Watch the video version of our latest podcast with the 2025 Christmas Lecturer, Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock. Discover more ...

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, ...

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 ...

Calls for free meals to be made available to all children in England are growing louder, while an increasing number of families turn to foodbanks to cope with rising prices and high energy bills. We ...

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 ...

Humphry Davy was a chemist and the first Director of the Laboratory here at the Royal Institution, taking up the post in 1801. He was central to establishing the Ri as both a popular venue for ...

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 ...

Volunteer historian Laurence Scales explores how war surgeons operated 25 years before antibiotics were widely available, starting from a 1915 Discourse here at the Ri. Antibiotics would not be ...

As we celebrate the bicentenary of Faraday's invention of the electric motor in 1821, our Head of Heritage and Collections, Charlotte New, takes us on a voyage through time to rediscover this ...

Who is Kevin Fong? Find out more about the 2015 Christmas Lecturer. Kevin has worked with research groups and senior figures at ESA in the past, organising and chairing a number of key meetings whose ...

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 ...

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 ...