In an unexpectedly quirky and warm film, Michael Mosley sets out to find out what intelligence is, and where it comes from. A visit to an international Mensa meeting inspires him to want to join the elite club, and with just weeks before his Mensa test, Michael wants to try techniques to boost his brain. UK memory world champion Ben Pridmore agrees to mentor him, and he tries a groundbreaking neurofeedback technique that has helped eye surgeons improve their performance. In an attempt to understand where intelligence comes from, Michael meets America's most intelligent man, a former bouncer, and attends an institute claiming to teach babies to read. He participates in an alternative intelligence test, and competes in the world memory championships in Bahrain, but it is the IQ test that really counts; has what he has learned helped him to pass the Mensa test?
In a funny and thought-provoking film that moves from the quirky to cutting edge science, Michael Mosley wants to find out if he can live forever. He embarks on a calorie restricted diet, injects himself with testosterone and visits a life-extension house, all with the aim of seeing if any modern elixirs of youth actually work. While he monitors his response to these techniques, he visits some remarkable individuals whose lives are intrinsically defined by the science of aging: the brave girl suffering from an accelerated ageing disease, the 62-year old woman who claims she looks forty thanks to daily hormone injections; and the scientist who has pioneered the creation of tailor made replacement organs using stem cells. What he learns about extending the human lifespan leads him to wonder, would he want to?
Michael Mosley tests the extraordinary claim that we might only need a few hours of sleep - if that - each night. Having given up a medical profession because of his inability to function without sleep and, like the rest of us, anxious to squeeze more out of each day, Michael wants to see if there really is a cure for sleep. He attempts to forego sleep for as long as possible, with the help of the world record-breaker for staying awake. He also meets a professor depriving human guinea pigs of sleep, and a scientist keeping flies awake for much longer, to discover if we need sleep at all. He visits Texas to speak with contenders in an annual sleep deprivation contest, and hears how it ended in tragedy. Eventually he turns to prescription drugs, only to discover that they do not hold the cure for sleep that he had hoped for.
