Royal Institution Christmas Lectures(1966–)

Beware!

Royal Institution of Great Britain Christmas Lectures 1973: The Languages of Animals

Be mine

Royal Institution of Great Britain Christmas Lectures 1973: The Languages of Animals

Parents and Children

Royal Institution of Great Britain Christmas Lectures 1973: The Languages of Animals

Simple Signs and Complicated Communications

The fourth lecture in the series, 'Simple Signs and Complicated Communications', is considered lost, as there is no known copy of it. If you do have a copy of the recording, the Royal Institution would love it if you got in touch at xmaslectures@ri.ac.uk to help us make all our CHRISTMAS LECTURES available for future generations.

Foreign Languages

Royal Institution of Great Britain Christmas Lectures 1973: The Languages of Animals

The Earth as a Planet

The Outer Solar System and Life

The History of Mars

Mars before Viking

Mars after Viking

Linking and Knotting

The Royal Institution of Great Britain Christmas Lectures 1978: Mathematics into Pictures

Numbers and Geometry

The Royal Institution of Great Britain Christmas Lectures 1978: Mathematics into Pictures

Infinity and Perspective

The Royal Institution of Great Britain Christmas Lectures 1978: Mathematics into Pictures

Games and Evolution

The Royal Institution of Great Britain Christmas Lectures 1978: Mathematics into Pictures

Waves and Music

The Royal Institution of Great Britain Christmas Lectures 1978: Mathematics into Pictures

The Cosmic Onion Lecture 1

The Cosmic Onion Lecture 2

The Cosmic Onion Lecture 3

The Cosmic Onion Lecture 4

The History in our Bones

The History in our Bones

The History in our Bones

The History in our Bones - Innovations And Novelty

Waking Up in the Universe

Dawkins discusses the amazing capabilities of the human body and contrasts these with the limited capabilities of computers and other man-made machines. He uses a small totem pole (which is used in ancestor worship) to illustrate the importance of studying our ancestors to understand how we've evolved.

Designed and Designoid Objects

Dawkins' second lecture of the series examines the problem of design. He presents the audience with a number of simple objects, such as rocks and crystals, and notes that these objects have been formed by simple laws of physics and are therefore not designed. He then examines some designed objects - including a microscope, an electronic calculator, a pocket watch, and a clay pot - and notes that none of these objects could have possibly come about by sheer luck.

Climbing Mount Improbable

Dawkins starts the lecture coming in with a stick insect on his hand. He describes with how much details such a being imitates its environment, its almost like a key that fits a lock. He then shows another insect, namely a Leaf Insect, which basically looks exactly like a dead leaf.

The Ultraviolet Garden

Dawkins begins by relating the story of asking a little girl "what she thought flowers were 'for'." Her response is anthropocentric, that flowers are there for our benefit. Dawkins points out that many people throughout history have thought that the natural world existed for our benefit, with examples from Genesis and other literature.

Sense and Sensitivity

In the first of her lectures, Nancy Rothwell reveals how we are endowed with a multitude of sensors that help us regulate our bodies. This process of regulation – known as 'homeostasis' – is sensitive to even the slightest change in our environment. How we respond to these changes determines how well we fare in different situations. Nancy puts her own blood under the microscope to show the cells keeping her body in balance. Plus, Olympic champion Chris Boardman gets back on a bike to demonstrate the effect of exercise on our brain and blood.

Fats and Figures

In her second lecture, Nancy Rothwell explores how much energy is in the different foods we eat, and what happens to our body weight when we eat it. Different people need to eat different amounts of food, and each of us burns energy at different rates. The human body expends energy even when we’re sitting still, keeping warm. So how do we know how much energy we require?

Chilling Out

In the third of her Christmas Lectures, Nancy Rothwell reveals how humans and animals alike have evolved to keep their body temperatures constant, even when the temperature of their habitats is changing. After journeying down to the chilly depths of the ocean to tell us how sharks keep warm, Nancy returns to the warm climes of the Arabian desert to explain why some Bedouins still wear dark robes despite knowing that black absorbs more heat than white.

Times of Our Lives

In her fourth lecture, Nancy Rothwell explores how our bodies and those of animals are trained by sunlight. From summer to winter, and land to ocean, Nancy explores nature's most unique examples of timing, including why Cicadas emerge from the nest after exactly 17 years, and how the Iguana can tell whether it’s daytime even with its eyes shut.

Planet Earth, An Explorers Guide

Planet Earth, An Explorers Guide

Planet Earth, An Explorers Guide

Planet Earth, An Explorers Guide

The Ape That Cooks

What did you have for your Christmas dinner? The traditional turkey? A vegetarian meal? And how did the turkey tradition start? What did people have for Christmas dinner 500 years ago? Just how is your Christmas meal turned into you? John takes us on a journey through time from our earliest ancestors, on the way exploring how scientists have come to understand the diets of our fossil ancestors from studying their teeth and bones and how differences in food habits among populations and cultures have arisen.

Yuck or Yummy?

What is your favourite food? What are the things you wouldn't touch with a barge pole? Food may be fuel, but it's also something we really enjoy - unless it's one of those foods you can't stand. What is it about some food that makes it irresistible, while other food is a real turn off? In 'Yuck or yummy' we explore the sensory world of food. How do taste, appearance, texture, smell and even the name of the food affect our enjoyment? What goes on in the brain when we enjoy, or are revolted by particular foods? We ask whether or not we are programmed by our evolutionary past to like some foods more than others and how our own experiences early on might affect our preferences for life. One person's pleasure in food may be another's disgust. How do individual differences arise?

You Are What You Eat

Our bodies are made from the food we have eaten during our lifetime. To survive and grow we need to eat enough of each of the essential building blocks of the human body. How did scientists discover the right mix of nutrients and how does what we eat match up? Is it true that eating fish makes you brainier, carrots help you see in the dark and spinach will make you stronger? John takes us through the maze of diet and health. We uncover the truth behind the claims for different kinds of foods, including organic food, and ask whether we instinctively tend to choose the balance of nutrients our bodies need.

When Food Goes Wrong

We uncover the hidden and not so hidden dangers that might lurk in our food and explode some of the myths that surround these risks. Are you or any of your friends allergic to one kind of food or another? Perhaps as many as one in ten children has a food allergy and allergies can sometimes kill. What happens when people react to food with an allergy? Why is food allergy apparently on the increase? Have you ever suffered a bout of food poisoning? We take a look at that two-month old piece of cheese you find at the back of the fridge. It's covered in blue mould. It may look unappetising but is it dangerous?

The Curious Incident of the Never-ending Numbers

The secret life of numbers has fascinated people ever since humans learned to count. Join Marcus as he investigates where our numbers came from and where they are going, how big they can get and whether infinity is really a number. Explore the mysterious primes, the indivisible numbers. Just why did Beckham choose the number 23 shirt? And why do sunflowers have 89 petals? Find out how to try for the $1 million prize for cracking mathematics' biggest mystery.

The Story of the Elusive Shapes

Ever wondered why bubbles are always round even if you blow them with a square frame? Or why footballs are made out of pentagons and hexagons? Take a tour through the mathematical and cultural world of shapes - from pyramids in Egypt to the domes of Italy, and from the shape of good dice to the smell of symmetry. We'll even take a trip into hyperspace and reveal how to see in four dimensions.

The Secret of the Winning Streak

Place your bets as we use maths to win at games. Logic is an important part of playing games and mathematics can help you plan the best strategy to win. Explore why some games are won or lost on the first move, how lateral thinking unlocks fiendish brainteasers, and why the economy, the law courts and even human relationships are one big game.

The Case of the Uncrackable Code

From the Caesar Cipher to the Da Vinci Code, people have been fascinated by secret messages. The mathematics of codes lets us to do everything from photographing the surface of Mars to shopping securely on eBay. Find out how prime numbers are now the key to codes which protect credit cards from internet hackers, and how, in the digital age, i-pods and digital TV are just a load of 0s and 1s.

Breaking the Speed Limit

Professor Bishop goes on a fascinating exploration of the extraordinary world of the silicon chip and attempts to answer the plethora of questions associated with this technology. How is it possible to build a machine as complex as this with a billion tiny components packed into a space the size of a postage stamp? What are the challenges that are making it harder to continue the incredible improvement in speed, and what ideas are being explored to overcome them? Can new kinds of computers be built that are based on individual molecules? Can single electrons be used to store information? Could computation machines exist without consuming energy?

Chips with Everything

In this lecture, Professor Bishop reveals state-of the-art advancements in computer interaction, including new touch-screen technology. Surface computing allows people to manipulate documents just as they would pieces of paper on a table. Users are able to perform a host of functions, including organising and resizing photos, poring over maps and making selections from takeaway menus. The interface is capable of processing the requests of multiple users. Professor Bishop also demonstrates 3D displays and flexible screens that can be rolled up when they are not being used.

The Ghost In The Machine

Computers are the most versatile machines ever invented, and the same piece of hardware can be used for thousands of different purposes. They can create virtual worlds with extraordinary realism, play chess better than almost any human, and even isolate a person’s position to within a few metres anywhere on the planet. What makes this possible is something that cannot be seen, felt or touched, but without it the digital revolution would never have happened. Professor Bishop investigates the software that brings a machine to life, and turns it into a phone, a music player, a game, or any number of other devices – including ones not even imagined by the creator of the hardware.

Untangling the Web

In this lecture, Chris Bishop untangles some of the mysteries of the web. He reveals one of the most surprising results in computer science, and shows how it is used to make web pages secure. He also studies the different ways of scrambling information to stop eavesdroppers from reading it, and explains how quantum physics can provide a secret means of transmitting data over the internet.

Peak Performance

Dr Montgomery examines the theme of respiration. Just like racing car engines, humans use oxygen to burn fuels and release the energy that powers each function in every cell. So how do we get the oxygen from the air to the cell, and what happens when oxygen levels in the air are dramatically reduced?

Completely Stuffed

Tonight’s lecture examines how food is processed and used by our cells. The food we eat contains the fuel we need to power our bodies. But what are these fuels? How do we get them from our dinner plates to our cells? And what other things are there in the food apart from fuel? Dr Montgomery explains what happens to the fuel and oxygen in a cell, describing how food is converted into an energy currency to be spent in different ways around the body.

Grilled and Chilled

How the body copes with extremes of temperature. Humans live in some extraordinary places, from the middle of the Sahara desert to the frozen wastelands of Alaska. Take a snake to the North Pole, and it will stop moving in minutes; take a cat to the desert and it will be dead in hours. So how can some humans survive such extremes, and could anyone?

Fight, Flight and Fright

The focus of tonight’s presentation is stress and exertion. When faced with a threat like the approach of a predator, a human’s natural response is to turn and flee. Yet a soldier facing enemy guns can choose to stand and fight. Such a decision and the subsequent physical work required involves burning a huge amount of energy. So how does the body deliver such a large amount of energy so rapidly? What happens to the heart, lungs and blood vessels used to transport the energy, and how is it used once it is delivered?

Why Elephants Can't Dance

How can a hamster survive falling from the top of a skyscraper, ants carry over 100 times their own body weight and geckos climb across the ceiling? In the first of this year's Christmas lectures, Dr Mark Miodownik investigates why size matters in animal behaviour. He reveals how the science of materials - the stuff from which everything is made - can explain some of the most extraordinary and surprising feats in the animal kingdom. By the end, you will understand why you will never see an elephant dance.

Why Chocolate Melts and Jet Engines Don't

Dr Mark Miodownik zooms into the microscopic world beneath our fingertips. In this unfamiliar landscape, strange forces dominate the world and common sense goes out of the window. He reveals how this tiny hidden world can make objects behave like magic, and discovers the secrets of the extraordinary metals that make jet engines possible. With a mass audience taste test, Mark reveals why chocolate is actually one of the most sophisticated and highly engineered materials on the planet, using special crystals designed to melt in the mouth. He looks forward to new era of self-healing materials where a broken mobile phone or car bumper could heal itself and how, one day, material scientists might even create artificial life.

Lift Off!

In the first lecture, Kevin explores and probes second by second what it takes to 'lift off' into space. With Tim only days into his six-month mission, he helps Kevin answer what keeps astronauts safe and on track as they are propelled into orbit. How do you control the energy of 300 tonnes of liquid fuel? What happens to your body if you don't wear a spacesuit? And how do you catch up with a space station travelling at 17,500 mph to finally get inside? With explosive live experiments, guest astronauts in the lecture theatre, and planetary scientist Monica Grady direct from the launch pad in Kazakhstan, we learn all this and more as those thrilling minutes of lift off are recreated.

Life in Orbit

In the second lecture, Kevin explores life in orbit on board the International Space Station. As Tim settles in to his new home he sends special reports about what it takes to live and work in space. Four hundred kilometres above the Earth, hurtling at a speed of 17,500mph, astronauts' bones and muscles waste away, the oxygen they breathe is artificially made, and they face constant threats from micrometeorites, radiation and extreme temperatures. If a medical emergency strikes, Tim is a very long way from home. In its 15-year lifetime, the International Space Station has never had a major accident. With a British astronaut in orbit, gravity-defying experiments and guest astronauts in the lecture theatre, Dr Fong shows us how to survive life in orbit.

Where Do I Come From?

One of the greatest conundrums of life is how we emerge from a single cell into a walking, talking, multi-trillion-celled organism that we call the human body. In the first of this year's Christmas Lectures, Dr Alison Woollard from the University of Oxford reveals just how this incredible transformation takes place. Using dramatic live experiments she shows how each of those trillions of cells knows what to do, when to do it and how to organise themselves to carry out vital specialist roles in our body.

Am I a Mutant?

In the second of this year's Christmas Lectures, Dr Alison Woollard from the University of Oxford unravels this mystery of life. She reveals that the extraordinary diversity has all come about by genetic mutation. Life revolves around the survival of the fittest mutant.

Destination Moon

Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock begins her search for extraterrestrial life with an exploration of our nearest neighbour, and her favourite space rock, the moon.

Searching the Solar System

Space scientist Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock continues her search for alien life with a grand tour of our solar system. Could any other planets or moons out there be habitable?

Ice People

Ice Life

What's in Your Head?

Bruce Hood measures the brain's nerve cells in action, reads someone's mind from 100 miles away, and reveals how the brain creates its own version of reality.

Who's in Charge Here Anyway?

Professor Bruce Hood tests the limits of the memory, finding out how humans learn, how the brain takes shortcuts and why multitasking can be dangerous.

How to Build an Intelligent Machine

Professor Mike Wooldridge explores the nature of artificial intelligence. By using experiments and demonstrations, he investigates how AI learns and what it can do.

My AI Life

Professor Mike Wooldridge reveals the huge role AI already plays in our daily lives, sometimes without us even realising what it is doing.

The Light Bulb Moment

Inspired by fellow Geordie inventor Joseph Swan, Prof Danielle George attempts to play a computer game on the windows of a skyscraper using hundreds of light bulbs. When Joseph Swan demonstrated the first working light bulb in 1878 he could never have dreamed that in 2014 we’d be surrounded by super-bright LED screens and lights that could be controlled using mobile phones. In this lecture, Danielle will explain how these technologies work and show how they can be adapted to help you realise your own light bulb moments. She’ll show you how to send wireless messages using a barbeque, control a firework display with your laptop and use a torch to browse the internet.

Engine Earth

Professor Chris Jackson reveals how, for billions of years, volcanic activity drove climate change on planet Earth. Now, it is humans.

Water World

Dr Helen Czerski explains why the ocean is so vital to life on earth and what we need to know to be good citizens of our ocean planet.

How to Get Lucky

Dr Hannah Fry, through a host of live experiments, uncovers the secrets of luck to discover what really controls our destiny, from dodging erupting volcanoes to pulling Christmas crackers.

How to Bend the Rules

Dr Hannah Fry reveals how data-gobbling algorithms have taken over our lives and now control almost everything we do, without us even realising.

Where Do I Come From?

Professor Alice Roberts meets our ancient ancestral family, from armadillos to sharks, and discovers our true place in the tree of life. With 4D scanning, giant origami and a ukulele, they will explore evolution like never before.

What Makes Me Human?

Professor Alice Roberts explores the story of human evolution, revealing how a humble African ape became a successful global species.

From Taste Buds to Toilet

Dr Chris van Tulleken follows the extraordinary journey food takes through our bodies – from the very first moment we see and smell a potential meal... until it finally emerges at the other end of our digestive tract. Be prepared for plenty of gross moments in this one-hour lecture!

How Food Makes Us

In this lecture, Dr Chris van Tulleken investigates how we get energy from our food and how what we eat makes us who we are. He reveals how combustion engines get their energy in a series of controlled explosions – which he demonstrates using a kitchen cupboard of different foods. As the bangs get bigger, it becomes clear that our bodies can’t get their energy in the same way. Luckily, Chris shows us our bodies are much cleverer than even the most advanced engine.

Blast Off

Mission to Mars

Planet Patrol

Collision Course

Anybody Out There?

Say It with Sound

Prof Sophie Scott uses hissing cockroaches, chirping crickets and rumbling elephants to explore how humans and animals have evolved to use sound to send messages.

Silent Messages

Professor Sophie Scott explores the world of silent communication, investigating why smells and body language can say so much.

Plant Wars

In this years Royal Institution Christmas Lectures ecologist Professor Sue Hartley - only the fourth woman to present the lectures since they began in 1825 - shows how the epic 300-million-year war between plants and animals has shaped us and the world we live in. Plants may seem harmless, but Professor Hartley reveals that the opposite is the case: they've had to develop terrifying and devious ways to defend themselves and attack their plant and animal enemies. Vicious poisons, lethal materials and even cunning forms of communicating with unlikely allies are just some of the weapons in their armoury that have seen off everything from dinosaurs to caterpillars. And Professor Hartley demonstrates how humans have turned plants into food, medicines and drugs and reveals what is likely to happen next in the epic struggle between plants and animals. In this first lecture Professor Hartley reveals how, despite animals attempts to destroy plants by eating them, plants are winning the war.

The Animals Strike Back

Ecologist Professor Sue Hartley continues to show how the epic 300-million-year war between plants and animals has shaped us and the world we live in. The life of a herbivore is not a happy one. For a start, plants are the wrong sort of food for animals: they are low in essential nutrients and getting any of those nutrients in the face of flora defences is even harder. In this programme, Professor Hartley reveals the many different ways plant-eating animals, from sloths to aphids, have evolved to overcome these problems. Herbivores use all sorts of tricks: they employ "friendly" bacteria in their gut to extract as many nutrients as possible from indigestible plants. They also have continuously growing teeth to grind down tough plants like grasses. Professor Hartley also reveals some of the many ways herbivores cope with plant poisons, and that some herbivores even steal plants' poisons to use in their own defence against their predators

Talking Trees

Can a plant, something without a mouth, ears or eyes, communicate? Yes! Plants do communicate but not in ways that are obvious to humans. Instead of barking or shrieking when they are attacked, they release chemical ‘signals' into the air which can be detected by other plants. But these physical and chemical defences cost energy that could be used to grow instead of being used for protection. Do they protect themselves, or grow?

Dangerous to Delicious

Lunch anyone? Human agriculture has usually tried to disarm plant defences and increase plant nutrient content. Our domestic varieties of wheat and cabbage now look, and taste, very different to their wild relatives. White carrots anyone? We cook, cure, freeze and otherwise process plants until they become edible and more nutritious. We grow them to epic proportions. And now, using the latest scientific research, we have the opportunity to grow them more efficiently and perhaps more healthily using genetic modification.

Air: The Elixir of Life

The medieval alchemists made elements react to create magnificent shows, enthralling kings and commoners alike, but their secrets were never revealed until now. In the first of this year's Christmas Lectures, Dr Peter Wothers explores what the alchemists knew about the air we breathe and reveals how our modern knowledge of these elements can be used to control fire, defy gravity and harness the power of a lightning storm. Peter is joined by the cast of the musical Loserville and is helped in his exploration of the 118 modern elements by a periodic table made from audience members at the Royal Institution.

Water: The Fountain of Youth

Medieval alchemists wrote of a mysterious fountain of youth, whose waters could rejuvenate anyone who drank them. But can water really be magical? In the second of this year's Christmas Lectures, Dr Peter Wothers drinks from the fountain and finds out whether the elements lurking in the water can restore his youth. Along the way he discovers how exploding balloons could solve the energy crisis, how water contains the remains of the most violent reactions on Earth and that the real secret to eternal youth might be drinking no water at all. Peter is joined in his quest by Paralympic champion cyclist Mark Colbourne and finds out what happens when the two most reactive elements on the periodic table, caesium and fluorine, meet each other.

The Invisible Enemy

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam is joined by leading experts to explore viruses, the immune system and modern testing technology.

The Perfect Storm

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam is joined by leading experts to reveal the secrets of contagion and the mathematics of disease.

Let There Be Light!

Saiful Islam talks about how to generate and store energy. To begin, Saiful investigates how to generate energy without destroying the planet in the process.

People Power

Saiful Islam investigates how humans as living machines actually use energy, asking whether it's possible to 'supercharge' the human body and increase its performance.

Dead Body

Professor Sue Black is joined by Emilia Fox and forensic scientists to unlock the mysterious death of a skeleton.

Missing Body

Professor Sue Black investigates a Christmas murder mystery with leading police experts, forensic scientists and an award-winning dog.