Daily Planet (TV series)

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Daily Planet is a television program on Discovery Channel Canada and CTV, which features daily news, discussion and commentary on the scientific aspects of current events. It first aired on January 1, 1995, the same day as the premiere of Discovery Channel, under the name @discovery.ca. On September 30, 2002, it was relaunched as Daily Planet, adopting a "science magazine" programming format.

During the summer of 2006, the set of Daily Planet was completely made over. On the season premiere in September, the end of the show was about the rebuilding of the set.

The hosts of Daily Planet are currently Jay Ingram (who has hosted since Discovery Channel Canada's inception) and Kim Jagtiani. Previous co-host Natasha Stillwell left the show on February 2, 2007 and had been temporarily replaced by Patty Kim.

An American version of the series, Science Today, briefly aired on the Discovery-owned digital channel The Science Channel (then branded Discovery Science) during the late 1990s, during the @discovery.ca era. A weekly version called Discoveries This Week, hosted by Dan Duran, aired on that channel until 2006. The Science Channel more recently simulcasted a live Daily Planet special called Mars: The Phoenix Lands in HDTV on May 25th, 2008.

International versions of Daily Planet are also produced for Discovery Channel Latin America and Discovery Channel Asia.

Contents

[edit] Programming segments

  • Fact of the Matter - Featuring various physicists to explain physical phenomena.
  • Jay's Journal - Jay Ingram's editorial column, discussing implications of information in science news.
  • Mindbender - A prized contest involving correctly answering the questions shown in the segment. It originally has 6 questions, and later reduced to 5, then 4 in Daily Planet era. As of 2005-2006 season, there are only 3 questions, with a warm-up question before the contest.
  • Science And The City - Alan Nursall goes to public places to demonstrate physical phenomena by inviting public into performing experiments
  • Shannon's Gadgets - Shannon Bentley rates science's latest techno offerings.
  • Starstruck - Ivan Semeniuk's weekly space column
  • You Asked For It - @discovery.ca segment answering scientific questions from viewers. It was eventually turned into a separate half-hour show. In the Daily Planet era, it was relaunched in 2005-2006 season as 'Planet Q'.

[edit] Former Programming Segments

  • Joe's chemistry set (1995-2002) - Joe Schwarcz performs chemical experients to explain chemical phenomena. It was eventually split into a 13-episode series named Science To Go.
  • Weird and Wonderful Science (?-2002) - Originally called 'Weird Science', it featured Richard Wassersug introducing strange scientific phenomena.

[edit] List of hosts

[edit] External links