Cuckoos and their victims
The sight of a little warbler feeding an enormous cuckoo chick has astonished observers since ancient times. It was once thought that cuckoos were unable to raise their own young because of defective anatomy and behaviour, and so other birds were onl....
More details | Watch nowBacterial cell walls, antibiotics and the origins of life
The cell wall is a crucial structure found in almost all bacteria. It is the target for our best antibiotics and fragments of the wall trigger powerful innate immune responses against infection. Surprisingly, many bacteria can switch almost effortl....
More details | Watch nowGenetic control and the mammalian radiation
To grow tissues in our body two key types of DNA control how, where and when to build essential proteins. Recent comparisons of mammal genomes show that instructions coding how to build proteins are similar across diverse species. In contrast the gen....
More details | Watch nowTargeting the human kinome: cancer drug discovery
This lecture discusses how the discovery of the Philadelphia chromosome provided the first example of a link between cancer and a recurrent genetic abnormality. This chromosomal translocation, which results in activation of the Abl protein kinase, re....
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....
More details | Watch nowNeuroNavigation: how the brain represents the space we live in and finds our way around
Learning about new environments or locating ourselves in familiar environments are some of the most fundamental tasks that the brain performs. Information is not stored in response to biological needs such as hunger or thirst but on the basis of cogn....
More details | Watch nowFrom bench to bedside: KATP channels and neonatal diabetes
Whether you eat a whole box of chocolates or fast for the day, the pancreatic beta-cells ensure that your blood glucose level remains relatively constant by regulating the release of insulin from the pancreatic beta-cells. Diabetes results when insul....
More details | Watch nowNobel Lives
An audience with Nobel prize winners John Sulston FRS and Sydney Brenner FRS, who talk to Sarah Montague of BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, about their lives in science and their visions for the future.
More details | Watch nowIs biodiversity going the way of the Dodo?
Panel discussion with Professor Jonathan Baillie, Dr William Cheung, Professor Adrian Lister and chaired by Dr Susan Lieberman, as part of the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2011. Right now one-fifth of the world’s vertebrates are classi....
More details | Watch nowNature’s glass: half-full or half-empty?
Andrew Balmford FRS is Professor of Conservation Science at University of Cambridge. The world’s governments failed to meet their pledge of reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Wild populations, their habitats, and the benefits they pr....
More details | Watch nowThe Zoological World of Edward Lear
Clemency Fisher is Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at National Museums Liverpool. Edward Lear is most famous for his Nonsense Rhymes, such as “The Owl and the Pussycat” and “The Quangle Wangle’s Hat”, but he was also a talented zoological art....
More details | Watch nowPandemic Influenza: one flu over the cuckoo’s nest
Where do the pandemic influenza viruses come from and why did experts fail to predict the severity of the 2009 pandemic? However to date, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic influenza has been much less severe than the 1918 Spanish influenza.
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