Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The cycle of life...
THE HUMAN BODY: SECRETS OF YOUR LIFE REVEALED
FROM the moment we’re born, we’re constantly learning at an extraordinary rate. It begins with coordination, then figuring out how to walk and talk.
Having explained secrets first about growing and then surviving, in this final instalment doctor twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken now tell us how the human body learns across a lifetime.
Chris says: “Every experience we have transforms us from helpless baby to accomplished adult.”
You’ll be hanging on his every word, largely because he’s holding his extremely cute baby daughter at this point who, at four weeks old, has only just started the learning journey.
And there are more adorable babies to come. Cameras visit American music city Nashville, where experts are playing music to tots to see how they respond. They want to know whether rhythmic abilities are innate.
As soon as the beat starts, there’s much wobbling and bouncing as all the babies try moving to the music. So there is the proof – we’ve all got rhythm.
Elsewhere, Chris gets a juggling lesson – with mixed results – to test his levels of coordination. And he meets street trials cyclist Danny Macaskill, a stunt rider who performs gravity-defying tricks.
And then, to demonstrate how we can build long-term memories, we meet seven-year-old genius Akash Vukoti. The schoolboy is a spelling bee champ whose favourite word has 45 letters.
There’s plenty of science but, best of all, this show gives us the answers to some of the questions we’ve always wondered about.