Ri Science Podcast

Our exploration of the Earth's fluctuating environment is an extraordinary story of human perception and scientific endeavour, which began much earlier than you might think. This month we hear from Alice Bell as she explores climate change science's earliest steps in the 18th and 19th centuries, through the point when concern started to rise in the 1950s, right up to the modern day. You can learn more in Alice's latest book 'Our Biggest Experiment: A History of the Climate Crisis'. This talk was recorded from our theatre at the Royal Institution on 22 July 2021. Get tickets for upcoming talks: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: youtube.com/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Thumbnail image credit: Andrey Metelev via Unsplash | unsplash.com/photos/qpAOxji4dAo

Do you consider yourself a ‘thrill-seeker'? If so, you may have a variation in the DRD4 dopamine receptor gene which makes you less able to process dopamine, a neurotransmitter that's responsible for how we feel pleasure. This month we hear from thrill-engineer Brendan Walker as he explains how he designs rollercoasters to induce thrill, priming our bodies' innate responses through sounds, visual cues, virtual reality and much more. This talk was recorded from our theatre at the Royal Institution on 28 February, 2020. Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/edT9bUbKId4 Get tickets for upcoming talks: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: youtube.com/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Thumbnail image credit: Jonny Gios via Unsplash | unsplash.com/photos/ljN0zTXf7tQ

Does love at first sight exist? How does your attachment style influence how you love? This month we hear from lawyer-turned-poet and author, Laura Mucha, and artificial intelligence expert, Kate Devlin, about love and relationships. They share real love stories, explore what companies learn about you through online dating and discover what the future holds for sexual companion robots. This talk was recorded from our theatre at the Royal Institution on 14 February 2019. Website: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: youtube.com/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Thumbnail image credit: Alexandru Acea via Unsplash | unsplash.com/photos/RQgKM1h2agA

Physicist Harry Cliff explains how the Universe is made, drawing on experimental data from the Large Hadron Collider and labs around the world. We hear how the basic building blocks of matter and four fundamental forces of nature make up The Standard Model of particle physics. This talk was recorded from our theatre at the Royal Institution on the 10 August 2021. Watch the video version on YouTube: youtu.be/bzV4O85n2y8 Learn more in Harry Cliff's book, ‘How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch': geni.us/harrycliff Website: rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: youtube.com/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Thumbnail image credit: Lucas Taylor/CERN via Wikimedia Commons | cdsweb.cern.ch/record/628469

This episode is about forensic anthropology. Please be aware that due to the nature of the topic, this talk includes discussions of violence, child sexual abuse, death by suicide and mass-fatality events, which some listeners may find disturbing. This month, we hear from Sue Black, a forensic anthropologist who has led teams across the world to identify the victims and perpetrators of various conflicts and cases. Sue shares examples of her breakthrough work on real-life events, and examines how our life's history is written into our anatomy. The talk was recorded from our theatre at the Royal Institution on 22 February, 2019. Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9Jrd5kJ-vTU Website: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Thumbnail image credit: Immo Wegmann via Unsplash | https://unsplash.com/photos/5PqBCWUtYbo

The Hubble Telescope has revolutionised our understanding of the Universe. It has, among many other achievements, revealed thousands of galaxies in what seemed to be empty patches of sky and measured precisely how fast the universe is expanding. In this talk, the first American woman to walk in space, Kathryn D. Sullivan, recounts how the team of astronauts, engineers and flight controllers helped launch, rescue and maintain Hubble, the most productive observatory ever built. Her book, 'Handprints on Hubble: An Astronaut's Story of Invention' is available now. This talk was recorded from our theatre at the Royal Institution on the 6th of March, 2020. Website: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Thumbnail image credit: NASA

How does advertising influence us? This month, we hear from advertiser and behaviour expert Rory Sutherland, as he uses case studies from the world's biggest brands to show how advertising makes us act against reason. This talk was recorded from our theatre at the Royal Institution on 10 May 2019. Website: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Thumbnail image credit: Franck Michel via Flickr https://flic.kr/p/2ewNd8t

What makes up a cannabis medicinal product? How do the active ingredients work in our bodies? What conditions can it treat, and how can doctors prescribe it? We're joined by neurologist and medical cannabis expert Mike Barnes, and ‘End our Pain' campaigners, Peter Carroll and Hannah Deacon. Hannah fought to obtain cannabis oil to treat her son Alfie's epileptic seizures, and the campaign succeeded in changing UK law – as of November 2018, NHS doctors can legally prescribe cannabis. So why is it still hard for doctors to do so? Mike, Peter and Hannah discuss these issues with journalist, Susie Mesure. This talk was recorded from our theatre at the Royal Institution on 21 January 2019. Website: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

In autumn 1933, Albert Einstein found himself living alone in an isolated holiday hut in rural England. There, he toiled peacefully at mathematics while occasionally stepping out to chat with the locals and play his violin. But how had Einstein come to abandon his Berlin home and go ‘"on the run"? Andrew Robinson tells the story of how Britain became the a refuge for Einstein from rumoured assassination by Nazi agents. This talk was recorded from our theatre at the Royal Institution, on 29 October 2019. If you want to hear more like this, head over to rigb.org to sign up for our upcoming talks. Website: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

This month a panel of psychologists and sociologists discuss why conspiracy theories arise, how they can affect people's political beliefs, and how we might better communicate with the people who believe in conspiracies. Conspiracy theories have been around for a long time, but in recent years they appear more frequently in public discourse. From increasing attention to anti-vaccine misinformation, to growing communities of conspiracy theorists, like the ‘flat earth' community, who held their first large scale UK convention in 2018. Join Miriam Frankel, science editor at The Conversation, alongside Türkay Salim Nefes, Aleksandra Cichocka and Harry T Dyer. We held this event at the Ri on 24 October 2018, in partnership with independent news website, The Conversation: https://www.rigb.org/whats-on/events-2018/october/public-the-conversation-conspiracy-theories Website: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

If you see a newspaper headline with a big, bold statistic, how do you know that you can trust it? How often do false positive and false negative test results occur in medical screenings? And how do you safely bet whether or not 2 people in any room will share a birthday? This month we hear from Kit Yates about the maths of medicine, crime and the media, exploring real-world data from his book, ‘The Maths of Life and Death'. This talk was recorded from our theatre at the Royal Institution, on 21 January 2020. If you want to hear more like this, head over to our website to sign up for our upcoming livestreams. Website: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

This month, writer and former laser-physicist Kate Greene sat down for a chat with our Public Programme Producer, Lisa Derry. They talk about Kate’s experience living as second-in-command on NASA’s first simulated Mars mission, ‘HI-SEAS’. Living in an isolated geodesic dome for 4 months with her crew-mates, Kate gained incredible insight into human behaviour in tight quarters. Lisa and Kate cover food taste experiments, how human bodies cope in space, how NASA and SpaceX work together, and how the isolation that astronauts experience relates to the isolation we’ve all felt during Covid lockdowns. This conversation was recorded over Zoom on 18 February 2021, as part of our programme of livestreams. To see more like this, head to rigb.org to check out our upcoming talks. Website: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

What is the difference between sleep and rest? What activities to people actually find restful? Why is rest important? Award-winning broadcaster, author and psychology lecturer, Claudia Hammond, joins us to talk about her book 'The Art of Rest'. Drawing on results from 'The Rest Test' – the largest global study ever undertaken on the subject – Claudia explores how we can all learn to lead a more restful and balanced life. Check out our website: www.rigb.org Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

How high can we build? What are the new technologies that might see our skyscrapers go beyond anything we ever imagined? What creativity and drive is needed to push engineering forward? Structural engineer Roma Agrawal delves into the history of the materials that enable immense construction and the developments that have made our structures what they are today. All while noting the accomplishments of key visionary engineers of the past. Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

Endometriosis is as common as diabetes, yet the disease is poorly understood and not many people have heard about it before. It affects around 10% of women in their reproductive years, and can cause great pain. In this special extra podcast, Ri Digital Intern and PhD student, Madga Mareckova, sits down with her PhD supervisors, Krina Zondervan & Christian Becker. They dispel myths and discuss the symptoms, potential causes and treatments of endometriosis, whilst sharing insights into their unique collaboration as researchers and clinicians at the University of Oxford's Endometriosis Care and Research (CaRe) Centre. The thumbnail image is a fluorescently labelled cross-section of the human endometrium, photographed by Magda Mareckova.

How far are we from creating Artificial General Intelligence? Can we build a machine to perform all of the intellectual tasks that a human being can? Reports of the ever-increasing power of AI systems have never been far from the headlines, from AlphaGo to self-driving cars. However, these are examples of ‘weak’ or ‘narrow’ AI; that is, systems that excel at one particular task, be it playing a game or understanding speech. But how far are we from creating Artificial General Intelligence? Join a panel of experts for a glimpse into the future of intelligence, in association with The Conversation. Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

Why do people lie? Why has 'fake news' become such a global phenomenon in modern public discourse? Bringing together the fields of human evolution and current affairs, Richard Byrne and Evan Davis, together with comedian Rachel Wheeley, discuss whether the ability to communicate evolved to pass on facts or to deceive, why deception is so widespread in the era of 'post-truth' politics, and what we can do about it. Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

Why has engineering always been the backbone of civilisation? And why do we enjoy making things? This month, Lord Browne in conversation with Vivienne Parry, explains what engineering is, what it has done for us and how it can deliver a brighter future. Robots, our health, security, climate change as well as autonomous vehicles are discussed. Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

The ribosome is the mother of all molecules without which nothing lives. This month, the Nobel Prize winner Venki Ramakrishnan in conversation with Vivienne Parry, tells the story of the race to uncover the structure of the ribosome - a fundamental discovery that resolves an ancient mystery of life itself and could lead to the development of better antibiotics to fight the most deadly diseases. Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

Stress is our natural reaction to physical or emotional pressure, encompassing everything from too much work to being tortured. But what goes on in our bodies and minds to cause stress? And how does stress affect our memory, mood and thinking? This month, Vincent Walsh hosts an expert panel of Joe Herbert, Julie Turner Cobb, and Shane O’Mara, to explore the science of stress. Image credit: Lewis Ronald/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0 Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

We take the advance of science as given - but how does science really work? This month, Jeremy Baumberg sheds light on a cutthroat and tightly tensioned enterprise that even scientists themselves often don’t fully understand. Jeremy Baumberg is a leader in nanoscience and nanotechnology, working for much of his career at the interface between academia and industry. He has led interdisciplinary nano-centres at the Universities of Cambridge and Southampton, and developed novel devices within Hitachi, IBM, his spin-offs Mesophotonics and Base4. Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

What does the future have in store? Medicine, robotics, artificial intelligence, energy production and genetic engineering are all fields that will change our world - but how? This month, Jim Al-Khalili and a panel of experts debate the topic and predict the answers. Jim Al-Khalili OBE (https://twitter.com/jimalkhalili) is a theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster. He is the host of the Life Scientific on BBC Four and was awarded the inaugural Stephen Hawking medal for science communication. Find out from science writer Phil Ball (https://twitter.com/philipcball)about the demographics of the future. Learn about how the climate will continue to change from former Chief Scientist of the Met Office, Julia Slingo. Hear more about where genomics and genome engineering is going from biologist and broadcaster Aarathi Prasad (https://twitter.com/aarathiprasad) and discover smart materials with materials scientist Anna Ploszajski (https://twitter.com/AnnaPloszajski). Image credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

How was the code of DNA cracked? How did it confirm the theory of evolution? And why did life evolve the way it did? This month, Matthew Cobb and Nick Lane unravel the tangled story of DNA, and why life began in the first place. Nick Lane is an evolutionary biochemist in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London. His work focuses on the origin of life, and the origin and evolution of eukaryotes. He is also author of prize-winning popular science books, including 'Life ascending'. Matthew Cobb is Professor of Zoology and a senior lecturer in animal behaviour at the University of Manchester. After spending some time researching humans at the institute of psychiatry, a lot of his work now investigates insect behaviour and its evolutionary and genetic basis, particularly smell. We are on Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science and YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution

Where should humans inhabit next? The Moon? Mars? Or further beyond? This month, Apollo Astronaut Al Worden and space experts Chris Welch and Stuart Eves will will argue their case for each. Who will win your vote? Al Worden is an American astronaut and engineer who was the Command Module Pilot for the fourth lunar landing mission in 1971, Apollo 15. After his time in space, he was Senior Aerospace Scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center, and then the chief of the Systems Study Division at Ames. Chris Welch is Professor of Space Engineering at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. Chris is a Vice-President of the International Astronautical Federation, a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS), the Royal Aeronautical Society, the Royal Astronomical Society. Chris has written what he believes to be the first ever paper on the design of extraterrestrial gardens and a poem that he hopes to send to space soon. Stuart Eves is currently a technical consultant for Vaeros Ltd. He began his career working for the MOD on a variety of satellites, and from 2004 he was Lead Mission Concepts Engineer at Surrey Satellite Technology Limited. Stuart is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, a Council Member of the British Interplanetary Society, and he currently chairs the government/industry Space Information Exchange forum. Image credit: NASA Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

How can you turn failure into success? This month, journalist and table-tennis champion Matthew Syed will explain the science of success using real life stories and practical takeaways. Matthew Syed is a British journalist, broadcaster and author. He has won numerous prizes for his writing including Feature Writer of the Year at the SJA Awards and Sports Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards. He is also a three-time Commonwealth table tennis champion and a two-time Olympian. Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

Frankenstein’s creature is a classic example of a monster in popular culture. But what can fictional beings tell us about the hopes and fears of the society in which they were created? This month, Phil Ball chairs a panel of experts discussing how monsters survive in our culture, how they reflect gender and power dynamics, and what happens in our brains when we see monsters on screen. Liz Gloyn is a lecturer in Classics at Royal Holloway. Her research focuses on the intersections between Latin literature, ancient philosophy and gender studies. Evan Hayles Geldhill is currently doing a PhD at the University of Reading. Their PhD thesis examines the liminal figures of the monster and the child in the Gothic imagination, and the 'deviant subjectivities' these representations make space for in otherwise seemingly conventional genre texts. Jeremy Skipper is Director of the Language, Action, and Brain Lab (LAB Lab) at University College London. He studies the neurobiology of natural language use and oversees the Neurocinematics database. Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

First dates, police interviews, doctor-patient communication and commercial sales – they are all driven by talk. And an understanding of how talk works is crucial for success. This month, Elizabeth Stokoe explains how conversation analysis can produce a scientific understanding of talk. Rather than being messy and disorderly, talk is in fact organised systematically, and small changes in words or phrases can have a big impact on the outcome. Elizabeth Stokoe is Professor of Social Interaction at Loughborough University, analysing the science of interaction in settings including police interrogations, sales calls, and initial inquiries to services including mediation and doctors’ surgeries. https://twitter.com/LizStokoe Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

We intuitively feel that we know what we are talking about when we talk about time, but from the perspective of physics, time is far from straightforward. This month, Carlo Rovelli takes us on a journey through the philosophy, the science and the emotional experience of time. Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions to the physics of space and time. He has worked in Italy and the US, and is currently directing the quantum gravity research group of the Centre de physique théorique in Marseille, France. His books 'Seven Brief Lessons on Physics' and 'Reality Is Not What It Seems' are international bestsellers translated into forty-one languages. https://twitter.com/carlorovelli?lang=en Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

Throughout history there have been revolutions in technology, in economics, in society, in politics. Now for the first time Yuval Noah Harari argues that humanity itself is likely to undergo a radical revolution as a result of new technologies such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology and brain-computer interfaces. Dr Yuval Noah Harari has a PhD in History from the University of Oxford and now lectures at the Department of History, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, specialising in World History. 'Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind', published in 2014, was on the Sunday Times bestseller list for over six months in paperback, was a New York Times top ten bestseller and has been published in nearly 40 languages worldwide. http://www.ynharari.com/ https://twitter.com/harari_yuval Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

In 1950, Bruno Pontecorvo, one of Britain's brightest atomic physicists, disappeared without trace. He re-surfaced six years later: in the USSR. In this talk, based on unprecedented access to archives, letters, surviving family members and scientists, Frank Close exposes the truth of Pontecorvo’s life behind the Iron Curtain, and reveals why he went so suddenly. Frank Close is a particle physicist, and author. He is Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and has previously been Head of the Theoretical Physics Division at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Head of Communications and Public Education at CERN. He has written several books, including Antimatter, Neutrino and The very short introduction to particle physics. https://twitter.com/closefrank Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

'Breaking Bad' was a TV show with science at its core. With a genius chemist as its main protagonist, it explored complex themes of morality and what can cause a person to change. Chemist Dave Smith (https://twitter.com/professor_dave) and psychologist Julian Boon delve into the science behind the show, while screenwriter Paul Viragh discusses the challenge of representing science on screen. The discussion is chaired by author, presenter and 'Breaking Bad' fan Claudia Hammond (https://twitter.com/claudiahammond). Image credit: Breaking Bad scene, depicted by Tyler Curtis http://tylercurtis.deviantart.com/art/Breaking-Bad-251805283 Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

This month, three researchers explain how quantum theory is being applied to their own work in this cutting-edge field of scientific discovery. Nigel Scrutton explores proton tunnelling in enzymes, Alexandra Olaya-Castro discusses her latest research in photosynthesis and Jenny Brookes explains her work on a quantum model of olfaction. Nigel Scrutton is Professor of Molecular Enzymology at the University of Manchester and Director of the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology. His research focusses on the mechanisms, structures and exploitation of enzyme catalysts and light-activated proteins. https://twitter.com/nigel_scrutton Alexandra Olaya-Castro leads a research group on the quantum mechanics of biomolecular processes in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London. They explore the possible roles that quantum phenomena may play in biomolecular functions. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucapaol/ Jennifer Brookes is a researcher at London Centre for Nanotechnology, UCL, and carries out computer simulations on the quantum physics at work in biological processes. https://twitter.com/jcbrookes Image credit: Khopkins2010, Ubiquitin-activating enzyme bound to the ubiquitin substrate Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

Style guides set out strict rules for writing well, but how much of that grammar policing is just dogma, and how much is helpful for communication? Drawing on the latest research in linguistics and cognitive science, Steven Pinker uses reason and evidence to tell us how to communicate effectively in this talk hosted by Melvyn Bragg. Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist and one of the world’s foremost writers on language, mind, and human nature. He is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University and conducts research on language and cognition but also writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and is the author of many books, including The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works. stevenpinker.com/ Melvyn Bragg is a broadcaster, writer and novelist. He was made a Life Peer (Lord Bragg of Wigton) in 1998. Since then he has hosted over 660 episodes of In Our Time on subjects ranging from Quantum Gravity to Truth. He was presenter of the BBC radio series The Routes of English, a history of the English language. He is currently Chancellor of the University of Leeds Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

For centuries we’ve been using chemicals to improve health, but technology is set to transform the way medicine works. This month, five scientists on the cutting-edge of pharmaceutical research talk about the latest in gene therapy, cancer treatment and more. Ijeoma Uchegbu is a professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at UCL. Her research focuses on designing drugs that can cross the blood-brain barrier. She won the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Pharmaceutical Scientist of the Year Award in 2012. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pharmacy/people/professor-ijeoma-uchegbu Catherine Tuleu is a professor of Paediatric Pharmaceutics at UCL. The main focus of her research concerns drug delivery systems for neonates, infants and children. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pharmacy/people/professor-catherine-tuleu Sejal Ranmal is Director of Formulation at Intract Pharma, a science-driven licensing and product development company specialising in gastrointestinal models and state-of-the-art formulation technologies for development of advanced therapeutics. https://www.intractpharma.com/about-us Stephen Hart is a professor in Molecular Genetics at UCL. His research focuses on developing gene therapies for cardiovascular and respiratory disease, as well as cancer. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ich/research/genetics-genomic-medicine/experimental-personalised-medicine/research-groups/Prof-Stephen-Hart Wafa Al-Jamal is a reader in the School of Pharmacy at Queen's University Belfast. Currently, her research focuses on developing smart vectors for delivering a broad range of therapeutic agents, and to fabricate multifunctional nanoparticles to target cancer and other diseases. https://pure.qub.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/wafa-aljamal(d931b6ec-d950-47da-bfb2-d2a6fd7a6aa7).html Image credit: Sun dazed on Flickr at https://flickr.com/photos/8411191@N07/2277763683 Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to find yourself strapped to a giant rocket? Or to look back on the earth from outer space? Or to repair the Hubble Space Telescope? Join chair Helen Keen for an evening with astronaut Mike Massimino as he looks back on his remarkable 18-year career as a NASA astronaut. Mike Massimino spent 18 years as a NASA astronaut and flew on two shuttle missions. On both occasions he performed spacewalks outside the shuttle to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Since returning to Earth and retiring from NASA, he now works as a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University in New York. https://twitter.com/Astro_Mike Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

Memories give us a sense of who we are. But how can we be sure that what we remember is what really happened? And why is it that some unwanted memories just won’t go away? Vin Walsh is a Professor of Human Brain Research at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL. https://twitter.com/vinwalsh Julia Shaw is a memory hacker and psychological scientist at UCL. She is best known for her work in the area of false memories: memories of things that never actually happened. https://twitter.com/drjuliashaw Jennifer Wild is an Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on why people over-remember what they most wish to forget. She has a special interest in how traumatic memories are formed and how they drive symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. https://twitter.com/drjenwild Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution

This month Kate Jones tells us about the amazing technology being used to monitor wildlife worldwide and how it is helping us to learn about the fascinating world of bats. Kate Jones is Professor of Ecology and Biodiversity in the Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment (GEE) at University College London. She's on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/profkatejones Image credit: F. C. Robiller Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution

What will the world of tomorrow be like? Kelly and Zach Weinersmith give us a snapshot of the transformative technologies that are coming soon(ish), from space elevators to origami robots, and explain how they will change our world in astonishing ways — maybe for the better, maybe for the worse. Kelly Weinersmith is a Huxley Fellow at Rice University in the BioSciences Department. She studies how host behaviour influences risk of infection with parasites and cohosts Science... Sort Of, one of the top 20 natural science podcasts. Zach Weinersmith is the cartoonist behind the popular geek webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

For millennia, humans have been firmly rooted to the Earth, but haven't you ever fancied a change of scenery? This month, science writer and broadcaster Dallas Campbell talks to former Christmas Lecturer and fellow space nerd Kevin Fong about all things space travel, and Dallas’ new book: Ad astra: An illustrated guide to leaving the planet. Dallas Campbell is an actor, author and TV presenter, and has always been fascinated by space. He was also an understudy for the 2014 CHRISTMAS LECTURES: How to hack your home, and appeared via hologram in the final show. Kevin Fong is an anaesthesiologist and space medicine expert. He presented the 2015 CHRISTMAS LECTURES: How to Survive in Space and regularly presents documentaries for Horizon and the BBC World Service.

2018 marks 200 years since the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a book that is just as relevant now as it was in 1818. Today, Shelley's creature lives on, as an embodiment of society's anxieties about where science is taking us. In this episode, Philip Ball is joined by Miranda Seymour, Frank James and Angela Wright to discuss the context in which the book was written and how the tale has become a popular myth with a life of its own, independent of Shelley's original text. Philip Ball is a science writer, writing regularly for Nature and having contributed to publications ranging from New Scientist to the New York Times. Miranda Seymour is a leading biographer and critic whose definitive life of Mary Shelley (2000) examined the sources of Frankenstein in depth. She has also written an introduction to the Folio Frankenstein (2015). Frank James is Professor of the History of Science and Head of Collections at the Royal Institution. His main research has been editing the Correspondence of Michael Faraday which is now complete in six volumes. Angela Wright is Professor of Romantic Literature in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. She is a former co-President of the International Gothic Association (2013-17).

Australian author and presenter Dr Karl Kruszelnicki gives a whirlwind tour of incredible science facts and questions. Like who put a nuclear reactor in africa 2 billion years ago? And is there life on a moon of Saturn? Dr Karl Kruszelnicki is an Australian science populariser with degrees in Physics and Maths, Biomedical Engineering, Medicine and Surgery. He has held a wide range of jobs, from doctor to film-maker, radio personality to labourer, car mechanic to physicist.

Our sense of reward motivates us and is essential for survival, so when the system malfunctions, it can lead to big problems. This month, Ray Dolan, Wolfram Schultz and Peter Dayan, winners of the 2017 Lundbeck Foundation Brain Prize, discuss their ground-breaking work on how the brain recognises and processes reward with Claudia Hammond.

An estimated 700,000 people in Britain are affected by autism. In this Discourse, Dame Stephanie Shirley shares her hands-on experience of the disorder. Dame Stephanie Shirley is an information technology pioneer and philanthropist. Her charitable organisation, The Shirley Foundation, facilitates scientific research aimed at understanding what autism is as opposed to what it looks like.

Aoife McLysaght explores the evolution of new genes, how they sometimes become essential, and the link between new genes and disease including cancer. Aoife's lecture was given as the 2016 JBS Haldane Lecture from the Genetics Society. Aoife McLysaght is a geneticist at Trinity College Dublin. She specialises in the the origin and evolution of new genetic sequences and was the first to discover a set of genes that only occur in humans. She has appeared on TV to discuss her work and is a regular contributor to radio shows on BBC Radio 4 and columns in the Irish Times.

Greg Foot leads a scientific exploration to the top of the tallest mountain and bottom of the deepest ocean, accompanied by mountaineer medic Dan Martin and oceanographer explorer Leigh Marsh. Hear more from Greg Foot on his podcast, The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread: http://gregfoot.com/slicedbreadpod/ Watch the incredible Nautilus explorations live: http://www.nautiluslive.org/ Find out more about Extreme Everest: https://www.xtreme-everest.co.uk/ Greg Foot is a science presenter and a regular contributor for Blue Peter. He is fascinated by exploration in extreme environments and has been to both Everest Base Camp and in submersibles 300m deep. Dan Martin is a mountaineer, medic and the director of the UCL Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine. In 2007 he summited Everest and measured the lowest blood oxygen level of any living healthy human (his own!). Leigh Marsh is the lead communications officer for technology at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton. Her remit includes communicating the development and operations of all of the NOC's robotic and autonomous vehicles for scientific exploration of the deep ocean. She is also a visiting research fellow with the University of Southampton.

Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith explains what epigenetics is and how our environment interacts with our genome and if these changes can be passed on to the next generation. What is epigenetic inheritance and why is it important? And why would it matter which parent you inherited a particular gene from? Epigeneticist Anne Ferguson-Smith outlines the implications of parental origin for development, metabolism and the brain. Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith is Head of the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge. She is a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator and her lab focuses on the developmental role of imprinted genes and the epigenetic mechanisms controlling the specific expression of genes depending on their parental origins. Thumbnail image credit: eLife Sciences Publications Ltd, CC BY 4.0

Steve Jones chronicles the remarkable scientific advances made during the French Revolution and ambles through the history of modern science and current research. Paris at the time of the French Revolution was the world capital of science. In this dazzling new insight into the City of Light, Steve Jones takes a sideways look at its history, its revolutionary science and the scholars who laid the foundations, in the age of the guillotine. Steve Jones is professor of genetics at Galton laboratory of University College London, where most of his academic research has been looking at snails and what they can tell us about population genetics. Steve Jones is well known as a regular broadcaster and writer of popular science books, including The Language of the Genes, In the Blood and Y: The Descent of Man. He gave the 1991 Reith Lecture, has written, presented and appeared on TV and radio shows.

In a lightning tour of human reasoning, world-renowned psychologist Richard Nisbett shines a new light on the shadowy world of the way we think – and how we can make our lives, and the lives of those around us, better. Subscribe to the podcast via your podcasting app for free: Just search 'Ri Science Podcast'. Richard Nisbett is Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. "The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world." –Malcolm Gladwell

Have new brain imaging techniques really revealed that women and men are ‘hardwired’ for their gender roles? Or has neuroscience become misappropriated to justify gender gaps? Professor of cognitive neuroimaging Gina Rippon investigates. *Subscribe to the podcast for free by searching 'Ri Science Podcast' in your app of choice* There is a long history of debate about biological sex differences and their part in determining gender roles, with the ‘biology is destiny’ mantra being used to legitimise imbalances in these roles. The tradition is continuing, with new brain imaging techniques being hailed as sources of evidence of the ‘essential’ differences between men and women, and the concept of ‘hardwiring’ sneaking into popular parlance as a brain-based explanation for all kinds of gender gaps. But the field is littered with many problems. Some are the product of ill-informed popular science writing (neurotrash) based on the misunderstanding or misrepresentation of what brain imaging can tell us. Some, unfortunately involve poor science, with scientists using outdated and disproved stereotypes to design and interpret their research (neurosexism). These problems obscure or ignore the ‘neuronews’, the breakthroughs in our understanding of how plastic and permeable our brains are, and how the concept of ‘hard-wiring’ should be condemned to the dustbin of neurohistory. This talk aims to offer ways of rooting out the neurotrash, stamping out the neurosexism and making way for neuronews. Gina Rippon is Professor of Cognitive Neuroimaging at Aston University. Her research involves the application of brain imaging techniques, particularly electroencephalography, (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG), to studies of normal and abnormal cognitive processes. Recorded at the Royal Institution on 20 January 2016. Find out what's on here: http://www.rigb.org/whats-on

Neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis makes the case that addiction isn't a disease at all, although it has been recently branded as such. In recent decades doctors have branded addiction a brain disease, and treated it as such. But in this riveting and provocative talk, neuroscientist and former addict Marc Lewis makes the convincing case that addiction isn’t a disease at all. Using personal stories and robust science, he explains how addiction really impacts our brains, and how neuroplasticity and a developmental approach to treatment can help to overcome it. Marc Lewis is a neuroscientist and professor of developmental psychology, recently at the University of Toronto, where he taught and conducted research from 1989 to 2010, and presently at Radboud University in the Netherlands. He is the author or co-author of over 50 journal publications in psychology and neuroscience, editor of an academic book on developmental psychology, and co-author of a book for parents. More recently he has written two books concerning addiction.

Sheila Rowan explains the nature of gravitational waves, where they come from, how we detected them, and what the future of this new era in astronomy might look like. A century ago, Albert Einstein realised that in his new model for space and time in our Universe (his 'General Theory of Relativity'), space could be stretching and squashing in response to the motion of objects. These ripples in space-time - 'Gravitational waves' - are produced by some of the most energetic and dramatic phenomena in our universe, including black holes, neutron stars and supernovae. Close to 100 years after the prediction of the existence of gravitational waves, the advanced detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) recently detected such signals for the first time, starting a new era in astronomy. Sheila Rowan explains the nature of gravitational waves, describes what sources out in the Universe can produce them, explains how they are detected and what the future of this new era in astronomy might look like. Sheila Rowan is a professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at University of Glasgow. Her research focusses on gravitational wave detection on the ground and in space. Her programme currently includes studies of ultra sensitive mechanical systems; investigation of materials of ultra-low mechanical loss and construction of mechanically-stable optical systems for interferometric applications. You can subscribe to our podcast by searching Ri Science Podcast in your podcasting app of choice, for free.