Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ is considered by many to be one of the most important scientific texts ever written, but how many amongst us have actually sat down and read it? And if you believe it’s all just about evolution, you’re in for a surprise!

Earth is home to a huge story that is rarely told - that of our ocean. Not the fish or the dolphins, but the massive ocean engine itself: what it does, why it works, and the many ways it has influenced animals, weather and human history & culture.
Join Helen Czerski as she dives deep to illuminate the murky depths of the ocean engine, examining the messengers, passengers and voyagers that live in it, travel over it, and survive because of it.

What's the connection between Shakespeare and maths? A lot, as it turns out! Shakespeare grew up in a time of remarkable mathematical innovation. Join Rob Eastaway as he takes us from astronomy to probability, music to multiplication, and shows how the new mathematical ideas of the time were reflected in much of the great bard’s work.

Join Nick Dearden as he shows how ‘Big Pharma’ has reshaped the relationship between richer and poorer countries, as the access to new medicines and the permission to manufacture them is policed - and he offers us a pathway to a fairer, safer system for all, with justice at its core.

Join us for an evening of captivating stories about Claudia de Rham’s quest to gain intimacy with gravity, to understand both its feeling and fundamental nature. Her life’s pursuit led her from a twist of fate that snatched away her dream of becoming an astronaut to an exhilarating breakthrough at the very frontiers of gravitational physics.

Join Alexander Barnes-Ross on his journey from critical thinker to devout Scientologist and finally Scientology’s #1 UK enemy.

Why do crisps with a louder crunch taste fresher? And why does Rachmaninoff make wine taste fruitier? The idea that we ‘eat with our eyes’ and the importance of food presentation is common knowledge in kitchens and restaurants around the world - but what about the names of the food on the menu? The sounds you hear when you eat? Or even the music being played whilst you dine?

Join us for a fascinating evening with experimental psychologist, Professor Charles Spence, as he takes us on a synaesthetic journey into the world of Gastrophysics.

Imagine a deadly pathogen that, once created, could infect any person in any part of the globe within seconds. No need to wait for travellers, trains, or air traffic to spread it, all you need is an internet connection. Join Pulitzer Prize winner James Ball in this gripping investigation that decodes the cryptic language of the online right and tracks the spread of QAnon, the world's first digital pandemic.

Join Prof. Jon Butterworth, one of the physicists heavily involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson, as he guides us through what we have learned since that massive break through and the coming precision exploration of this new regime of physics and what it may yet reveal.

Why do we enjoy being SCARED so much? What is it that Horror movies are tapping into that keeps us coming back for more? Truth is - they can reveal a lot about the fundamental fears of being human.

In a time of misinformation, purchasable blue ticks, and spurious claims to be ‘following the science’, how do we ask the right questions of information we find from social media, companies, and politicians? 61% of people think it’s important the government shows the public all the evidence used to make policy decisions. And yet, the sources of data used in policy making become more complex, modelling and big data being two key examples.

Pick up almost any popular science book today and it will tell you that we suffer from a suite of illusions: We do not perceive an objective reality. We have no control over our actions. We have limited access to the content of our minds or the reasons for our decisions. Join David Lagnado as he seeks to prove that this new edifice of the mind, for all its allure, falls like a house of cards.

For centuries, prominent thinkers have treated male domination among humans as natural or inevitable. But how would our understanding of gender inequality look if we didn’t assume that men have always ruled over women?

The notion that the sounds in such words, phonemes, contribute to their offensiveness itself transgresses the fundamental linguistic principle that there is no relationship between the way that words sound and their meaning. Join Dr. Shiri Lev-Ari on a journey around the world’s languages, showing you what characterises the sounds of swear words and which languages have more words whose sounds express their meaning, and why.