Ri Science Podcast

Style guides set out strict rules for writing well, but how much of that grammar policing is just dogma, and how much is helpful for communication? Drawing on the latest research in linguistics and cognitive science, Steven Pinker uses reason and evidence to tell us how to communicate effectively in this talk hosted by Melvyn Bragg. Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist and one of the world’s foremost writers on language, mind, and human nature. He is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University and conducts research on language and cognition but also writes for publications such as the New York Times, Time, and is the author of many books, including The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works. stevenpinker.com/ Melvyn Bragg is a broadcaster, writer and novelist. He was made a Life Peer (Lord Bragg of Wigton) in 1998. Since then he has hosted over 660 episodes of In Our Time on subjects ranging from Quantum Gravity to Truth. He was presenter of the BBC radio series The Routes of English, a history of the English language. He is currently Chancellor of the University of Leeds Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

For centuries we’ve been using chemicals to improve health, but technology is set to transform the way medicine works. This month, five scientists on the cutting-edge of pharmaceutical research talk about the latest in gene therapy, cancer treatment and more. Ijeoma Uchegbu is a professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at UCL. Her research focuses on designing drugs that can cross the blood-brain barrier. She won the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Pharmaceutical Scientist of the Year Award in 2012. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pharmacy/people/professor-ijeoma-uchegbu Catherine Tuleu is a professor of Paediatric Pharmaceutics at UCL. The main focus of her research concerns drug delivery systems for neonates, infants and children. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pharmacy/people/professor-catherine-tuleu Sejal Ranmal is Director of Formulation at Intract Pharma, a science-driven licensing and product development company specialising in gastrointestinal models and state-of-the-art formulation technologies for development of advanced therapeutics. https://www.intractpharma.com/about-us Stephen Hart is a professor in Molecular Genetics at UCL. His research focuses on developing gene therapies for cardiovascular and respiratory disease, as well as cancer. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ich/research/genetics-genomic-medicine/experimental-personalised-medicine/research-groups/Prof-Stephen-Hart Wafa Al-Jamal is a reader in the School of Pharmacy at Queen's University Belfast. Currently, her research focuses on developing smart vectors for delivering a broad range of therapeutic agents, and to fabricate multifunctional nanoparticles to target cancer and other diseases. https://pure.qub.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/wafa-aljamal(d931b6ec-d950-47da-bfb2-d2a6fd7a6aa7).html Image credit: Sun dazed on Flickr at https://flickr.com/photos/8411191@N07/2277763683 Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to find yourself strapped to a giant rocket? Or to look back on the earth from outer space? Or to repair the Hubble Space Telescope? Join chair Helen Keen for an evening with astronaut Mike Massimino as he looks back on his remarkable 18-year career as a NASA astronaut. Mike Massimino spent 18 years as a NASA astronaut and flew on two shuttle missions. On both occasions he performed spacewalks outside the shuttle to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Since returning to Earth and retiring from NASA, he now works as a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University in New York. https://twitter.com/Astro_Mike Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution And Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution

Memories give us a sense of who we are. But how can we be sure that what we remember is what really happened? And why is it that some unwanted memories just won’t go away? Vin Walsh is a Professor of Human Brain Research at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL. https://twitter.com/vinwalsh Julia Shaw is a memory hacker and psychological scientist at UCL. She is best known for her work in the area of false memories: memories of things that never actually happened. https://twitter.com/drjuliashaw Jennifer Wild is an Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on why people over-remember what they most wish to forget. She has a special interest in how traumatic memories are formed and how they drive symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. https://twitter.com/drjenwild Check out our website: www.rigb.org/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Twitter: twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution

This month Kate Jones tells us about the amazing technology being used to monitor wildlife worldwide and how it is helping us to learn about the fascinating world of bats. Kate Jones is Professor of Ecology and Biodiversity in the Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment (GEE) at University College London. She's on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/profkatejones Image credit: F. C. Robiller Check out our website: http://www.rigb.org/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ri_Science YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution

What will the world of tomorrow be like? Kelly and Zach Weinersmith give us a snapshot of the transformative technologies that are coming soon(ish), from space elevators to origami robots, and explain how they will change our world in astonishing ways — maybe for the better, maybe for the worse. Kelly Weinersmith is a Huxley Fellow at Rice University in the BioSciences Department. She studies how host behaviour influences risk of infection with parasites and cohosts Science... Sort Of, one of the top 20 natural science podcasts. Zach Weinersmith is the cartoonist behind the popular geek webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

For millennia, humans have been firmly rooted to the Earth, but haven't you ever fancied a change of scenery? This month, science writer and broadcaster Dallas Campbell talks to former Christmas Lecturer and fellow space nerd Kevin Fong about all things space travel, and Dallas’ new book: Ad astra: An illustrated guide to leaving the planet. Dallas Campbell is an actor, author and TV presenter, and has always been fascinated by space. He was also an understudy for the 2014 CHRISTMAS LECTURES: How to hack your home, and appeared via hologram in the final show. Kevin Fong is an anaesthesiologist and space medicine expert. He presented the 2015 CHRISTMAS LECTURES: How to Survive in Space and regularly presents documentaries for Horizon and the BBC World Service.

2018 marks 200 years since the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a book that is just as relevant now as it was in 1818. Today, Shelley's creature lives on, as an embodiment of society's anxieties about where science is taking us. In this episode, Philip Ball is joined by Miranda Seymour, Frank James and Angela Wright to discuss the context in which the book was written and how the tale has become a popular myth with a life of its own, independent of Shelley's original text. Philip Ball is a science writer, writing regularly for Nature and having contributed to publications ranging from New Scientist to the New York Times. Miranda Seymour is a leading biographer and critic whose definitive life of Mary Shelley (2000) examined the sources of Frankenstein in depth. She has also written an introduction to the Folio Frankenstein (2015). Frank James is Professor of the History of Science and Head of Collections at the Royal Institution. His main research has been editing the Correspondence of Michael Faraday which is now complete in six volumes. Angela Wright is Professor of Romantic Literature in the School of English at the University of Sheffield. She is a former co-President of the International Gothic Association (2013-17).

Australian author and presenter Dr Karl Kruszelnicki gives a whirlwind tour of incredible science facts and questions. Like who put a nuclear reactor in africa 2 billion years ago? And is there life on a moon of Saturn? Dr Karl Kruszelnicki is an Australian science populariser with degrees in Physics and Maths, Biomedical Engineering, Medicine and Surgery. He has held a wide range of jobs, from doctor to film-maker, radio personality to labourer, car mechanic to physicist.

Our sense of reward motivates us and is essential for survival, so when the system malfunctions, it can lead to big problems. This month, Ray Dolan, Wolfram Schultz and Peter Dayan, winners of the 2017 Lundbeck Foundation Brain Prize, discuss their ground-breaking work on how the brain recognises and processes reward with Claudia Hammond.