Physical perspective on cytoplasmic streaming
Professor Ray Goldstein FRS is the Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems at the University of Cambridge. Here he describes a biological example of topological inversion, with relevance to engineering problems in human technology.
More details | Watch nowCuckoos 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 nowGenetics, epigenetics and disease
The human genome sequence has been available for more than a decade, but its significance is still not fully understood. While most human genes have been identified, there is much to learn about the DNA signals that control them. This lecture describ....
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 nowMolecular chaperones: how cells stop proteins from misbehaving
Proteins are the action molecules of all cells, and to function properly, protein chains must fold and assemble correctly. But each chain of every protein runs the risk that it will combine with one or more identical chains to form nonfunctional aggr....
More details | Watch nowFrom bears’ winter-sleep to advanced antibiotics
Professor Ada Yonath, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. To facilitate instant recovery of active life once bears wake up from their winter sleep, nature provides ingenious mechanism based on periodic packing of their ribosomes, the cellular ma....
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 nowFinding patterns in genes and proteins: decoding the logic of molecular interactions
Dr Sarah Teichmann is based at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge. In the post-genomic era, high-throughput methods are providing us with a deluge of data about genes and proteins. What knowledge about biology do....
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 nowRegenerating organs and other small challenges
A disagreeable side effect of longer life-spans is the failure of one part of the body – the knees, for example – before the body as a whole is ready to surrender. The search for replacement body parts has fueled the highly interdisciplinary fiel....
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.
More details | Watch nowNetworks in ecosystems and financial systems
This talk surveys our growing understanding of the relationships between the network structure of ecological networks ? both in mathematical models and in the real world ? and their ability to withstand disturbance, natural or human-created.
More details | Watch nowCloning, stem cells and regenerative medicine
Extraordinary opportunities to study the molecular mechanisms that cause inherited diseases are being provided by new methods of producing stem cells. Hear about not only the potential value of these new methods, but also how their development was pr....
More details | Watch nowOur genomes, our history
Genetic differences between humans reflect the fundamental processes, such as mutation, recombination and natural selection, which have influenced our evolutionary history. Now that we can chart the genomes of many individuals, we are finding many su....
More details | Watch nowMammalian biodiversity: past, present, future?
Beautiful and charismatic, mammals are biodiversity icons. But a quarter of mammalian species are now threatened with extinction, as ecosystems reel under the impact of a growing and ever more demanding human population. This lecture explores the his....
More details | Watch nowThree score years and then? The new biology of ageing
Ageing is the single greatest challenge facing our society today. Recent breakthroughs have demonstrated that it is possible to combine a long life with the absence of age-related disease. Scientists at the forefront of this research will explain the....
More details | Watch nowGenetic fingerprinting and beyond
Professor Jeffreys will describe how DNA typing can be used to solve casework and will review the latest developments, including the creation of major national DNA databases that are proving extraordinarily effective in the fight against crime.
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