One of the very impressive things about scienceNOW is that the show is not only able to handle a lighter-side story like Auto-Tune controlling a singer's pitch and have a breezy feel as a whole to it, but that it can quickly switch gears and examine something as serious as the 2001 anthrax attacks. The piece is, clearly, an incredibly serious one, and the show handles it with the gravitas that such a piece requires. scienceNOW explores the investigation from the point of view of the scientists involved, examining exactly how it was determined where the anthrax came from, something that required a lot of thinking and cutting-edge tests. The story is, certainly, far less light than the rest of the show, but it still meshes with that which surrounds it.
As I've done since the show's second season, I now must point out the real reason the show is as much fun as it is — Neil deGrasse Tyson. Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, is the type of person I always prayed would teach my college sci
ence classes — he is not only hysterically funny, but he helps the average person approach science in a wholly accessible and interesting way. I may question is choice of vests, but even those show that he is simply having fun, and making science fun. Really, it is the entire production team that deserves credit for making what could otherwise be rather dry incredibly enjoyable.
If my professors had made science one-fourth as fun as it is in Nova scienceNOW, maybe I'd have put my bachelor's degree to better use than simply reviewing science-based shows.
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