Episode

NOVA: The Pill for the People

Name: NOVA: The Pill for the People
Released: 1977-03-09
Duration: 55 min
Cast: Jay O. Sanders, Lance Lewman, Neil Ross, Liev Schreiber, Craig Sechler

NOVASeason 41977-03-09

Overview

NOVA profiles chemist Russell Marker who made the birth control pill possible by discovering a synthetic substitute for the hormone progesterone.

Details

Series: NOVA
Season: Season 4
Episode: Episode 8
Air date: 1977-03-09
Runtime: 55 min

Episode context

The Pill for the People is Episode 8 in Season 4 of NOVA. It aired on 1977-03-09. The runtime is 55 min.

Previous / Next

Episode 7: Bye Bye Blackbird 1977-03-02 | 55 min NOVA looks at blackbirds, their winter habit of nesting in the millions, and the destruction they do to crops.

Episode 9: The Gene Engineers 1977-03-16 | 55 min NOVA explores the history of genetic engineering and the possible risks and benefits of this area of research

More episodes from this season

Episode 6: Incident at Brown's Ferry 1977-02-23 | 55 min NOVA recreates March 1975 at Brown's Ferry, an Alabama nuclear power plant—the largest in the world—that suffered a seven-hour fire which came very close to developing into a major public disaster.

Episode 10: The Human Animal 1977-03-23 | 55 min NOVA investigates the controversial theory of Harvard University biologist E.O. Wilson, that many aspects of human behavior are genetically determined.

Episode 5: The Plastic Prison 1977-02-09 | 55 min NOVA follows the lives of three boys who have combined immuned deficiency—a disease that leaves its victims with no immune system.

Episode 11: The Wolf Equation 1977-03-30 | 55 min In the winter of 1976-77, 80 percent of the wolf population in Northwest Alaska was the target of aerial hunts. Although the area is roamed by the Western Arctic caribou herds—a natural predator of the wolf—the caribou population has been steadily decreasing in number. NOVA examines how the Dept. of Fish and Game is handling the the problem of wolf control.

Episode 4: The Sunspot Mystery 1977-02-02 | 55 min NOVA explores the research on the 1976 drought in the western United States which led some solar scientists to discover the link between weather patterns and the 11 year sunspot mystery.

Episode 12: The Dawn of the Solar Age 1977-04-20 | 55 min Solar energy is increasingly popular as a home heating source. But only recently has it been seriously considered as a source of industrial power. NOVA looks at this new industrial approach, such as the use of a huge windmill in Ohio, giant machines that may generate electricity from the heat of the tropical seas or from the motion of waves, and an orbiting solar power station able to beam microwaves to earth.

Episode 3: What Price Coal? 1977-01-19 | 55 min What is the price we are prepared to pay for coal? NOVA looks at the environmental and health safety issues raised by the government, industry, and the victims.

Episode 13: The Business of Extinction 1977-04-20 | 55 min NOVA explores the huge international illegal trade in animals, penetrates the thriving underworld of smugglers and assesses the effects on vanishing wildlife.

Episode 2: The Hot Blooded Dinosaurs 1977-01-12 | 55 min If you were a dinosaur scientist, what would you do with a pile of fossil bones? How would you even start to put the giant jigsaw puzzle together, never mind discover anything about how these dinosaurs lived? NOVA explores the incredible world of the dinosaur scientist.

Episode 14: The Red Planet 1977-04-27 | 55 min NOVA traces 300 years of speculation, investigation and discovery that have centered on Mars—particularly the theory that the planet could support life. Questions raised by NASA's 1976 Viking mariner missions about how the vast canyons were formed are also explored.