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Discovery: Bodies, brains and computers

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Super-sensing Ben

17/07/2023 GMT

Bodies, brains and computers

BBC World Service - Discovery, Bodies, brains and computers

How technology is blurring the line between our bodies, our brains, and computers

Professor Ben Garrod plays with the wearable tech helping track to our health and meets pioneers of brain implants. Could all this technology help us learn more about ourselves?

We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. 

Evolutionary biologist and broadcaster Professor Ben Garrod, is off to meet some of the sensory innovators and technological pioneers who are developing human like-sensing technology. From skin patches that can read our sugar levels, to brain implants that could use our thoughts to control computers. This is the technology that could blur the boundary between body, mind, and computer chip. 

We meet Jules Howard, a zoologist who uses VR to help us explore the anatomical worlds inside animals. Jules shows us the inner-workings of a ducks vagina. We meet Anagram, who’s augmented reality experiences can visualise the inner-worlds of those experiencing schizophrenia and ADHD. We play with the health monitors and wearable tech that claim they could make us fitter, happier, and more productive humans. And meet Dr David Putrino, a clinician with Mount Sinai in New York, who’s conducting some of the first medically-approved surgery for brain implants. 

Presenter: Professor Ben Garrod
Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski
Production co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris

(Image: Artificial intelligence robot and binary. Credit: Yuichiro Chino/Getty Images)

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