Secret Science Club presents Leonard Mlodinow

Thinking about how your own brain works isn't easy. The reason? A large portion of your gray matter is devoted to unconscious activity. Bombarded as you are by 11 million bits of sensory information per second, it's simply more efficient for many neural processes to take place automatically-and below the threshold of awareness. For example, you don't decide something looks green or tastes sour-you just get the message. However, as scientists continue to probe the unconscious, they are discovering that our hidden mental processes may be far more influential than previously suspected.

In his latest book, Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior, physicist and best-selling author Leonard Mlodinow illuminates the latest research on the brain's uncharted territory. Dr. Mlodinow asks:

- How accurately do you perceive yourself and your motives? What really influences your choices? Does the order-loving conscious mind ever create cover stories to explain unconscious decisions?

 - What types of (tricky) new experiments and technologies are neuroscientists and psychologists using to explore unconscious processes?

 -What are emotional illusions? Can pure physiological states, such as a raised heart rate, cause you to experience emotions that, in turn, influence your behavior?

 -How reliable and malleable are your memories? Do you ever unconsciously confabulate?

Leonard Mlodinow received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of California at Berkeley, was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute, and now teaches at the California Institute of Technology. He wrote The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, co-wrote The Grand Design with Stephen Hawking, and was once a staff writer for Star Trek.

Don't miss a nanosecond of this brain-boggling night!

Doors open at 7:30 pm. Please bring ID - 21+. No cover.