Nova scienceNOW: How Does the Brain Work? (DVD)

Host Neil deGrasse Tyson will tackle one of science's major challenges in each episode framed as a simple question that ordinary people wonder and worry about. Neil will guide US as he explores dramatic discoveries and the frontiers of research that connect each central provocative mystery. Episode includes: 1) Magic and the Brains - Are the secrets behind the world's greatest magic tricks actually wired into the human brain? Eccentric magicians Penn and Teller and Las Vegas trickster Apollo Robbins team up with neuroscientists to reveal how our brains process visual information. Can you really believe your own eyes? 2) Artificial Intelligence - Can we make a robot that really thinks learns and acts like us? Replicating the human brain is a lot tougher than it looks; the promise of walking talking "androids" is still just a fantasy. But scientists are edging closer with machines like Watson an IBM computer which is gearing up for a first-of-it's-kind challenge: Taking on human contestants on the game show Jeopardy. 3) Mind Control - Obi-Wan Kenobi used it to get his droids past policing storm troopers in Star Wars. The Communists used it to turn a captured solider into an assassin in the Manchurian Candidate. But now the thrilling terrifying prospect of controlling another's mind using invisible forces is stepping out of the movies and into the lab as scientists "hack" into the human brain. 4) Profile David Eagleman - How does the brain construct reality using the information it takes in? Neuroscientist David Eagleman is using a unique brand of "guerilla science" to study time perception-dropping people 100 feet into a net-and synesthesia a bizarre crossing of the senses in the brain.