Dr Jack Lewis’ Showreel 2012

Brain scientist Dr Jack Lewis has presented, contributed to or science consulted for television series on the BBC (People Watchers), ITV (This Morning), Ch4 (The Secret Life of Buildings), Ch5 (Britain’s Best Brain), Discovery Science (The Tech Show), National Geographic Channel (Inside the Living Body), Sky (Body Language Secrets aka How To Get What You Want) and even MTV (Plain Jane).

Dr Jack’s most recent solo presenting project is a flagship series for Discovery Science called “The Tech Show” – probably best described as a “Tomorrow’s World” for the 21st Century. This series is currently being broadcast across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Creativity and the Brain by Dr Jack Lewis

On 28th February 2012 I gave a brand new talk on: “The Neuroscience of Creativity” at the Royal Society of Arts. I kicked off by describing some of the features of modern life that are “Enemies of Creativity.” One chief culprit is the smartphone: constantly interrupting our concentrated thought to alert us to the arrival of an endless flow of emails, texts, calls and social networking updates. This interferes with creative thinking because it prevents us from efficiently getting all the relevant info required for the creative problem solving task into our heads in the first place and certainly from picking up on the subtle hunches that precede a breakthrough. So the first tip for boosting creativity is to block out distractions by switching off smartphones, closing down email accounts and sticking in the ear-plugs/-phones (blocking out distractions with music works for some but not others).
The rest of the talk describes a medley of the latest neuroscientific investigations into the Aha! moment courtesy of scientists like Joydeep Bhattacharya at Goldsmith’s University. Finally, I described what modern science knows about the hypnagogic state, that no-man’s-land where wakefulness drifts into sleep, well know to be an incredibly fertile ground for creativity.

Epileptic Seizure or Demonic Possession? by Dr Jack

Monsters and Demons (Ch4) investigates our ancestors’ supernatural beliefs and asks whether modern science has better explainations. In episode 2 (Sat 3rd Dec 2011) Tony Robinson and I discussed how, in times before modern medical knowledge had figured out the facts and made them broadly available to all, certain forms of epileptic seizure could easily have been mistakenly attributed to evil spirits. In particular, temporal lobe epilepsy (these days better known as complex partial seizure disorder) can trigger vivid and sometimes deeply distressing hallucinations, whilst tonic-clonic seizures lead to grotesque-looking bodily contortions that, in times of old, could easily have been misunderstood and attributed to possession by malevolent spirits.

Brain-Informed Flirting: Dr Jack’s Debut on MTV Europe

Last summer, I was invited out to the beautiful alpine lake town of Montreaux (directly opposite the iconic mountains of Evian bottle fame, incidentally) to provide a little brain-informed date training. Having a neuroscientist provide inspiration to a girl trying to get ahead in the love game may sound a bit odd, but at the end of the day it is the brain after all that produces the experience of love in the first place. Understanding the prevailing conditions in which a brain is likely to fall into the state of being in love can provide some easy-to-follow rules of thumb that help to boost a person’s confidence – one of the most powerful tools in romance.

Dr Jack’s Presenter Showreel (Click The Image)

A short film describing neuroscientist Dr Jack Lewis’s first 3 years in television. Since starting out in science consultancy for the Emmy award winning documentary “The Living Body” on National Geographic / Channel 4 and primetime quiz show Britain’s Best Brain on Channel 5, Jack has presented several TV series. His most recent roles do not feature in this showreel, but include The Tech Show currently airing on Discovery Science, contributions to a Tom Dyckhoff architecture and Tony Robinson history documentary on Ch4 and a monthly spot on ITV’s This Morning. This showreel features highlights from Dr Jack’s broadcast output up to and including 2010:

• Dr Jack co-presented a prime-time SkyOne series called Body Language Secrets exploring the themes of selling, attraction, winning, laughter, power, lying and money.
• Jack’s first big break as a presenter came with People Watchers (2008), a BBC2 series exploring the quirks of social psychology via a wide variety of different hidden camera experiments set throughout London.
• In his role as the Face of Faraday 2008 Dr Jack presented 4 short films which aired in school lessons across the UK and on Teacher’s TV. They were centred around the theme Technology for Life.
  

Arthritis Drugs Could Delay Dementia by Dr Jack

Talking openly and honestly about highly emotive topics like Alzheimer’s disease, and dementia in general, is a very delicate matter. Given the prevailing time pressures of live television and the quick/punchy explanations that it requires, there is always the potential to be misunderstood. This means that really hot topics must occasionally be left out in case they have the unintended effect of causing undue anxiety as opposed to the specific intention: inspiring the public with what we can do to hang onto our marbles well into old age. This brainpost reveals a new breakthrough in our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease, deemed too risky to mention live on ITV1′s This Morning in mid-August in case it was misconstrued, but which may one day be instrumental in keeping dementia at bay in each and every one of us.

Why People Drop Litter by Dr Jack Lewis

What do green spaces (parks, fields, commons etc.) do to the human brain? Why do people drop litter? How does visible evidence of anti-social behaviour affect the way other people behave? How would people behave if those responsible for keeping one of London’s finest Royal Parks clean were to down tools for an entire weekend?
All of these questions were asked of Dr Jack by The One Show reporter Justin Rowlatt in Hyde Park where the Keep Britain Tidy campaign ran an interesting experiment over the weekend to see how people would react if the rubbish they dropped was left to accumulate. This brainpost details some of the background to Dr Jack’s comments on tonight’s show (BBC1, 7pm).

Dr Jack Double Whammy on Mon 4th July

On Monday 4th July Dr Jack will be back on This Morning between 10.30-12.30 (ITV1). Later on at 20.00 on the same day, the first episode of his new series “The Tech Show” will be launched on Discovery Science; followed immediately afterwards by the second episode at 20.30.

Dr Jack’s Memory Clinic on ITV1′s THIS MORNING – Mon 13th June ’11

Over the summer I’ll be making a series of contributions to ITV’s THIS MORNING. The aim is to get the nation interested in how their brains work and ultimately to help YOU get the most out of YOUR brain. I’ll offer easy-to-follow advice on how to get your brain firing on all cylinders each and every day.

THE TECH SHOW on Discovery Science presented by Dr Jack

On Friday nights at 8pm starting in July 2011 Dr Jack Lewis presents “THE TECH SHOW” on the Discovery Science channel. In 26 half-hour episodes Jack takes viewers on a journey through some of the latest technological breakthroughs in engineering, science and biomedicine. We explore new developments in robotics, renewable energy and tornado physics. We encounter a wide variety of nutty inventors, hell-bent on creating the most bizarre water, land and air-borne vehicles the world has ever seen. We see how engineering can be guided by the latest biological research that gets to the bottom of how evolution has solved various problems by giving certain creatures amazing abilities. And we even discover what neuroscience can learn from the art of magic.