Gresham College provides outstanding educational talks and videos for the public free of charge. There are over 2,500 videos available on our website. Your support will help us to encourage people's love of learning for many years to come.
When Darwin finally published the On the Origin of Species, he tried to avoid controversy by ignoring human origins. Yet evolution was soon being attacked as the godless ‘monkey theory’.
Following the Beagle voyage, Darwin settled down to a quiet married life, relying on correspondence to gather facts. He wrote thousands of letters as he gathered facts to support his still-secret theory.
In this talk, Dr Wilkins will discuss the astrophysical origins of the chemical elements, almost all of which have an origin ranging from the big bang, to exploding white dwarfs, the collapse of massive stars, and the merger of ultra-compact objects, neutron stars.
The origin of life is one of the biggest questions in science, but until recently it was, experimentally, a question in chemistry. Now, gene sequences and a better understanding of cell growth under extreme conditions are giving insights from biology.
In celebrating 500 years since the birth of Sir Thomas Gresham, Professor Jones will examine how changes since the sixteenth century have affected the evolution of human beings.
This talk shows that the incorporation of a simple salt can lead to a flexible plastic with mechanical properties similar to oil derived plastics. Most importantly these plastics are recyclable and ultimately compostable.
Nick Lane will explore the importance of energy flow in shaping life from its very origins to the flamboyant complexity around us, and ask whether energy flow would direct evolution down a similar path on other planets.
This lecture tells a startling and unexpected story of science-communication success: the YouTube channel 'The Periodic Table of Videos,' which boasts over 130 million views in more than 200 counties. What is the secret to this educational success?
Light, particularly sunlight, has always occupied a mystical power and is commonly held to bestow good health upon recipients of its rays. Both the truth and fallacy in this will be demonstrated with science of photo-medicine from a chemist’s point of view.