From Waste to Wealth Using Green Chemistry
The world faces the fundamental problems of increasing waste and decreasing resources as it tries to cope with the increasing consumption of a growing population. It is clear that these challenges can only be met through a fundamentally different a....
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A Greenhouse-Gas Experiment
A medicine cabinet in your garden?
Professor Monique Simmonds talks about the use of plants and fungi as sources of sustainably harvested medicines
More details | Watch nowA nano-sized gas sensor 6
Sensotran are the industrial partner in the nano2hybrids project. A small family firm based just outside Barcelona in Spain, they are experts in commercial production of gas sensors for a range of industries, notably for detecting dangerous gases pro....
More details | Watch nowAfrica’s future: do water issues matter?
What will happen in Africa as water demand increases? Robert Dewar is the recently retired UK High Commissioner to Nigeria and former Ambassador to Ethiopia. Robert drew on his considerable experience of working and living in ....
More details | Watch nowAncient tsunamis
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was not the first of its kind, according to research in Nature. Two groups of scientists have found sedimentary evidence for possible predecessors to the 2004 event in...
More details | Watch nowAnti-Body Coated Magnetic Nanoparticles
Philip Shlenoff, recent high school graduate, gives a presentation of his work and opportunity at the Florida State University Dept. of Chemistry. Under the supervision of Zaki Estephan, Philip has actively participated in research that targets canc....
More details | Watch nowBehaving badly
Are environment, or genetics, more to blame when a human being turns to a life of crime? What does it mean to be criminally insane? And how effectively can a criminal tendency be treated with drugs? What different lights can literature and science sh....
More details | Watch nowBiological Evolution in the Context of Cosmic Evolution and of Cultural Evolution
After reconsidering the very long time periods in cosmic evolution, we will focus our attention to the evolutionary development of living organisms on our planet Earth. The genetic variants (mutations), which are occasionally produced, are alteratio....
More details | Watch nowC60+ in space – a 28-year detective story about the Diffuse Interstellar Bands – Part 1
John Maier, Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Basel, describes the journey from the prediction of C60+ in 1987, through tentative assignment of its electronic spectrum by Radioastronomy, measurement in a neon-matrix and finally, in....
More details | Watch nowCanoeing in the Arctic, a Scientist’s Perspective
As scientists, our livelihoods are supported by teaching and research, but we also have the opportunity to make observations beyond our usual confines and share these with non-scientific citizens. Growing up in my native state of Minnesota, I have al....
More details | Watch nowCatalysis at Surfaces: From Atoms to Complexity
Catalysis by solid surfaces is, among others, of importance for the chemical industry (e.g. the Haber-Bosch process) as well as for environmental chemistry (car exhaust catalyst). Surface physical techniques enable investigation of the underlying e....
More details | Watch nowChemistry: A Key to Human Progress
Basic research in science has greatly increased our understanding of nature, expanded frontiers of inquiry, shown us how little we know, triggered creative waves of invention and innovation, and prompted technological breakthroughs that were inconcei....
More details | Watch nowChemistry: the Key to Our Future
Chemistry is not merely a science of making observations in order to better understand Nature. Our science is creative and productive, generating substances of very high value from almost nothing. Chemists already have made enormous contribution to....
More details | Watch nowClimate change and extinction
Today countless protected areas for biodiversity are maintained at huge public and private expense. The question we must consider is whether our protection strategies actually protect when the real threats are related to the current climate change. M....
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Observations from around the Earth suggest that even the gloomiest predictions of climate change from the 2007 IPCC report may underestimate the seriousness of the changes due this century. In this lecture, Professor James Lovelock discusses the cons....
More details | Watch nowClimate change: Bhutan
Nature reporter Anjali Nayar hiked for 21 days in Northern Bhutan to find out how this tiny Himalayan nation is dealing with rapidly melting glaciers.
More details | Watch nowClimate change: space and our own planet.
Dr Maggie Aderin develops instruments that monitor climate change. Find out about these and other missions that are making science count in the battle against climate change. With practical experiments to show how climate change works Maggie shows ho....
More details | Watch nowClimate change: The two-degree target
In December 2009, policy makers meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to thrash out a new global deal on climate change. The aim is to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. We sent three young climate researchers along ....
More details | Watch nowClimbing the Everest Beyond the Everest
The challenges associated with pursuing ribosomal crystallography can be described as a series of Everest climbing. At each step, when reaching the summit, a taller and more difficult one became exposed. Snapshots of this story will be described.__....
More details | Watch nowContinental loss: the quest to determine Antarctica’s contribution to sea-level change
For over 50 years scientists have been working to understand Antarctica’s contribution to sea level. For much of this time there has even been disagreement about if this massive ice sheet is growing or shrinking. In 2012, advances in data analysis....
More details | Watch nowControlling Photons in a Box and Exploring the Quantum to Classical Boundary
The founders of quantum theory assumed in 'thought experiments' that they were manipulating isolated quantum systems, obeying the counterintuitive laws which they had just discovered. Technological advances have recently turned these virtual experi....
More details | Watch nowCoprolite Chemistry – what fossilised faeces can tell us about extinct animals
Faeces contains a complex mixture of chemical compounds, including substances from the diet and digestive processes. By better understanding the biology of extinct animals we can gain insights into how they interacted with their environment and poten....
More details | Watch nowCritical Zone
Professor Banwart talks about the crucial challenge for the SoilTrEC project is to understand the rates of processes that dictate soil mass stocks and their function within Earths Critical Zone (CZ)
More details | Watch nowCultural Values of Scientific Knowledge
The acquisition of scientific knowledge largely depends on the availability of appropriate research approaches and methodologies. Novel scientific knowledge represents cultural values. On the one hand, it enriches our world-view with impacts on o....
More details | Watch nowCultural Values of Scientific Knowledge
The acquisition of scientific knowledge largely depends on the availability of appropriate research approaches and methodologies. Novel scientific knowledge represents cultural values. On the one hand, it enriches our world-view with impacts on our....
More details | Watch nowDavid Attenborough on birds of paradise – Part 2
British broadcaster Sir David Attenborough talks to Nature about his obsession with birds of paradise.
More details | Watch nowDeciphering disease: cells and disruption of their communication
The human body may seem to be no more than a bundle of tissues and organs, yet the cells these are made from are capable of interacting, communicating and performing complex tasks. Our cells' capacity to interact in this way enables humans to adapt t....
More details | Watch nowEndless Energy
How green are you prepared to be? Burning fossil fuel is choking our planet with carbon dioxide, but would you stop using petrol or allow wind farms to be built in your back yard? Is it finally time for renewable energy to stop being the alternative ....
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Rob Hutchinson is an entomologist and one of the top mosquito experts in Europe whose work assesses the risk of Malaria returning to UK. He has developed a great interest in mosquito biology and did a masters degree at the School of Tropical Medicine....
More details | Watch nowEnvironmental Scientist & Space Forester
Yadvinder works in the Geography department at Oxford University. He looks at how human activity and especially carbon dioxide emissions have changed the ecosystems of tropical rainforests. This work takes him on regular trips to his two research sit....
More details | Watch nowEpigenetics, Diet and Cancer Prevention
How genes can be switched on and off by environmental effects and how this affects the development of cancers.
More details | Watch nowEvery clod has a silver lining
Feasibility of Zero-Energy Housing in Florida
This presentation is a brief overview of the possible ways to achieve a zero net energy consumption for a typical Florida house. Examples include photo-voltaics and wind-turbines. An emphasis on the economic aspects of being "off-the-grid".
More details | Watch nowFinding out where floods will occur
This research is about developing a computer modelling tool to help manage surface water flooding.
More details | Watch nowFrom Proto-oncogenes to Precision Oncology
The diagnosis, classification, and treatment of human cancers are being transformed by scientific discoveries that were strongly influenced by the discovery of the c-src proto-oncogene, as described in the lecture by Michael Bishop. The path to this ....
More details | Watch nowFrom sled dogs to rockets. Up the poles.
As part of the celebrations for International Polar Year, Paul Rose takes us on an insightful science journey to the Antarctic and the Arctic. What really are the challenges facing scientists as they work in the remotest field sites on earth?
More details | Watch nowFrom the Romans to the Ring Main
In London major trunk mains, commissioned by Water Companies who ceased trading over 100 years ago, operate alongside modern assets such the Thames Water Ring Main commissioned in the 1990’s. Hence legacy plays an important part in way the current ....
More details | Watch nowFuel Cells – Main Aspects
Fundamental aspects and properties of fuel cells in the environment of renewables.
More details | Watch nowFuture Cities
Dr Richard Miller, Head of Sustainability at the UK's Technology Strategy Board, speaks about the problems we are facing in our cities and current ways in which these are being addressed. He gives examples of how chemists and small-medium sized ent....
More details | Watch nowGreen Chemistry and Catalysis
Much of the chemical industry is based on processes that were developed decades ago. The change in the cost of petroleum carbon and energy sources and the need to control emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants will change the rules of the....
More details | Watch nowHousing for a low carbon energy future.
Almost half of the UK 's energy is used in buildings to provide a safe, healthy, comfortable, productive and fun environment. Most future low carbon scenarios assume significant reductions in carbon emissions associated with the built environment ove....
More details | Watch nowHow embryos build organs to last a lifetime
All the organs of our body originate from small founder populations of cells which multiply into complex structures. ÊAdult stem cells are used to maintain organs throughout adult life and to repair or regenerate them after damage.Ê Focusing on the....
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