Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

Aired 2004

Aired 2005

Aired 2006

Aired 2007

Aired 2008

Aired 2009

Aired 2010

Aired 2011

Aired 2012

Aired 2013

Aired 2014

Aired 2015

Aired 2016

Aired 2017

Aired 2018

Professor Alice Roberts and Professor Aoife McLysaght take viewers on an immersive voyage through our evolutionary past and ask challenging questions about what our future holds.

Aired 2019

Dr. Hannah Fry reveals the hidden rules and patterns that govern every aspect of our world.

Aired 2020

Aired 2021

England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jonathan Van-Tam will be joined by a host of top UK scientists to take a deep dive into the science of viruses.

Aired 2022

Professor Dame Sue Black reveals the secrets of the real-life scientific detective process she uses to identify both the dead and the living.

Aired 2023

Aired 2024

In this year’s Christmas Lectures, Dr Chris van Tulleken delves deep into our guts – to reveal the revolutionary latest science around what happens inside our bodies when we eat. He investigates how food has fundamentally shaped human evolution, uncovers the importance of our microbiome – as the extra ‘organ’ we didn’t know we had – and asks how we can all eat better in future, for the sake of our own health and the health of the planet. Chris will reveal how what we eat can have a massive effect on both our bodies and our brains. He’ll bring the science to life through a series of fact fuelled demos, special guest appearances, festive food hacks, and a healthy dose of self-experimentation. From tastebuds to toilet, we’ll find out what happens in the body when we eat. How we eat with our eyes (green eggs and ham anyone?) and how smell and even sound can affect the taste of our food.

Aired 2025

Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock takes us on a voyage deep into space, on an astronomical search for extraterrestrial life, celebrating 200 years of the Christmas Lectures.