocean inhabitant.

Vanishing Peoples: Yanomami

Documentary look at the Yanomami, a fast-vanishing Indian tribe inhabiting the tropical rainforest of the Upper Orinoco River in southeastern Venezuela and Northern Brazil.[

"The Last Stand: Western Mountain Parks"

The first in a four-part series entitled The Last Stand. The series looks at a variety of areas in the world set aside as specially protected areas of wilderness and natural wildlife. The first program is about western mountain parks and the work being done by biologists and scientists to save mountain wildlife.

Out of the Mouths of Babes Pt. 1

Season Debut: A two-part film about the ease in which little children learn languages.

Ears to Hear

Severely deaf children learn to speak like normal children with the aid of powerfully sensitive hearing aids and teaching techniques being used by dedicated teachers.

Sable Island

A look at Sable Island, about 100 miles off Nova Scotia, where the wildlife has had an unusual evolution because it is separated from the mainland.

Water's Edge (Part 1)

Unique life forms in a pond.

Water's Edge (Part 2)

Visible and microscopic life at the edge of a pond.

Prairie Grasslands

Documentary on prairie dogs and one colony in particular in South Dakota.

The Differences Are Inherited

The fruit fly is used as the focus for a discussion of mutations, current genetic research and the relationship of this research to some of the problems suffered by humans.

Noah's Park

The work of a group of naturalists who are attempting to create a refuge for biblical animals by restocking a park with species inhabited land in Bible times.

The Invisible Reef

Through the use of micro-photography, viewers are afforded a look at the unique way in which a reef is formed through a complex system of natural recycling.

Newborn

A study of the capabilities that are innate to a newborn baby in the first week after birth.

The Mind's Eye

A look at the work of scientists who are exploring regions of the brain by examining its relationship to the visual system.

Children of the Buffalo

A study of the Todos tribe of India, their polyandrous marriage rituals and their unusual funeral rites. The Todos spend their lives tending the buffalo and everything they do revolves around this animal.

The Gabra

The Gabra is a tribe of 24,000 people who live in the harsh terrain on both sides of the Kenya-Ethiopia border. They may be the only non-Muslim, camel raising society left in the world. Their lifestyle is cruel, filled with age-old rituals and beliefs.

When The Wind Blows

A look at the uses man has made of the wind, from sailboats to windmills to modern turbines for generating electricity.

Evolution Update

Season premiere: Anthropologist Richard Leakey discusses his work in Africa, and explains the latest techniques by which scientists measure time and age of subjects.

Clockwork Atom

The phenomenon of man's changing concepts of the world is explored in relation to his desire to measure time more accurately.

This Will Do For Today

A series of people of varying ages, professions and experiences express their innermost feelings on subjects ranging from dateless Saturday nights to fear of death.

Island of Monkeys

A study of individual development and group dynamics in a troop of rhesus monkeys in the natural observable environment of Cayo Santiago near Puerto Rico.

The Dogon

The cliff-dwelling Dogon farmers and their unique culture are studied in their homeland near the Niger River in Mali.[261]

Toward The Sun

The current efforts in both the United States and Canada to harness the sun as a major resource of heat and power are examined.

Portrait Of A Market: Sololá

The activities of the economic and social center of Sololá, located on Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, are viewed.[263]

Sleep (part 1 of 2)

Volunteers undergo an experiment at the Montefiore Sleep Lab in New York which monitors their sleeping-awakening cycles in an attempt to learn more about the body's biological time system.[264]

Dreams (part 2 of 2)

Analysis of dreams is viewed at several institutions established expressly for that purpose, and those who participate in the experiments are shown as they make notations and give recollections of what they dreamed.

Charlie

Canadian paleontologist Charlie Sternberg and his work in cataloguing dinosaur fossils in the Albertan Badlands are profiled.

The Search

The Search follows World Health Organization medical teams on their campaign to vaccinate the against smallpox in Somalia, the world's last location where the disease survives.

Phallacies

How to Live to 100

The Hidden Killer: Portrait of an Epidemic

Parkinson's: Lynda's Story

Lost

We've all felt the terror of being lost - even for just a few moments. We lose our way; a child unexpectedly vanishes in the aisles of a supermarket.

Designing for Dignity: Engineering Body Parts

Race for the Future

Race for the Future, Part 2

The Sleep Famine

Do Parents Matter?

How much are children influenced by their peers? The documentary Do Parents Matter? examines a controversial concept put forth by Judy Harris, a suburban grandmother and author of the explosive book, The Nurture Assumption.

Silent Sentinels

Wild Goose Chase

Humans: Who are We, Part 1 – The Birth of The Human Mind

The Birth of The Human Mind takes viewers on an amazing journey back in time, exploring the use of language, tools and how our distant ancestors came to walk. Contrary to long-accepted belief, scientists now believe that Homo sapiens did not evolve from Neanderthals, but shared the earth with them for thousands of years. Our ancestors, the Homo sapiens, are the youngest members on the human family tree, about 150,000 years old. Homo erectus goes back 1.8 million years and Neanderthals about 200,000 years.

Humans: Who Are We?, Part 2 – The Human Invasion

Paleoanthropologists, linguists, archeologists and other scientists offer the latest interpretations of fossil findings and genetic studies and posit intriguing theories on how Homo sapiens became the only existing human species. Did we kill off our cousins, interbreed and merge with them, or did they just die out? It took five million years for an upright ape to evolve into an agile, quick-thinking and inventive human being. But once our ancestors emerged in Africa, were we destined to dominate the globe?

The Bear Man of Kamchatka

Canadian bear expert Charlie Russell rescues two orphaned cubs destined for death in a squalid Russian zoo and secrets them away to his home in the remote wilds of the South Kamchatka peninsula, in the former Soviet Union.

Living Forever: The Longevity Revolution

Explorer the ongoing quest to extend human life, the cutting-edge research and the latest discoveries.

Weather Report

Climate change is irrevocably altering the world as we know it, challenging our sense of the future and the fundamental values of our industrial societies.

Game Over: Conservation in Kenya

Explore the impact of both colonial and contemporary initiatives in Kenya and how they affect the peoples who have traditionally lived off the land.

The Man with the Golden Cells

The emerging world market in living cells, where an individual's genes can be bought and sold as commodities.

The Nature of Things Magazine

Witness the exciting lead up to the launch of the new High Speed One service out of St. Pancras Station, in London. A look at the Large Hadron Collider, the largest and most sophisticated machine ever constructed by science. And an interview with musician and environmentalist, Sarah Harmer.

Climate Change I: An Uncertain Future

Now that climate change is an accepted, if inconvenient, truth, how are we coping? David Suzuki takes a first-hand look at how climate change is affecting Canadians where it really hurts: in their ability to make a living.

Climate Change II: Hot Times in the City

Hot Times in the City takes the pulse of three major Canadian cities: Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax, as they grapple with one of the planet's greatest threats to human health: global warming.

The Nature of Things Magazine

A look into the multi-billion dollar underworld of counterfeit drugs, the tale of the Lunokhod a self-propelled robot on the Moon that could be controlled from the Earth and an interview with Boston Bruins' defenseman, Andrew Ference.

The Edge of Eden – Living with Grizzlies

The Science of the Senses: Hearing

In Hearing, episode one of The Science of the Senses, finding the answer to that question will take us on a journey through the ear, into the brain and right into the heart of the human psyche.

The Science of the Senses: Touch

In The Science of the Senses: Touch we will take a journey through the skin, into the subcutaneous world of our sensory receptors and up into the brain as we explore the hidden language of our most essential sense.

The Science of the Senses: Smell/Taste

In this episode of The Science of the Senses, we explore how smell combines with taste, somewhere in our brain, to create the perception of flavour. Most people wrongly assume that taste dominates. But what actually allows us to differentiate one food from another beyond the basics of sweet, sour, salty, savory and bitter, is the aroma.

The Science of the Senses: Sight

This episode takes viewers on a fascinating tour of our visual world, from the moment light enters our eyes, to the way this information is transformed into electrical impulses and decoded by our brain - the domain of "visual perception". The act of "seeing" takes an immense amount of brainpower, more than 65% of the brain's neural pathways.

Wild China: Heart of the Dragon

Explores how China's 1.3 billion people interact with their extraordinary wildlife and landscapes.

Wild China: Shangi-La

Beneath billowing clouds in China's far southwest, rich jungles nestle below towering peaks and jewel-coloured birds and ancient tribes share forested valleys where wild elephants still roam.

Wild China: The Tibetan Plateau

Explore the vast windswept wilderness in one of the world's most remote places - the size of Western Europe.

Wild China: Land of the Panda

Travel across China's heartland where its Han people are the centre of a 5,000-year-old civilization.

Wild China: Beyond the Great Wall

Warrior nomads, bizarre wildlife and extreme weather conditions are found beyond the Wall, built by China's emperors.

Wild China: Tides of Change

China's coast is an area of huge contrast-from futuristic modern cities jostling traditional seaweed-thatched villages to ancient tea terraces and wild wetlands where rare animals still survive.

Antarctic Mission: Islands at the Edge

The SEDNA IV sails across the Polar Front, an area where cold turbulent Antarctic waters meet warmer water from the north - one of the earth's last great refuges for wildlife.

Antarctic Mission: Window on a Changing Climate

Antarctica's inhabitants are telling us that their world is changing in complex and subtle ways. The once successful colonies of diminutive Adelie penguins are declining because of increased snowfall - one of the unexpected consequences of a warmer climate.

Antarctic Mission: The Great Ocean of Ice

A cold and mysterious world that is home to some of the toughest and most unusual creatures on the planet: giant ribbon worms, dragon fish, and ancient sponges.

And God Created Great Whales

A documentary showing the behaviour of killer whales in the wild, in the waters off Vancouver Island.[194]

Children's Hospital

Story of a child's stay in Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

The Heimaey Eruption: Iceland 1973

A film on volcanic eruption off south coast of Iceland in 1973.

Traveller From An Antique Land

An ancient Egyptian mummy rests at Pennsylvania University Museum far from where she had been prepared to spend eternity .

Mind And Hand

What happens when a person makes a voluntary movement? Some say human behavior is involuntary.

Frogs, Snakes and Turtles

Frogs, snakes and turtles play vital roles as janitors and regulators of the environment.

Discovery on Charlton Island

An archeological party discovers evidence that an old Hudson's Bay site at the foot of James Bay had been burned down by the French in the 17th century.

The Buffalo Wolves

Wolves and Buffalo follows the fortunes of one pack of wolves, the Delta Pack. Will the pups survive their first year? Will the packs alpha animals retain their pack position to breed again next year? As they try to bring down the buffalo to keep themselves and their new pups alive what will the future hold for these ancient warriors?

Babies: Born to be Good?

Nuts About Squirrels

There are those of us who see squirrels as cute and fascinating, but there is also a large contingent who regard them as “tree rats” - little pests that never tire of wreaking havoc in our attics, gardens, and just about anything else that catches their fleeting fancy. So who’s right? Nuts about Squirrels reveals the secret world of the ubiquitous urban grey squirrel with squirrel robots, micro-chipped acorns and an army of citizen scientists.

The Norse: An Arctic Mystery

Are we alone in the universe? We may be very close to finding out. For millennia humans studying the stars had no idea if there were any other planets in the universe, let alone ones similar enough to ours to sustain life. Now, scientists may be close to discovering Earth-like planets, using a new space telescope and a technique pioneered by two Canadian astronomers.

Lights Out!

Twelve hours of light. Twelve hours of dark. For our entire history we have lived and worked in rhythm with the sun. But all that changed with the invention of artificial light. Light fixtures, computer and television screens - all of these have allowed us more time to live, work, play and shorten our nights. But at what cost? Are we putting our health at risk? We explore how the type of light we are exposed to in the hours between dusk and bedtime can play tricks on our bodies and cancel the healthful benefits naturally triggered by the absence of light.

David Suzuki's Andean Adventure

Zapped: The Buzz About Mosquitoes

People struggle to combat a blood-sucking little insect that is both delicate and deadly.

Shattered Ground

Meet the Coywolf

There is a new hybrid species which is part wolf, part coyote.

The Fruit Hunters: Evolution of Desire (Part 1 of 2)

The exotic world of fruit and the story of nature, commerce and obsession.

The Fruit Hunters: Evolution of Desire (Part 2 of 2)

Billion Dollar Caribou

The conservation of the caribou and their environment is much-contested territory.

The Beaver Whisperers

The national symbol has a new role as an ecological superhero.

The Beetles Are Coming