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Unlocking the Code

2011 Medicine

Dr Adam Rutherford shows how decoding the genome has led us to begin to understand the very process by which our DNA makes us different; how it makes each one of us on earth unique and influences who we are and the traits we have. He reveals how, as we try and understand the relationship between who we are and our genes, we stand at the begin ...ning of the most exciting scientific journey of all time. Show More

Series: The Gene Code

Should I Die

2019 Culture

Someday, I will die. But should I? If I was offered a longer life, I would take that in a second. But how long is too long? Is death something I should deny forever, or is death and the role it plays in the universe something I am better off accepting?

Series: Mind Field

The Electric Brain

2018 Medicine

The nervous system is fundamentally electric. When we move our arm, it moves because a electric signal has been sent to the muscle that controls it. Now, because the brain is electric, we could also use electricity to record what the brain is doing or bypass it entirely, and control a body. That means that we could restore movement to people ...who are paralyzed, feel through an artificial hand as if it was our own, and even read people's minds.
Michael Stevens explores how electricity can be used to move cockroaches, control other peoples' limbs and even read peoples' thoughts. Show More

Series: Mind Field Season 2

The Crime of the Century part 2of2

2021 Medicine

In the second part and conclusion, a spotlight on the mass marketing of the synthetic opioid fentanyl examines the connections between drug manufacturers and government policy. Video of sales retreats and promotional material reveals a deep cynicism among company employees and a disregard for the widespread, nefarious corporate practices. ... Show More

Series: The Crime of the Century

Psychedelics

2019 Medicine

The final episode of this series looks at what happens to the brain when someone uses psychedelic drugs. It looks at how psychedelic drugs may be useful in dealing with anxiety in cancer survivors and serious depression. It explores the history of psychedelics and examines early medical experimentation with the drug. It also discussed why psy ...chedelics were banned and examines how they affect the brain. Show More

Series: The Mind Explained

Chapter 4: Mescaline

2022 Medicine

The last episode explores Mescaline, the psychoactive molecule in San Pedro and peyote cacti, a sacred medicine that Native Americans have had to fight for the right to use. At the Indigenous practices there's always an elder, someone who knows the territory very well, who's presiding. There's usually a group, a community is involved, There's ... always an intention, a purpose to what you're doing, and you're treating it as sacred, in order to achieve altered states of consciousness, which contribute to worship in various ways, or celebration or healing.
But maybe all this is not so new to Western culture after all. In the old Greek histories of Eleusis, people who were initiated there got the drink, the kykeon, and then they had the illumination. The precise recipe is a mystery, but we know that the kykeon was a psychoactive brew that was used at the Eleusinian mysteries, a sacred annual ritual of enlightenment practiced by some of the world's greatest minds including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. So why did this ritual come to an end more than 1,000 years ago? Was the possibility of illumination or achieving a higher consciousness considered threatening to the powers that be? Have the drug wars been merely an extension of that fear?
Psychedelics has a major part in how we can heal as a community, how we can heal as a city, and how we can heal as a country. The current renaissance of psychedelics could not come at a better time as the world confronts a crisis in mental health. But psychedelics have much to offer. The psychedelic experience changes the mind in ways that will help scientists better understand how it works. All these altered states allow us to probe what is the greatest mystery in all of nature. The emergence from mere matter of something as miraculous as consciousness. But an even bigger question is whether psychedelics might help us address the environmental crisis of how we think about our place in nature. One of the greatest gifts of psychedelics is how they reanimate the natural world, allowing us to perceive the subject, the spirit of all species, not just our own. And to feel a deeper sense of interconnectedness with nature. Show More

Series: How to Change Your Mind

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