Lovesickness - Professor Glenn Wilson

When love goes wrong: the story of heartbreak, obsession, jealousy and erotomania.

Colour - Professor William Ayliffe

What is colour and how do we see it? – Professor Ayliffe explains the history and the science.

What is this thing called "love"? - Professor Glenn D Wilson

What is the evolutionary explanation of ‘love’ and how does it work in the brain?

At the End of the Line: Students helping students - Dr Ann Conlon

Nightline: The story behind the student-ran volunteer helpline that runs through the night and helps thousands of Londoners every year.

Future Brain - Professor Keith Kendrick

From improving our own brains to creating artificial ones – Professor Kendrick describes what the future of the brain might look like.

London After Dark: Saving Londoners' Lives - Peter Bradley

A lecture on the work of the London Ambulance Service through the night.

The Tragedy of Easy Problems - Dr Prajwal Ciryam

How can we have proven solutions to the problems of development or global health and yet not sufficiently act on them?

Sex Wars - Professor Glenn Wilson

How the "selfish genes" of men and women sometimes create conflict.

Why We See What We Do - Professor William Ayliffe

How has animal life developed the nature of vision? What are the pros and what are the cons?

When a Parent has a Mental Illness - Dr Alan Cooklin

A lecture to examine the effect of the mental illness of parents on their children.

Re-Thinking Social Care - Martin Knapp

As pressure builds on the British National Health Service, how should be begin to think about the future of social care?

Enabling innovation and improved performance in healthcare - Professor Bernard Crump

The British National Health Service needs to change, but in what way and how are we to enable this to happen?

Can the English National Health Service learn from the Dutch reforms? - Professor Gwyn Bevan

The British National Health Service is in troubled times. Do the recent reforms in the Netherlands offer a possible solution to the problems?

Choice of Providers and Mutual Healthcare Purchasers: The Dutch Reforms - Professor Wynand PMM van de Ven

What can the reforms in Dutch healthcare teach Britain about the offering of a choice of providers and mutual healthcare purchasers?

Repairing and Treating Damaged or Dysfunctional Brains - Professor Keith Kendrick

What progress are we making towards repairing damaged brains and treating mental disorders?

Blindness in Children: The Global Perspective - Professor Clare Gilbert

Why do children become blind and what worldwide treatment programs are there to prevent it?

Diabetes, Hypertension and Vascular Diseases of the Eye - Professor William Ayliffe

How our eyes can tell us a lot about our general health.

Understanding the Brain: A work in progress - Professor Keith Kendrick

Just how much do we know about the neurology behind our memories, emotions and conscious awareness?

Correction of Optical Defects: From Spectacles to Lasers - Professor William Ayliffe

The history of vision-correction, from Roger Bacon’s glasses of 1266 through to today’s cutting-edge laser technology.

How mental health law discriminates unfairly against people with mental illness - Professor George Szmuckler

Professor Szmuckler considers whether a person with mental illness has access to the same level of justice as everybody else.

Fun with Visual Illusions - Professor William Ayliffe

An explanation of how and why visual illusions occur, and what they tell us about vision.

Born Gay? The origins of sexual orientation - Professor Glenn D Wilson

The origins of sexual orientation: nature, nurture and how much of each?

Inflammatory Eye Disease - Stephen Foster

The past, present and future of this most common form of visual disability.

Child Psychology - Professor Eric Taylor

What are the causes of conditions such as ADHD and autism? Why are their levels rising in children today?

For better or worse? How we pick our partners - Professor Glenn D Wilson

What are men and women looking for in a partner and how do they differ?

Visual Perception - Professor William Ayliffe

Untangling the neural pathways to understand the parts of the brain where vision occurs.

In the Brain of the Beholder? The Principles of Beauty and Sex Appeal - Professor Glenn D Wilson

Is attractiveness simply a matter of being healthy and fertile?

The History of Cataract Surgery - Professor William Ayliffe

An overview of the commonest operation in the world, from ancient India to the complex surgery of today.

Eating Disorders - Professor Janet Treasure and Melissa Wolfe

A lecture investigating the problems of eating disorders such as bulimia and anorexia, with a personal account of suffering from an eating disorder.

i-dentity - Professor John Marshall

The controversial uses of the latest advances in facial recognition.

Targeted Therapies in Oncology: The future of ovarian cancer - Dr Liz Han

What might the future hold for the treatment of ovarian cancer, the most lethal gynaecologic malignancy in both the US and UK?

Braille and the History of Blindness - Professor William Ayliffe

A lecture to explore the cultural history of blindness and the story of Braille, 200 years since the birth of Louis Braille.

The Human Eye and Vision - Professor William Ayliffe

The structure and function of the human eye: from the historical concept through to the modern view of the eye as a sophisticated image-processing organ.

Bollywood and Mental Illness - Professor Dinesh Bhugra

How is mental illness portrayed in Bollywood and what are its implications for Indian society?

How many healthy people can the earth support? - Professor Christopher Dye

What is the upper limit of healthy coexistence?

Is it all in the genes? - Professor Peter McGuffin

Mental illness and the Nature/Nurture question.

Are human beings still evolving? - Professor Christopher Dye

It was thought that the dramatic extension of life spans during the 20th century eliminated natural selection, but new evidence shows that to be false. Will selection always be natural, or could postmodern also mean posthuman?

The Psychology of Performing Arts: Stage Fright and Optimal Performance - Professor Glenn D Wilson

An overview of the causes and cures of performance anxiety. When is emotional arousal beneficial to performance and when destructive? The pros and cons of various approaches to treatment.

The Psychology of Performing Arts: The Power of Music - Professor Glenn D Wilson

How does music exert such extraordinary effects on our emotions? To what extent does it depend upon our nature and to what extent experience? Does listening to music increase our intelligence?

The Psychology of Performing Arts: Theatre and Human Expression - Professor Glenn D Wilson

What benefits do we derive from theatre? Can we be harmed or corrupted by theatre?

Mercury Rising: Health Warnings for a Hot Planet - Professor Christopher Dye

Just how inconvenient is the truth about global warming? Is this the most pressing health problem facing humanity, or are there more important things to worry about?

Are Normal People Sane? - Professor Robin Murray

Are conditions such as anxiety or depression merely the extreme end of a normal distribution of the characteristic? Where can we draw the line?

The Stigma of Mental Illness: Inevitable or unjustifiable? - Professor Graham Thornicroft

Does stigma and discrimination against people with mental illness decrease with the more contact people have with those diagnosed with a mental illness? What can be done about it?

Can we trust our food? - Professor Colin Dennis

Consumers are increasingly concerned not only about the safety and quality of food but also about its origin. What part do the demands of accreditation and certification play in ensuring the standards we hope for in food?

Luck, Leadership and Liberty: Health through cultural evolution - Professor Christopher Dye

What processes govern whether health in populations gets better or worse on a time scale of a few decades? Have healthy populations reached that state through luck, good leadership, or because people have the freedom to respond to incentives?

Shall future generations eat fish or whales? - Sidney J Holt

Most whale species are now depleted to near extinction and the ocean's living resources are in crisis. What are the causes of this catastrophe and what possible restorative actions might there be?

How to be Happy - Professor Raj Persuad

What is it about happiness that makes it so elusive for most of us and yet seemingly so simple for some? Is it a matter of how we approach our lives, or is it just luck in how we find the world?

For a diet of worms: Too much hygiene can damage your health - Professor Christopher Dye

Public health campaigns have dramatically reduced exposure to infection but the effects have not been uniformly beneficial; one consequence has been the rise of cancers, allergies, asthma, and other autoimmune diseases.

Shell Shock or Cowardice?: The case of Harry Farr - Professor Simon Wessely

Private Harry Farr was executed for alleged cowardice during the Battle of the Somme. What exactly had happened to Harry on that day when he refused to go into the trenches? What did shell shock really mean in 1916? Is it acceptable to judge history by our own contemporary standards?

Tribes and Diatribes: Race, Genes, and Diseases - Professor Christopher Dye

Few human deaths are caused by inherited genetic defects, and yet all diseases have a genetic basis. How do we resolve that paradox, and what have race, ethnicity and longevity got to do with it?

The Future of London's Hospitals - Dr Patricia Oakley

What is the future going to hold for the National Health Service and London's hospitals?

What is a human life worth? - Professor Christopher Dye

Choice is a marker of freedom, but also a consequence of limited resources. Does our fixation about measurement lead to the best decisions about improving health? Or is cost-effectiveness just the price of everything divided by the value of nothing?

London's Hospitals Today - Geoffrey Rivett

How do hospitals operate in modern day London? Are there conflicts between having a really good service for some critical conditions, and having the service round the corner? The National Health Service has always tried to balance these alternative goods, but these balances can change over time.

Fame and Celebrity - Professor Glenn D Wilson

The modern obsession with 'empty' celebrity and the behaviour of obsessive fans (e.g. stalking). The downside of fame is explored, including media intrusion, links with narcissistic personality, burn-out, drug dependency, depression and suicide.

Why is Africa still the poorest continent? - Professor Christopher Dye

An ABC of Africa's woes might begin with AIDS, biogeography and colonialism. But does Africa have peculiarly many problems, or are there just a few, major causes of persistent and widespread ill health and poverty?

Actors and Acting - Professor Glenn D Wilson

The psychological roots of performance and acting; the personality stresses suffered by actors; and the advantages and disadvantages of the two mains schools of actor training.

Musical Talent and ability - Professor Glenn D Wilson

Natural potential vs practice; the role of teachers; what is effective practice; 'musical' vs 'unmusical' performance.

London: A microcosm of global health - Professor Christopher Dye

"Life and death on the Piccadilly line": While some people feel "overtasked, overstrained and overlived in this close London life", others thrive in the metropolis. From Uxbridge to Cockfosters, what makes the difference?

Pandemic! Globalization and the New Plagues - Professor Christopher Dye

What processes govern the spread of infections in populations? Why do some pathogens come and go while others are very persistent? Why are we now facing new threats from BSE, SARS and bird flu, and how worried should we be?