The Nature of Things (1960)
The Nature of Things is a Canadian television series of documentary programs. It debuted on CBC Television on November 6, 1960. Many of the programs document nature and the effect that humans have on it. The program was one of the first to explore environmental issues, such as clear-cut logging. The series is named after an epic poem by Roman philosopher Lucretius: "Dē Rērum Nātūrā" — On the Nature of Things.
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Episode 1 - The Bear Man of Kamchatka
Release Date: 2007-10-11Canadian 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.
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Episode 2 - Living Forever: The Longevity Revolution
Release Date: 2007-10-18Explorer the ongoing quest to extend human life, the cutting-edge research and the latest discoveries.
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Episode 3 - Weather Report
Release Date: 2007-10-25Climate change is irrevocably altering the world as we know it, challenging our sense of the future and the fundamental values of our industrial societies.
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Episode 4 - Game Over: Conservation in Kenya
Release Date: 2007-11-01Explore the impact of both colonial and contemporary initiatives in Kenya and how they affect the peoples who have traditionally lived off the land.
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Episode 5 - The Man with the Golden Cells
Release Date: 2007-11-08The emerging world market in living cells, where an individual's genes can be bought and sold as commodities.
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Episode 6 - The Nature of Things Magazine
Release Date: 2007-11-15Witness 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.
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Episode 7 - Climate Change I: An Uncertain Future
Release Date: 2007-11-22Now 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.
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Episode 8 - Climate Change II: Hot Times in the City
Release Date: 2007-11-29Hot 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.
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Episode 9 - The Nature of Things Magazine
Release Date: 2007-12-06A 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.
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Episode 10 - The Edge of Eden – Living with Grizzlies
Release Date: 2008-01-06 -
Episode 11 - The Science of the Senses: Hearing
Release Date: 2008-01-10In 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.
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Episode 12 - The Science of the Senses: Touch
Release Date: 2008-01-17In 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.
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Episode 13 - The Science of the Senses: Smell/Taste
Release Date: 2008-01-24In 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.
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Episode 14 - The Science of the Senses: Sight
Release Date: 2008-01-31This 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.
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Episode 15 - Wild China: Heart of the Dragon
Release Date: 2008-06-22Explores how China's 1.3 billion people interact with their extraordinary wildlife and landscapes.
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Episode 16 - Wild China: Shangi-La
Release Date: 2008-06-28Beneath 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.
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Episode 17 - Wild China: The Tibetan Plateau
Release Date: 2008-06-29Explore the vast windswept wilderness in one of the world's most remote places - the size of Western Europe.
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Episode 18 - Wild China: Land of the Panda
Release Date: 2008-07-05Travel across China's heartland where its Han people are the centre of a 5,000-year-old civilization.
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Episode 19 - Wild China: Beyond the Great Wall
Release Date: 2008-07-12Warrior nomads, bizarre wildlife and extreme weather conditions are found beyond the Wall, built by China's emperors.
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Episode 20 - Wild China: Tides of Change
Release Date: 2008-07-13China'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.
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Episode 21 - Antarctic Mission: Islands at the Edge
Release Date: 2008-07-20The 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.
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Episode 22 - Antarctic Mission: Window on a Changing Climate
Release Date: 2008-07-27Antarctica'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.
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Episode 23 - Antarctic Mission: The Great Ocean of Ice
Release Date: 2008-08-03A 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.
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Episode 24 - Antarctic Mission: The Last Continent
Release Date: 2008-08-30Follow mission leader Jean Lemire and his crew as they endure 17 months on the expedition to measure the threat posed by global warming in the Antarctic - a place where the Earth is particularly vulnerable.