A new partnership with the British Library’s Living Knowledge Network will see the filming of the 2025 CHRISTMAS LECTURES livestreamed to local community libraries throughout the UK for the first time ...

Any donation from £50 to £50,000 received between 19 June and 19 December, will be matched £ for £ - and so will your impact. Thanks to the generosity of two Be the Spark Benefactors, every pound you ...

Colin Blakemore moves onto explaining the internal sensory systems in our bodies in his third CHRISTMAS LECTURE of his 1982 series. We all know about just five of the senses: we know about them ...

In the second lecture of the series, Colin Blakemore explores the science behind the senses, with some animal guests to demonstrate. Just like photometers, microphones, compasses, smoke detectors, and ...

When ChatGPT-3 crash-landed onto our computers in November 2022, you’d have been forgiven for thinking this massive leap in artificial intelligence had sprung out of nowhere. From one day to the next, ...

November 30th 2022 is a date permanently etched into the history books. For those unaware of its significance, this was when OpenAI released to the public their free-to-use, large language model ...

You know the story. Two strangers locked eyes across a crowded room, and there it is: butterflies in the stomach, sparks in the air—they know they’ve found “the one”. Love at first sight is a popular ...

Since its founding in 1799, the Royal Institution has been committed to connecting scientists and the public. Even before the term "scientist" was coined, we played a vital role in bringing scientific ...

On 18 May 1859, the Irish physicist John Tyndall wrote in his journal ‘the subject is completely in my hands’. This is no cryptic note. Just nine days earlier he had set up his complex and clever new ...

How can physics help us with baby carrying? When lifting an object, we know that work done (amount of energy transferred to an object) is equal to the force it takes to lift the object, multiplied by ...

Sci-fi is not all just fun and games. Megan Stephens reflects on the influence the genre has had on real-life research and technology. We’re all familiar with the trappings of science fiction, many of ...

The mining and engineering industries in the 19th century relied heavily on gunpowder as an explosive to aid their work. However, storing and transporting gunpowder on wooden sailing ships was ...