hey there and thanks for joining me. minutes away we're going to talk about medical history. two patients with ebola in the u.s. fully recovered and off to live public lives. what they have to look forward to and what it means for the rest of us. plus, i'm a brain surgeon. and i know the brain can play tricks that will blow your mind. the host of brain games is going to stop by. first, what a week it has been. here at home, and abroad.

we saw tensions boil over in ferguson, missouri. we got news of the ruthless beheading of an american journalist in iraq. since 2002 the number of journalists killed because of work has risen dramatically and all of this got us thinking about the psychology of fear, the wounds it can leave, how it can drive events. joining me to talk about this from ferguson is jake tapper and also nick paton walsh. thanks to both of you for joining us. before we talk about the psychology of fear, nick, i understand you crossed paths with james foley in libya and i ask you about it because i think it gets lost who was he, what kind of person he was. is there anything you can tell us about him? >> i had limited experience working with jim. we worked on a piece about a libyan rebel in fact who was fighting along side syrian rebels. this was a good two years ago

now on our brief exchange, he was professional, courteous but also working inside, terrible communication issues, we es changed skype. that's all one could do. courageous in the fact he was there, professional in the information he passed to us and you know, generally seemed to be i think a credit to his profession. >> yeah. i mean, obviously in those situations everyone is so focused on their work. you do have these interactions that become meaningful. let me ask you, nick. the psychology of fear. it seems that this group isis likes maybe some other groups has made a calculated use of terror and fear, we saw tweets sent out for the world to see as a warning to americans, you covered a lot of conflicts. is this different what you're seeing there?

>> i never encountered such a volume of unbelievably disgusting horrifying videos. that's a relatively recent phenomenon. when they started out they weren't shy of the fact they were brutal but it wasn't quite in the volume you get now. it's hard to keep up, frankly, with the number of grotesque things they post. social media police can't keep track. i did a story last week about potentially 1700 iraqi recruits at a place near tikrit. that was overrun and they were herded off on this video to mass execution. some shot dead in the dusty field, others taken to a river in fact where they were just in a line, one after the other shot in the head, single shot, dumped. one of the most horrific things i've seen on video. sanjay. >> nick and jake, we have to make constant decisions certainly as news organizations what we're going to show, what is appropriate to show. jake, it's a different situation

obviously in missouri. you've been there when things got hairy there as well. i've been struck again from my prism, watching it on tv, at times it looked like a complete war zone. it looked similar to some of the things in the middle east. is it like that in person, jake? how do you give people the whole picture as opposed to just a slice of the pie? how do you balance that? >> well, it's difficult and it has looked like that at times during this crisis here in ferguson. it has not in the last few days. the police are employing a different tactic, they are no longer doing the massive show of force militarized vehicles, guns aimed at protesters who are peacefully protesting. they are not doing that. monday night they did that, but they have not done that since, they have done a much more crowd friendly strategy which is stretching out and breaking up

in smaller groups of five or six. it's difficult, it's not quite the fog of war because it's obviously not a war. but there is a fog. the fog of protest i suppose. where you might have one scene going on in one place, and then three blocks away a completely different scene. and it's difficult and complicated to try to convey the differences. >> have you seen children around? a lot is happening at night and they may not be there. the children are particularly vulnerable to this psychology of stress and fear. what are you seeing there? >> it is clearly something that the children of ferguson know about. i spoke with the father of a 16-year-old who saw the incident itself, and the father was addressing concern about his son. obviously michael brown's body lay on the street, on canfield avenue, for four or so hours so

a lot of people who lived in that area on a saturday which include a lot of children, saw his dead body. i think obviously that has an effect. we've seen children out at the protests, usually by the time the protests get going in a major way it's dark and most children are gone. but some stick around, some parents take their children on the marches. it is summer. and school has been canceled for the time being. >> do you have conversations with your own kids? they ask where dad is and you're covering a story like this. how much do you tell your kids about what you're seeing and what's happening there? >> my kids are 4 and 6, you know, they are named after a civil rights hero and a suffragist so we will let them know about human right struggles. right now we're pretty vague and pretty sheltering when it comes to trying to keeping youly facts

of humanity from their ears. it's the kind of thing where when i was covering the bp oil spill my wife would say things to my daughter along the lines of that i was going down to help clean up the dirty beach. we're just trying to keep them as blissfully ignorant as we can until we have to let them know and we will, but no, they don't know what's going on in ferguson and -- it's such a complicated story also. i don't know a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old can really handle it right now. >> yeah. my kids are 9, 7 and 5 and the questions they start to come, i was curious. nick, let me ask you in closing. we cover a lot of different stories. military guys are risking their lives to defend a country. doctors like dr. kent brantly in west africa, journalists tell stories i think are really important. you risk your lives as we've

seen. when you talk to your family and they ask you, nick, we're worried about you, you're risking your life to cover this story. without being too personal i guess but how do you convince them that it's the right thing to do? >> well, i'm kind of lucky i have a supportive parents and i don't have children to be concerned about. when i started about 12 years ago i worked for a newspaper to go to chechnya and they wouldn't know i had gone until i came back and my name popped up. it's harder obviously to keep some of the bare bone away when your job is to go to the worst and put that on television. they are on the whole supportive and you know, i think there's hopefully an element of trust where they realize the most important thing in all of these is coming back to tell the story so we take huge amounts of care as far as we can in terms of safety. there is also a degree where

people get used to it. my father once said when are you going to stop being target practice for taliban. i think that was his bit of humor than anything else. they are very cool about it and very relaxed. must be pretty hard for them occasionally to watch some of the stuff we put on air. >> we were worried about both of you. thanks for joining us. >> we want to shift gears a little to the remarkable recovery, i'm calling this for a long time, the recovery of both ebola patients. they were discharged this week. i'm going to tell you what's going to happen next. ♪

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>> the news has been full of grim headlines. we saw something to make us smile. two americans with ebola at one

point near death were now found to be fully recovered. at emory university hospital in atlanta where i happen to be on staff there were a lot of questions to answer, and i'll tell you it was a moment when one of the patients, dr. kent brantly, walked in. [ applause ] >> it was a day some thought might never come. a day full of lots of smiles and gratitude. >> today is a miraculous day. >> dr. kent brantly, the first time we're seeing him look like this -- vibrant, healthy. a far cry from the hooded figure who staggered into the hospital a little over three weeks ago. >> this is standard. >> this will be standard for our unite. >> one day before that arrival dr. bruce ribner showed me the protective suit he and the other staff would have to wear every time they saw brantly. today, a completely different picture. in fact, it wasn't so much what we heard as what we saw. brantly, who was in isolation a day before, now holding hands

with his wife amber. and hugging everyone of the 26-member team that he credits with saving his life. brantly moved to africa last fall with his family for a medical mission. it had nothing to do with ebola. that changed in the spring. we were in west africa as the outbreak began to heat up. >> these are tough conditions. >> brantly made the decision to fly his family home to the united states on july 20th. and then just three days later -- >> i woke up feeling under the weather. and then my life took an unexpected turn. as i was diagnosed with ebola virus disease. >> there is no way to know why he's done so well. a lot of attention was due to a story that we first reported about an experimental drug zmapp. the first of three doses given to brantly as he lay near death in liberia. never before had it been given to a human being.

what happened next was described to us as miraculous. within an hour brantly's doctors said he made a dramatic turnaround. by the next morning he was able to stand up on his own and take a shower. coincidence? or not. doctors are still being cautious. >> frankly, we do not know whether it helped them, whether it made no difference, or even if it delayed their recovery. >> brantly's colleague nancy writebol also received zmapp. at one point friends and family expected to plan a funeral. when she arrived at emory she was still unable to walk but we learn nancy is also ebola-free. >> my dear friend nancy upon her release from the hospital want immediate to share her gratitude for all of the prayers on her behalf. as she walked out of her isolation room all she could say was to god be the glory. >> you know, a lot of people

asked could they still be contagious? and i think those hugs that you see there -- no, they are not. doctors say there is a theoretical possibility of transmitting through sexual contact for several weeks but they are counciled the risk is minim minimal. there is no reason to think they can't be as healthy as ever in the future. it's interesting to note that they are now immune at least to this strain of ebola that's causing the outbreak in case they choose to go back, they would be pretty safe from possible reinfection. up next, what's really going on in your head. this is fascinating. i got a chance to chat with the host of brain games, and let me tell you, it blew my mind. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain, and improve daily physical function so moving is easier. because just one 200mg celebrex a day

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how often to you stop and think wait a minute that's not right. my mind maying playi ining tricn me. the host of brain games is going to stop by to talk about it. i am really excited to have you on the program. i watch the show. a lot of people watch the show i know. it's fascinating and before we get into some of the specifics, how did you get interested in this? >> i've always been a really curious person, i love science, technology, the human capacity to transcend boundaries. we do that with the brain, the most complicated object in the universe. at the same time, we shouldn't get cocky because the brain does have these fixed limitations. what's exciting about "brain games" we create these interactive experiments.

these participatory games that people at home can actually play along with that highlight your misperceptions of reality and i think that makes you feel a sense of humility, wonder, curiosity. people learn by doing, you know? >> it's mind blowing, literally. >> mind blowing. exactly. >> let's take a look at the couple of them. >> super. >> the idea again, the limitations of our brain, and our brain is going to take shortcuts to fill in everything. >> here stare at that dot and focus on that dot. ignore the rest of the image. keep focusing on the dot. what's happening is okay, did you notice that for a second, it looked like that picture was a colored picture? >> it did. show it again while we're talking. >> so what was happening when you're staring at the this dot we're tiring your color receptors. so they're getting fatigued and then when the actual image becomes a normal black and white image, your brain is filling in those colors.

that was never a color image. that was your brain rendering that a color image. >> put an ex-kramgs exclamation mark on that, we did nothing to that photograph. it was a black and white photograph. one more example. just take a look. >> stare at the dot again. that's tiring your color receptors. keep staring at it. it looks like a color beach and then before your very eyes, it goes black and white. it was never a color photograph. that was your brain that did that. the take away there is the reminder that what we call reality, between limited signals you get from your brain i'm sorry, from the world and your brain filling in the blank. with our eyes, we can only perceive low res 2d images. we go about the world three-2, high res, it's converting. >> filling a lot of that in. ths how we get by and we trust that. >> we tlaus very much. and we're usually pretty good at it, but what this show is meant to do is highlight the ways in

which we miss a step. >> wasn't a color picture. this is something that you guys do a lot of the show. sometimes, brain teasers. maybe you can give us a few and just explain. >> there's a great line that says to understand is to perceive pattern. tha what it means to be human. >> from an evolutionary standpoint, you wanted to recognize patterns and when something fell out of a pattern because that could be a threat. >> that's why we're so nervous all the time. overactive amygdalas in the brain always getting stressed. let me give you an example of a riddle and your brain again is looking quickly for a pattern and for completing that pattern, often erroneously. mary's mother has four daughters. april, may, june and -- >> you want to say july, that's not the answer. >> right.

>> mary's mother has four daughters, april, may, june and mary. >> that is very, very smart what you just did. you broke it down, listened to the whole question, but you know that your inclination was to answer and fill in the pattern. you heard april, may, june, well, july comes there, but what was the question? mary mother has four daughters. you go throughout your life and the world, you're filling in patterns all the time. you're making assumptions about the world very quick without looking at the whole picture. >> it's fascinating, it really is. again, this is a glimpse into the brain that many people never get to see. we just take this stuff for granted. >> completely. >> i'm a fan of yours. >> i'm a fan of yours. >> you got something you're going to do with the dollar bill? >> oh, yes. >> this is not your parting presents. this is a brain game that looks at lag, lag time in your brain's decision to perform a physical action and then telling your body to do it. this is called the bill drop. if you put your finger like this, you would think that the minute i decide to let go of the

dollar bill, you have plenty of time to clench it and not drop it, but because the lag time, i'm not going to tell you when i let go but you have to pay attention. as soon as i let go, you have to close your fingers. we could do that ten times and every time, it would go through because by the time you notice me letting go and you tell your hand go, there's always a lag time. >> thought i was faster than that. >> totally. most of us do, but that's one of those funny games. >> stay in touch. come back any time. >> such a pleasure, sanjay. >> it was a lot of fun. you can see why that show is so popular. you can catch the season finale "brain games" monday night 9:00 p.m. on the national geographic channel. up next on "sgmd," there's another part of your body that can also play tricks on you. as one headline put it, why your gut bacteria wants you to eat a cupcake. o

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ever feel like your stomach has a mind of its own? more research indicates that may be true.

this might creep you out, but even when you're eating alone, you've got company. trillions of bacteria living in your gut helping to digest food and keep your immune system in check. >> what we're finding is the gastrointestinal system may be the gateway to our health. >> all the bacterial cells in our gut outnumber human cells 10-1. in order to survive, they thrive on different nutrients. some prefer sugar, others fat. some even like the healthy stuff like fiber. in order to make sure they get the nutrients they need, all these bacteria can alter our cravings. they can change our taste receptors, help release hormones that make us hungry. they can even hijack the vagus nerve that connects our stomach to the brain, but we can also change the makeup of our gut

bacteria. we can change our cravings by changing our diet and by developing acquired tastes. so, when it comes to pizza, fries, chocolate, you really don't always want to trust your gut. that's going to wrap it up today. "new day sunday" continues right now christi paul and victor blackwell. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good morning, everyone. dwlad to have you with us. i'm christi paul at cnn headquarters in atlanta. we start with this breaking news out of california this hour. 6.1 magnitude earthquake has rocked the san francisco bay area in napa in particular. the epicenter was only six miles south of napa, 51 miles from sacramento. according to the u.s. geological survey, this is the largest quake to hit the bay area since the loma prieta earthquake in 1989. here are some pictures we're getting to. you the it in perspective, that