Programme Index

Discover 11,128,835 listings and 280,433 playable programmes from the BBC

Nina and the Neurons: Brilliant Bodies

Episode 20: Breath

First broadcast: on CBeebiesLatest broadcast: on CBeebies HD

Scientist Nina and her young experimenters investigate the human body and find out why it is brilliant.

Nina investigates how people breathe, with the help of sense neurons Bud and Ollie. Experimenters Freya, Laura and Wannie visit Nina in her lab and discover that people have two stretchy lungs inside their chests that fill up with air when they breathe in. Using a model of the chest, they find out how a stretchy muscle called the diaphragm pulls the air down into the lungs and then pushes it back out again.

Next they discover that air travels though little tubes inside the lungs. If someone has asthma, the little air tubes can get narrower some of the time and this can make it harder to breathe. But a special medicine from the doctor can be used to make the air tubes wider again.

In their final experiment, they pretend a glass lift is the windpipe and discover that little air sacs inside the lungs take oxygen from the air that is breathed in and give it to the body. The oxygen is used for lots of important jobs. Show less

About this data

This data is drawn from the data stream that informs BBC's iPlayer and Sounds. The information shows what was scheduled to be broadcast, meaning it was/is subject to change and may not be accurate. More