Original version

BBC Four HD

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

Children's: Factual

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Mind-expanding talks and hands-on science, inspiring children and adults alike since 1825.

Great scientists, even greater questions. Mind-expanding talks and hands-on science, inspiring children and adults alike since 1825.

BBC Four

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: 2017: The Language of Life

Sophie Scott

Windfall Films Ltd

Nathan Budd

Ian Holt

David Coleman

Felicity Chapple

Oliver Mayo

Todd Dalton

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: 2017: The Language of Life: Episode 1: Say It with Sound

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Science & Nature

Say It with Sound

Episode 1

Episode 1: Say It with Sound

2017: The Language of Life

BBC Four - Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, 2017: The Language of Life, Say It with Sound

Professor Sophie Scott explores how we and other animals use sound to communicate.

Prof Sophie Scott uses hissing cockroaches, chirping crickets and rumbling elephants to explore how humans and animals have evolved to use sound to send messages.

From musical mosquitoes to rumbling elephants, Say It with Sound explores how humans and other animals use noises to communicate.

Sophie Scott, a professor of neuroscience at University College London, is joined in the theatre by a chorus of chirping crickets, hissing cockroaches and groaning deer to reveal the very different ways that animals have adapted their bodies to send audible messages that are vital to their species. She also explores how and why the human voice evolved to become the most versatile sound producer in the natural world. In a dramatic experiment Professor Scott reveals how our vocal cords can open and close more than a thousand times a second and how we can use our throats for breathing, eating and communicating.

Professor Scott demonstrates what sound actually is and how it travels, not just through air, but water and solid materials. Unpacking the power behind sound, she uses it to shatter glass and reveal how the human body can resonate in a way that amplifies our voices to send our messages further. She also explores how different species use very different frequencies to communicate and why humans can only hear a fraction of these animal messages.

Professor Scott investigates why our voices all sound very different, to the degree that we all have unique vocal prints. She also looks at how computers are learning to recognise these. She further shows how we have developed the biological functions that enable us to create such incredible noises - from the arias of an opera singer to the complex sounds of a beatboxer.

Knowledge, arts, music and culture from the UK and the world.

BBC Four reflects arts, music and culture with an ambitious range of intellectually and culturally enriching programmes, taking an expert and in-depth approach to its subjects.

One of the fundamentals of human and animal life is the unstoppable urge to communicate.

Professor Sophie Scott discusses one of the fundamentals of human and animal life - the unstoppable urge to communicate.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

2017: The Language of Life

Episode 1: Say It with Sound

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

BBC Four HD

About BBC Four