The BEST episodes of NOVA season 28

#1 - Cracking The Code Of Life

Season 28 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/17/2001

This two-hour special, hosted by ABC "Nightline" correspondent Robert Krulwich, chronicles the race to capture one of the biggest prizes in scientific history: the complete letter-by-letter sequence of genetic information that defines human life -- the human genome.

#2 - Survivor M.D.: Tattooed Doctor

Season 28 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/27/2001

In "Tattooed Doctor," the first hour of NOVA's "Survivor M.D." series, emergency-room physician Dr. Tom Tarter eloquently describes some of the challenges and rewards of emergency medicine.

#3 - Vanished!

Season 28 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/30/2001

The program investigates the mysterious disappearance -- and, half a century later, reappearance -- of Stardust, a civilian aircraft that crashed in the Andes in 1947.

#4 - Harvest Of Fear

Season 28 - Episode 10 - Aired 4/24/2001

A gene from a jellyfish is placed in a potato plant, making it light up whenever it needs watering. Rice plants are genetically transformed to produce vitamin A, preventing millions of African children from going blind. Other plants are modified to produce plastic or pharmaceuticals. While many see these as wondrous advancements, others fear they could spawn serious new threats to human health, a loss of genetic viability in our most important crop species, and other signficant and perhaps unforeseen problems. In "Harvest of Fear," NOVA and FRONTLINE join forces to explore the growing controversy over genetically modified agriculture.

#5 - Survivor M.D.: Second Opinions

Season 28 - Episode 7 - Aired 4/3/2001

In 1987 NOVA embarked with seven brilliant, natural-born survivors on the longest-running boot camp in higher education: the nearly decade-long process of training to be a fully qualified doctor. Now all but one of them (who switched careers) are out in the world in high-powered medical careers, trying to balance the demands of work, families, and personal lives, as NOVA reports on Survivor MD, which airs in three one-hour segments.

#6 - The Cancer Warrior

Season 28 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/27/2001

The program follows the extraordinary odyssey of surgeon-turned-researcher Dr. Judah Folkman, who, together with colleagues at Children's Hospital in Boston, has spent over 30 years searching for ways to curb cancer by cutting off blood flow to tumors.

#7 - Lost King Of The Maya

Season 28 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/13/2001

The film follows the work of archeologists who are using new excavations and hieroglyphic translations to interpret the early history of Copán, a Classic Maya site in northern Honduras.

#8 - Nazi Prison Escape

Season 28 - Episode 3 - Aired 2/6/2001

The program documents a series of spectacular escape attempts made at Colditz Castle, the Nazi's most impregnable prison.

#9 - Life's Greatest Miracle

Season 28 - Episode 17 - Aired 11/20/2001

A sequel to the most popular NOVA of all time, "Miracle of Life," the program once again uses the extraordinary microimagery of Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson to track human development from embryo to newborn.

#10 - Bioterror

Season 28 - Episode 16 - Aired 11/13/2001

The film follows three New York Times reporters as they delve into the murky past of bioweapons research and grapple with the current threat of anthrax and other attacks.

#11 - Sex: Unknown

Season 28 - Episode 14 - Aired 10/30/2001

The film investigates the complicated world of gender identity.

#12 - 18 Ways To Make A Baby

Season 28 - Episode 12 - Aired 10/9/2001

The program investigates the brave new world of assisted reproduction.

#13 - Search For A Safe Cigarette

Season 28 - Episode 11 - Aired 10/2/2001

The program chronicles the tobacco industry's decades long effort to create a "safer" cigarette.

#14 - Russia's Nuclear Warriors

Season 28 - Episode 15 - Aired 11/6/2001

#15 - Secrets Of The Mind (aka Phantoms in the Brain)

Season 28 - Episode 13 - Aired 10/23/2001

This NOVA program delves into the mind-tingling efforts of neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran to discover how the brain works.

#16 - Sultan's Lost Treasure

Season 28 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/16/2001

The program follows a French-led expedition to recover thousands of porcelain and other artifacts from a centuries-old Chinese shipwreck off the coast of Brunei.

#17 - Survivor M.D.: Hearts & Minds

Season 28 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/10/2001

In 1987 NOVA embarked with seven brilliant, natural-born survivors on the longest-running boot camp in higher education: the nearly decade-long process of training to be a fully qualified doctor. Now all but one of them (who switched careers) are out in the world in high-powered medical careers, trying to balance the demands of work, families, and personal lives, as NOVA reports on Survivor MD, which airs in three one-hour segments.

#18 - Methuselah Tree

Season 28 - Episode 18 - Aired 12/11/2001

Marked by striking imagery and a poetic style, the film dramatizes the life cycle of the world's oldest living thing, the bristlecone pine of California's White Mountains.

#19 - Flying Casanovas

Season 28 - Episode 19 - Aired 12/25/2001

The program, with Sir David Attenborough narrating, celebrates the extraordinary antics male bowerbirds get up to when courting a female.