Agile Rabbit

Stegosaurs are a group of dinosaurs characterized by the possession of two rows of plates and spines that extend from the neck to the end of the tail. Join us for a live event with acclaimed scientist Dr Susannah Maidment from the Natural History Museum. Discover the function of the plates of stegosaurs. Were they for display or to deter predators?

Psychedelic drugs are gaining attention in the pharmaceutical industry because of increasing scientific evidence of their potential benefits for people suffering with psychiatric disorders. Join world experts David Nutt, Dr David Erritzoe, Professor Christine Hauskeller, Dr Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, and BBC host Ritula Shah to look at the medical, societal, and historical implications of these recent...

Hear an inspirational and often riotously funny first-hand account of the movement to rewild the British landscape with beavers – and how it became the most subversive nature conservation act of the modern era. Since the early 1990s – in the face of opposition from government, landowners, and even some conservation professionals – Derek Gow has imported, quarantined and assisted the reestablishmen...

How do we relate neuroscience research in laboratories to our experience of living? The goal of Field Neuroscience is to build a bridge between the two – it’s the non-invasive study of nervous systems “in the wild”. Neuroscientists study something that everyone uses every day to navigate the complexities of human society – their nervous system. Perhaps without even knowing it, everyone has a famil...

SHOLTHANA BEGUM Head of Regtech and Data Innovation Bank of England PETER CHALLENOR Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (IDSAI) University of Exeter TIM DODWELL Professor in Computational Mechanics Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (IDSAI) University of Exeter NOOR SHAKER CEO Glamorous AI RITULA SHAH (CHAIR) Lead Presenter, The World Tonight BBC Radio 4 AI i...

How can you help your children do well at school and beyond? Hear the top tips – and the evidence for them – in this special live event with Lee Elliot Major, the first professor of Social Mobility. He reveals what really matters in education, debunking myths and misconceptions that can harm children’s learning. Professor Eliot Major’s work helps parents to focus on the effective use of their time...

We think about viruses as harmful to us, but research by our speaker Martha Clokie shows that some can improve our health. These tiny viruses known as ‘phages’ do this by invading bacteria, multiplying, and bursting out, eventually destroying their host. When these are bacteria that attack our bodies, this could be beneficial—our enemy’s enemy is our friend. Antibiotic resistance is one of the big...

In this event Paul Mason offers a radical, hopeful blueprint for resisting and defeating the new far right. It is both a chilling portrait of contemporary fascism – what fascists believe and how they operate today – and a compelling history of the fascist phenomenon: its psychological roots, political theories and genocidal logic. Fascism, Mason powerfully argues, is a symptom of capitalist failur...

Find out what makes a psychopath, from the leading expert who helped to create Killing Eve’s Villanelle. Dr Mark Freestone has worked on some of the most interesting and infamous psychopath cases of recent times

Find out what makes a psychopath, from the leading expert who helped to create Killing Eve’s Villanelle. Dr Mark Freestone has worked on some of the most interesting and infamous psychopath cases of recent times

Find out what makes a psychopath, from the leading expert who helped to create Killing Eve’s Villanelle. Dr Mark Freestone has worked on some of the most interesting and infamous psychopath cases of recent times. Exploring the many factors that make a psychopath, the complexities and contradictions of their emotions and behaviour, as well as an examination of how the lives of psychopaths develop i...

Recent headlines across the world declared that Climate Change is the ​“the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”—based on the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change published in November 2019. Its co-author joins us from the University of Exeter to discuss her vital work behind the story. The impacts of climate change are not felt equally. Those on low incomes—who are already m...

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 Bristol-based outfit. Julian Hector discusses the relationship between Natural History...

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 been produced by black holes evaporating before the...

Slides available here: glsr.it/creativitycode 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? In this talk, based on his bestselling book, Marcus du Sautoy examin...

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. Professor John Curtice is the political scientist always at the centre of election night broadcasts for the BBC. He...

When police unglued Farhana Yamin from the forecourt of the Shell building—during recent 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 rise up and rebel. Activism, she as...

Do you wonder if altering your diet, cutting down on flights, or declaring a climate emergency makes any difference to climate change? This lively discussion with world-leading speakers from politics, business, activism, and science, moves beyond superficial responses to the vital question ‘Can I do anything about climate change?’ Many of us are inspired to act against Climate Change. But can smal...

In this timely talk, Professor Tamsin Ford discusses mental health and its relationship to education. She gets behind the headlines, asking if there is a mental health crisis for children and young people. Tamsin has been part of the team that carries out the official national, annual survey of children’s mental health since it began. Her research informs policy for health services and schools in...

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 our speaker, Professor Laura Mersini-Houghton. She’s a super-star scientist whose been interviewed by Jeremy Paxman, worked with S...

We are living through disruption to politics and society. Increasingly this is delivered by individuals proudly claiming their rights to free speech. Should individual rights always take precedence over collective, social responsibility? Despite its flaws, do we need to defend political correctness in a turbulent world?

Explore South West launches 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 heralded the New Age of Discovery. Panel members will explain why the need to explore has never been more urgent...

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 UK and their decline are Andrew’s passion. He will describe how genetic...

Steve explains how he has pioneered new ways of listening to the ocean and of interacting with fish (including underwater puppetry), to understand whole soundscapes and to unlock the language of fish. He also discusses his engagement with key marine industries, which aims to reduce and manage human noise pollution in the quest for quieter seas. Steve’s research was featured in David Attenborough’s...

Dr Ceri Lewis (University of Exeter) talking at Exeter Intrepid Explorers in March 2018. Ceri Lewis shares her stories of her exciting field work in the arctic on the Catlin Arctic Survey. The Catlin Arctic Survey was an exciting multidisciplinary expedition, in which scientists and explorers investigated ocean acidification processes and their impact on marine organisms. The field trip involved c...