Twitter: Breaking the Bird • 2025

50:59

This episode will show how innovations in construction are burgeoning: 3D printing, material salvaging... In cities, homes will be modular and “intelligent” and the growing population will lead us to explore new spaces on Earth and even other planets...

S1E2 • Dream the Future • 2017 • Technology

47:43

Daniel Henry dives into the new world of algorithms and computer-automated hiring, with the help of an animated co-presenter to explain how the technology works. Daniel's journey begins at the first stage of a job application - writing a CV. At the University of Liverpool, he is given tips from their student career advisers about how best to tailor his CV so it isn't rejected by software used to select applicants to progress to the next stage. But he discovers there may be ways to play this system.

2022 • Technology

51:53

The accidents behind the inventions of post-it notes, Ex-lax, Graphene and the way a walk in the snow almost leads to nuclear Armageddon.

S1E8 • Oops, I Changed the World • 2022 • Technology

56:41

Explores how the Cold War and Pentagon dollars fund the explosive growth of modern Los Angeles, creating the gargantuan "military-industrial-complex".

S1E2 • Blue Sky Metropolis • 2020 • Technology

47:24

To celebrate the webs big 50th birthday, Nat Geo takes a fun, nostalgic throwback romp down the cyber highway, from the early days through today. I LOVE THE INTERNET is one part glorious memory lane, one part "how the web changed everything" - our friendships, our habits, even our brains. It's nostalgia entertainment with enough gravitas to make it must-have content on Nat Geo.

2019 • Technology

59:00

Mike Wooldridge examines real-life neurons in action and explains how artificial neural networks are inspired by neural structures in the brain. To demonstrate how AI learns, we watch drones as they are trained to recognise and fly through structures in the lecture theatre autonomously. AI exploded into the public consciousness in 2022 with the release of ChatGPT and boasts around 100 million monthly users. Mike unravels the mystery of how large language models like ChatGPT work, and he finds out if one day this technology - along with a whole suite of different AI tools - will allow us to understand the animals we share this planet with. The Christmas Lectures are the most prestigious event in the Royal Institution calendar, dating from 1825, when Michael Faraday founded the series. They are the world's longest running science television series and always promise to inspire and amaze each year through explosive demonstrations and interactive experiments with the live theatre audience.

S1E1 • BBC Royal Institution Christmas Lectures: The Truth about AI • 2023 • Technology