"Nova" series

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Hello folks, found a new TV addiction: Nova. It's a kind of science exploration series. On a recent episode, they found a skeleton that was similar to the one called Lucy . . . however, her skeleton was over a million years ago . . . this one dated to 10,000 years ago. It was found on some island (forgot the name). Should be able to see the series on Hulu. Hmm, wonder if thise belongs in the Science thread . . .

love the series. they seem to have "dumbed it down" in the last 20 years or so, but it's still very good!

I love Nova as well. I don't think they've dumbed it down in the least, as they still come out with quality science shows. One of my favorite ones (other than Cosmos) is "Intelligent Design on Trial", which aired about a couple of years ago on PBS. You can watch it anytime on their website:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/beta/evolu ... trial.html

The thing with NOVA is that you don't have to watch it on TV anymore, since most of their shows can now either be downloaded or streamed directly off of the PBS website for free. I watch most of them online nowadays anyway.

Honestly, I didn't start watching the series until recently. Had no interest in it whatsoever as a kid . . . guess I needed to ripen a bit to fully enjoy it.

I used to watch Nova when I was a kid back in the Seventies. I also recommend Cosmos, as did Ergo_Proxy. Also "Connections" is a great series from that era. The host, James Burke, connects all kinds of different technologies in an almost stream-of-consciousness ramble about the dark side of human nature and innovation. Beautiful series! There's a "Connections 2" but I haven't seen it.

I ADORED Connections with James Burke!! ! His humor was the best!! !

I rented the whole series from Netflix and watched it all again last year and loved it! I hadn't remembered it being so "dark" so that aspect of it must have just gone right past me when I was a kid. It's funny watching stuff I watched when I was a kid and seeing how totally different it is from what I remembered. But at least my memory that Connections was great wasn't a false memory. It rocks!

Also, I've been wanting to rent and re-watch another show I watched in childhood. Ever see "Ascent of Man" with Bronowski? I loved that show! I own the companion book (found it at a used bookstore for $1 as well as the companion book to "The Power of Myth" for $2) That's another good series - Campbell's "Power of Myth."

The Day the Universe Changed topic

He did have this Presence as Presenter of Programmes.

He might want to do another with, say, Dr. Stephen Hawking entitled Universal Connections.

Nova rocks! Enough said.

I watched "The Elegant Universe" with Brian Greene and I liked it. I also read some of his book with the same title but haven´t finished yet. I didn´t know there were other shows like that. I looked in the site and it looks interesting.

So, if an Australopithecus lived a mere 10,000 years ago, and this skeleton, and the dating methods are all legit, I would think Lucy wasn't a primitive ancestor after all.
I haven't seen this episode of Nova, but I have to call this in to question.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

He was thinking of the Hobbit skeleton homo floresiensis which is believed to be descended from homo erectus
The Lucy skeleton was australopithecus afarensis

that is a very good observation. NOVA in the very early days was a local product of WGBH Boston and it was done at a rather high level. But why not? Boston is the home of Harvard and MIT.

ruveyn

And WGBH is the home of Zoom!

I used to drive my parents crazy by speaking only in ubbi-dubbi all day. I loved it because it made words feel like rubber bands.

Same here, the night that I watched " The Elegant Universe ", it was the only thing that came into my head the entire night, and school day.

Unfortunately, NOVA has settled into something like Discovery Science, but without commercial interruptions. The level of presentation is nowhere as elevated as it was when it was a home made production of WGBH produced locally.

ruveyn