"What are the invisible forces that help us survive for the split second response when faced with danger" "or a baby's inborn ability to reject potentially harmful food" "To the huge risks we'll take when confronted by desperate situations" "The answers lie deep within every single one of us and they define what it is to be human" "This is the story of our extraordinary instincts and why we behave the way we do." "And our journey begins not here in our crowded modern world, but here in the vast wilderness of the African Savannah" "Because this is the landscape where early humans took their first footsteps" "and our instincts were forged" "I want to explore what it means to be human because even after a lifetime studying the body" "I only understand part of the human story" "This is a pioneering journey." "For the first time ever we're beginning to comprehend the foundations of behaviour, our Human Instincts" "human instinct born to surviv e" "This is the story of the most basic instinct of all the instinct to survive" "We discover how everyone of us possesses an armoury of instincts that protect us from danger even if we're barely aware of it." "And the story begins at the moment of birth" "Over the last 40 years" "I've been present at literally thousands of births and its always an intensely moving experience to see the beginnings of life, but I don't think I've ever assisted at a delivery like this before" "lts a boy and an Aberdeen Angus" "Like every living creature he's born with a pre programme set of instincts, some will only be revealed as he matures, but even at the moment of birth they're all in place waiting to be called upon to help him cope with the trials of life" "This little chap is just 2 hours old and he's not really standing, he's actually walking around, he's actually on my foot at the moment." "All his survival instincts are in tact, now by comparison human babies at this stage are virtually useless" "You look at the camera" "Even at 6 months these babies can't survive on their own, they can't even sit up right." "Of all the mammals we produce the most helpless of babies, and that's all because 2 million years ago our early ancestors" "Stood up and walked" "As a result the female pelvis grew narrower but the human brain also grew significantly in size" "So for a babies big head to pass through a small birth canal the baby has to be born well before the brain is fully developed" "That evolutionary trade off meant this, a highly vulnerable baby born before its time" "Fully reliant on its parents." "So how does a baby survive?" "It has 1 key instinct to get noticed at all costs" "Jasper is just a few weeks old, like all new born babies he's using the one powerful weapon he has in his limited armoury, he cries and he cries and he cries making sure that the whole household" "is a the mercy of a balling creating weighing less than a Christmas turkey" "When he cries to me it means mum come and get me there's something wrong and I need you now and you just have to drop everything and go to him, some people say leave him." "But how can you leave that?" "You can't" "The instinct to cry is more sophisticated than you might think, babies alter both the pitch and volume depending on how urgent their need is for help." "The louder and more piercing the scream, the quicker the response" "I never ever imagined how loud a baby could scream, you read books you hear about screaming babies but until you've got one" "And its there and its in your ear the sound is like nothing else" "And as a rule it unites all birds and mammals, the more needy the baby the louder the sound it produces" "When a human baby's cry is measured in decibels the results are extraordinary DRILLING" "In fact a baby's cry is just as hard to ignore as this pneumatic drill" "Amazingly Jasper's cry can match the earth splitting 97 decibels produced by the drill" "Both are very indifferent and both are very loud" "A baby's cry is such a powerful tool for survival it can even induce milk from its mother's breast, essential when you haven't got much else going for you" "Because from the moment we're born its the energy that food gives us that keeps us alive" "Food is our fuel and without it we die, but its not just any food that we crave," "why is it we're all drawn to food like this which is high in calories and fat" "1,000 billion eggs are produced worldwide every year," "600,000 tons of sugar are consumed each week," "800 tons of French Fries are eaten every hour and why?" "Lts because our appetites were formed in a world where abundant food was simply unimaginable" "For millions of years food of any sort was hard to come by, our ancestors almost certainly fought hard for the calories that was so crucial for their survival" "So those that craved food that was high in calories and rich in fat were more likely to survive" "It was survival of the fattest" "The instinct to lay down fat for lean times ahead made perfect sense in an unpredictable world, but why are those instincts still with us today" "Let me show you something rather extraordinary" "This ribbon is going to represent the amount of time that's past since the human story really began" "It starts here about 4 and a half million years ago when our first human ancestors were identified, and now each stride I take will represent" "About a 100,000 years" "As I walk through time to the present day" "I'm passing thousands of generations of early humans who struggled to survive in this barren landscape" "Those of them who craved calorie rich food lived and past on their genes to their children, those who didn't died" "Gradually over millions of years that craving for calories became instinctive behaviour handed down from generation to generation and its still embedded in all of us today" "And this flag just 10 centimetres from the end of the ribbon is the distance in time 10,000 years since humans first started cultivating crops" "And the tip of my pencil just here is the last 100 years when for some of us at least food has been readily available and plentiful" "So its no surprise that the instincts which were forged so many millions of years ago have not yet caught up with the plenty that some humans are now fortunate enough to enjoy" "I always thought that I craved fatty food like this because I was greedy so its a comfort to discover that" "I'm simply a product of millions of years of evolution, a descendent from a time when greed really was good" "Delicious" "The instinct to have the right type of food is very powerful, we know what to eat even in the most unfamiliar landscape" "Ken Wilson's instincts to find nourishment were tested to the limit when a trip to Mexico went disastrously wrong" "He was visiting a ruin in the jungle and took a wrong path, one that nearly lead to his death" "After days alone Ken was desperately hungry, he was deep in the jungle surrounded by unknown plants and animals but he sensed which food would keep his alive" "I was sort of looking for anything that might be of some nourishment and I saw this, this lizard" "I was trying to decide if I was really that desperate or not, but I knew that I had to eat something" "And as I started to put him in my mouth he just sprawled out his little legs in my throat which kind of left me gagging and pulled him back out, and I had to smack his head up against the tree" "a couple of times to make sure he was dead" "And I swallowed him whole" "But one small lizard didn't sustain Ken for long and soon he was close to death" "It had been 12, 13 days and I noticed there were vultures that started following me around" "The first few days there were a couple there and then a few more a few more and I begin to wonder if maybe they knew something and I didn't and that kind of gave me the creeps" "I was watching them circle overhead and one day the vultures were so close they circled all the way down to the ground and I could actually feel the wind off their wings as they went by" "I gave a lot of thought to dying after a while" "but then again I had to convince myself that" "I was perfectly capable of getting out of there on my own and I was gonna do it" "Ken needed to find more food if he was going to live" "I saw some fruit that was growing on a tree as a bit into it, it didn't taste so bad at first" "And as I started to chew it, it became very bitter it had a taste, a chemical taste like lighter fluid, it was awfull was afraid that that was gonna be poison" "The instinct to spit out the bitter tasting fruit may well have saved Ken's life" "After 19 days in the jungle Ken walked out alive" "What helped Ken survive is a highly sophisticated piece of equipment" "The human tongue has a number of uses, but its basic function is to tell us what's good for us and what could harm us" "5,000 taste buds lets us know what to swallow and what to spit out and to stay in perfect working order taste buds only last 10 days before new ones develop" "Our tongues are the game keepers to our stomachs" "The way we interpret taste is a vital life saving instinct and its one that emerges at a remarkably young age" "Foods that have lots of useful energy" "Often taste sweet and sugary" "That's why babies instinctively like sweet foods, so lets see what happens when this baby tries this" "A sweet and sugary concoction of banana puree" "Naturally these babies love it, its just what their instincts ordered" "Whereas a lot of toxic foods taste bitter" "This pureed Redichhio isn't actually toxic but it tastes incredibly bitter" "And our babies should find it instinctively, well yucky" "No one needs to teach these babies to avoid bitter food," "one small taste is enough to activate the long evolved survival instincts" "You've gone all pink in the face, look" "If its yucky it might be life threatening, so spit it out" "Open wide" "Oh, you don't like it oh," "I'm sorry, try a little bit" "You'll really like it, yes, no" "And its not just babies that find bitter food disgusting, we all do" "For our ancient ancestors life was a constant struggle and it wasn't just finding the right food to eat, physical threats were everywhere" "Here our survival instincts were homed in an endless round of life and death dramas" "These instincts are still deep within us today and perhaps that's why at times we go looking for danger, to test them out" "Paploma Spain the place where danger is sought and survival instincts are put to the test" "Every year during the Festival of San... people come from all over the world to run with the bulls its the ultimate adrenaline rush" "Since the bull run began hundreds of people have been horribly gored and many have lost their lives" "Thousands invade Paploma to experience the sheer thrill of facing death" "This summer fire fighter Andy Minton is one of them" "At home I had a lot of friends tell me I'm crazy but its something that I've always wanted to do ever since I was a teenager and finally put some money together and here it is, hopefully it is ah," "the first of many trips to Paploma" "Andy's agreed to take part in our experiment to see how the body responds at moments of acute danger like being chased by 6 angry bulls" "Ok, we've gotta a heart rate monitor here, this is gonna go round my torso" "He's gonna be wired up to a whole variety of medical sensors" "1 st a heart rate monitor, this will relay information to a special watch he'll wear on his wrist" "lts like its fluctuating between 104 and 110 that's a little high, that's a little high," "I can feel I can feel my heart beating in my chest right now" "Blood pressure..." "is gonna go on my left wrist maybe a blood pressure reading right now, see how excited I am," "I've got an hour and 15 minutes before the run" "Got 159 over 112 so its a little high already" "Finally I'm going to put a swab in my mouth that is gonna measure the cortical level the stress hormone" "The body chemical cortical is closely associated with adrenaline, adrenaline may save Andy's life enabling him to run faster than he's ever done before" "Now that Andy is rigged and ready all he has to do is to wait" "I feel excited its an hour before the run and ah, we watched them erect the barriers ready to go" "The possibility of death by a bull is is there its real its ah, at the back of my mind" "The bulls are released" "Andy waits for them to come near" "In the tradition of the bull run the challenge is to get as close to a charging bull as you dare without getting gored" "The bulls are just inches away and Andy's body is flooded with a massive burst of adrenaline" "His cortical level's more than double" "From a normal resting rate of 72 beats per minute" "Andy's high rate rockets, tripling to an amazing 230 beats per minute" "You definitely you fear you're definitely in fear" "I can feel the stomp of their feet and their horns and everything, its wow its incredible" "The fear instincts that we rely on to save our lives are immensely powerful, so its very difficult to turn them off at will" "Now I like to think of myself as a really rational human being" "But no matter how often I'm told that these spiders are harmless and can't possibly hurt me" "I'm terrified about being even this close to them" "This machine is called a Relaxometer and it measures my stress level by measuring the amount of sweat on my fingertips electrically" "And at the moment when I switch it on you can see I'm fairly relaxed, so the sound its making is a low pitch" "As I sweat more and get more and more stressed so the pitch rises to a high squeal" "I'm not looking forward to this, but lets see what happens when it crawls over my hand" "Although I know that these spiders are harmless" "I simply can't control my reactions but why are so many of us afraid of spiders" "And snakes" "The fear is a legacy from a time when these creatures were a very real threat to our survival" "That's why across all cultures and continents we're prime to spot them instantly" "And fear of snakes is the No.1 fear" "Here in Los Angeles we've set up an experiment we've reassured everyone that these snakes aren't poisonous but can the modern temptation of a 10 dollar bill overcome our ancient fear" "10 dollar is not enough" "But they look just so menial" "No no, No no" "I could never put my hand in there ever" "Ah, for all the money in the world," "I know it sounds crazy but I have chills just being near them" "I know it sounds like a chick thing but I can't just help it, they just ahhhh, they're like death to me they're like the epitome of death" "This one's coming after me, no not worth it for 10 dollars" "500 dollars" "I will try for 1 million dollar" "But for 10 dollars" "No, no way" "Of course it is possible to overcome our instincts" "But overcoming them is quite a battle" "Fear is so important to our survival we do something absolutely remarkable" "Our bodies begin to react to a threat before we're even consciously aware of what the threat might be" "because when we're faced with danger... seconds count" "At the first hint of danger early warning signals are sent to the brain via the optic nerve to our tiny and primitive fear centre the Omigdala" "This prepares our body for action" "Next nerve pulses are fired down the spinal cord to the adrenal glands near our kidneys, this triggers a release of adrenaline" "Now we're on full alert, adrenaline is the vital hormone that can flood our body in a split second" "As it reaches our lungs we breathe more deeply and take in more oxygen," "it also makes our heart beat faster" "Oxygen rich blood is diverted our muscles they are now charged springs waiting for the signal to run or fight" "All this before our conscious mind has even registered a threat" "This reaction to fear has evolved over millions of years and is known as the fight or flight response" "But what happens when there's nowhere to run?" "One woman was to discover just what she was capable of, when her life was suddenly under threat" "It began when June Brailsford was waiting in the car for her boyfriend Anthony" "We parked outside the shop," "Anthony left the keys in the ignition" "Kept for the music and heaters for myself em, he went into the shop" "I was texting my friend on my mobile phone, next minute somebody got in the car" "I assumed it was Anthony when I've looked" "I thought wait a minute this ain't him" "A guy just drove off with me in the car" "All the time he just repeated you're going to die bitch that's all he said all the time, and that's exactly what I thought," "I thought you'll probably take my life" "With nowhere to run" "June felt the urge to fight back with the strength she had never imagined she possessed" "She fought against her attacker by grabbing the steering wheel in the hope of taking control" "The more I thought about surviving for myself and for my children and I just fought for my life" "I wasn't frightened I didn't feel like fear" "I just wanted to fight" "I leant myself as far over him as I possibly could knowing that it gave me an edge" "Then June saw her chance" "I saw the wall and I thought that is the best opportunity" "I'm gonna have and I just turned it as far as I possibly could" "I just drove the car and then it hit the wall" "He managed to get out and and that's how it ended" "I don't think of it being brave" "I just think it was survival, it was ah, you know you've got to fight" "The fight or flight response has helped humans to stay alive for thousands of generations, but our own real survival instincts doesn't end there" "Our inbuilt responses can be very sophisticated helping us to react to surprisingly subtle dangers" "Here at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine," "Dr Valerie Curtis has been researching how our feeling of disgust help us stay alive" "Dr Curtis showed me pairs of similar objects" "What I'd like you to do is to tell me which of the 2 you find most disgusting" "So here on the right we've got a wasp and on the left we've got a head louse, indeed the wasp is utterly beautiful the louse" "I think" "I'd prefer not to have the louse given the choice" "Got some eggs on leaf which looks like happy little faces really not too unpleasant, but the gum infection with the Laramie is just disgusting" "I mean repellent, yuck" "Now what I'd like you to do with these is put your fingers into them please and then tell us which is the most disgusting" "Am I allowed to wipe my finger afterwards?" "You are yes there's some towels for you" "Well the one on the right it looks like pus its got blood in it" "I find it easier to put my finger into this blue one, its all sort of mucousy" "And the finger in this one hmm, in terms of yuck factor err," "I'm afraid the yellow wins hands down it is not nice" "No" "And the torturous comparisons continue" "Slugs versus leeches" "I've noticed the leeches and I just think that they are awful" "Oh." "Caterpillars and maggots" "You can take the lid off if you like?" "I don't want to" "It just got more and more disgusting" "Earth worms and human round worms" "Can you imagine having that inside your tummy" "Those all came from one person lts got a little baby that's coming out of it, ohh" "And then just when I thought it couldn't get any worse," "2 sinister empty phyles appeared" "is vinegar" "That's right" "Oh, god that's unpleasant, organic smell" "What is it?" "Yes its g... which is a component of the human fezzes" "Yes well, it smells like it" "So what is the common factor which makes one of these things more instinctively repellent than the other, its their potential to give us a disease or make us sick" "Lice leeches and round worms are all parasites that feed on our bodies" "Like the larvae in this person's mouth all of them can easily spread illness" "The yellow goo looks worse because again it seems like the result of some horrible infection, maggots thrive in fezzes which is riddled with harmful bacteria" "I don't have to smell that again do I?" "Even though the existence of bacteria and the damage they can cause has only been discovered in the last 150 years people in all cultures all over the world and throughout history share feelings of disgust" "Valerie Curtis is convinced that our disgust instinct is so strong we even fear contamination from objects which are perfectly safe, but which we associate with germs" "A bowl of your favourite vegetable soup" "I love vegetable soup" "No no, before you eat it, there's one thing I want to do to it, this is a toilet brush," "I've just taken it out of its wrapper" "Eh, ah, I was feeling quite hungry" "I think I'll give it a miss" "It looks like a martini" "Looks lovely doesn't it" "With a slice of lemon" "Ah, not a slice of lemon, that is a sterile cockroach, clean cockroach" "Perfectly safe nothing wrong with it" "As a Scientist I know its safe but can I drink it." "I em," "Do go on, go on drink it go on drink some" "Perhaps I won't" "The disgust instinct is useful because it keeps us away from things which could give us a disease but sometimes simply avoiding danger is just part of the survival story" "At times we can be faced with choices all of them life threatening and its then that a new set of instincts kicks in to take risks" "Andy Mochan is alive today because he took a huge risk when all the odds were stacked against him" "Andy was on the Piper Alpha platform in 1988 when a massive explosion ripped it apart this will be the first time that he's stepped foot on an oil rig since that terrible night when he came face to face with death" "Feel a bit apprehensive, a little bit tinge of sadness, it brings back memories but I'm afraid that none of them are pleasant memories you know" "Last time I was on an oil rig was 11 pm exactly on the 6th of July 1988 and I had to jump from a 150 feet into the sea" "Was pretty badly injured and a lot of my friends were killed so being back here on a rig for the first time since then ah," "you know I'm in a sort of emotional turmoil" "That night over 200 men were working on the Piper Alpha platform but unknown to them gas was building up just below the water line" "Andy's will to survive was about to be tested" "I can remember being in my office the radio saying this is the 10 o'clock news, there was a tremendous bang" "It was pretty hopeless and it didn't look like we were gonna make the lifeboats" "We tried all the exits you know we were being beaten back by smoke and flames at every turn" "It was it was like Dante's inferno it was horrific there were flames and explosions and glass and oxygen exploding that's why you thought you were gonna die at any given moment" "You know I didn't die once I died 20 times" "When we saw a break in the flames we decided to go for it and get into the store room" "There were a few horrendous explosions going off and the fumes started to get swung about" "I remember there was a chap flung against me and pinned me against the wall." "His body weight pinned me and I had to lift him right out of his boots to to to get out of the store room and ah," "I think the chap was obviously dead" "Andy fought his way through the flames to the edge of the platform with his skin burning he faced an agonising choice" "He'd been taught that to jump the 150 feet into the sea would mean certain death, but the rig was on fire so instinct won out" "I can remember when I got to the edge of the rig and looked down and saw the distance and obviously had heard the stories that it can't be done, if you jump from more than 40 feet that" "you hit concrete, but I was on fire it was jump or fry so I jumped" "Incredibly the jump didn't kill him, eventually he was rescued from the water" "The impossible choice Andy made between risky options" "Was a choice made on instinct and taken in a split second" "Did you hesitate before you jumped, did you or did you" "No" "Andy gambled with his life and won" "This instinct we all share to take risks emerge from deep in our past" "For countless centuries in this remote part of the Southern African Savannah fires have been lit by the Kalahari Hunting Gatherers for warmth and food only to be abandon as they move on" "And the way the Kalahari Bushmen live now provide us with clues as to the survival tactics of our long distant ancestors" "With food so scarce" "The Kalahari Bushmen are forced into a continuous search for more to eat" "If they stay in one place for too long, they'll simply starve, but travelling from place to place brings its own perils" "Whether from predators or from other dangers, so surviving becomes a choice between risky options" "For our ancestors as for the Kalahari Bushmen of today taking risks in the face of danger has evolved to become a crucial survival instinct" "Which is why you have places like this" "Las Vegas a city that's been built from the human drive to take risks" "Risk is intricately entwined with rewards and seeking the best award possible is part of our evolutionary heritage" "And the more we're backed against the wall the bigger the risk we'll take, whether its for food, money or anything else" "The less you have the bigger the difference to your life a win will make" "Here in America the poorer households with less than 10,000 dollars a year spend nearly 3 times as much on lottery as richer families with 50,000 dollars a year" "Across the globe even the remotest tribes have been found to gamble" "We're all descended from the human who took risks who won and went on to populate the world" "And those instincts are still very much with us today" "Through an amazing combination of risk taking" "Physical reactions and senses which help us avoid danger, modern humans are ideally equipped to survive just as our ancient ancestors were" "But the story of survival doesn't end here" "From the moment we're born our personal survival is paramount and our instincts are there to protect us" "But one thing can change all that the becoming of a parent" "My kids may drive me mad sometimes but as a father there's no doubt I'd go to any lengths to be there for them," "I'm just like any parent anywhere in the world" "But one of the most useful gifts we give our children happens without our even realising because we pass all our vital instincts so every single one of us is in a position to survive the rigours of life on instinct" "Why are 13,000 miles of lipstick sold each year?" "Grrrr!" "What will each of us do more than 3,000 times in our lives?" "Why are 4,000 gallons of after-shave used every day?" "What burns a quarter of a million calories in our lifetime?" "And what will 240 million people be doing tonight?" "It all boils down to one thing." "What is it?" "Having sex." "The instinct to have sex is one of the most potent we possess, it's vital if we're to produce the next generation." "We've inherited this powerful urge to find a mate and have children from millions of generations of ancestors." "What is it about the way we look?" "The way we smell?" "And what we possess that can attract the ideal mate?" "And what forces drive us to jealousy and revenge?" "Men and women share the same basic desire to have sex and produce children, but our bodies are very different, and that means we seek out very different qualities in our perfect partners." "To reveal the differences between the way men and women view potential sexual partners we've come to a university campus in London." "In a secret filming experiment we're equipping two actors, Charlie and Danny, with hidden cameras and concealed microphones." "If you drop that down your top." "Down?" "That's it." "Their mission, mingle amongst the unsuspecting students then proposition them with a rather straightforward chat up line." "I've noticed you round campus." "I think you're very good looking and you've got to sleep with me tonight." "And would you sleep with me tonight?" "I see what I've got to say." "Now all they have to do is approach complete strangers and see how many will say yes." "Hi, I've seen you around campus and I think you're very attractive." "Thank you." "I was wondering if you'd like to sleep with me tonight?" "Are you kidding?" "No." "Is this a joke?" "It's not a joke." "Do me a favour." "What?" "No?" "Is that a no?" "This has been really, really effective." "I was just wondering if you want to sleep with me tonight?" "No thank you very much." "I don't think so." "No, I will never, I'm really sorry." "No." "Em, no thanks." "I've seen you around campus..." "This experiment was first carried out at Florida State University." "No." "It was part of a study to find out if there really was a fundamental difference in men and women's attitude to casual sex." "No thanks, no." "Is there any chance at all?" "No." "Their results were clear-cut." "Out of scores of women asked..." "You've got to be mad." "No." "I'm just asking..." "Not one said yes to sex when asked by a stranger." "She said no." "What's wrong with me?" "So what was the story when it came to men?" "I've noticed you around." "I find you very attractive..." "Right, I've noticed you around campus." "Yeah." "And I think you're really attractive." "Am I?" "Would you sleep with me tonight?" "Yeah, sure, why not?" "Would you go to bed with me?" "I've noticed you around campus." "Oh, right." "And I think you're really attractive." "Thank you." "Would you sleep with me tonight?" "Yes." "Yeah." "Would you sleep with me tonight?" "Er, yeah." "In the Florida experiment 3 out of 4 men said yes to sex with a woman they'd never met before." "Would you sleep with me tonight?" "Er, absolutely." "Well, I've finished my exams so it would be an ideal time." "No." "Why not?" "Got exams tomorrow." "You've got exams tomorrow?" "Er, yeah." "If you didn't have an exam?" "Er, I would do, yes." "Okay, right." "What's particularly interesting is only half the men agreed to go out for coffee." "Our results were very similar." "Charlie got several yes's." "Yeah, maybe." "But not one woman agreed to sleep with Danny despite his best efforts." "I was just wondering would you like to, em, come to bed with me basically?" "Em, no, thank you very much." "No, sorry." "No, sorry." "No?" "No?" "So despite contraception and greater equality men and women's behaviour is radically different when it comes to sex, and there's a simple biological reason why." "In the human species it all boils down to one basic and inescapable fact." "It's the woman who carries the baby." "In the time it takes for a mother to produce one child," "a man can father hundreds of them." "He world record by a Moroccan emperor is 888 children." "This massive difference in producing a child starts here in our bodies." "This is an ovum." "It's one of the largest cells in a woman's body, and during her entire lifetime she may release only 400 of them." "By contrast the sperm is the smallest cell and in a typical ejaculation a man can release 300 million." "The average pregnancy lasts 40 weeks, an in that time a woman will burn up an extra 80,000 calories, the same as running 30 marathons." "For a man making a baby can take less time than boiling an egg, and it can take less energy." "So with such a huge difference in investment it's easy to see why women are instinctively more selective than men when it comes to having sex." "So what underlies sexual attraction?" "It's a fascinating mixture of factors, but science is beginning to choose out some of them." "At the outset it's physical appearance that counts, and yet again men and women are looking for very different qualities." "Women want the best for their baby, and that includes the best genes." "So how do they spot them?" "It turns out that if us men want to be a real hit with the ladies we have to pay close attention to geometry." "Because science has revealed that a man's body shape is one good predictor of how healthy and attractive his children will be." "So a pear shape isn't much of a turn on." "But" "show women the classic upside down triangle shape and the response is very different." "The most important factors in making a man's body attractive are a narrow waist with a broad chest and shoulders." "And that's no coincidence." "These signal both physical strength and a good immune system." "In a primitive world of early humans that meant good genes, making a man with an inverted triangle shape like this" "a genetic catch." "So when a woman sees a man's body it seems her instincts are assessing his genes and ultimately what kind of baby he'll produce." "Right from the outset of puberty girls know what to look for in a man as their sexual instincts begin to emerge." "The ideal man has to be strong..." "I'd like them to be slightly taller than me." "Good looking." "Yeah, really good looking." "Like Brad Pitt." "Yeah, kind of strong." "Yeah, I like not blonde, or I don't like..." "Like Tom Cruise is." "Yeah." "I want boys who have muscley six packs, yeah." "Six packs, yeah." "And what about the boys?" "What do they find attractive?" "These 11 and 12 year olds are just on the threshold of becoming men." "Girls seem more attractive if they have bigger ones." "Big bosoms." "Bigger breasts." "Go on say it." "Big bosoms." "If they have small boobs then it's like not that fun to be with them." "Bosoms, it's a funny word." "The ideal body shape for a woman..." "Is curvy." "Curvy body." "Not fat but not skinny." "Yeah." "It's in and out." "In and out, not straight." "The female hourglass shape is attractive to men of all cultures, so why is it so powerful?" "It says one thing, I'm fertile." "Young girls have small hips and no breasts, they basically go straight up and down." "But with the onset of puberty their hips start to widen and their breasts begin to develop." "It's a signal that menstrual cycles have begun and that they could become pregnant." "This change of shape may be subtle, but it's extremely potent." "And that's a big difference between the sexes." "Men aren't just primed to seek good genes, their instincts are on the look out for fertility as well." "Appearances can be very powerful, but looks aren't everything." "Not many of us can fulfil the physical ideal, and yet as a species we're amazingly successful at finding the right partner for us as individuals." "And the reason for this may be rather surprising." "Beauty may not be so much in the eye//of the beholder, but in the nose." "Both men and women want to make healthy babies, and that means babies with a robust immune system that fights off disease." "Each of us passes the ability to fight some diseases to our children in our genes, and our instincts prime us to choose a mate with a very different immune system to our own." "Why?" "Because that way our children get the best chance of fighting illness." "When it comes to these genes, opposites attract." "I'm putting these instincts to the test at Newcastle University." "I'm going to sniff T-shirts worn by these women." "All of us have had our blood tested for 6 genes that reveal what type of immune system we have." "If all 6 of my genes match all 6 of a woman's that's bad," "I should find her smell unappealing because our children are likely to be less healthy." "But if only one or two genes match that's good," "I should find the smell attractive because it would mean our children would be naturally more healthy." "Each woman has slept in the T-shirt over 2 nights so it should be really smelly." "The T-shirts have been put in a sealed bag and kept in a freezer." "Then they're placed in a jar and the scientist, Craig Roberts, makes me get sniffing." "What we will do now is give you the T-shirts of the women, that the 6 women have been wearing." "I find it very difficult to believe this is going to work, but I'll try it." "Okay." "Come on." "Okay, give it a go." "And I've got to sniff this?" "If you can bear it." "Okay." "Well, it's not quite as bad as I expected." "No, I, I don't like that one quite so much so I'll move that there in ranking, alright?" "I mean, some of them are definitely smellier than others." "Yeah, that's not bad." "I've lined them up." "The most attractive smells are on the left." "But are they the most genetically different, showing the lowest scores out of 6?" "It's nought out of 6." "Very good." "Well, your nose has performed." "And then this one." "Hat is nought... nought out of 6?" "That's amazing." "That's really good." "I'm actually beginning to believe this now." "One out of 6." "One out of 6." "And now we're presumably counting the ones that I least preferred?" "Yes." "And so they should actually have a higher number?" "They should have a higher number." "Good Lord." "This is the last one and that's 4 out of 6." "Congratulations," "I'm really, I'm really very impressed." "So it appears our instincts have evolved to pick up invisible signals to find the most compatible partner." "There are many reasons why we find someone attractive, and when we do our bodies react in the same way." "Men at least are always primed for a potential mate, even if they don't know it." "That's because testosterone is continually released into their bloodstream." "The sight of a potential partner is enough to start the pupils dilating, and if the gaze is returned it can trigger a cascade of physical changes." "Men and women's brains release a massive rush of dopamine, it's a feel good chemical." "We also release pheromones in our sweat that can enhance our attractiveness to the opposite sex." "Adrenaline courses through our bodies diverting blood from the stomach giving us butterflies and the feeling of intense excitement." "And finally blood rushes to our lips and sexual organs." "So in a matter of moments instinct prepares us for sex." "But attractiveness isn't just about smell or looks, for men being successful can also make a difference." "In the animal kingdom a male with resources is often a very attractive male." "Take penguins, for example." "For some species of penguin rocks are a form of hard currency." "That's because rocks are crucial to the survival of young chicks." "The taller the layer of rocks used to build the nest, the more protection there is against the chill of the ice and the more chance the eggs have of hatching into healthy young penguins." "Females aren't only after the best genes, they're also seeking a male with the resources to protect their chicks." "So if I were a penguin and this was my pile of rocks" "I'd be virtually irresistible." "Meet some women who are straight forward about finding a man with resources." "At this Californian restaurant 50 women are about to have lunch with 10 men." "This isn't any ordinary lunch because this is a club for millionaires, where beautiful women get to meet rich men." "It's the brainchild of owner and founder Patti Stanger." "Women, you are never allowed to ask a man how much money he has." "Okay?" "You are..." "I dated a lot of millionaires who basically needed a lot of help in finding the right woman." "But I saw that men with money they worked really, really hard in their business but they basically did not work hard enough socially, and they kind of had like little ineptness when it came to going out and getting the woman," "yet they could go out and get the deal so to speak." "Millionaires from all over the country spend up to $20,000 to become a member." "Women's membership is free." "I look for women that keep themselves in shape, take pride in their appearance, do their hair, do their make-up but on top of it have a career." "We look for like the model looks of the Harvard education" "I, I do modelling." "Do you really?" "But I've been an executive for 15 years, and also I'm a model." "There are a couple of questions..." "I would choose money over looks in heartbeat, definitely." "The last date I had that I chose for myself was a gorgeous guy, blonde, gorgeous, he stole the keys to my car." "I collect cars, see my Cobra, this is, er..." "Today each millionaire will spend 5 minutes with each woman." "If a very handsome, good looking man comes up to you and says" "Can I borrow $10?" "And the plain man who has a lot of money, he's kind of a runt, ugly and he says," "Would you like to fly to San Francisco for dinner tonight with me on my jet?" "The good looking man starts to look kind of ugly and the, and the toad of a dude he starts to look like a real prince." "This is me with some friends at Cannes, this is what I do, this is my job." "So, I make movies." "Switch, switch tables." "Don't forget to write your comments down and go to the next table." "Money is an important factor when it comes to having children and raising children." "And that's, that's me." "That's you?" "That's me, I mean, in, in, er, in, in two minutes." "Fine." "Okay, guys, switch, find another table." "It's taken 4 hours and 450 speed dates, but has anybody met a potential partner?" "I've certainly met a number of women I'm attracted to." "You know, I've met about 4 or 5 that I thought were really sweet people." "I am going to call up and ask for dates with some girls, absolutely." "I found one particular fabulous millionaire I could see myself, you know, dating and getting to know better." "I don't know if he's mine but he is very popular." "If males have anything at all to show off about." "Then throughout the animal kingdom they find a way of letting the opposite sex know, sometimes with extravagant displays." "And there's a theory that the human male uses status symbols like a peacock uses his tail." "Signs of wealth seem to increase the attractiveness of the male." "To find out if this is really true" "I volunteered myself as a guinea pig." "I want to see if my attractiveness to women is increased or decreased with these trappings." "And what more perfect place than Los Angeles to put the theory to the test." "First in rags and then in riches." "It's not as scientific as the experiments" "I do in my laboratory perhaps, but much more fun." "We've invited four single women to be the judges." "They've been asked to rate my sex appeal on a scale of 1 to 10." "First it's Robert in rags." "Morning ladies." "Oh, that poor guy, oh, look at those clothes." "Perhaps he lives in his car." "Maybe he's just a dish washer." "So how did I do?" "He is human." "He looks kind of unkempt, he looks unclean." "He's not marriage material." "He doesn't look like someone I'd want to bring home." "Not even date material." "He's not sexy." "He has a kind of nice smile." "Not such a great hit looking like this then." "But let's see what a couple of hours in Beverley Hills might do." "Tough job but somebody's got to do it." "I've had the full LA make-over." "I've got the Cartier watch, a pair of diamond encrusted Harry Winston cufflinks, and dressed head to foot in Versace and I'm driving one of the most luxurious cars on the market." "So back to my four judges." "Have they seen any improvement?" "Who's that?" "Cool car." "Cool looking guy." "I am speechless." "Looks like a studio hit." "And my scores?" "10 if he's single, 9 and a half if he's not." "He looks successful, he walked in proud and he's just glowing." "And the car." "Well, my transformation from rags to riches appears to have transformed my sex appeal." "So perhaps status symbols work after all." "But finding that one perfect partner is not the end of the story as far as our instincts are concerned." "Because infidelity plays its part." "We've seen that compared to men women appear to be less open to casual sex." "So what can drive a woman to be unfaithful?" "Yet again the answer begins with biology." "There's another difference between the biology of men and women which pushes our instincts in totally different directions." "Most men are fertile all day and every day and everyone knows it, but women are a little bit more complicated." "I'm with all these women but for all the money in the world" "I couldn't tell you which one was ovulating." "When it comes to ovulation we humans are extremely rare in the animal world." "Most other female mammals announce their fertile days with a fanfare." "Some primates even advertise ovulation with red swollen bottoms." "But human females keep ovulation well under wraps." "For men that means they're likely to stick around because they don't want to miss their chance to conceive with their partner on those few fertile days." "But for women concealed ovulation means something different, the opportunity to have sex and even get pregnant with another man." "But women don't just have the opportunity, they may also have the motive." "Because at an instinctive level women appear to know when they are ready to conceive," "and on their fertile days they may even get the urge to go shopping." "Gene shopping." "Here at the Sterling University in Scotland they're doing an experiment to find out the types of men women find attractive at different times in their menstrual cycles." "The women are presented with male faces on their computer screens." "They can alter them to make them more thickly set and masculine," "or soften them." "The scientists call this feminising the faces." "More feminine when you move the mouse across here and more masculine towards this side." "The women were divided into two groups, those who were ovulating and those who weren't." "The women who weren't ovulating preferred the feminised faces." "Over here I think he's a bit too masculine." "More over here I like him better." "Em, more feminised, I think that goes well." "The first guy I found him more attractive when his face is slimmer and he looks more feminine and not as butch looking." "But when the researchers tested the women who were at the fertile point in their cycle they found something surprising." "I prefer men here with the more masculine features but over here with feminine features is not that attractive." "These women overwhelmingly preferred the more classic masculine face." "I find the face becomes more attractive as his features become more dominant and more masculine." "I think probably about there, more masculine is nicer." "And the researchers think they know why." "Those more masculine faces with thicker necks, broader chins and jaws and lower brows are typically indicators of strength and health, desirable genetic qualities a woman is likely to want in her baby." "Yet again a woman's instinct pushes her towards finding the best genes for her offspring, and this can act as a temptation to be unfaithful." "In fact a British survey suggests that women who cheat are most likely to do so during the four days surrounding their ovulation." "And that for a man can be devastating." "I can speak for all men, there's not a man out there that knows unless he's had a DNA that he's a 1000/0 sure that that child is his." "A quiet street in the sleepy town of Big Spring, Texas." "This is home to Morgan Wise, a 38 year old train driver." "Four years ago all the certainties he had about his family life were shattered." "Morgan had been married for 13 years and had four children, his youngest was extremely ill and was diagnosed as having cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that's passed on only when both parents have the CF gene." "Knowing that I carried this gene, didn't know I had it, and passed it on to my, you know, passed it on to my son and then, you know, watching him what he had to go through it was, er," "oh, yeah, it tore you up inside." "Three years later the marriage ended." "Morgan gained custody of his four children and continued to care for his youngest son." "To confirm he was a carrier" "Morgan was tested for the CF gene." "A few weeks later the doctor called him in for the results." "He said I've got the test results back but you need to come in." "And I said, why, what was it?" "He said I can't tell you over the phone, you need to come in." "And so I went in and he told me, he said, er, that you're not a carrier of cystic fibrosis." "To find out that he was not a carrier of the CF gene seemed like good news, but for Morgan there were huge implications." "There was no doubt that his little boy suffered from cystic fibrosis which meant that both of his parents must have been carriers." "The doctor had bad news for Morgan." "He just came right out and he said," "Morgan, let me ask you something." "Would there be any reason for you to believe that this boy is not yours?" "'" "And I was sitting just like this and it, and it felt like that I just fell right out on my face, and I looked up at him and," "I mean, I couldn't, I said, 'What are you... '" "I said, 'What are you talking about?" "What are you getting at?" "'" "He said, 'Morgan, there's something going on here,' and he said I needed to have a DNA test done." "Only a final DNA comparison between Morgan and all of his children would reveal if he were truly the father of any of them." "The tests were done, then it was only a matter of waiting for the results." "I can remember the day that they came, it was a thick envelope." "Beverley, my new wife, she had to end up opening it because I just, I was afraid to look." "She went in our bedroom, opened up the envelope and, er, and then I could hear her crying." "And then she looked up at me and said that none, none of the boys are yours." "Although his ex-wife disputed the results, the DNA tests proved that" "Morgan was not the father of his three boys but was only the father of his daughter." "For Morgan as for any man in this situation his distress was profound." "My, my three sons are not even mine." "It's like I, I couldn't hear anything, it just dead silence, and then this horrible anxiety," "I mean, just deep crushing in, in my chest, and I just, you know, I mean, I began to cry," "I mean, I couldn't believe it." "Morgan's situation is not so uncommon." "Studies around the world indicate that on average as many as one in ten children are being raised by men who are unaware that they are not the child's biological father." "In evolutionary terms it's a disaster for one male to bring up the offspring of another male because his valuable resources are wasted nurturing genes that are not his own." "But human male bodies have evolved to counter female infidelity." "And that's the reason for something rather surprising." "Believe it or not my testicles are bigger than his." "But they're smaller than theirs." "It's all about being faithful." "A gorilla has a harem of females that are his only, so he doesn't need to have a whole lot of sperm at the ready." "These chimps, on the other hand, aren't that lucky." "Female chimps aren't faithful at all so the males ejaculate as much as possible into as many females as possible to give their sperm the best chance of creating a baby." "And that's why they have huge testicles." "In the case of humans females aren't very promiscuous but they aren't entirely faithful either, which is why human males like me have testicles that are somewhere in-between a gorillas and a chimpanzees." "But it's not just men's anatomy that has evolved to combat female infidelity." "Men possess a powerful instinct for sexual jealousy." "On the East Coast of Scotland" "Mark Pickles had always sought the quiet life." "The ideal day for me is going out on the river, fishing rod, setting myself up and spend all day fishing." "Until recently Mark had enjoyed a happy 6 year relationship with his girlfriend, but one simple text message on a mobile phone would change Mark's quiet life forever." "My partner was, em, em, my pride and joy and I loved her very much." "I'm gonna get emotional now." "And, em..." "What began as a peaceful evening at home together would end in a scene of utter destruction when Mark's jealousy was triggered." "Well, it was a normal week day, late in the evening." "My girlfriend was sleeping by the fire and the mobile phone went with a text message." "15 minutes later it went again." "Somebody was obviously quite keen to talk to my girlfriend but she was sleeping, so I thought, well, what I'll do is I'll go and make some tea" "and access the messages quite innocently." "And, er, was met with a very intimate, sexually suggestive, provocative messages on the, on the phone from the next door neighbour." "When I read those text messages my instincts were, em, to cause hurt." "To get even and you screw around with my pride and joy" "I'm gonna deal with your pride and joy." "Mark's girlfriend and the neighbour have always denied they were anything other than friends." "Mark didn't wait to check the facts, his jealousy was aroused." "He knew that his neighbour was away on business but he also knew what was locked away in his neighbour's garage." "A limited edition, cream leather interior," "XJS, 4.2 litre Jag." "Polished, shining bright, never had an ounce of dirt on it whatsoever." "Coz he didn't drive it, it's like he only polished it." "And that was the target." "And then the red mess came down." "So I got the chain-saw, got that going." "Chain-sawed through the garage door." "And demolished the car completely." "The sides, the panels, the windows." "I loved her and he was on my, he'd gotten into my space." "That's where I got angry and, er, I exploded." "Male sexual jealousy is an instinct that's felt in every culture in the world." "One European study of homicide reported that sexual jealousy was the motive in nearly a third of all the murders they assessed." "We've been on a turbulent journey through the extraordinary world of sexual instinct, and although we're getting closer to comprehending the relentless logic of sexual attraction, we're still a long way from understanding the science of love." "The secrets in being together so long because we get along good, and just love each other that's what." "It was nice." "It was nice." "I like that." "Learn, learn to cook in like meat pies and things like that." "Yeah, and it makes, it makes you happy that does." "We don't like anything alike do we?" "I mean, he likes country, I like classical." "Every night when we go to bed" "I have to give her a kiss goodnight, and if I happen to forget it she'll remind me about it." "Kiss her goodnight, always have done." "We just have a little cuddle up." "Love you." "Every one of us has the will to win." "lt.s an instinct that.s kept our species alive for millions of years." "Why does coming out on top feel so great?" "And why does losing feel so bad?" "human instinct the will to win" "Across the world humans constantly struggle to get ahead, the desire for success is deeply ingrained in us all." "our drive to share in victory and avoid defeat is one of the most extraordinary aspects of modern humans." "But it.s an instinct that emerged in a very different place and time." "This is the East African savannah, a place where our distant ancestors became human, and here 3 million years ago the seeds of our super competitive nature were first sewn." "The owner of this skull was the brightest guy the savannah had ever seen." "This is Australopithecus, the original ape man, and one of the first of our ancestors to walk upright." "They were also the first to leave the shelter of the forests and venture out onto the savannah." "ln this harsh terrain fighting for everything was the only way to survive." "We have a surprising amount in common and certainly would have shared the same basic instincts for survival, sex and competition." "They stood at a little under a metre and a half tall and roamed these vast open planes in small groups." "This would have been a very dangerous world." "Their competitive instincts had to develop if they were to survive." "3 million years later these instincts to compete still exist in us all." "And there.s a simple reason." "our bodies are designed to give us a massive kick when we.re winning." "Whether it.s getting a job, being top of the class or winning an olympic gold, our responses are the same the world over." "When we.re close to winning our brain and body work in harmony to make sure victory is sweet." "As soon as we realize the win is within our grasp our focus gets sharper, our reflexes faster, we feel unbeatable." "They.re experiencing the first moments of victory." "And when that victory is assured we get the full reward." "The chemical dopamine stimulates the pleasure centre of our brain creating a profound sense of well-being." "Next, endorphins rush through our body fighting exhaustion and making us feel euphoric." "This is the body.s natural high." "Endorphins do one more remarkable thing." "Even if the boxer has broken a rib he.ll barely feel a thing," "because endorphins block pain by stopping the sensation reaching our spinal chord and brain." "But that.s not all." "There.s more to winning than just the buzz." "Adrenaline from the adrenal gland near the kidneys and testosterone flood through our bloodstream." "They.ve already given us strength during the competition and now they keep us alert and speed our recovery." "We breathe more deeply and our heart rate increases taking more oxygen rich blood to our brains and muscles." "Now we.re primed and ready to take on the world again." "so we.ve all been designed to make winning feel great." "But our instincts have evolved to make sure that we choose our fights and don.t compete the whole time." "We all like to win, but continually competing can be exhausting." "It takes a lot of effort, a good deal of time, and risk." "For our distant Asian ancestors losing a battle could be fatal." "so we instinctively pick our fights carefully, only choosing to compete when there is a strong chance of victory." "And avoiding conflict when there isn.t." "lmproving our chances of success." "When we see a rival we make a judgement about their potential." "If they seem stronger, bigger or faster we tend to move aside and don.t try to compete with them." "of course, we all want to be on top, but we instinctively sense when to fight and when to stand back." "If you think about the times when you feel most competitive it.s usually with the people you feel who are on the same level as yourself, like your colleagues, your neighbours or your friends." "lt.s a behaviour that evolved so our ancestors would avoid unnecessary conflicts." "But to do this they needed a way to display their status, and modern humans still use the same signals." "Those signals appear in our faces." "We tend to regard some male faces as being more dominant than others." "They tend to have prominent brow ridges and bigger jaws, becoming deeper and wider." "Whereas a less dominant face is subtly different." "The face is rounder with a smaller, less prominent jaw and chin." "The forehead is more vertical, altogether more like a child.s." "And the features which make for a dominant face are no coincidence." "Prominent brows and a bigger jaw are linked to high levels of the male hormone testosterone," "and in adult men testosterone is linked to physical prowess." "so dominant faces send an ancient signal of physical fitness." "And it takes just a fraction of a second for us to make a judgement about a face." "ln that split second we work out not only if we recognise it, but we also determine how dominant it is." "so can a winning face make a difference?" "Researchers studied cadets from the class of 1950 at the Elite American Military Academy, West Point." "They rated their faces for dominance." "one of the cadets was Wallace H. Nutting." "He went on to fight in both Korea and vietnam." "Today he is retired after 35 years of service." "He rose to become a four star General, one of the highest ranks in the us Army." "Back in 1950 his face was rated as one of the most dominant of his year." "so does he think his face had anything to do with his success?" "I suppose facial features, er, have a lot to do with it because when we meet one another for the first time certainly we evaluate, we make some snap judgements, er, based on how a person looks." "Remarkably, almost all the graduates of 1950 who went on to become four star Generals also rated very highly in facial dominance." "But even though strong faces appear to have an influence, the scientists acknowledge that performance has the crucial part to play." "ultimately I would not think one might be damned in the profession because he didn.t have a big jaw or prominent brows or, or whatever, but it.s not the be all and end all, but undoubtedly it can be a help." "But we don.t just respond instinctively to faces, we also make snap judgements about people by the way they act." "Meet Todd." "Now meet Todd again." "He.s an actor." "He.s here to help us with an experiment." "How does the way we present ourselves influence the behaviour of others?" "Todd and an unsuspecting student have been invited to play a simple game of chance for money." "They will bet against each other and what they win they.ll keep." "Before they begin the game each of them fills up a form, a chance for the opponent to size Todd up." "First Todd acts like a winner, he sits in a way that suggests that he.s confident and in control." "He quickly finishes his form." "Now they go head to head in a card game of total chance." "The highest card drawn wins." "Will Todd.s confident act influence the size of his opponent.s bet?" "Even though it.s a game with no skill whatsoever a pattern soon emerges." "None of Todd.s opponents fancy their chances against a man who acts like a winner and place the minimum bet possible." "They don.t want to risk losing." "But what will happen if Todd behaves very differently?" "He.s no longer self-confident, along with his shirt and hairstyle he.s changed the way he behaves." "This time he acts in a submissive manner." "He sits in a hunched and unthreatening way, he avoids eye contact." "He does everything to make his new opponents feel superior." "Back to the card game." "Now things are very different." "His opponents take a far bigger gamble." "Even though Todd can.t actually affect the cards, his opponents act like they.re betting against a loser." "one person even bets the house limit." "Amazing though it may seem, it appears that our judgements about who we take on are made more on instinct than on logic." "We.re all adept at sizing up the opposition, but it.s just one weapon in our competitive armoury." "Whenever members of the same species compete then any natural advantage will help to put one of them ahead." "If it.s a significant advantage then it.s more likely to be passed on to the next generation." "lt.s rather like sword fighting." "At the end of the 16th century there was a revolution in the art of fencing." "A parry was introduced." "The parry was a devastating new move, it was a way of deflecting an opponent.s thrust, and if you could do it you.d come out on top." "Those that hadn.t learnt the parry were at a massive disadvantage, they were almost certain to die at the hands of those who had learnt this new technique." "For our distant ancestors a key advantage was having a competitive instinct." "It was essential for survival." "As a result it became embedded in us all." "And it.s not just adults who benefit from these competitive instincts." "They can reveal themselves at a very early age." "We fight for our own interests before we.ve even taken our first breath." "This is Kerry Huntronse." "she.s 36 weeks pregnant and like any mother-to-be she imagined that her pregnancy would be a harmonious time." "You have a real picture of blooming mum and, you know, mum and baby in harmony and, you know, the mum.s body growing in this really lovely, natural way." "Everything appeared to be going fine until a visit to the midwife." "I went to this routine ante natal appointment and had a little chat with the midwife and we sort of talked about what I was thinking about for the birth and things like that." "And then she took my blood pressure, it was like just sky high, and I was horrified." "I was like I can.t believe it, what do you mean?" "And she sort of explained, well, you know, you.ve, you.ve got, I think, pregnancy high blood pressure." "Kerry didn.t know it, but her body was competing with her unborn child." "A competition that.s fought out in every pregnancy." "But in Kerry.s case her baby was in danger of causing her real harm." "You don.t expect to have a, a tiny little baby that.s doing something to you that.s actually negative and detrimental to, you know, my health." "And I suppose I found it really hard to get to grips with the fact that that was possible, because I sort of assume it.s the other way round that, you know, well, I influence the baby." "At this late stage of every pregnancy mother and baby are striving for different things." "The theory is the mother.s body is ready to give birth, she starts to withdraw food from the baby by lowering her blood pressure." "But the baby doesn.t want to be born yet." "The longer it spends in the womb being fed the longer it delays the challenges of the outside world." "so it forces up the mother.s blood pressure to get more food." "ln rare cases the baby is too successful for its own good, the conflict gets out of control and the mother.s blood pressure rises dramatically, which can be fatal for them both." "l.m suddenly thinking is the baby, is the baby okay?" "You know, the baby.s given me high blood pressure and am I now not feeding it properly, is it, is it alright?" "Fortunately, Kerry.s condition was diagnosed promptly and two weeks later she gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Rosa." "Life.s a battle from the nursery onwards, and we instinctively deploy any advantage we have to compete." "And that.s not just us." "Take a look at these piglets." "These little chaps were born just a few weeks ago, but even to reach this tender young age they.ve had to struggle." "When just a few hours old they were weak and vulnerable." "For a piglet it.s a time when mortality is greatest, and in order to survive they needed to eat as soon as possible to pile on the pounds." "With up to a dozen brothers and sisters in a litter all these pigs have to throw their weight around to get he nourishment they need, and that means getting the best teat." "Research has shown that with pigs not all teats are equal, some are more equal than others, and in general the best milk comes from the teat nearest the mother.s head." "Let.s put their competitive instincts to the test." "Do the heaviest pigs win the best teats?" "I can only find out by weighing them, but first l.ve got to catch them." "Now l.ve rounded them up l.ll weigh each one and label them." "Four and a half kilos." "Four point five." "so to the test." "Will the heaviest of the litter force their way to the best teats near the mother.s head?" "Yes they do." "The heaviest piglets weighing up to five kilos are feeding from the best teats, while the weakest piglets weighing as little as two kilos are down near the tail." "Almost from birth piglets lay claim to the best teat, and once they.ve claimed their teat there.s no moving them." "so in general the big pig at the best position gets bigger, whilst the little pig shoved to the tail end remains smaller." "From the start, youngsters across the animal world use what they have to get their own way." "And we are no different." "Younger children in the family can.t rely on muscle to get their own way, but they instinctively know just what to do to win their parents. attention." "ln this experiment at the university of Michigan a mother.s been asked to play with only the oldest child." "A man driving a fire truck." "This immediately brings out the competitive instincts in the younger children as they try to win mum.s attention." "Look at this truck here with all those blocks in it." "cannon, you don.t, you, you don.t want to shoot the cannon, huh?" "Their first approach is simply to disrupt their elder sibling.s game." "You know, we.re not gonna take this now, but you play up." "lt.s a powerful tactic that.s hard to ignore." "But in this experiment that.s just what mum.s been instructed to do, and she continues playing with just her older child." "over here son." "Want to play with the kitchen?" "some things for you to play with." "And even when the younger child is physically removed, it.s not long before the lure of their parent.s attention draws them back." "so they compete with their older sibling once again." "Hi honey." "They just won.t give up." "lt.s as if they are attached by invisible elastic." "And if they.re still ignored then they unleash the most powerful weapon they have." "The tantrum." "The result, mum.s attention at last." "lt.s me." "Yeah, does that make you sad?" "I know that makes you sad." "By contrast, the older child uses different tactics." "oh, thank you." "They don.t behave badly, in fact, they do quite the opposite." "Mum." "I love you." "I love you too baby." "Alright, alright, you.re just waiting?" "You, well, play with, why don.t you play with..." "Experiments like this have shown the eldest child is much more likely to play by the rules." "I love you Mum." "I love you too baby." "While the younger brother or sister is much more likely to appear rebellious." "And this pattern can be seen in younger children world-wide." "And the behaviour we instinctively employ as children can stay with us for life." "Martin Luther King, American civil Rights leader." "Mahatma Ghandi, lndian independence leader." "charles Darwin who dared to suggest we.re descended from apes." "Florence Nightingale who pioneered nursing." "And Thomas Jefferson who wrote the American Declaration of lndependence." "What did all these people have in common?" "Well, in their time they were all mould breakers." "They rejected the conventional thinking of their day and they dared to be different." "But they all shared something else." "Not one was a first born." "Each had at least one elder brother or sister." "A study of a 120,000 people came up with a dramatic conclusion, that the instinctive behaviour adopted by younger children to get noticed can stay with them for life." "They are much more likely to be radical thinkers and challenge convention." "We.re compelled to fight our corner from childhood." "What drives us on is the chemical reward our body gives us when we win." "And no matter how much success we achieve we can.t help striving for more." "You might have thought that happiness is a lifetime spent on a tropical beach with cocktails in hand." "Well, if so think again." "Because we.ve evolved a body that gives us a powerful reward every time we compete and win, we keep on striving for more." "But evidence is now emerging" "That there.s an even stronger instinct which pushes us ever upwards." "one of the most potent motivations we possess, the fear of failure." "sure, losing feels bad, and not without good reason the results can be disastrous." "But it.s more than that." "Losing is a far more enduring and powerful experience than the rewards of winning can ever be." "Failure feels terrible, and to understand why we need to look inside our own bodies." "Losing is overwhelming." "When we begin to lose, our reward machinery is switched off." "Feel good chemicals like dopamine and endorphins that have kept us going during the fight begin to ever wane." "We enter a downward spiral that makes losing almost a certainty." "suddenly we feel every ounce of our exhaustion, every single muscle ache, every bit of pain, unlike the victor." "We realise we.ve lost, and this triggers a release of the stress hormone cortizol." "When mixed with the adrenaline already coursing through our bloodstream we feel anxious, even frightened." "And if the loss is catastrophic a primitive response we share with reptiles kicks in, we become immobilised." "The body.s non-essential functions shut down in order to protect the brain." "The vegas nerve slows our heart suddenly." "Blood flows out of the gut, we get that sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach." "our muscles slacken, we lose control of our limbs, but the body has one final way to teach us a lesson." "Every time we lose the hippocampus in the brain is stimulated making sure we will remember the loss forever, and the centre of our emotions, the emigdina, fuses that memory to a profound sense of misery." "This all creates a powerful reminder of failure to put us off making the same mistake again." "This instinctive fear of failure means humans will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid losing." "You are sick to your stomach." "Physically sick in the toilet on two occasions." "You.re not sleeping, you wake up at night." "ln 1995" "Nick Leeson was one of the biggest losers on the planet." "He had lost his reputation, his freedom and more than c.G800 million." "He was experiencing the agony of losing, but on a scale few of us can even begin to imagine." "But until that moment Nick Leeson had known nothing but triumph." "He was celebrated throughout Asia as the financial trader with the golden touch." "That was where l set my stall, you know, it was always to be better, er, than the people who were around me." "To cover an initial loss, a relatively trivial c.G10,000," "Nick Leeson started, unauthorised, to gamble with his bank.s money." "But the gambles failed, and as the debts mounted the risks he took became increasingly extreme." "As the losses increased, and they would increase daily, I would take bigger and bigger risks to try and get it back." "For Nick Leeson, instinct took over from logic as he desperately attempted to avoid losing at all costs and evade detection." "You know, the walls are closing in effectively, everything is spiralling out of control." "Rationality was thrown out of the window." "But such huge spiralling losses couldn.t go undetected forever." "His dealings broke Barings Bank." "And you have this glut of emotions going through your body at that stage." "It was an impossible time." "Looking back, Nick Leeson thinks his overriding motivation was not to lose face in front of those who knew him." "No, it.s that fear of the loss of my reputation with the people who are close to me that drives what I did." "I didn.t want to go and expose myself to anybody, that, that fear was, was paramount." "ln fact, we are all hard wired to avoid losing face." "Hi." "Hi." "Losing face means we.ve slipped up, and we don.t want to reveal that even to people we.ve never met before." "lt.s shaping up to be a great ball game here in Las v egas tonight." "l.m a long way from home, passing a quiet evening at a Las v egas ball game." "oh, he.s out of there." "And that.s a long walk back to the bench for him." "But often we don.t even need an audience to feel we.re in the spotlight." "oh, just look at that." "Robert Winston has caught the whole can on himself." "Even amongst strangers it.s really embarrassing when you make a fool of yourself." "He.s really not gonna like that." "You feel the whole world is looking right at you." "But actually nobody really gives a damn, but it.s so acutely felt that it.s very difficult to override this feeling." "That.s because millions of years ago when our instincts were formed we lived in small groups." "so everybody knew who we were, and our reputation with everyone was something that we needed to protect." "so instinctively we don.t want to lose face in front of anybody, even people we.re most unlikely ever to see again." "And we can capture our ancient instincts in action." "How will unsuspecting shoppers react to a pile of cans we.ve rigged to collapse?" "I didn.t do it." "until that moment the shoppers all around us are simply people we are unlikely to see again and we don.t pay them much attention." "But the split second the pile collapses." "I didn.t touch it, I didn.t even touch it." "We care what mere passers-by think of us." "suddenly our reputation is on the line." "And we are keen to leap to its defence." "I didn.t take from the bottom, I swear." "oh, dear, I didn.t touch it, I didn.t..." "Honestly, I was nowhere near it." "lt.s a reminder of how important our reputation can be." "sorry." "Millions of years ago on the African savannah, maintaining our reputation in a social group was a key to our survival." "But keeping tabs on these relationships takes brain power, and where did that come from?" "Well, Australopithecus, the original ape man, was about to be trumped by one of our more recent ancestors." "This is homoerectus." "Just look at the difference." "lts brain capacity is twice the size, so it would certainly have been smarter." "It looks as if it has the ability to plan ahead and compete in a whole new way." "so what started this all off?" "What fuelled the revolution that made this guy so smart?" "Well, the answer appears to be a change in diet." "More specifically, meat." "Brains are hungry organs and require a lot of feeding." "Roughly 20% of our total energy intake is used just to keep them going." "Millions of years ago on the savannah a foraging diet of nuts, leaves and berries could never have produced such brain power." "The secret of our success appears to lie in the fact that at some point in our distant past one of our more adventurous ancestors changed their diet and became the original meat and veg man." "Hi there." "Here.s your chops sir." "oh, thanks very much. cheers mate." "ln doing so they not only fuelled brain growth but also set us on a route that catapulted our competitive instincts onto a whole new level." "Big brains have a big advantage, it means we can intuitively put ourselves into someone else.s shoes and then outwit them." "It makes us smart competitors." "We.re all born with this ability but it doesn.t reveal itself until around the age of 3, as this experiment shows." "Do you like sweets?" "Yeah." "Thought you might." "l.ll get some sweets out." "We.re gonna play a hiding game." "l.m gonna hide the sweetie in one of my hands and you have to see if you can guess where it is, okay?" "Which hand is it in?" "Yeah!" "These children are being shown a simple game of hide the sweet." "Haaa!" "They all quickly understand the rules." "That one." "ln this hand." "Yeah, well done." "Now it.s the children.s turn to hide the sweet." "They divide into two groups." "There are those that can do it, the older ones." "That one." "Yes." "oh, I got it." "If you hide the sweet so..." "And those that just can.t get it." "And l.ll try and guess where it is." "so you hide it up." "Before they are 3 these children are simply unable to imagine what they.re opponent can or can.t see." "so they are hopeless when playing this simple game of deception." "Yes." "That.s it." "Now, I have to..." "Nearly." "Hide it up." "ls it in that one?" "But as their brain develops they too will acquire this new instinct for smart competition." "soon they will be able to see into the mind of their opponent and hold their own in a battle of wits." "Hey, it.s in that hand." "And a big brain allows us to do something else rather special, it makes us a much more formidable foe." "competition enters another level when members of the same species band together to take each other on." "Here in the Bahamas you can have an encounter with a real rarity." "Animals that gang up together in a very special way against their own kind, and they can teach us a thing or two about ourselves as well." "They are dolphins." "swimming with dolphins is an extraordinary experience, and they look as if they are just having fun." "But much of this appealing behaviour has more to do with cut-throat competition." "synchronised swimming and surfacing behaviour looks beautiful to us, but to another dolphin it.s a clear signal that there.s a gang in town." "Dolphins compete in teams, usually two or three males band together to get what they want - females." "This might even mean several gangs of dolphins working together to poach females from other groups." "These gangs have no family ties each dolphin will only remain loyal if they.re doing well and will change sides if they.re not, making them highly effective competitors ln the animal kingdom forming alliances like this is rare ln fact apart from dolphins" "there are very few species where this kind of behaviour has been recognised." "Amongst them are chimpanzees and of course humans" "Forming and reforming groups to compete is the final part of what makes humans such winners" "striving for the thrill of coming out on top and avoiding the agony of losing to sensing when to pick a fight and when to hold back" "we have a unique array of ancient competitive instincts" "But its our ability to band together coupled with a bigger brain which enables us to become super competitors, like of which the world has never seen" "This is a journey of self destruction, I want to find out why ordinary people like you and I are capable of doing extraordinary things." "Why we risk danger, even death for the sake of another." "Why did this woman make the ultimate sacrifice." "What made this soldier run into a hail of bullets." "What gave these 2 men the courage to rescue a complete stranger." "ln our quest to understand our instincts to help others we.ll find out we.re programmed to love and protect our children from birth" "We.ll travel across the globe to discover the surprising instincts we share with gruesome vampires." "With intriguing experiments we.ll reveal how millions of years of evolution have made us generous to our families" "And l.ll have my brain probed to learn how human beings can read each other.s minds" "And we.ll go right to the edge of our scientific knowledge to understand how the most uniquely human instincts has helped us to become the most successful species on the planet" "The instinct to put others first" "human instinct natural born heroes" "our story begins here in this beautiful part of southern France." "The Gorge de la Mare in Provence was once home to early humans." "The relics these first inhabitants left have been gradually uncovered by scientists over the last 15 years" "Recently they.ve made an extraordinary discovery, the earliest evidence of human kindness and l.m on my way to see it for myself" "200,000 years ago in this stunning" "Gorge early humans settled in the overhangs of this, and its in one of these rock shelters that Archaeologists unearthed their remarkable find." "This tiny fossil has a huge story to tell, its the right half of an early human jaw bone and we can see that the teeth fell out while this human was still alive." "As eaters of tough meat this would have meant certain starvation, a death sentence." "But for this person help was at hand." "What makes this toothless jawbone which was lain here for 200,000 years unique is that this person must have been fed soft or pre-chewed food for weeks on end allowing time for new bone to form over the empty sockets and that kindness saved this person.s life." "We humans alone have evolved this remarkable instinct to help others more vulnerable than ourselves" "Here in canada that instinct to help others was put to the ultimate test when a mother was called upon to protect her son." "steven Parolin is lucky to be alive." "6 years ago he set off on a camping trip into the remote mountain forest with his brother his mother and sister Melissa" "It was pretty exciting in the morning I felt a bit nervous like something bad was gonna happen ah, or something, but I kind of shoved it inside and I was feeling pretty happy when we got going" "They have almost reached the campsite when without warning the horses began to snort and rear." "something was wrong." "I saw this head poke out of the trees on the left side of me, I thought oh, its just a coyote and then it came on its kind of very sleek movements and he just kind of like glided out" "and I kind of looked at him and went that.s not a coyote ln fact it was a cougar a mountain lion, capable of killing prey twice its size" "The cougar went straight for steven it didn.t even look at the rest of us it just went directly towards steven" "It had its paws right on the saddle, huge eyes sitting there staring at me" "and Face to face with death 6 year old steven didn.t stand a chance" "steven kind of fell off and then as he was standing up the cougar em, reached round his head like this with his paws and just ripped open his head" "seeing her son in terrible danger his mother cindy reacted without hesitation, with a primal scream she launched herself at the cougar to fight for her son lt was just like instinct you know, I guess she feared that she.d be ok" "or she really didn.t think about it, it was just a reaction to what was happening" "Mum, cindy broke off a branch and with almost super human strength wrestled the cougar to the ground." "Locked in combat she ordered the 2 older children to take steven to safety, it would be some time before they found helped" "With steven safe his brother returned to the forest to search for his mother, with family friend Jim Manion" "I had to move over about 3 or 4 feet, took a couple of steps to my right and there was the cat and the head of the cat was right over the top of cindy.s head" "When they found cindy she was barely alive, she.d been wrestling with the cougar for over 2 hours." "Jim took his gun and shot the cougar" "Despite terrible injuries cindy had clung onto life I really believe that she kept herself alive to see what had happened to her children," "and I think that after hearing that her children were safe then she just at that point said hey, its time to go" "cindy died of her wounds on the way to the hospital." "The instinct to protect her children lead her to make the ultimate sacrifice." "The happy part is knowing that my mum was brave and that she was willing enough to do anything for us kids" "The sad part is, is that to think that she is gone now and l.m never gonna see her again" "ln saving her son cindy demonstrated the most powerful heroic instinct we know, a mother.s drive to protect her young" "Human beings have evolved to feel deeply protective towards their children, it seems perfectly natural but it might have been very different." "unlike most animals humans usually have just 1 baby at a time which makes each of our offspring uniquely precious" "Which is why we invest so much in our children and are prepared to go to such unparalleled lengths to protect them" "Millions of years of evolution have made us all loving parents" "Right from the moment of birth, our brains and bodies help us bond instinctively with a new-born child." "The key to making that happen is a hormone we human.s share with all other mammals, its called oxytocin, it has immediate and powerful effects" "The new mum becomes hyper aware of her baby, her senses appear to work faster and more keenly." "The release of oxytocin has been triggered in a primitive part of the brain the Hyperphalamus" "And this gives mum a powerful urge to feed her baby and that suckling sets off nerve impulses in the nipple which travel up to the mother.s brain triggering her reward centre and so creating a natural high" "Mum soon learns to recognise the unique smell of her baby and each time she smells the baby more oxytocin is released" "one thing nurturing behaviours in men seem to be stimulated that.s very similar to oxytocin," "Phasopresin, its released from the same primitive area of the brain and new fathers also have a nose for their new-born baby." "The scent induces a feeling of calm" "And to make men less aggressive." "lts a powerful effect the result of millions of years of evolution" "The drive to protect our young is shared by many other animals, like us they.ve inherited strong parenting instincts from generations of successful mums and dads" "Biologically it makes sense to look after your offspring.s on average each one shares half your genes." "That means if you successfully raise 2 young its rather like passing on a 100º/º of your own genetic material into the next generation." "lts the closest we get to immortality" "But for many species this instinct goes further, take these mare cats they will even protect youngsters that are not their own" "These adult mare cats baby-sit their nieces and nephews" "they literally stick their necks out in search of predators what they do is dangerous, they could attract unwelcome attention themselves." "so why take the risk, well it makes sense." "These little nieces and nephews share a quarter of their genes with their Auntie.s." "so looking after 2 of them in biological terms is as good as having your own child" "These family values of animals always stick to a golden rule the more gene family members share the more they.ll do for each other." "But the big question is - are we humans the same?" "Meet the Gavon family of Essex, England." "They.re about to take part in an unusual experiment to test their instincts." "My name.s Alf and l.m father to Kim and Lisa." "l.m Lisa, and Philip and Becky are my children." "l.m Becky and Kim.s my aunt." "My name.s Kim, l.m mum to Helena, Matthew and Heather, auntie to Philip and Rebecca and sister to Lisa." "Just like the animals the closer the Gavon.s are on the family tree the more genes they share, and if they obey our golden rule, the more they should do for each other." "Here.s the test." "We.re challenging them to hold their breath under water for as long as they can." "The longer they do it the more money they will earn for one of their relatives." "l.ve got Philip, he.s my nephew." "According to biology.s golden rule they should hold their breath longer for people who are most closely related, sharing the highest proportion of their genes." "First off Alf holds his breath for his granddaughter" "Becky with whom he shares a quarter of his genes." "He manages just 16 seconds." "When he holds his breath for his two daughters with whom he shares half his genes he does much better," "22 seconds for Lisa and 21 for Kim." "Now it.s Heather.s turn." "First she holds her breath for her auntie Lisa who shares a quarter of her genes." "Result 51 seconds." "Good work." "Next is her more distant relative cousin" "Becky with only an eighth of her genes." "As predicted a lower 47 seconds." "But watch what happens when Heather takes the plunge for her very close relative, brother Matt." "A whopping 72 seconds." "It makes sense, they share half their genes." "scientists have repeated this experiment on a number of families, results show that when it comes to being generous there really is a natural pecking order." "People put themselves out more to help people who are more closely related." "so without thinking about it the Gavons obey this golden rule of biology." "But some families are far from harmonious." "Bitter rivalry between relatives would suggest that the golden rule doesn.t always apply." "Take the English kings during the War of the Roses." "This is the tower of London, home to the gruesome scenes of torture and execution through the centuries." "Between 1300 and 1600 the facilities here were put to particularly good use by various members of the royal family as they fought each other for the throne." "ln those days the quickest way to seize power was to bump off your nearest and dearest." "scientists decided to study this bloody period to find out what becomes of the golden rule." "If families are keen to help their closest gene sharing relatives are they also keen to avoid harming them and wiping out a proportion of their own genes?" "At first sight it would appear not." "Take the case of the brutal murder of the Duke of clarence who met a sticky end in 1478." "Rumour has it that clarence was drowned in a vat of butt of Malmsey Wine here at the tower." "What.s certain is that the man behind his death was none other than his very own brother, Edward the lv." "Now killing your own brother is a biologically dangerous thing to do when you consider that he shares half your genes." "That.s half your own genetic value down the drain." "But it turns out that Edward the lv was a particularly bloodthirsty king, he also got rid of six of his cousins." "But these were distant cousins and their genetic value to Edward was small, so when the scientists totalled up the value of all the genes he.d destroyed they found that Edward was not as reckless as he seems." "What.s truly surprising is it still doesn.t quite make one whole Edward, there.s still a little left." "Edward never spilled quite enough blood to wipe out a 100º/º of his own genetic value," "and in fact throughout this bloody period of English royal history nor did any other monarch." "lt.s almost as if they kept the formula in their heads By lnstinct." "Even to secure the hotly contested throne" "For themselves and their children it seems there were precise limits to the bloodthirstiness of these cut-throat royals." "However ruthless the monarch their instincts held their ambition in check." "lt.s easy to understand why we might instinctively protect members of our family," "but there are times when human beings are capable of the most heroic actions for their friends." "ls it possible that we.ve evolved instincts that encourage us to do this?" "These men have a bond that makes them feel like brothers, it was forged under the most extreme circumstances after the heroic actions of this man, Al Rascon." "We bestow the medal knowing that America would not have survived were it not for people like him," "through generation after generation have always renewed the extraordinary gift of freedom." "Medic, Al Rascon, and his friend Neil Haffey were just teenagers when they went to vietnam, but what happened there neither would ever forget." "It was the 16th of March 1966 and the young soldiers were close to enemy lines in a reconnaissance platoon." "It was a very tense time, we saw a lot of troop movement in the area." "We uncovered a big cache of weapons, l.m talking tons of weapons." "It was as though you were blowing up a balloon just waiting for it to pop." "They spotted an enemy machine gun nest up ahead and Neil Haffey opened fire." "As soon as I got one round into it, em, all hell broke loose." "Machine gun fire was going off, small arms were going off, hand grenades were being thrown at each other." "The squad was pinned down." "Neil watched powerless as a close friend was killed just a few feet away." "I just lost it, I just stood up, started to run over to where he was." "At that point this enemy soldier as close as you are to me shot me point blank." "seeing Neil badly wounded," "Al Rascon jumped up and rushed towards him ignoring a hail of bullets." "And as l.m trying to get towards Haffey hand grenades were thrown at him." "one landed maybe 3, 4 feet away from me and, er, I thought it was my turn to go." "I thought definitely l was gonna be dead within the next couple of seconds, and, er, I remember just turning my head because I didn.t want to see death coming." "With his friend in mortal danger" "Al Rascon made a split second life and death decision." "You.re looking at a person that you know and you have no other choice than to take care of that person, whether your life is gonna be taken away you don.t know." "I was expecting the grenade to go off any second, I was just closing my eyes and waiting for it, and all of a sudden this heavy weight just jumped right on top of me and it was dark." "I had no choice but to cover him with my body." "Al used his own body to shield his friend." "Taking the full force of the grenade blast himself" "Al was so badly wounded that the chaplain gave him his last rites." "I think there are things that are done out of instinct, things you can.t come back and plan for." "lt.s not a, a condition where you have the privilege to come back and think about it, it.s something you just do." "I believe Doc was going on instinct and adrenaline when he was doing all this, he wasn.t thinking." "I think even a medic of Doc.s calibre if he would have thought it out he wouldn.t have done it." "30 years later Al Rascon was given the Medal of Honour." "l.m very thankful for what Al did, you know, I, l.ve had a good life so far." "l.ve had a good career, I have a beautiful family, been places l.d never would have been able to go dead, huh, so I can.t thank him enough, you know, I try but I can.t." "Al risked his own life to save his friend." "He believes he did it on instinct, but why would instincts protect people who are not related to us have evolved?" "scientists have found clues that help us understand why we all have instincts to help our friends." "The evidence lies half a world away with a particularly bloodthirsty animal." "Here in the jungles of costa Rica there lives a remarkable species of mammal which is closer to us than you might like to think." "Life is very tough for these animals indeed but they.ve found a method of coping which sets them apart." "They help each other and they do this by swapping something really rather gruesome." "This behaviour is almost unique l the animal kingdom but it.s crucial to their survival, and they live here in the rainforest beneath me." "ln this large hollow tree there live several different species of bat and in a few minutes as it begins to get dark they.ll fly out and look for food." "Now, the species of bat that l.m interested in doesn.t live on fruit or insects which is usual, they have a slightly more exotic diet." "These bats inspired a gothic horror story, and just like the mythical monster they are creatures of the night." "so we filmed them with a night vision camera to get really close to them." "lt.s obvious from his teeth what this bat feeds on." "This is a colony of vampires, they drink blood and they.re hungry." "ooh, you vicious brute, look at your evil face." "l.m gonna let you go." "Despite their Dracula-like fangs feasting on blood is not as easy as it sounds." "Just like the fictional character real vampires have only a few short hours to feed before dawn." "The victims are often farm animals." "Gruesome as this may look, the sleeping victim is unaware." "The bat.s saliva numbs the wound whilst ensuring a steady flow of blood." "lt.s four o.clock in the morning and the vampires are flying home." "Hopefully they all will have found food." "These animals have a very rapid metabolism so just 48 hours without a meal means certain death." "But this is where these resourceful creatures come into their own." "For those unlucky enough to come home still hungry help is at hand." "The vampires live in small groups that have evolved to co-operate." "one bat will regurgitate blood for another bat who.s failed to find food." "This generosity makes the dramatic difference to the survival chances of the whole colony." "But beware any bat who takes blood and refuses to return the favour, they.ll be remembered and shunned in future." "This kind of generous behaviour is exceptionally rare, in fact, vampire bats are one of the only species ever found that remembers favours for more than a brief, fleeting moment." "Except for we humans of course." "As animals go, we humans are really very generous indeed." "ln fact, we are naturally the most generous of animals by far." "Most of us would think nothing of lending someone the money for lunch or buying a round of drinks in the pub." "But exactly like the bats, when we.re generous our instincts are crying out for us to be repaid." "cheers!" "After all, being generous might backfire, we could leave ourselves vulnerable to people who take but don.t give in return." "lt.s pretty annoying being conned out of a pint of beer." "But there was rather more at stake for our distant ancestors." "ln the harsh prehistoric world of early humans not being repaid could mean starvation and death." "somebody must have been generous to the owner of this jawbone, left to themselves they would have starved as their teeth fell out." "But if there was an instinct to help others thousands of generations ago there had to be something else, generosity could only have evolved if early humans had just as keen an instinct to detect somebody who was simply on the take." "A cheat." "We all have a powerful gut reaction when we feel we.re being treated unfairly, it.s an instinct that.s with us from childhood." "ln this experiment, 7 and 8 year olds are sharing a stash of 10 chocolate coins." "one child decides on how they are split and they can offer as many or as few coins as they like." "l.m gonna give her two." "You get two and you get one." "You get three." "At first they keep more for themselves, but there.s a catch, it.s the other child who gets to decide if the split.s fair." "If not they can refuse the offer, and then both children have to go away empty handed." "Will they get away with it?" "No." "Yes or no?" "No." "oh, you meanie." "That means you don.t get any chocolate." "I don.t care, it.s already too little." "Almost all of the children reject a smaller share, preferring to have nothing at all." "It may seem strange but it.s not." "By going without themselves they.re punishing their partner who loses even more chocolate, and they.re not gonna forget that in a hurry." "Look what happens when the experiment is repeated." "she gets 5 and I get five okay." "You get four." "okay, l.ve got to give you five coins for you and five for me." "l.m gonna give you four." "Now, with a fairer split what will the response be?" "Yes." "I say yes this time." "Yeah." "Yes." "The children are happy to accept." "lt.s not difficult to see why we.ve evolved this way." "If we react instinctively against people who cheat they.ll think twice before trying it again." "This instinctive taste for fairness leaves humans free to help one another." "All of us have the instinct to help other people." "Watch how unsuspecting shoppers react when they see our stunt man take a fall." "Are you alright?" "oh, alright lovely, yeah." "When they see him in trouble or in pain they react with compassion." "lt.s as if they feel the same pain too." "sure you.re alright?" "Thanks very much." "Thank you very much." "Are you okay?" "They.re experiencing a particularly human instinct called empathy." "Never mind sweetheart." "scientists in Italy are probing the brain to find out how we are able to put ourselves in other people.s shoes." "The team here have devised an experiment to show how the brain does something truly amazing, it reads other people.s minds." "The experiment involves magnifying the brain signals responsible for imitation." "But to show how it works the scientists need a human volunteer." "so here goes." "Recently they.ve discovered a special set of brain cells, they.re called mirror neurones, and what they do is remarkable." "The theory is that when I see someone performing an action my mirror neurones should try to copy the action too." "But normally this effect is so subtle l.m not even aware of it." "The mirror neurones alone can.t actually make my hand move, so to reveal them working I need a little help." "This equipment uses a powerful magnetic field to amplify the effect of my mirror neurones, but first they have to find exactly the right spot in my brain." "Nothing." "You just want to fry my brain don.t you?" "We.re on target." "Right, now we come to the crunch, we.ll see what happens when I watch the video screen." "If the mirror neurones are working, when I watch the picture of the hand grasping my hand should twitch." "Yeah, I felt a twitch." "Yes. lt may be just a small movement but my hand.s actually moving without any conscious help from me." "And this reveals something amazing, our brains are programmed to mimic the actions of other people." "so my hand moved then when it wouldn.t have done before, but because I was watching the picture and empathising with what I could see my hand moved." "Exactly." "This pioneering work leads some scientists to believe that our mirror neurones don.t just imitate what other people do, but perhaps even how they feel." "Empathy is so important to us that we.re all born with a highly specialised mechanism to help share our feelings." "The human face." "The anatomy of the human face is unique in the animal kingdom," "47 muscles working together to reveal our emotions;" "joy, anger, sadness, disgust." "We express our feelings in our faces spontaneously and our expressions are the same the world over." "But why should millions of years of evolution have left us with such a sophisticated tool for empathy?" "Well, knowing what someone else if feeling can be very useful, like whether they.re pleased to see us or not." "Just as we.re hard wired to express our emotions in our faces, so we.re hard wired to receive them from other people loud and clear." "You don.t even have to think about it, you can just feel it." "And evolving this instinct to empathise with others gave our ancestors a huge advantage." "Watching these actors. faces we sense what they.re going through without having to be put in the same situation ourselves." "Empathy is a highly effective but very primitive form of communication." "But it doesn.t stop there." "some scientists believe that empathy was the forerunner of another human instinct, the instinct for language." "Just like the cinema, early communication was wordless, and like the movies we took a great leap forward when we evolved talkies." "our ability to communicate through language is the most sophisticated instinct we possess, and it.s in-built in every one of us." "9 months ago" "Jasper was just a tiny, screaming infant." "He relied on his survival instincts to make sure he got all the attention he needed;" "love, care, comfort, and, of course, food." "Now another instinct is causing something remarkable to happen," "Jasper is making his very first attempts to talk." "ln less than a year he has already mastered the full range of vowel sounds of his native tongue." "children have an instinct for language, they acquire it with barely any effort." "ln a few short years" "Jasper will be as fluent as these four year olds." "Every culture throughout the world communicates through speech." "our instinct for language put our species in the fast lane." "As Jasper grows and learns to talk he.ll be able to share his experiences." "And like his far distant ancestors he.ll exchange new ideas, convey the past and mould the future." "Thanks to our instinct for language young Jasper will access the wisdom of generations." "The accumulated knowledge of the human race means that we are all standing on the shoulders of giants." "Language has helped us explore our planet and beyond." "But this isn.t the end of the story." "We.re not slaves to our instincts." "As human beings we learn, we reason and we choose." "until september 11 th 2001" "Mike Benfanty and John sakira were regular office workers, but on that day they struggled with conflicting instincts and a series of life and death decisions, but still found the courage to help someone in great danger." "Tina Hanson was working as usual on the 68th Floor of the North Tower of the World Trade centre." "one second my life was normal, and in the very next second the, the building behaved in a way that I had never felt before." "up on the 81 st Floor" "Mike and John were just below the point of impact." "I guess it felt like an earthquake and I saw flames shoot down above, from above and debris falling." "We looked up at the window and saw some pretty horrible things, saw some l guess maybe some bodies and, and clothes and things." "containing rising panic" "Mike and John began to evacuate down the fire escape." "on their way down they came across" "Tina and two others in an empty office struggling with Tina.s emergency wheelchair." "All of a sudden this guy started banging on the front door." "I looked behind the glass doors and there were these women just standing there, and I was like this doesn.t make sense, you.ve got to get moving here." "They.d never met Tina before but could see she needed help." "Mike and John decided to carry her down the 68 floors to safety." "There was no hesitation on their part." "They didn.t even seem to think twice about it." "Putting aside their own need to escape," "Mike and John chose instead to help Tina and get her out of danger." "You don.t know what.s going through your mind and you.re not thinking, okay, l.m gonna be carrying this person down 68 flights, it was just instinct, I mean, it was just reaction." "Mike and John carried Tina down flight after flight." "Then almost an hour into the grueling descent a fireman offered them the chance to leave Tina at an evacuation station on the 18th Floor." "My first reaction was to agree to that, but before I could get the words out of my mouth, em," "Michael said, no, we.ve come this far, we.re, we.re gonna take it all the way." "I looked at John and John looked at me and he was, like, alright, let.s, you know, we.re not letting go." "And, and we did it." "I went along with his instinct even though mine was different." "I would have waited on the 18th floor, em, and I, I probably would not have gotten out in time." "As they descended falling debris had blocked the stairwell and the lights failed plunging everything into darkness." "Well, we couldn.t see where we were going and we.d have to move this debris and pick her up and carry her over, and we.d go one way and there as no way out, we.d go another way we couldn.t get out," "and now panic.s starting to set in more and people are becoming more frantic." "It was almost like you were staring death right in the face." "But, er, even at that point I did not know if we were gonna get out, there still wasn.t the option in my mind to, to leave Tina." "After battling for over an hour they finally made their way out of the building just in time." "Tina was driven away in an ambulance to safety only 2 minutes before the North Tower collapsed." "I was just so relieved, I was so grateful mostly, em," "to, to know everybody I had met along the way who had just been there for me, even though they didn.t know me from Eve, you know." "ln the darkest of hours" "Mike and John have put their own survival instincts aside and emerged as heroes." "And I was amazed because that was probably the worst situation or the one situation where you can make an excuse to say, okay, l.m just gonna think about myself and I don.t really have to worry about anybody else." "But that.s not what happened." "I could have been another victim of other human beings who were, who were carrying out mass murder on that day, em, but because I was fortunate enough to meet women and men who acted on other impulses, er," "I was not another casualty." "John and Mike were spurred on by the instincts we all share to help others, but their extraordinary heroism reveals a strength of character that instinct alone cannot explain." "We.ve been on a fascinating journey across the world and deep into our past to discover our extraordinary human instincts." "What.s astonished me is that the urges and drives we.ve inherited from prehistoric men and women are still such a powerful force in our modern lives." "Millions of years of evolution still compel us to survive," "to have children and to compete." "And from those same prehistoric roots came instincts that define us as human beings." "We.ve developed instincts for language and for helping others that go far beyond any other aninal." "Humans are so successful because we have more instincts, not less." "And it.s our amazing instincts that make us the most extraordinary species on the planet." "Human beings."