How do you react to the world around you? Through the lens of a boxer, a first responder, a cell tower climber and a man with a bionic limb, we'll go deep into the universe of the most powerful machine on earth: the human brain and the vast nervous system it controls. The human body is full of systems, but there's one system that controls all the others, and it might be the one that truly makes you you: The nervous system.
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili embarks on an extraordinary quest through 600 million years of evolution to reveal how the human brain — the most complex structure known in the universe — came to exist. With more than 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections, it surpasses even the stars of the Milky Way. Through breathtaking science and striking visuals, this documentary uncovers how nature transformed simple nerve cells into the ultimate thinking machine. From the first survival instincts of primates to the dawn of social intelligence, Jim explores how cooperation, relationships and empathy reshaped the brain and made us who we are. Working alongside his wife and leading researchers, he dives into fossil evidence, brain scans and the rise of artificial intelligence to answer one profound question: what makes the biological brain so unique — and can anything ever match it?
Explore the science of attraction, the evolution of reproductive health, and the cultural taboos that shape our most private experiences. This illuminating series unpacks how desire begins in the brain, how birth control has transformed society, and why sex remains one of humanity’s most captivating mysteries. The first three episodes reveal how most sexual fantasies can be traced back to just a few provocative themes, and delve into the surprising science behind why we’re irresistibly drawn to certain types of partners. You’ll also discover the hidden factors that spark desire, and follow the long, often frustrating quest to control reproduction—from ancient herbal remedies to modern pills and IUDs—and why birth control remains such a complicated challenge even today.
Richard Dawkins explores what science can tell us about death. It's a journey that takes him from Hindu funeral pyres in India to genetics labs in New York.Dawkins brings together the latest neuroscience, evolutionary and genetic theory to examine why we crave life after death, why we evolved to age and how the human genome is something like real immortality - traits inherited from our distant ancestors that we pass on to future generations.
The honey badger looks like something you might buy in pet shop and give to children, but turns out to be one of the most violent and determined creatures ever to scuttle across the face of the earth. Nothing in the badger’s world-not even the badgers themselves-are safe from its remarkable ability to create havoc and cause harm. Like a meter long skunk with the brain of a shark the Honey Badger’s metabolism compels it to eat constantly and live on the run. Its diet is admirably inclusive ranging from insects to its own young. If an animal is too big to eat then the badger will fight it anyway, indeed it is this almost supernatural tenacity that compels you respect it, as well as yielding some of the most spectacular sequences in the film. Five foot long cobra sleeping in the top of tree? No problem, the badger scoots up and bites its head off. When an ailing badger is attacked by a full size leopard it takes the leopard over an hour to finish it off. When one is bitten in the face by a snake that can kill a man, it just lies down for a while and sleeps it off.
The Series 'In Search of' conducted investigations into the controversial, paranormal and mysterious. The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries examined. The 2018 revival is presented by Zachary Quinto. In this episode, Zach wants to understand how a person can be superhuman. He meets a man who bent the metal frame of a car door with his bare hands in a moment of crisis; a man who can feel no pain; and a Shaolin warrior monk, who teaches him how to harness superhuman powers of his own.
The human body is full of systems, but there's one system that controls all the others, and it might be the one that truly makes you you: The nervous system.