Science Weekly: What the brain can and can't do

Professor Barry Smith , director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of London explores what happens inside our heads when we recognise a friend or reach for a cup of coffee. Professor Smith has just made a series of programmes for the BBC World Service called The Mysteries of the Brain , which starts today. So that's what the brain can do. We also look at what it can't do ... We dial up Professor Russell Stannard , emeritus professor of physics at the Open University. He thinks humans are fast approaching the end of what it is possible for us to know and understand. Caspar Llewellyn-Smith asks him about some of the themes in his new book , The End of Discovery . Check out our shiny new science front page and meet our crack team of science bloggers : The Lay Scientist by Martin Robbins Life and Physics by Jon Butterworth Punctuated Equilibrium by GrrlScientist Political Science by Evan Harris Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science . Email [email protected] . Join our Facebook group . Listen back through our archive . Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed ).