Royal Institution Christmas Lectures - Season 53 / Year 2018
Season 53 / Year 2018
Who Am I?
Episodes
Where Do I Come From?
In lecture one we explore our animal family, meeting our distant cousins – from fish to fruit flies – unearthing clues to our evolutionary past and revealing surprising similarities as we discover our true place in the tree of life
What Makes Me Human?
Lecture two covers the story of our recent evolution from early two-legged hominins to modern humans – revealing how a humble African ape became a successful global species. Alice and Aoife uncover the story of our journey out of Africa as we spread across the globe, and ask what sets us apart from the other, now extinct, hominin species.
What Makes Me, Me?
Lecture three, we see how the interplay between genetic variation and the environment makes us all different – even identical twins. We'll interrogate emerging genetic technologies – from fixing gene errors to personalised medicine – and ask how far we should go with genetic testing.
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The Gilded Age
The American Gilded Age was a period of immense economic change, of huge fortunes made and lost, and the rise of disparity between old money and new.
Against this backdrop of change, the story begins in 1882 — introducing young Marian Brook, the orphaned daughter of a Union general, who moves into the New York City home of her thoroughly old money aunts Agnes van Rhijn and Ada Brook. Accompanied by Peggy Scott, an accomplished African-American woman, Marian inadvertently becomes enmeshed in a social war between one of her aunts, a scion of the old money set, and her stupendously rich neighbors, a ruthless railroad tycoon and his ambitious wife, George and Bertha Russell.
In this exciting new world that is on the brink of the modern age, will Marian follow the established rules of society, or forge her own path?
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy
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All American
When a rising high school football player from South Central L.A. is recruited to play for Beverly Hills High, the wins, losses and struggles of two families from vastly different worlds — Compton and Beverly Hills — begin to collide. Inspired by the life of pro football player Spencer Paysinger.
