"Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, asks why we aren't more compassionate more of the time."
"Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another."
"Closer to Truth brings together leading scientists, scholars and artists to debate the fundamental issues of our times. Instituted in the sixties, clinical drug trials today have become a vast and expensive enterprise in which drug companies can spend over $100 million to bring a new molecule to market. FDA procedures are complex and elaborate as they should be, in order to bring new drugs to market quickly to help people in need, but to do good science to protect the public from a drug's potentially dangerous side effects. Joining Robert Kuhn are Alexander Capron, Professor of Law and Medicine, USC; Andrea Kovacs, Director, HIV Family Clinic, USC; and Robert Temple, Associate Director, Medical Policy, FDA."
"Neuroscientist and inventor Christopher deCharms demos an amazing new way to use fMRI to show brain activity while it is happening -- emotion, body movement, pain. (In other words, you can literally see how you feel.) The applications for real-time fMRIs start with chronic pain control and range into the realm of science fiction, but this technology is very real."
"Research has changed our concepts of brain organization and provided dramatic evidence showing far greater similarities between brains of birds and brains of all mammals. Harvey Karten explores what goes on inside a bird's brain. Learn how brains of birds compare to those of humans and other mammals and find out what the study of bird's brains can teach us about the nature and origins of human brains."
"What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Buddhist monk, photographer and author Matthieu Ricard has devoted his life to these questions, and his answer is influenced by his faith as well as by his scientific turn of mind: We can train our minds in habits of happiness. Interwoven with his talk are stunning photographs of the Himalayas and of his spiritual community."
