Gresham College Lectures

The treatment for people with many cancers has been transformed in the last two decades, and further major improvements are expected to occur over the next twenty years. Improved surgery and radiotherapy have been joined by less toxic chemotherapy targeting specific genetic abnormalities in cancer cells. Better genetic understanding of cancer and harnessing the immune system to fight disease are among the approaches revolutionising a group of diseases once seen as incurable.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-treatment-of-cancer

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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Professor Joseph Silk FRS embarks on an illustrious journey through the universe to explain the paradigm shift in today's scientific view on the physical expansion of space http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-expanding-universe

It was once inconceivable that the universe could be expanding. The static universe survived three thousand years of analysis and observation, to become enshrined as a cosmological solution to the equations of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Only after three decades into the twentieth century did a paradigm shift occur. This was based on observational data, but it was to take decades before the recession of the galaxies was accepted as the conceptual proof of the physical expansion of space. I will recount how the recession of the galaxies was first discovered and eventually accepted as a physical model for the expansion of the universe.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-expanding-universe

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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Examples of disease as shown in artworks will be examined, from the medical and surgical point of view as well as the historical and artistic ones, particularly visual loss as portrayed by artists from pre-historic times. The special mystery in the story contained within Van Eyck's The Virgin with The Canon (1436) will then be discussed, providing a fascinating religious, legal, medical and sociological explanation for the Canon's blindness and contemporary attitudes towards it.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/van-eycks-the-virgin-with-the-canon-visual-disability-and-societal-attitudes-as-depicted-in-the-northern-renaissance

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,900 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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London at one time was the largest port and industrial city in the world. Bermondsey, Deptford, Blackwall and Greenwich were all major centres for shipbuilding. This lecture will look at the industrial river and consider the changing needs of shipping with the transition from sail to steam and its impact on London as a port.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/from-sail-to-steam-londons-role-in-a-shipbuilding-revolution

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,900 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Support the show

Narrative, the way a tale is told, is less straightforward than we might suppose. Austen handles irony brilliantly and systematically exploited new ways of narrating, including free indirect discourse.

This lecture explores why Austen's way of narrating are so compelling.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/jane-austen-persuasion-irony-and-the-mysterious-vagaries-of-narratives

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,900 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

In dialogue with Professor Alister McGrath, Lord Harries (Emeritus Gresham Professor of Divinity) will discuss his new book. Life is at once so wonderful and so appalling. We glimpse something of God in the beauty of the world, but then this seems to be contradicted by the evil and suffering. Drawing on the insights of the Christian faith how can we live with this contradiction?

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-beauty-and-the-horror-searching-for-god-in-a-suffering-world

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,900 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

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Mathematics has played a vital role in the development of human civilisation, and is the foundation of much of modern technology and popular culture. However, the achievements of mathematics and mathematicians are often unknown or misunderstood. The contribution of mathematicians over the centuries will be celebrated, showing how mathematical ideas have huge relevance today – varying between Maxwell and the mobile phone, Florence Nightingale and modern statistics, Pythagoras and the development of music, Euclid and art, Euler and Facebook, and Cayley and Google. Even basic mathematics can make a profound difference to our lives.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/what-have-mathematicians-done-for-us

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,900 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

The lecture will examine the changing shape of the Thames Valley (the London end in particular), evidence of population movement and urban growth and the appearance of agricultural and industrial activity from the earliest times to the arrival of the Romans.

Part of the Mondays at One Maritime London Series

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-early-river-thames-the-iron-age-and-before

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,900 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk

Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

It has been said that if you are not paying for a service, then you are the product, not the customer. To what extent is this true for free software, social networking, and other free IT services and products? If we are the product, are we selling ourselves too cheaply? Who is tracking us, and how? How can we retain control?

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/are-you-customer-or-the-product

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,900 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Support the show

There were dramatic changes in the Roman, Saxon and medieval ports of London, which directly reflected the equally dramatic changes taking place in contemporary society, economy and culture. How might the study of the first 1,500 years of port history (encapsulating profound changes ranging from location, infrastructure and technology to variations in river levels) help when making predictions for the future?

Part of the Mondays at One Maritime London Series

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-growth-of-london-as-a-port-from-roman-to-medieval-times

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,900 lectures free to access or download from the website.

Website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk
Twitter: http://twitter.com/GreshamCollege
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greshamcollege
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/greshamcollege

Support the show