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Investing in Nature

The nature of investment is changing to better reflect the ecosystem of the planet we live on. The days of fossil fuel are numbered by the move to renewable energy. Resources and a healthy environment are finally being seen as core to our future.

Artificial Intelligence and Humour

Could AI replace stand-up comedians and scriptwriters? This may not be an impossible dream if you accept that nothing we do is forever beyond the scope of computer modelling.

A Just and Rights-Based Framework for Nature

International negotiations concerning our environment such as on climate and biodiversity, often put the scientific case behind economic and political interests, with potentially disastrous consequences. What does that mean for human prosperity and even survival?

Space Sounds: The Music of the Cosmos

Space today is terrifyingly silent. But it wasn’t always thus: the early universe was filled with a hot plasma in which sound waves could travel. The cosmos was quivering with the aftershocks of the Big Bang.

Networks: The Internet and Beyond

Networks were seen as a rather arcane and dull area in computer science. Then along came the internet, and everything changed for ever.

BBC Radio in the Digital Era (1982–)

On 17 August 1982, the first commercial CD was released. Digital recording and editing have changed the face of music by making recordings easy to originate and share. But has this affected musical quality, and what are the financial and artistic consequences?

Cyber War Crimes

Cyberwar is not waged on physical battlefields following rules of engagement. Aggressors worry less about collateral damage, in part because they aren’t forced to confront the sight of an enemy bleeding to death before their eyes.

Russian Piano Masterpieces: Prokofiev

Prokofiev’s piano music struck his contemporaries as matching the new era: its dynamism was compared to sport (“football music”), and its grinding repeated patterns to industrial sounds (“machine music”).

Darwin‘s Troubled Legacy

Darwin’s Descent of Man was dominated by the theory of sexual selection, which Darwin used to explain peacock’s tails, but also to argue that white people were as superior to black ones as men were to women.

Computers: A History

Even the most humdrum of electrical devices nowadays contains at least one computer; yet surprisingly few people are aware of their history, their form or function. In this talk we will see that not only is the history of computers rich and diverse, their architecture likewise.

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