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2024: Chris van Tulleken - The Truth About Food: 1. From Taste Buds to Toilet
Dr Chris van Tulleken follows the extraordinary journey food takes through our bodies – from the very first moment we see and smell a potential meal... until it finally emerges at the other end of our digestive tract. Be prepared for plenty of gross moments in this one-hour lecture! \n\nPrue Leith, the nation’s favourite baker, drops by with some very confusing Christmas foods to help Chris crack the mysterious science of taste, and Chris’s baby daughter Indigo is on hand as an expert food taster, to find out if we are born with the concept of disgust, or if we learn it as we grow up. \n\nTo get a really personal view of the journey our food takes, Chris’s twin brother, Dr Xand van Tulleken, uses an endoscope inside his own body. Chris then straps Xand to the spinning 'wheel of doom', to test whether it’s possible to eat upside down. He inflates a stomach to discover how much food it can hold, before revealing that the small intestine is really very big, as he spills his guts right across the lecture theatre. He meets a goat that’s powered by trillions of microscopic bugs in its stomach, and finally, Chris enlists members of the audience to find the right ingredients for a perfect poo. \n\nThis is the 199th year of the Christmas Lectures. They are the most prestigious event in the Royal Institution calendar, dating from 1825 when Michael Faraday founded the series for children. They have become the world’s longest-running science television series and promise to inspire children and adults alike each year, through explosive demonstrations and interactive experiments with the live theatre audience.
Source: BBC 4
Most recent episodes of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2024: Chris Van Tulleken - The Truth About Food: 3. The Big Food Hack
What did the very first meal on earth look like? To begin his third and final Christmas Lecture in an explosive fashion, Dr Chris van Tulleken takes us back more than four billi ...
31-12-2024
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2024: Chris Van Tulleken - The Truth About Food: 2. How Food Makes Us
In this lecture, Dr Chris van Tulleken investigates how we get energy from our food and how what we eat makes us who we are. He reveals how combustion engines get their energy i ...
30-12-2024
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2024: Chris Van Tulleken - The Truth About Food: 1. From Taste Buds To Toilet
Dr Chris van Tulleken follows the extraordinary journey food takes through our bodies – from the very first moment we see and smell a potential meal... until it finally em ...
29-12-2024
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2023: Professor Mike Wooldridge - The Truth About Ai: 3. The Future Of Ai: Dream Or A Nightmare?
Professor Mike Wooldridge grapples with the future of AI in the third and final Christmas lecture. \n\nMike takes a ride in a driverless car. Autonomous vehicles, once a science ...
04-01-2024
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2023: Professor Mike Wooldridge - The Truth About Ai: 2. My Ai Life
Professor Mike Wooldridge reveals the huge role AI already plays in our daily lives – sometimes without us even realising its role. \n\nMike investigates how games like ch ...
03-01-2024
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2023: Professor Mike Wooldridge - The Truth About Ai: 1. How To Build An Intelligent Machine
Professor Mike Wooldridge asks: what is artificial intelligence? He compares how AI works and learns with how the human brain functions. \n\nExploring the roots of AI, Mike reve ...
02-01-2024
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2022: Dame Sue Black: 3. Living Body
The final lecture in the series begins with a ‘heist’. A jewel thief steals a precious man-made diamond from the Royal Institution’s collection. Can forensic e ...
28-09-2023
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2022: Dame Sue Black: 2. Missing Body
Professor Sue Black investigates a Christmas murder mystery to show how serious crimes are solved when there isn't a body. \n\nSue is joined by an expert team including leading ...
20-09-2023
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2022: Dame Sue Black: 1. Dead Body
Professor Sue Black has been dubbed the ‘corpse whisperer’ for her role in deciphering the messages hidden within a dead body. In this first lecture in the Royal Ins ...
13-09-2023
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2021: 3. Fighting Back
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam explores the inner workings of vaccines to reveal how these medical marvels can help win the war on viruses and potentially fight diseases such as can ...
30-12-2021
BBC 4
Most popular episodes of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2018: Who Am I?: 1. Where Do I Come From?
Professor Alice Roberts meets our ancient ancestral family, from armadillos to sharks, and discovers our true place in the tree of life. With 4D scanning, giant origami and a uk ...
26-12-2018
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2017: The Language Of Life: 1. Say It With Sound
From musical mosquitoes to rumbling elephants, Say It with Sound explores how humans and other animals use noises to communicate.\n\nSophie Scott, a professor of neuroscience at ...
26-12-2017
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2023: Professor Mike Wooldridge - The Truth About Ai: 1. How To Build An Intelligent Machine
Professor Mike Wooldridge asks: what is artificial intelligence? He compares how AI works and learns with how the human brain functions. \n\nExploring the roots of AI, Mike reve ...
02-01-2024
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2018: Who Am I?: 2. What Makes Me Human?
Professor Alice Roberts explores the story of human evolution, revealing how a humble African ape became a successful global species. With daring parkour athletes and life-size ...
27-12-2018
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2023: Professor Mike Wooldridge - The Truth About Ai: 2. My Ai Life
Professor Mike Wooldridge reveals the huge role AI already plays in our daily lives – sometimes without us even realising its role. \n\nMike investigates how games like ch ...
03-01-2024
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2017: The Language Of Life: 2. Silent Messages
In this second lecture, Professor Sophie Scott explores the world of silent communication in the animal kingdom and the human world - showing how much we can actually say withou ...
27-12-2017
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2020: Planet Earth - A User's Guide: 1. Engine Earth
Professor Chris Jackson travels back into deep geological time, charting the Earth’s climate as it swings from hothouse to ice house and back again. With the help of spect ...
29-12-2020
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2016: Supercharged - Fuelling The Future: 1. Let There Be Light!
26-12-2016
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2021: 1. The Invisible Enemy
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam dives into the microworld of viruses, revealing how these invisible invaders can infect our bodies and how a revolution in testing may transform medic ...
28-12-2021
BBC 4
Royal Institution Christmas Lectures
2023: Professor Mike Wooldridge - The Truth About Ai: 3. The Future Of Ai: Dream Or A Nightmare?
Professor Mike Wooldridge grapples with the future of AI in the third and final Christmas lecture. \n\nMike takes a ride in a driverless car. Autonomous vehicles, once a science ...
04-01-2024
BBC 4