Royal Institution Christmas Lectures - Season 46 / Year 2011

Why does the brain look like a giant walnut, how does it fit in enough wiring to stretch four times around the equator, and why could a magnet on the head stop someone mid-sentence? In the first of this year's Christmas Lectures, Professor Bruce Hood gets inside the human head to explore how the brain works. He measures the brain's nerve cells in action, reads someone's mind from 100 miles away, and reveals how the brain ultimately creates its own version of reality.

The brain is constantly being bombarded with information, so how does it decide what to trust and what to ignore, without the person even being aware of it? Professor Bruce Hood gives the second of this year's Christmas Lectures - testing the limits of the memory, finding out how humans learn, how the brain takes shortcuts and why multitasking can be dangerous. Bruce makes people say the wrong thing and fail to see what is right in front of them. Can one really believe one's eyes? Possibly not.

Have you ever seen a face in a piece of burnt toast, or given your car a name? Why do you feel pain when someone else is hurt? Why are people so obsessed with other people? In the last of this year's Christmas Lectures, Professor Bruce Hood investigates how our brains are built to read other people's minds. With a little help from a baby, a robot and a magician, Bruce uncovers what makes us truly human.