To celebrate Halloween. This lecture will look at tales of vampires and the undead with special reference to Central and Eastern Europe and some orthodox funeral customs used to placate and hopefully prevent their return as revenants to the wor

Studying dinosaur evolution - Video

Jan 31st, 2011 41m 34s

The study of dinosaur evolution is a growing field – thanks in part to an influx of new information from China, Argentina and other previously neglected parts of the world. New technology is also providing palaeontologists with new ways of extr

The Spirit of UCL - Video

Jan 31st, 2011 38m 12s

Professor Malcolm Grant sets the scene for the new academic year by reflecting on the challenges facing universities and how UCL is uniquely placed to engage with the major issues of our times.

Seeing the invisible: Observing the dark side of the universe - Video

Jan 31st, 2011 27m 8s

To celebrate the 400th Anniversary of the telescope and World Space Week. Dr Bridle will describe in pictures ‘gravitational lensing’, the bending of light by gravity, which is predicted by Einstein’s General Relativity. The mysterious dark com

Recession and the public health – what is the evidence?

Jan 31st, 2011 35m 2s

Can we use evidence from the social epidemiology carried out in previous times to help us predict the likely effect of the present recession on public health? Mortality in unemployed men in the 1970s and 80s was around 30% higher than average.

Why Psychiatry has to be Social - Video

Jan 31st, 2011 38m 13s

To mark World Mental Health Day – 10 October. Professor Bebbington explores the idea that psychiatry has an essentially social component because the phenomenon it seeks to explain have inherently social attributes. Psychiatric symptoms relate t

The Power of Lagerlof - Video

Jan 31st, 2011 35m 56s

Celebrating the 100-year anniversary of Selma Lagerlöf – the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature – 10 December. Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf (1858-1940) was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her novels inspir

The right to obscene thoughts - Video

Jan 31st, 2011 43m 54s

This lecture discusses how genuine freedom must include all manner of thought, including the irrational, the bad, and the obscene, and how the recent new offence of possessing extreme pornography has breached this principle.

Living buildings: Towards sustainable cities

Jan 31st, 2011 41m 18s

Dr Armstrong will discuss the potential of ‘metabolic materials’ that possess some of the properties of living systems. By generating such materials it is hoped that our cities will be able to replace the energy they draw from the environment,

The making of Johnson’s dictionary - Video

Jan 31st, 2011 41m 51s

Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language taught the British how to spell, established Shakespeare as their greatest writer and provided the first and longest lasting map of the English language in all its subtlety and variety. This l

Why the courts are as important as hospitals to the nation's health - Video

Jan 31st, 2011 31m 4s

rofessor Genn will focus on the critical ways in which courts support society and the economy and on how they have directly improved standards of medicine practice and health care. She will also discuss new evidence about the link between acces

The challenge of HIV refuses to disappear - Video

Jan 31st, 2011 43m 19s

On World Aids Day, this lecture discusses how the AIDS epidemic continues to grow despite our immense knowledge of the virus itself. Professor Pillay will examine some of the failures of the HIV vaccination programme and look at how the roll ou

The New Biology of Ageing - Video

Jan 31st, 2011 35m 4s

To mark Age Concern Week. Research into ageing has been rejuvenated by the discovery that genetic alterations extend the lifespan of laboratory animals. These mutations keep animals healthy for longer and protect them from many of the diseases

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