Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures
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Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures
The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are a series of lectures on a single topic each, which have been held at the Royal Institution in London each year since 1825. The lectures present scientific subjects to a general audience, including young people, in an informative and entertaining manner. Michael Faraday conceived and initiated the Christmas Lecture series in 1825, at a time when organised education for young people was scarce. Many of the Christmas Lectures were published. History The Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures were first held in 1825, and have continued on an annual basis since then except for four years during the Second World War. They have been hosted each year at the Royal Institution itself, except in 1929 and between 2005 and 2006, each time due to refurbishment of the building. They were created by Michael Faraday, who later hosted the lecture season on nineteen occasions. The Nobel laureate Sir William Bragg gave the Christmas lectures on four oc ...
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Faraday Michael Christmas Lecture Detail
Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the study of electrochemistry and electromagnetism. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and electrolysis. Although Faraday received little formal education, as a self-made man, he was one of the most influential scientists in history. It was by his research on the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a direct current that Faraday established the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. Faraday also established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena. the 1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. He similarly discovered the principles of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and the laws of electrolysis. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due ...
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Sue Hartley
Susan Elaine Hartley is a British ecologist and is Vice-President for Research at the University of Sheffield. Previously she was director of thYork Environmental Sustainability Institute(YESI) at the University of York and Professor of Ecology at the University of Sussex, specialising in interactions between plants and animals. In December 2009 she delivered the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on ''The 300 Million Years War'', broadcast on More4. Education Sue Hartley attended St Hugh's College, University of Oxford, England, where she undertook an undergraduate BA degree in biochemistry. She then studied for DPhil postgraduate degree at the University of York in field of ecology. Her research considered the defences used by plants against being eaten by insects. Career Hartley worked at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, located close to Aberdeen in Scotland. Here she researched herbivorous foraging by animals such as red deer and sheep, considering the effect ...
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BBC Four
BBC Four is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002"Culture, controversy and cutting edge documentary: BBC FOUR prepares to launch"
BBC Press Office, 14 February 2002. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
and shows a wide variety of programmes including arts, documentaries, music, international film and drama, and current affairs. It is required by its licence to air at least 100 hours of new arts and music programmes, 110 hours of new factual programmes, and to premiere twenty foreign films each year.
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More4
More4 is a British free-to-air television channel, owned by Channel Four Television Corporation. The channel launched on 10 October 2005. Its programming mainly focuses on lifestyle and documentaries, as well as foreign dramas. Content The idea of a sister channel aimed at an older demographic than the youth oriented E4 with the More4 branding was first planned by Channel 4 back in 2003, although it in fact had grown out of an earlier idea which had been known as G4. Channel 4 had previously been planning a free-to-air youth channel before deciding on the More4 concept, as E4 was still a subscription channel at the time. More4 eventually launched on 10 October 2005. Its initial lineup included '' More4 News'', repeats of Channel 4 programmes such as ''Grand Designs'', ''Countdown'' and '' Deal or No Deal'' and American drama series such as '' ER'', ''The West Wing'' and ''The Sopranos'', which had previously been seen on E4, alongside Channel 4. More4 also broadcast the Ame ...
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Times Higher Education
''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The THES''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education from Charterhouse in a £400 million deal in July 2013 and rebranded TSL Education, of which ''Times Higher Education'' was a part, as TES Global. The acquisition by TPG marked the third change of ownership in less than a decade for Times Higher Education, which was previously owned by News International before being acquired by Exponent Private Equity in 2005. In March 2019, private equity group Inflexion Pvt. Equity Partners LLP acquired ''Times Higher Education'' from TPG Capital, becoming THE's fourth owners in 15 years. Following the acquisition by the private equity group, ''Times Higher Education'' was carved out as an independent entity from TES Global. The investment was made by Inflexion's dedicated mid-market buyout funds. Th ...
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Channel 5 (UK)
5 (formerly known as Channel 5 and Five) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Paramount Global's UK and Australia division. It was launched in 30 March 1997 to provide a fifth national terrestrial channel in the United Kingdom. Channel 5 was renamed Five, from 16 September 2002 until 13 February 2011. Most of this was under the RTL Group's ownership with Richard Desmond purchasing the channel on 23 July 2010 and reverting the name change.'Mini-revamp planned for Channel 5 News'
ATV Network, 30 October 2010
On 1 May 2014, the channel was acquired by Viacom (now Paramount Glo ...
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Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded entirely by its commercial activities, including Television advertisement, advertising. It began its transmission in 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in the United Kingdom. At the time, the only other channels were the television licence, licence-funded BBC1 and BBC2, and a single commercial broadcasting network, ITV (TV network), ITV. Originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation, a public corporation of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which was established in 1990 and came into operation in 1993. Until 2010, Channel 4 did not broadcast in Wales, but many of its programmes were re-broadcast ther ...
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BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matter, incorporating genres such as comedy, drama and documentaries. BBC Two has a remit "to broadcast highbrow, programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence, and is therefore free of commercial advertising. It is a comparatively well-funded Public broadcasting, public-service channel, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public-service channels worldwide. Originally styled BBC2, it was the third British television station to be launched (starting on 21 April 1964), and from 1 July 1967, Europe's first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour. It was envisaged as a home for ...
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William Coates (technician)
William Albert Coates  MBE (7 November 1919 – 7 October 1993) was a science communicator, lecturer and technician who worked at the Royal Institution in London from 1948 to 1986 and was a popular figure on television shows. As a lecture assistant he designed experiments for, and appeared alongside Lawrence Bragg numerous times as part of the televised Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. He was awarded the Lawrence Bragg Medal in 1975. Life and career Coates was born in Shoreditch in the East End of London on 7 November 1919, to policeman Francis Thomas Coates (c.1878–1950) and his wife, Lilian Martha née Fenniman. He went to Shoreditch Grammar School and became an apprentice at the Exchange Telegraph Company in 1934. Coates joined the armed services in 1939 as a private. He later joined the parachute regiment and was involved in Normandy Landings. He left with the rank of captain. After the Second World War, Coates worked as a technical assistant at Charing Cross Medica ...
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Christopher Jackson (geologist)
Christopher Aiden-Lee Jackson (born 1977) is a British geoscientist and science communicator. He was previously Professor of Sustainable Geoscience at the University of Manchester, and before that held the Equinor Chair of Basin Analysis at Imperial College, London. He is known for his work in geoscience, especially in the use of 3D seismic data to understand dynamic processes in sedimentary basins. Education Christopher Jackson was born in Derby in the East Midlands. He attended Wilmorton Primary School and Noel Baker Community school. Jackson completed a BSc in Geology at the University of Manchester in 1998. He stayed on at the University of Manchester to undertake a PhD in the tectono-stratigraphic evolution of sedimentary basins with Rob Gawthorpe, completing in 2002. Research and career Jackson's research focuses on the geodynamic, structural, and stratigraphic evolution of sedimentary basins. He has been described by the Geological Society of London as the "leading ...
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Kevin Fong
Kevin Jeremy San Yoong Fong (born 21 May 1971)Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Birth Index: 1916–2005 atabase on-line Provo, Utah, US: Ancestry.com Inc, 2008. Original data: General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes. London, England: General Register Office. is a British doctor and broadcaster. He is a consultant anaesthetist and anaesthetic lead for Major Incident Planning at UCL Hospitals. He is a professor at University College London where he organises and runs an undergraduate course Extreme Environment Physiology. Fong also serves as a prehospital doctor with Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex and specialises in space medicine in the UK and is the co-director of the Centre for Aviation Space and Extreme Environment Medicine (CASE Medicine), University College London. Fong is best known for his television appearances, particularly as an occasional presenter of the long-running BBC2 science programme, ''Horizon''. He presented the 2012 Channel 4 se ...
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The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855 as ''The Daily Telegraph and Courier''. ''The Telegraph'' is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The paper's motto, "Was, is, and will be", was included in its emblem which was used for over a century starting in 1858. In 2013, ''The Daily Telegraph'' and ''The Sunday Telegraph'', which started in 1961, were merged, although the latter retains its own editor. It is politically conservative and supports the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party. It was moderately Liberalism, liberal politically before the late 1870s.Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Journalismp 159 ''The Telegraph'' has had a number of news scoops, including the outbreak of World War II by rookie reporter Clare Hollingworth, desc ...
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