San Antonio College Library

This series explores the startling new map of the brain that has emerged from the past decade of neuroscience and shares a revelatory view of this most complicated organ, which now contradicts much of what we previously believed. Narrated by actress Blair Brown, the series tells stories through a mix of personal histories, expert commentary and cutting-edge animation. Viewers will not only learn startling new truths about the brain, they will voyage...

"In this groundbreaking book, two eminent scientists, Gary Lynch and Richard Granger, deliver a fascinating and fast-paced investigation of how our brains got the way they are, and how they might get better - much better. Reconstructing the Boskop brain leads Lynch and Granger to new insights into how our brain functions: how memory gets encoded; how the process fails with age and disease; how we perceive, act, and communicate; and what mechanisms...

More than 400,000 years ago a certain species of primates started their victory march: it was the victory march of the homo sapiens, the human being. Due to the special abilities of our brains we can produce complicated tools and use them, for example, to fly to the moon. We harnessed fire, developed culture and religion. With their talent for complex organization and communication humans rose above other living beings on this planet. Until recently...

"Integrates a multiplicity of evolutionary developments involving genetics, response, to climate variations, social organization, the nervous system, environment, and behavior."--Jacket.

"This successor volume to The Singularity Is Near explores how technology will refashion the human race in the decades to come. In this entirely new book, Ray Kurzweil brings a fresh perspective to advances in the singularity-assessing the progress of many of his predictions and examining the novel advancements that, in the near future, will bring a revolution in knowledge and an expansion of human potential. Among the topics he discusses are rebuilding...

After several million years of jostling for ecological space, only one survivor from a host of hominid species remains standing: us. Human beings are extraordinary creatures, and it is the unprecedented human brain that makes them so. In this book the authors present a step-by-step account of the evolution of the brain and nervous system. Tapping the very latest findings in evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and molecular biology, the authors explain...

In 3 episodes.

Drawing on research into social politics among chimpanzees, the cognitive development of children, and the ancient tools that have been found littered across the Rift Valley, in this program Dr. Alice Roberts explores how Homo sapiens developed such large brains - and asks why we are the only species of our kind left on the planet today. She also discusses how caring for large-brained offspring has shaped civilization, and the evolutionary adaptation...

This episode begins in the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at the University of California, Los Angeles, where Alan gets a highly detailed scan of his brain. This image is the starting point for a search to reveal the essential components of the Human Spark. One of those components is language. We probe for the language centers within Alan's brain and discover the way language allows us to manipulate symbols in our minds. We also untangle the complex...

Neuroscientist and expert on brain function and behavior Dr. Gary Small explores how technology's march forward has altered the way young minds develop, function, and interpret information. iBrain reveals a new evolution catalyzed by technological advancement and its future implications: Where do you fit in on the evolutionary chain? What are the professional, social, and political impacts of this new brain evolution? How must you adapt and at what...