Alison Woollard finds her movement controlled by a child when they’re conn’– how to generate and use energy. In this lecture he investigates how humans as living pulsing machines actually use energy, asking whether it’s possible to ‘supercharge’ the human body and increase its performance. This year marks the 80th anniversary since the BBC first broadcast the CHRISTMAS LECTURES on TV. To celebrate, Saiful invites former Christmas Lecturers to join him on stage, and repeats some of the most exciting (and dangerous) experiments and demonstrations from the past. Live experiments explore everything from the explosive potential of everyday foods, to what we put into our bodies (and what comes out!), as well as how we measure up to the machines we use every day. Saiful even experiments on himself, showing images captured inside his own stomach. Every single one of us is an incredibly sophisticated energy conversion machine, finely tuned over millions of years of evolution. So will we ever be able to improve the human body’s performance? Can we ever do more with less energy? Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe The Ri is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://www.rigb.org/home/editorial-policy Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter