Tag Archives: The Nature of Things

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Comments and queries for the week of November 6

The Nature of Things explores obesity and our guts

Just doing a little fact checking, and the host of the show states there are more microbes in our gut, 100 trillion, than there are stars in the sky. Conservative estimates of the number of stars are around a billion trillion, and a new study from researchers at Harvard and Yale suggests there are a mind-blowing 300 sextillion of them, or three times as many as scientists previously calculated. That is a 3 followed by 23 zeros. Or 3 trillion times 100 billion. I wonder if this was just a slip, or is it an indication of a lack of understanding of very large numbers? —Dave

Will this show on obesity and the gut rerun? —Reta

All of the past The Nature of Things episodes can be re-watched on the show’s website.

Georgina Reilly: Why I left Murdoch Mysteries

Dear Miss Reilly: Excuse the pun but, thank-you for “Gracing” us with your performances on Murdoch Mysteries. The show has always been excellent right from the first season, but when your character made her first appearance a few years ago, the fans took notice and endeared you to their hearts both as Emily and Georgina Reilly. Thank you, and I hope you come back someday. Take care. —Rob

Well I can’t wait to see her back as a special guest star and I don’t care that they went off the books a bit … it is still a good show. —Brenden

It’s great that they didn’t choose to kill her off and left the door open for future guest appearances or perhaps a recurring role. As much as I would love for it to, MM won’t last forever. I am sure the entire cast ponders on what they will so when this show ends and how much further they would like to go. Emily can always return in the end. Perhaps for George. I am an avid fan of them as a couple after all. :) —Tibou

I m glad to see Miss Reilly leave Murdoch Mysteries as she was the weak link of the show; best of luck to her. I have watched all the episodes of Murdoch Mysteries and love all the Canadian content. Thanks to the writers and producers for such a good show; Murdoch is my favourite character along with Inspector Brackenreid. —Dee

 

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? greg@tv-eh.com or via @tv_eh.

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Featured, The Nature of Things

The Nature of Things explores obesity and our guts

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Turns out our gut bugs may be creating oversized guts. That’s one of the suggestions given as to why some suffer from obesity while others don’t. Airing Thursday under CBC’s The Nature of Things banner, “It Takes Guts” posits the 100 trillion microbes living in our digestive system influence obesity in some.

The story begins with Adrianna, who has always battled her weight. Tired of being “the fat girl,” she started an exercise regimen in her 20s and cut fast food from her diet. She didn’t lose any weight. That’s because, according to obesity expert Dr. Arya Sharma of the University of Alberta, some bodies are predisposed to being that way thanks to the microbes inside them.

Geneticist Professor Tim Spector is up next, explaining microbes influence how we eat, what we eat, how we get energy from our food, protect our immune system, help us harvest calories and produce key vitamins and nutrients. These super-small spirals, blobs and other shapes are integral in our lives, and aren’t all bad.

“It Takes Guts” offers a lot of information in an interesting way, mixing expert interviews with colourful graphics while explaining how eating processed foods is like dropping a nuclear bomb on microbes—courtesy of Spector’s son, Tom—and what we can do to cultivate and enrich the critters in our gut on the path to better health. And that artificial poop machine at the University of Guelph? Make sure you tune in for that.

The Nature of Things airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary, The Nature of Things

The Nature of Things explores the “Curious” world of vitamins and supplements

We’re told that if we stick to Canada’s Food Guide and supplement it with vitamins, we’re getting enough good stuff into our systems to lead healthy lives. But is that truly the case? Self-professed former fat kid turned health nut/filmmaker Bryce Sage plotted to find out.

“The Curious Case of Vitamins and Me,” airing on The Nature of Things this Thursday, is an entertaining journey across North America to find out if what we’re eating and taking is enough … or if things like multivitamins are doing more harm than good. Beginning with evolutionary history, the entertaining Sage—he reminds me of an even geekier Alton Brown—visits the San Francisco Zoo to find out how what primates eat compares to humans. He quickly discovers that we’re not able to manufacture all of the 13 essential vitamins needed to survive (Who else grew up reading “12 essential vitamins!” emblazoned on their cereal boxes?), so they must be found in nature. It’s not long until Sage discovers we’re deficient when it comes to vitamins C, A, D, E and B-9 and digs deeper into the Nutrition Facts box we find on everything nowadays.

Turns out those boxes are cobbled together by a panel of Canadians and Americans. In place since the Second World War, they were originally designed to help soldiers ensure they were getting the recommended daily dose of the 13 essential vitamins to fight. Now they’re used in our everyday lives, a guide to the base amounts of each vitamin to ensure we don’t suffer from vitamin deficiency.

The most fascinating part of “The Curious Case of Vitamins and Me” was watching Sage—armed with a nutritional textbook—head to the grocery store to purchase everything needed to fulfill those daily requirements. He soon learns exactly what those “fortified vitamins” are contained in cereal, and it isn’t good news. Also cool? Sage’s visit to an organic farm, where he discovers modern farming may result in fruits and veggies with less nutritional value than heirloom varieties. Those interested in how vitamins and supplements are made—and where the ingredients are sourced—get their fix when Sage drops by NutraLab Canada.

Far from fear-mongering, “The Curious Case of Vitamins and Me” is a fun, funny and educational guide to making sure you and your family are getting enough out of their diet to be healthy.

“The Curious Case of Vitamins and Me” airs on The Nature of Things, Thursday at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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The Nature of Things celebrates moose in season return

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I’m a sucker for nature documentaries, and CBC’s The Nature of Things broadcasts some of the best. Returning Thursday for Season 55 is “Moose: A Year in the Life of a Twig Eater” and it’s terrific stuff.

Directed and produced by Susan Fleming—whose previous “Meet the Coywolf,” “Raccoon Nation” and “A Murder of Crows” have all aired on TNOT—”Moose” is the result of over a year of naturalist Hugo Kitching recording a mother moose and her calf in Jasper National Park.

The reclusive beasts seek out hard-to-get-to locations to give birth so that predators don’t attack, and the show’s story begins in June, when, after a 21-day search, Kitching locates a cow and her calf. The little one is cute as heck, ungainly and all spindly legs and oversized ears. But with moose numbers plummeting because babies aren’t surviving their first year the youngster has a touch road ahead of it. Highlighted by stunning views of Jasper National Park, its peaks and valleys “Moose” tracks the pair—and a second cow and baby—through spring and summer when food in plentiful. Of particular importance is the ingestion of sodium-rich pond plants that moose store to help them survive during lean times.

Those lean periods arrive in the winter, when five feet of snow means no greenery to eat … and tough going for both animal and man. (How Kitching filmed the project could be a documentary on its own.) This being a nature documentary, the life cycle of the moose is recorded regardless of whether the news is good or bad. Not every animal survives such a harsh climate and, sadly, the moose are no exception.

Regardless, “Moose: A Year in the Life of a Twig Eater” is an entertaining peek into the life of an elusive mammal few get a chance to see, and is well worth tuning in to.

Check out more moose facts on TNOT website.

The Nature of Things airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Preview: Franklin’s lost ship found

I have a fascination with the Canadian north. What has made men and women trek to some of the most inhospitable land on earth? I’ve read the fictional works of Jack London and the real-life triumphs and tragedies of men like Ernest Shackleton and Captain John Franklin, the latter of whom is featured in Franklin’s Lost Ships, The Nature of Things’ season finale.

The news that one of Franklin’s ships, the Erebus, was discovered last year after being missing for 170 years was a discovery that excited and entranced me, and Franklin’s Lost Ships doesn’t disappoint in its exploration into how the Erebus was found. In 1845, Capt. Franklin and 129 men set sail from England  aboard two ships—the HMS Erebus and Terror—headed for the uncharted waters of the Arctic. None survived. Graves and notes left by crew members have been found since, along with Inuit tales handed down through  generations detailing what happened, but the ships remained tantalizingly out of reach.

Thursday’s documentary not only details the six-year search Parks Canada has been on for the duo National Historic sites, but the story of how Franklin and his crew ran into trouble in the first place. Franklin was a decorated war hero, but had failed in earlier overland mission to find the Northwest Passage. On his last mission, he not only had enough food to last three years, but warships Erebus and Terror had been fitted with central heating and propellors. It was expected that the elusive Northwest Passage would be traversed and mapped without problem.

Experts like Ryan Harris and Marc-André Bernier of Parks Canada, John Geiger of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, historian Huw Lewis-Jones and authors Ken McCoogan and Dave Woodman breathe life into the tale with help from re-creations, explaining not only how last year’s adventure was undertaken with state-of-the-art sonar and satellite maps paired with the last coordinates left by the crew before they perished.

Franklin’s Lost Ships is also a story of British arrogance, of a society that preferred—in the 1800s—to ignore Inuit reports of cannibalism among the crew and reports of one ship locked in the ice and sinking while another was carried south. In fact it was those stories, and luck, that caused last summer’s mission to be a success. Incredible footage of Erebus looming up in the murk, covered in seaweed and dwarfing the divers around her is dramatic stuff. But that’s just the first chapter in the story; future dives will venture inside the ship to search for documents, film and bodies for a more accurate telling of what truly went wrong during Franklin’s last expedition.

Franklin’s Lost Ships airs as part of The Nature of Things on Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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