Public lecture podcasts

We think of time travel as fiction, but there is nothing in the laws of physics that prevents us building a time machine. What's more, relativity provides practical opportunities to travel through time. Listen back to Brian Clegg, author of 'Dice World, Gravity, A Brief History of Infinity, Inflight Science and Build Your Own Time Machine', talking about the potential solutions to time travel from our recent public lecture.

The Levels and Moors are an enormous floodplain in the heart of Somerset and for tens of thousands of years were an ever changing mix of different wetland habitats. In this podcast, archaeologist and historian, Dr Richard Brunning, explores how the present day landscape was largely created and 'tamed' in the early medieval period after the Roman conquest.

Pain is a major health care problem worldwide. It affects the well-being of millions of individuals, and its financial burden upon our societies is considerable. Pain is not a simple reflection of the degree of tissue-damage, it is strongly influenced by expectations and beliefs individuals hold about pain and their ability to cope with it. In this lecture, Dr Katja Wiech from the Centre for Pain Research, talks about research into how expectations can influence the outcome of pain treatment.

Modern knee replacement is a highly successful operation, relieving the pain and disability of knee osteoarthritis. However, it has limitations and these, combined with the changes in population demographics, present significant challenges for both current and future healthcare systems. Professor Richie Gill's inaugural lecture 'What is wrong with knee replacement?' explores these issues and the research being done to overcome them.

Delivered by Professor Allyson Pollock, public health research and policy specialist at Queen Mary, University of London, this IPR lecture explored major changes and challenges to the NHS through government reform, what this means for patient access and what needs to be done about it.

Local historian and archaeologist, Dr Simon Draper, discusses place names and their links to Anglo-Saxon landscape architecture for a number of Wessex communities in this Minerva series lecture (formally known as GULP). From the 7th century onwards, what was the meaning of place names like 'bury' and why were they significant?

How can government, industry and business better work together to invest in long-term research to harness solar energy and transform carbon dioxide into energy fuel? In this lecture, Global Chair at the University, Professor Geoffrey Ozin talks about using carbon dioxide as a source of fuel rather than treating it as a waste product and pioneering advances in nano-chemistry.

Ms Lambert, of Goldsmiths University, has worked as a history lecturer for 20 years. Her talk will look at the repeated failures to recover 'holy land' territories after 1147.

In a global system that seems to be remorselessly concentrating capital into fewer hands, this lecture will examine efforts to move money the other way in order to promote food security, with particular reference to Ethiopia. In this lecture, Professor James Copestake will highlight the growing business-orientation of aid and explore scope for being more transparent about its impact.

In this lecture Professor Steve Gough spoke to explore inconsistencies in the way we think of education, and to examine the role of human learning as our interactions with nature - particularly through economic activity - create and re-create our environment.