Web Series: My Love Affair with the Brain (page)

DEAR FRIENDS

The web series is on hold, pending additional funding.

This web page here is no longer being updated (as of April, 2017) at least until there is funding to resume work on the web series.

We are independent film makers with no institutional or large foundation support so we prioritized completing, broadcasting, and distributing the complete 56 minute documentary.

Please feel free to contact us if you have ideas for funding the web series, which would be 12 or more episodes, varying in length from 3 to 8 minutes, an estimated total of 2+ hours about the brain, about teaching, about Dr. Diamond,, each a stand-alone complete piece, much of which we didn’t have time for within the constraints of a television hour.

thank you!

.

.

How can you not fall in love with a woman who carries around a preserved human brain inside a giant flowery hat box? Meet Dr. Marian Diamond, renowned academic and research scientist, and prepare to be smitten.

Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg’s film follows this remarkable woman over a 5-year period and introduces the viewer to both her many scientific accomplishments and the warm, funny, and thoroughly charming woman herself, who describes her 60-year career researching the human brain as “pure joy.”

To purchase DVDs of this program, click here.

As one of the founders of modern neuroscience, it’s no exaggeration to say that Dr. Diamond changed science, and society at large in dramatic ways over the course of her career. Her groundbreaking work is all the more remarkable because it began during an era when so few women entered science at all. Shouted at from the back of the conference hall by noteworthy male academics as she presented her research, and disparaged in the scientific journals of a more conservative era, Dr. Diamond simply did the work and followed where her curiosity led her, bringing about a paradigm shift (or two) in the process.

As she points out, in order to get to the answers that matter, you have to start by asking the right questions.

     Episode 1 – “My Love Affair with the Brain”

Meet Dr. Marian Diamond:  neuroscientist, pioneering researcher, beloved professor and brain whisperer.  Learn her 5 steps to a better brain.

     Episode 2 – “How She Changed the World”

Enrichment, plasticity – capabilities of the brain we now take for granted – are the scientific battleground where Dr. Marian Diamond decisively challenges the old view and changes forever our paradigm for understanding the brain … and changes our lives as well

     Episode 3 – “The Woman with Einstein’s Brain”

Marian studies the most famous brain that ever was.  Seems obvious now, but she is the first person to ever do so!  In her resulting research paper, she joins the glial cell revolution and provokes a world-wide controversy.   “Don’t you just love glial cells?” she says.

     Episode 4 – “How to Get a Million Hits on YouTube”

1.7 million hits on YouTube and climbing.  “Dr. Marian Diamond … the tweedy celebrity of cyberspace” declares the NY Times.  The how and why and behind-the-scenes of Dr. Marian Diamond’s perenially popular 40-part Human Anatomy Lecture course, Integrative Biology 131.

      Episode 5 – “About Brains and Little Girls”

Can you spell  r-o-l-e   m-o-d-e-l?    See what happens when one of the world’s foremost anatomists teaches neuroanatomy to a 4-year old little girl.  Who knew that cute can be a multi-syllable word?

Episode 6 – “The Science of Love”

Love – can improve your brain and help you live longer.  Dr. Diamond shows you how … and explains the research that proves it to be true.  Not your grandmothers fuddy-duddy science course!

     Episode 7 – “What Makes a Great Teacher”

Anatomy is hard.
Watch a master teacher make it easy.

     Episode 8 – “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Diamond”

Scientists make the best cooks.
Recipes are just experiments with delicious results.  Spend some quality time learning about Dr. Diamonds parents and past while she bakes some delicious Thanksgiving pies.

     Episode 9 – “FAQ”

So exactly how did this whole web series and documentary get started, anyhow?

      Episode 10 – “Fun with Human Anatomy”

… with your clothes on.
So welcome, all, join the party …  you are invited!  It’s a pot luck, post-semester grad student party at Professor Diamond’s house.  Fun and games and everything you wanted to ask a world renowned professor but were afraid to ask.

     Episode 11 – “Scientists in Love”

Does the heart or the brain lead to love?   Can two acclaimed neuroscience professors living over 500 miles apart find marriage bliss over the decades?  Tune in and see.  Many people say this is their favorite episode!

     Episode 12 – “Retirement”

Time waits for no man, or in this case … woman.  Learn as a PhD Anatomist observes the passage of the years in her own anatomy.