Gresham provides outstanding educational talks and videos for the public free of charge. There are over 2,500 videos available on the Gresham website. Your support will help us to encourage people's love of learning for many years to come.
This lecture looks at nineteenth-century fads involving stomachs, including the medical prescription of tapeworms that were supposed to live in a person’s stomach and “eat” food on their behalf.
Is the clitoris simply a female version of the male penis? Many scientists and biologists in the past thought so. It is only in recent decades that the physiology of the clitoris has become understood.
What happens when doctors and parents cannot agree on whether a child should be given experimental medical treatment? Why is there any question mark over a parent’s right to decide if medical treatment for their child continues?
This lecture starts by looking at early-modern understandings of the nature of ‘animal’ and ‘human’ life, before turning to the rise of ‘rights of animals’.
In this final lecture we will consider whether we can plot a more successful future than our recent history might suggest and what that implies for our economic and political institutions.
Nick Lane will explore the importance of energy flow in shaping life from its very origins to the flamboyant complexity around us, and ask whether energy flow would direct evolution down a similar path on other planets.
Productivity growth in the UK economy has lagged behind that of our major trading partners. We will examine a number of possible explanations ranging from the role of finance to the employment of physical and human capital.