Despite five decades of research into the harms of smoking and numerous successful public health campaigns, many people take up and continue with the habit. Cigarette sales remain high as tobacco companies excel at marketing. In the United Stat

Stuff Matters - Audio

Apr 18th, 2013 39m 35s

Whatever people think about the rapid pace of change of technology, our most fundamental categorization of stuff on the planet has not altered: there are living things and there is non-living stuff. As a result of our greater understanding of m

Scandinavian crime fiction and the end of the welfare state - Audio

Mar 20th, 2013 41m 58s

Scandinavian crime fiction has in recent years enjoyed surprising success world-wide. The region, with its universal welfare states, is most commonly considered a very peaceful place, with low rates of corruption and crime and the highest level

Civil Engineers against the double negative - Audio

Mar 20th, 2013 39m 26s

Is a culture of infallibility holding back our engineers by celebrating the avoidance of failure rather than the achievement of success? Do we really want our engineers to live their lives by the mantra ‘Avoid failure and you too can be a succe

Genomics and Healthcare - Audio

Mar 14th, 2013 41m 23s

Greater understanding of how genetic differences influence disease susceptibility and drug response has potentially important healthcare applications. This lecture, marking Heart Awareness Month, will focus on some of the opportunities and chal

By the Donzerly Light: when our ears play tricks on us - Audio

Mar 14th, 2013 40m 5s

Almost every song lyric can be misunderstood: famously, Jimi Hendrix’s 'Kiss the Sky' is often heard as 'Kiss This Guy'. Why does this happen? While slips of the tongue are well-known, slips of the ear have received far less attention. Professo

A diet to treat ageing - Audio

Mar 1st, 2013 40m 12s

It has been known for some time that moderate dietary restriction can extend healthy lifespan in a variety of organisms. By experimenting on fruitflies, we are uncovering that only very small changes in specific nutrients are required for this

Can the Eurozone crisis be solved? - Audio

Mar 1st, 2013 41m 49s

There was plenty of scepticism among economists about the likely success of a common currency in Europe. The immediate problem is that peripheral countries have seen their public sectors incur large deficits and incautious private sectors incur

The influence of Islam on science - Audio

Feb 19th, 2013 42m 9s

In recent years, there has been much discussion of the influence of classical Arabic science on the Western scientific tradition. Yet these achievements have been variously ignored, overlooked or occasionally overstressed. This lecture discusse

Gravity and continuum - Audio

Feb 19th, 2013 41m 41s

Within theoretical physics the gravitational force is the odd one out. It is much weaker than the other forces, its mathematical formulation is different and we are struggling to understand it. In this talk Dr Boehmer will outline a new approac

Framing the digital: materialising new media - Audio

Feb 8th, 2013 42m 9s

How are artists translating or materialising digital works for gallery and physical situations? Professor Collins shows a snapshot of works coming out of the Slade and the Slade Centre for Electronic Media in Fine Art (SCEMFA) over the past dec

Where to give birth, at home or in a hospital? Does it matter? - Audio

Feb 5th, 2013 40m 29s

The last ten years have seen increasing emphasis on the importance of offering healthy women choice in where they give birth. However, to date, the evidence on the quality, safety and costs of different settings has been limited to small scale

Xtreme Everest 2 Research Expedition - Audio

Feb 5th, 2013 40m 37s

Following their successful ascent of Mount Everest in 2007, UCL’s Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment (CASE) Medicine will be returning to Everest in March 2013 to continue with their novel approach to medical research. Their wor

Science for everyone by everyone – the re-emergence of citizen science - Audio

Jan 28th, 2013 38m 50s

Public participation in scientific research is not new. Many people are involved in scientific activities in their free time, from bird watching to weather or astronomical observations. Moreover, trends in education and technology are ushering

Obama's America: The significance of the 2012 elections - Audio

Jan 28th, 2013 42m 30s

Barack Obama won a second term as US president with the support of women, the young, blue collars, African Americans and Latinos. The Republicans, in contrast, retained the support of their habitual white base that is mainly middle aged and old

Gower Street to Euston Square: A local history of the Underground - Audio

Jan 25th, 2013 40m 13s

The world’s first underground railway, the Metropolitan, steam-powered and running underneath Euston Road, opened in January 1863. The early history of underground travel in London was beset by the problems of asphyxiation, inadequate lighting,

From Bletchley Park to modern computing - the value of Twitter - Audio

Jan 23rd, 2013 34m 57s

Bletchley Park is the historic site of secret British codebreaking activities during World War II and the work carried out there by Alan Turing and others led to the birth of the modern computer. How did we get from Bletchley Park to modern sof

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