Summary: Why do girls demonstrate greater reading and writing ability than boys? Is the female brain hardwired for faster verbal development? Should men let women do the talking? This program studies language differences between the sexes and explores the possibility that many communication skills are gender-specific. Following two teams of well-educated adults as they undergo a crash course in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: When asked to describe birth from a baby's perspective, a group of women talk about fear, elation, and other feelings-while their male counterparts summon only physical sensations. What causes such a contrast? This program explores the divergent emotional tendencies of men and women, throwing gender differences into bold relief through spontaneous theatrical exercises and expert commentary....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: How well do we understand the neurology of learning? Why does the brain's ability to learn diminish as we age? Can science find a way to extend brain "fitness," even for the very old? This program addresses those questions as it describes important medical experiments and studies. Topics include the central role of nerve cell connections in learning and cognitive development; cerebral...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Looks, personality, intellect, bank account-the reasons for attraction can't be predicted. Or can they? This program investigates ways that men and women evaluate potential lovers and life partners, and shows how male and female criteria may be more similar than many think. Creating a relaxed, club-like setting in which a small group of singles meet, flirt, and discuss their goals, the program...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Packing the trunk, finding the right road, parking in a tight spot-are these masculine tasks, best accomplished with a man's mechanical aptitude and spatial reasoning? This program resists broadly brushed stereotypes, but does identify disparities in the ways men and women operate machines, manipulate tools, focus on tasks, and navigate. Accompanying two teams as they race to organize and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The war of the sexes, like any war, needs leaders and followers. Using a military-style competition between male and female test subjects, this program examines the different ways in which men and women exercise power, set goals, construct hierarchies, and perform teamwork. A chain of command, incorporating clearly defined roles and responsibilities, quickly materializes among the male...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Are exercise and smart eating the best tools for staying youthful and attractive? Or is there a third ingredient in the fountain of youth-namely, clinical adjustments to the body's chemistry, perhaps with drugs derived from other creatures' hormones? This program examines the subject of hormone therapy and its link to longevity studies. Outlining the role hormones play in sexual attraction, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Although it's smaller than some varieties of grapefruit, the human brain remains a vast, unexplored territory-and a marvel of design and function. This classic program evokes lingering questions about the brain's structure, how it works, the roles that experience and genetic history play in its development, the biology behind emotion and memory, and what happens when things go wrong inside the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Gunther von Hagens, the world's leading expert in human dissection, reveals the kinetic framework of the body in this program-as well as the neural expressway that enables the structure to move. Von Hagens' dissection shows how the skeleton operates like a system of levers, giving viewers a detailed look at the shape, composition, and mobility of bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: What happens in our brains when we think something is funny? Is laughter a form of self-defense? Can a joke be scientifically analyzed? This program studies the human response to humor from a physiological and psychological standpoint. Highlighting the importance of vocal cords in producing laughter, the program contrasts human and simian forms of humor and gives viewers an evolutionary...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Which is more enjoyable-the satisfaction of desire, or the sensation of longing itself? This program looks at the emotional, neurological, and genetic aspects of seeking and gaining pleasure, analyzing close ties between the search for gratification and the preservation of self and species. Examining a wide range of ways to follow one's bliss-including sex, artistic creation, the consumption of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Humans may be the only species to shed tears. Does that make crying a strictly human act? This program explores the deep well of animal instinct that, shaped by eons of evolution, still informs our expression of grief, fear, anger, and even joy. Focusing on the development of distress signals in early hominid infant behavior, the program investigates differences in crying between adults and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program focuses on how a brain grows from a fertilized egg and how our brains change, even after birth, right up to old age. The establishment of connections between brain cells occurs not only in the womb, but also after birth. These connections can be modified, or even abolished, in accordance with certain changes in the environment. Hence, the development of the brain is a little like...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This Science Screen Report describes the anatomy and functions of facial features, and the evolutionary development of the human face. It explains how the mouth and nose work together to identify food, the process of chewing and swallowing, and the varying functions of the taste buds, saliva, teeth, tongue, and jaws. Combining principles in anatomy, anthropology, psychology, and zoology, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program follows the physiological development of the human brain from conception through the growth of the neurological system in utero, to the moment of birth, when an amazing variety of brain functions are already apparent. The camera continues to follow a child to the age of eight, as a whole range of motor and cognitive skills appears-some as simple as focusing the eyes, others as...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Genetic and neurological research has led to increasingly sophisticated medical capabilities-resulting in a growing number of moral and ethical quandaries. This cluster of NewsHour segments surveys recent milestones in biology-many of which have produced as much controversy as insight. Reporting on the newly-identified anti-aging gene SIR2 and the cross-species implantation of stem cells, the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: The human body manufactures its own painkillers to ensure survival when injured. This program shows how opium and its derivatives, heroin and morphine, hijack that natural pain-numbing ability. Illustrating the brain's ability to alter its own chemistry when attacked by drugs, the program depicts the process by which brain receptors become desensitized and thus addicted. Tranquilizers-and the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This Science Screen Report examines the sense of touch not only as a means of physical sensation, but also as the most basic way of communicating and interacting with one's environment. The program highlights the human body's methods for detecting and evaluating external stimuli, and outlines scientific approaches to helping people with an impaired tactile sense. Presenting human touch as a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Using sophisticated 3-D animation, this program, divided into two parts, takes viewers on a journey deep into the brain to study the effects of the three substances. The first part illustrates the major functions of the brain and shows how its principal cells, the neurons, communicate with each other through electrical and chemical signals. In the second part, animated molecules of nicotine,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: As has occurred with most drugs, the neurological effects of cannabis have only recently been fully identified and understood. This program presents some of the latest findings, including new investigations into the clinical applications of the drug. Focusing on studies of the nerve-related mechanisms triggered by the action of cannabis, the program highlights potential changes in the social...
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
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the future, brain scans could be used to assess a child's potential for violence-and to decide if that child should be kept apart from the public, even when he or she has never hurt anyone. Should neurologists and behavioral psychologists have that much power? This program explores the issue with a compelling dramatized story, showing just how a combination of medical expertise and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Is the human brain hardwired for religion? This program examines work in the emerging field of neurotheology, focusing on links between religious ecstasy and the brain's temporal lobes. Dr. Michael Persinger, who has spent much of his career pursuing such a connection, uses magnetic field resonance to test his theories on renowned atheist Richard Dawkins. Inversely, Dr. Andrew Newberg performs...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program, Dr. Susan Greenfield expresses her belief that all aspects of human experience will eventually be explained in terms of the physical processes of the brain. Cases drawn from the history of brain research-from the earliest and crudest studies of the effects of brain injury to the latest data derived from brain surgery on patients who are awake and alert-offer insights both...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005