As light enters the eye, it strikes the receptor cells of the retina called the rods and cones. A chemical reaction results in the formation of electric impulses, which then travel to the brain through the optic nerve.

The pain receptors in your skin detect tissue damage. For example, when a bee stings, your peripheral nerves send a pain signal to your brain, which analyzes the pain signal.

When the bladder fills with urine, sensory nerves send impulses to the brain indicating that the bladder is full. The sensory nerves connect with other nerves in the spinal cord to relay this information. In turn, the brain sends impulses back to the bladder instructing the bladder to empty its contents.

Your ear has three regions: outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear. When sound waves enter your ear canal, your ear drum vibrates. The vibration moves three bones in your middle ear called ossicles. The ossicles are also called the hammer, anvil, and stirrup; they are tiny bones that transfer and amplify sound waves to the oval window behind the stirrup. When the oval window vibrates, fluid moves across a membrane inside your cochlea, causing the membrane...

Your tongue has about 10,000 tastebuds that are linked to your brain by nerve fibers. Taste buds detect food particles, then send nerve signals to the brain. Certain areas of your tongue are more sensitive to bitter, sour, sweet, or salty tastes than others.

Ovulation occurs though a sequence of hormonal responses. Located deep within the brain, the pituitary gland releases the hormones FSH and LH, which travel through the blood stream to the ovaries. These hormones signal the development and release of a single egg cell from one of the ovaries. The sweeping motion of the fimbriae draws the egg cell through a very small space in the open body cavity into the uterine, or fallopian, tube. The egg cell will...

Presents a variety of facts about the human body from how many pounds of skin the average person will shed in their lifetime to the length of the longest tongue ever recorded. Includes a glossary, resources for further information, and color photographs.

Fat has a reputation as public health enemy number one. We've spent decades trying to eat less of it- yet today we're unhealthier than ever. This engaging film sees a group of health service workers undergo a series of eating trials- including a bold experiment to investigate the effects of giving up fat altogether. Monitoring the effects of their drastic diet, the program demonstrates how, for healthy people, low-fat diets are bad news. Discover...

"If you could have any ocean animal's superpower, whose would you choose? If you could shapeshift like a giant Pacific octopus, you could squeeze through even the smallest gaps. If you could snap your claws like a coconut crab, you could slice through sheets of metal. A . . . book of ocean animal superpowers!"--Provided by publisher.

By their very nature, sports competitions push the human body to its limits. In this program, we examine four bodily systems-skeletal, muscular, respiratory, and circulatory-to demonstrate how our anatomy enables us to be physically active. Extensive computer graphics and sports footage provide a comprehensive overview of the subject.