Gresham College Lectures

The Zika virus originated in Africa and causes a febrile illness but was little known until it spread within Brazil in 2014. It is now found from Mexico to Paraguay as well as in other parts of the world and has been linked to serious birth defects. The disease shows no signs of abating. There are no drugs or no vaccine, so the method of control is to attack the mosquito. This lecture will discuss the virus and its epidemiology and compare it with the dengue fever virus about which much more is known. What makes the mosquito (Aedes aegypti) a super efficient transmitter of viruses? and how it might be controlled by the use of genetically modified mosquitoes? The lecture will also discuss the ‘nightmare scenario’ of the increased range of the mosquito as a result of climate change.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-zika-virus-dengue-and-the-yellow-fever-mosquito

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 this first lecture, economic performance will be considered in terms of income and productivity growth, prior to and following the recession. We shall examine the so-called "productivity puzzle" and explore the possible explanations and solutions.

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

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

Supermassive black holes lurk in the very centres of galaxies. The Milky Way has a central black hole of four million solar masses. Today it is quiescent. But we have reason to believe that millions of years ago it was active. Traces of exploded debris are seen around our galactic centre that arose in a violent explosion some tens of millions of years ago. Most galaxies have massive central black holes, in some cases weighing billions of solar masses. These once were the sites of the most energetic phenomena in the universe, that astronomers recognise as quasars. I will describe feeding the monster within: the rise of the quasars, and how supermassive black holes formed long ago. These immensely luminous objects in the nuclei of galaxies were active when the universe was young. Current data suggests that supermassive black holes formed along with the first galaxies. The ultimate window on building massive black holes is gravity waves, and I will describe gravity wave experiments being planned to search for traces of the formation of such black holes.

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

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

Insects are the most abundant and enduring multi-cellular life form ever to have evolved. They are fast breeding, highly evolvable and, thanks to their body-plan, are future-proofed like no other animal. There are 40 tonnes of insects for every human being alive and they account for well over half of all known species. They are an essential component of global food chains and without them as pollinators, predators and recyclers, the world would be a very different place.

As model organisms in research, insects have greatly helped our understanding of genetics, physiology and behaviour. But they have a dark side - they have changed the short course of human history by killing hundreds of millions of people and destroying their crops.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/bug-world-sex-violence-and-a-cast-of-billions

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

Professor Paul Cartledge explores the democracy in ancient Greece and the origins of the word, and how that distinguishes from today's notion of democracy http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/ten-things-you-really-should-know-about-ancient-greek-democracy
Myths abound about ancient Greek democracy - actually, there was no such thing. That is, there was no such one thing. Even Athens, which invented both the thing and the name, had at least three versions over a span of about 150 years. But although the ancient Greeks have given the world 'democracy', ancient Greek democracy was in several crucial and fundamental respects very different indeed from, if not opposite to, what passes for 'democracy' today.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/ten-things-you-really-should-know-about-ancient-greek-democracy
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

Support the show

A gentle introduction to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity will discuss the curvature of space that gives rise to 'Gravity' and Gravitational Lenses. Experiments since 1915 have been undertaken to test its accuracy with recent observations by Jodrell Bank astronomers having shown that Einstein's theory must be at least 99.95% right. The first direct detection of the gravitational waves produced when two black holes merged in the far Universe has helped to show that his theory is still unchallenged.

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

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

When Hamlet posed the like question as he contemplated suicide, he faced the voyage to 'the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns'. Similar dread was faced by judges when considering the possibility of a death sentence, due to the awesome finality of such a judgment. Even after the abolition of the death penalty, life and death decisions still have to be made by judges, such as whether a very seriously mentally disabled baby should be allowed to die rather than be force-fed, or in the case of the conjoined twins where the stark issue before the court was whether it would be lawful to kill one to save the other.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/to-die-or-not-die-that-is-the-question

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

The discovery of a spring and a Mesolithic land surface at Blick Mead about 2 km from Stonehenge, that has well preserved and substantial Mesolithic deposits, potentially transforms our understanding of the Mesolithic use of the pre-Stonehenge landscape, and the establishment of its later ritual landscape. This talk outlines the newly discovered local landscape history of the Vespasian's Camp area, the field interventions, and concludes with a review of the site and its wider significance and context for the later development of the Stonehenge ritual landscape.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-cradle-of-stonehenge-blick-mead-a-mesolithic-site-in-the-stonehenge-landscape

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

Queen Victoria was the first constitutional monarch. During her reign the power of the monarchy declined but its influence grew. When Victoria came to the throne, the monarchy was probably less popular than at any time since the seventeenth century. By the end of her reign, it had been raised to a level of prestige and affection which it has never lost. The Crown had become the symbol not only of British nationhood but also of Empire. How did this come about?

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

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

The Zika virus originated in Africa and causes a febrile illness but was little known until it spread within Brazil in 2014. It is now found from Mexico to Paraguay as well as in other parts of the world and has been linked to serious birth defects. The disease shows no signs of abating. There are no drugs or no vaccine, so the method of control is to attack the mosquito. This lecture will discuss the virus and its epidemiology and compare it with the dengue fever virus about which much more is known. What makes the mosquito (Aedes aegypti) a super efficient transmitter of viruses? and how it might be controlled by the use of genetically modified mosquitoes? The lecture will also discuss the 'nightmare scenario' of the increased range of the mosquito as a result of climate change.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-zika-virus-dengue-and-the-yellow-fever-mosquito

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