Airdate: Predict My Future: The Science of Us

Next week SBS premieres a new 4 part science series from New Zealand, Predict My Future: The Science of Us.

Monitoring 1000 people since 1972, the Dunedin Longitudinal Study is reportedly the broadest and most in-depth study of human beings in the world.

Over 40 years ago, a New Zealand medical school embarked on a remarkable project to answer one of life’s most fundamental questions: what makes us who we are?

Between April of 1972 and March of 1973, the Queen Mary Hospital in Dunedin, New Zealand, began collecting medical data on approximately 1,000 babies born in the South Island city. For their entire lives, every aspect of their health and development has been monitored: their genes, growth, health, psychology, emotional journeys, criminal convictions, successes, failures.

The result is the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, the broadest and most in-depth study of human beings in the world. The project has become the richest and most productive archive of human development anywhere. Truly unique, the study has retained an unprecedented 96% of its starting participants.

Now, the study has identified a fundamental development mechanism that completely rewrites the nature versus nurture argument – a genetic switch that is thrown by life events. Nature loads the gun, but nurture pulls the trigger.

Episode One: The Early Years
This first episode examines the myths and facts surrounding long-term effects on childhood. What happens in early life has no lasting influence, but the early years are still crucial in influencing a number of areas that really do count.

Monday, 11 July at 7.35pm on SBS.