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 ...

On the 200-year anniversary of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, the 2025 Lectures will see leading space scientist Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock take audiences on an epic voyage through time ...

Have you ever wondered what's actually happening to your food when you cook it? Why does it change texture? How does temperature affect flavour? Join physicist David Weitz and chef Ben Ebbrell as they ...

Using fossil records and his own work uncovering extinct species, paleontologist Steve Brusatte rewinds 150 million years to explore how dinosaurs evolved into today's birds. Birds live all around us.

The Royal Institution was founded to introduce new technologies and teach science to the general public through lectures and demonstrations. Humphry Davy, one of the first Professors, established ...

When will the three 2025 CHRISTMAS LECTURES programmes be broadcast? The 2025 CHRISTMAS LECTURES will be broadcast on BBC Four and iPlayer on 28, 29 and 30 December at 7pm. The full lecture series ...

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 ...

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, ...

Read about how JJ Thomson announced his discovery of the electron at the Royal Institution in this blog by our Head of Heritage and Collections. JJ Thomson, while familiar to scientists, is not ...

Science and art have always been intertwined, and often met right here at the Ri. Discover more about our cultural history of experimentation and collaboration. Since its foundation in 1799, the Royal ...

You might have heard that this year marks 200 years of the Ri's two major lecture series: the CHRISTMAS LECTURES and Discourses. But in 1825 something else quite extraordinary was going on, not in our ...

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 ...