Public lecture podcasts

Professor Stephen Payne from the University of Bath, will discuss how his research combines an understanding of the human mind with the design of interactive systems.

Poet and author Kevan Manwarring looks at poets who have graced the silver screen from Shakespeare to the Beats and the Romantics to Slam.

Dr Robert Heath, lecturer at the school of management at the University of Bath and study lecturer on Buddhism, talks about the history and development of the religion from its inception in India to the present day.

Reverend Professor Ian James questions whether climate change is a challenge or a swindle and presents some of the certainties, complexities and controversies from the science of climate change.

Organic devices are revolutionising lighting and solar cells, Professor Alison Walker will describe how this change will impact our lives. Light emission from organic materials is not very common in everyday life. However, some living creatures, such as fireflies and many sea creatures, emit light with amazingly high efficiencies.

James Alexander, a highly practical business creator and innovative strategist, is a co-founder and Board Director of Zopa, the marketplace where people meet to lend and borrow money. In this wide ranging lecture, James, who is a superb speaker, will touch on a number of topics including how to make the most of opportunities in building a successful career. This is an opportunity for you to learn...

Dr Alex Kacelnik from the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford talks about how crows make tools to find food and explains how animals think.

Beloved by artists as well as gardeners, flowers are everywhere in art. But are they just flowers or do they carry hidden meanings? Is there a deeper significance - spiritual, cultural or aesthetic - than we realise? Put on your deerstalker and prepare to exercise your little grey cells as we tour a virtual art gallery looking for the clues that artists have left for us between the petals of the r...

Professor Michael Beverland, head of the marketing group at the University of Bath School of Management examines how the marketers behind some of the world¿s most enduring brands are responding to a new environment.

Lecturer, writer and editor, Rick Marshall talks about how explosives are made and what to do if they're detonated.

Professor Adrian Hyde-Price from the University's Department of Politics, Languages & International Studies examines the nature and causes of contemporary war and conflict, and considers the prospect of peace in the 21st Century.

Freelance and professional writer Roger Vlitos examines the theories and myths about Avebury.

Paul Ormerod, the author of three best-selling books on economics talks about what mainstream economists have to say about the turmoil of world economy.

Martin Sturge talks about Lady Anna Miller of Batheaston. Mr Sturge is deeply involved with the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and sponsored the rebinding of a rare volume of Lady Miller's Poetical Assemblies held in the institution's historic library.

Professor Peter Coles from the School of Physics & Astronomy at Cardiff University will talk about the large scale structure of the Universe and the ideas that physicists are weaving together to explain how it came to be the way it is.

Professor Malcolm Johnson from the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath looks at the changing face of death in an ageing society.

Author and archaeologist Bob Clarke charts the progress of aviation through airfields and asks why some stations are located where they are.

Lord Joel Joffe believes that there is an 'urgent need' to change the law on assisted dying and will argue in his lecture that assisted dying and palliative care are essential and complementary aspects of care for people suffering from painful incurable diseases.

Forensic anthropologist Kathleen Conabree discusses issues surrounding what really goes on at a crime scene and what the term forensic actually means.

In this Charter Day lecture, Dr Alexander Kelle, from the University of Bath's Department of European Studies and Modern Languages, talks about biological research and its possible applications for good, and ill. Illustrating a track record over a century long of biological developments being put to uses outside their original purpose, he proposes the creation of an International Framework Agreeme...

Stuart Robertson, the director of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society, gives a personal view of the great Scottish architect and designer.

Professor Alan Cottenden, from University College London, describes new technology for managing incontinence.

Professor Mark Birkinshaw talks about the effect of gravity on light as part of the 2008 Herschel lecture, named in remembrance of the Bath astronomer who discovered the planet Uranus in 1781.

Professor Chris Budd from the University of Bath takes mathematics into the dark territory of murder, suicide, love, sex and conquest.

Florence Muringi Wambugu talks about the contribution of bio-technology, including GM crops, for improving the sustainable livelihoods of resource poor families in Africa.