The show was a companion program to the Scientific American magazine, and primarily covered new technology and discoveries in science and medicine.
The show first aired on October 1, 1990, with MIT professor Woodie Flowers hosting until the spring of 1993.
[2] Actor Alan Alda became the permanent host from the fall season of 1993 and continued until the show ended in 2005.
[4] In one segment, Alda became car sick while driving an experimental, virtual reality vehicle.
In 2005, in his memoir, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: and Other Things I've Learned, Alda recalls his intestines becoming strangulated while in the mountains of Chile for the show, an incident in which he nearly died due to the remote location.