Inquiring Minds - Season 2
1 - Why Do Divers Get The Bends?
Air Date: September 10, 2000
The explanation of why we can't breathe underwater and how a regulator helps scuba divers. The hosts reveal the dangers of ""the bends"" where nitrogen builds up in the blood, the treatment, and the prevention. The regulation, structure, and function of living systems are also presented. Organisms and their environment, calculation of variables such as temperature, pressure, density, and elevation/depth, and the hosts also explain about the effects of differences in density and energy transfer on the activities of and in the ocean.
2 - Why Do Bears Hibernate, And Not Humans?
Air Date: September 17, 2000
Why humans must endure winter, while bears and chipmunks can avoid it by hibernating. We explore the structure and function of living systems, regulation of life processes and behaviour that influences them, and the diversity of adaptations.
3 - Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise?
Air Date: September 24, 2000
The team explain what a stick and a piece of crystal have to do with telling time, and how the clock was invented. They also discuss Newton's law of gravitation, scientific principles and technological design. Force and motion - the mechanical advantage provided by gears, and the relationships among various bodies in the solar system.
4 - What Causes Allergies?
Air Date: October 1, 2000
Why some people have allergic reactions, and others don't. How your immune system works - or doesn't work is discussed. A look at auto-immune disease is discovered. The team focuses on the structure and function of living systems, the immune system, including auto-immune response, and regulation and behaviour of living systems.
5 - What Causes The Northern Lights?
Air Date: October 8, 2000
The group focuses on how the earth resembles a giant magnet, and its relation to the natural light show known as the aurora borealis. A discussion of properties of gas, transfer, properties, and characteristics of energy, along with the structure of the earth, earth in the solar system, and earth as a magnet. An explanation of the electromagnetic spectrum and the fundamentals of reflection and refraction.
6 - Why Do Golf Balls Have Dimples?
Air Date: October 15, 2000
The group discusses the evolution of the golf ball, and its advantages. Why a rough ball travels further than a smooth one, the impact of air, and how to make an object more aerodynamic are also explored. Force and motion, technological design, and the process of flight.
7 - Why Is It So Difficult To Stop Smoking?
Air Date: October 22, 2000
Explanations of why smoking is a powerful addiction, how it affects the chemistry of the brain and the ""reward centre,"" the causes of withdrawal symptoms, and attempts to escape addiction.
8 - How Do Microwave Ovens Cook Food?
Air Date: October 29, 2000
The exploration of heat transfer through conduction, convection, and radiation, the electromagnetic spectrum and wavelengths. Changes in matter, and technological design.
9 - Can Voices Really Shatter Glass?
Air Date: November 5, 2000
What resonance means and the natural frequency of structures and objects, such as glass. A look at the effects of resonance, and some examples - why resonance is like swinging someone on a swing, attempts to shatter glass, using a professional resonator - a trained singer. The characteristics of sound, states of energy such as heat, light, sound are explained, along with technological application of sound waves, amplitude, wavelength, and frequency. Force, motion, and energy concepts such as resonance and vibrations and the ability of substances to transmit sound, and earthquakes and wave frequencies
10 - Why Does Food Rot?
Air Date: November 12, 2000
A look at micro organisms, where the team talks about how they work, their need for water, the role of the freezer and refrigerator, different kinds of bacteria - good and bad, and the inevitability of food rotting - nature's way. Living systems dependence on other systems are described, while reproduction and heredity, populations and ecosystems, nature of chemical processes are explored. Chemical change, nitrogen cycle, producers, consumers and decomposers, technological design, science in personal health, and science and technology in society.
11 - Why Does Getting Sick Always Give You The Same Symptoms?
Air Date: November 19, 2000
How a cold or flu virus works, and its effects on your body. The functions of congestion, a sore throat, sneezing, and coughing. The hosts explain why we get sick more often in the winter, washing hands for prevention, a comparison of a cold and flu virus, and the role of a fever, whether medications help. We take a look at the structure and function of living systems, particularly cells, and also the diversity and adaptations of organisms, regulation and behaviour of organisms, and immune response.
12 - Why Don't Sky Scrapers Fall Over?
Air Date: November 26, 2000
The evolution of the skyscraper and a look at how high buildings can become. The role that steel is described, and how steel frames have played a part, the elevator's role in the ""face for the sky"", the challenge that wind presents, making a building flexible, and what stops us from building skyscrapers that exceed today's tallest ones. The physical properties of earth materials are shown. Mass, energy, and momentum, elastic and inelastic collisions, force and motion, and technological design.
13 - How Do Body Builders Get Their Muscles So Big?
Air Date: December 3, 2000
How your muscles function everyday, how your body builds muscles using muscle fibres and protein strands, and getting your body into shape.
14 - How Do They Keep The Ice Frozen in a Hockey Arena?
Air Date: December 10, 2000
What antifreeze has to do with hockey rinks, why they paint the ice, and how thick the ice surface is. The hosts also explain about what happens to the ice when another event is held in the arena.
15 - How Do Helicopters Fly Without Wings?
Air Date: December 17, 2000
What the wings of a plane and the rotor of a helicopter have in common, how the rotor lifts the helicopter off the ground from a standing position, how a helicopter changes direction, and what a helicopter is more difficult to control than an airplane.
16 - Why Do Animals See The World Differently Than We Do?
Air Date: December 24, 2000
What animals need to see in order to stay alive, why some animals' eyes are on the sides of their head, and which species have more than two eyes.
17 - Why Is Laser Light So Powerful?
Air Date: December 31, 2000
How to produce a single wavelength, what neon signs and lasers have in common, what makes a laser powerful enough to cut through steel, and why some lasers are more powerful than others.
18 - How Does Soap Make You Clean?
Air Date: January 7, 2001
Where soap gets its cleaning power from, why water alone can't get you clean, and where soap scum comes from. Behind the reason why people don't use soap to wash their hair.
19 - Why Is There No Cure for the Common Cold?
Air Date: January 14, 2001
What happens when a virus invades your body, what a vaccine is, and why we can't create a vaccine to protect us from the common cold.
20 - How Do Surgeons Transplant An Organ?
Air Date: January 21, 2001
An experiment on how the immune system reacts to a foreign organ, how T-cells know what belongs in your body and what doesn't, and especially how doctors find a match between patients and organ donors.
21 - How Does Nuclear Power Work?
Air Date: January 28, 2001
How we get electricity from uranium, how a nuclear chain reaction is created, and why nuclear power generation has hazardous side effects.
22 - What Is The Science Behind Keeping Warm?
Air Date: February 4, 2001
A demonstration on what happens when your body is unable to produce heat as fast as it is being lost, how your body defends against heat loss, and the trick to layering.