Podcasts
Big Natural History Television and Conservation
Our speaker is head of the BBC Natural History Unit; founded in the 1950s as the first and biggest production unit of its kind, it is regarded as the world’s greatest maker of wildlife documentary films. Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, Life on Earth, and dozens more groundbreaking series were all delivered by this […]
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The Evolution of Public Attitudes During Brexit
Download the images for this talk here Politicians assert that their views reflect the will of the British people, especially when it comes to Brexit. In this special talk, the President of the British Polling Council examines the evidence behind these claims. It takes place on the last day of the extension to Article 50. […]
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The Creativity Code: How AI is Learning to Write, Paint and Think
SLIDES AVAILABLE HERE Will a computer ever compose a symphony, write a prize-winning novel, or paint a masterpiece? New developments in AI are shaking up the status quo, as we find out how many of the tasks humans engage in can be done equally well, if not better, by machines. But can machines be creative? […]
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The Extinction Rebellion Lawyer
When police unglued Farhana Yamin from the forecourt of the Shell building—during climate protests—she became a figurehead of the Extinction Rebellion movement. The Climate Change lawyer appeared on front pages across the world and deftly handled interviews on programmes such as Newsnight. For this Agile Rabbit talk, Farhana argues that now is the time to […]
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Can I Do Anything About Climate Change?
Do you wonder if altering your diet, cutting down on flights, or declaring a climate emergency makes any difference to climate change? This sell-out discussion with world-leading speakers from politics, business, activism, and science, moved beyond superficial responses to the vital question ‘Can I do anything about climate change?’ The audience brought its own ideas […]
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The Mental Health Crisis in Schools
Are school-days the best of your life? For many they are not. Today, six times more children report mental illness than twenty years ago. Last month, Theresa May announced that every teacher will be trained to spot early warning signs of mental illness, describing tackling the rise in mental health problems as a ‘personal priority’. […]
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Before the Big Bang
We’re dealing with a biggie in this talk – the origin of the universe. Recent groundbreaking discoveries support the view that our universe is part of a larger cosmic structure: a multiverse. Gravitational anomalies in the structure of our universe are ‘tugs’ exerted by other universes. These exciting theories are indicated by the work of […]
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Evaporating Black Holes and Hawking’s Points
A new area of cosmology is the subject for the physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science, famous for many achievements, in particular his work with Stephen Hawking. This talk focuses on recent ground-breaking observations of anomalous points in the very early universe that appear to be sources of vast amounts of energy. These could have […]
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Freedom of Speech in a Globalised World
We are living through disruption to politics and society. Increasingly this is delivered by individuals proudly claiming their rights to free speech. Journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown argues that sexist homophobic views are sometimes justified as expressions of liberty. Should individual rights always take precedence over collective, social responsibility? Despite its flaws, do we need to defend […]
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Shark and chips?
The sale of shark meat in fish and chip shops was dramatically uncovered by a team at the University of Exeter, led by Dr Andrew Griffiths. Andrew will tell the story behind his headline-grabbing work that recently identified threatened sharks on sale to the British public. The wonderful diversity of sharks and rays around the […]
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System Change
Can our economic, social, and environmental systems work so that the most responsible choices we make are also the easiest, cheapest, and most obvious? Often when we are faced with environmental or social problems, we find that changing our own actions can initially feel satisfying, but this can sometimes lead to a feeling that the […]
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Is there anything left to explore?
THE OPENING EVENT FOR RGS-IBG EXPLORE SOUTH-WEST Explore South West launched with a lively public panel discussion on the topic “Is there anything left to explore in the 21st century?”. “The glory-seeking adventurer of old is giving way to explorers who want to understand the planet rather than dominate it.” This is how The Economist […]
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