Summary: This program is devoted to the senses that bring information of more distant events. The camera shows a reckless driver careening down a road-and then takes the viewer inside his eye, where the image of the potential crash site is pictured. The camera enters the ear, showing how the linked bones vibrate in response to a sound, and by using a computer graphic sequence, shows how the eye focuses...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In many ways our brains may be like those of animals, but in our capacity to think, to remember, and to create we are much different. This program looks at some of the reasons for these differences, exploring the neural structure of the human brain, our physiological brain capacity, and the use of memory and symbols.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This, the first of two programs on the senses, looks at those sense receptors that depend on contact with the immediate world: taste buds, touch sensors, and olfactory cells. These receptors also sense heat, pain, and pressure. The complex world just beneath the skin is re-created with realistic models, showing events like the pulling of a hair seen from the viewpoint of the root.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program shows how the brain coordinates functions to make a simple but lifesaving decision-how the cortex assesses incoming information, sends outgoing messages to the muscles, and stores "maps" of the world and the body; how circuits of nerve cells operate in the brain; and how individual nerve cells function.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: What happens to the body during sleep? This program explores the mystery of REM sleep, shows a computer display of the waves that sweep across the brain during sleep, and presents extraordinary footage of a cat "acting out" its dreams. The analogy of sleep to a ship on automatic pilot graphically illustrates how some functions must and do continue while the conscious brain is asleep.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program looks at nerve signals and how they are transmitted. It looks at the part played by nerve messages in reflex activities and at both the chemical and electrical activities of networks of nerve cells in contact.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005