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The Nature of Things

Season 39 1998 - 1999

  • 1998-10-09T00:00:00Z on CBC Television
  • 45m
  • 10h 30m (14 episodes)
  • Canada
  • English
  • Documentary
Hosted by the world-renowned geneticist and environmentalist, David Suzuki, every week presents stories that are driven by a scientific understanding of the world.

15 episodes

The program is about the natural history of this invisible world: the things that float in the air around us, the microbes that live in the dish cloth on the kitchen counter, the fungi under our fingernails, and the visitors in the saucer under a house plant.

There is a growing number of people who regard marijuana (cannabis) as a benign medicine, offering relief to people suffering from a variety of illnesses, including epilepsy, arthritis, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma as well as lessening the side effects of medications and treatments given to cancer and HIV patients. CBC Television's THE NATURE OF THINGS with David Suzuki examines the medicinal uses of marijuana.

1998-11-06T01:00:00Z

39x03 Grasslands

39x03 Grasslands

  • 1998-11-06T01:00:00Z45m

Over the last 200 years, the prairie grasslands of North America have undergone a radical transformation. The fertile soil, formed slowly over thousands of years, has been taken over by agriculture for crops like grain, oil seeds and forages for livestock. The buffalo have gone, replaced by millions of cattle. Breaking up the soil and removing the protective layer of grass has created severe erosion. Heavy machines compact the soil, limiting its ability to store precious moisture. Exposed to the air, soil dries to a powder and blows away. It was a frenetic period of transcontinental railway construction in the 1900s that opened the centre of the continent to millions of settlers.

1998-11-27T01:00:00Z

39x04 Good Wood

39x04 Good Wood

  • 1998-11-27T01:00:00Z45m

A focus on Honduras and the important link between this country, Mexico, the US and Canada.

Season Finale

39x05 Look Who's Talking...How Animals Communicate

  • 1998-12-04T01:00:00Z45m

It is only recently that humans have become aware that animal communication is often elegant, elaborate and subtle. Understanding how other species communicate tells us a great deal about the history and evolution of our species.

1999-01-22T01:00:00Z

39x06 Chimps on Death Row

39x06 Chimps on Death Row

  • 1999-01-22T01:00:00Z45m

Chimps are getting Hepatitis B and it is a serious health problem, which usually leads to death in the species. They pick up the disease from handlers and experimenters when held in captivity. A startling look at the use of our closest living relatives for science.

The domestic dog has a special place in the human world. Is it by accident or design? All breeds of dogs trace their ancestry back to a common wolf-like creature that lived some 12 thousand years ago. But what was it that lead to the growth of such an extraordinary array of different progeny?

Scoliosis or curvature of the spine is found worldwide in about one out of every 10 people. Nearly all cases occur in adolescent females. It's a lifetime condition that can't be prevented or cured. At best it may be stabilized with bracing or surgery. but in the more severe cases, there's no telling when it may start to progress again.

1999-02-19T01:00:00Z

39x09 Escape From Earth

39x09 Escape From Earth

  • 1999-02-19T01:00:00Z45m

In some ways Mars is like Earth: there are clouds, wind, fog and frost. But it's also as cold as Antarctica, its atmosphere is poisonous to humans, and the sky glows pink with billions of suspended dust particles. Some scientists believe the planet's ecology could be re- engineered to make it habitable for Earth's life forms. This would be humanity's greatest adventure, a mission unlike any we've ever known.

1999-02-26T01:00:00Z

39x10 How To Live To 100

39x10 How To Live To 100

  • 1999-02-26T01:00:00Z45m

What age group is the fastest growing segment in our society? Teenagers, boomers, infants? Guess again...centenarians. People living into their 100s are not uncommon these days. Why are so many surviving longer? Is living to 100 within everyone's reach?

1999-03-05T01:00:00Z

39x11 Dead Heat

39x11 Dead Heat

  • 1999-03-05T01:00:00Z45m

The Spanish flu reserved its special virulence not for children and the elderly but for those in the prime of life. In just a few months it killed more people than the ones that died in World Wars I and II, Vietnam and Korea combined. In the intervening years there has always remained the threat of a similar killing plague. If it hit again, the medical profession would still have been powerless.

1999-03-12T01:00:00Z

39x12 The Pill

39x12 The Pill

  • 1999-03-12T01:00:00Z45m

In 1956, Russian tanks rolled down the streets of Budapest. Castro began fighting his way to power in Cuba and North American women kept house in an era known as the baby boom. Meanwhile, a drug trial being conducted on the island of Puerto Rico would eventually revolutionize pregnancy and be called "The Pill".

1999-04-09T00:00:00Z

39x13 Turning Down the Heat

39x13 Turning Down the Heat

  • 1999-04-09T00:00:00Z45m

What is Canada's role in solar power? We're on the leading edge of fuel cell development but what about wind and solar? Most of our national wind energy output can be assessed at one glance here on the eastern slopes of the rockies. In the meantime, 40 countries around the world boast wind energy programs while Canada has none. Why do we snub a potential jobs and a new sector. David Suzuki argues that Canada has no national renewable energy policy or subsidies.

1999-04-16T00:00:00Z

39x14 Wonders of the World

39x14 Wonders of the World

  • 1999-04-16T00:00:00Z45m

What are your wonders of the world? See what some experts have to offer as today's wonders of the world, including the bicycle and the linguistic genius of children. Tonight we'll meet three outstanding scientists and hear their very personal stories of scientific curiosity, discovery and wonder.

This documentary explores the fate of the endangered wild Suffield horses of Alberta. Located near a military base close to Medicine Hat, these animals were originally domesticated but returned to the wild over generations.

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