City lectures make Christmas history

For the first time in its 184-year history, The Royal Institution (Ri) is offering Lancashire folk an exclusive first look at this year's Christmas Lectures, as filming will be streamed live from London to the University of Central Lancashire.

The city is one of only five across the UK to host streaming of lecturers only previously available to Ri members.

This year, the lectures are presented by anthropologist, author and TV presenter Professor Alice Roberts and geneticist Professor Aiofe McLysaght.

Together they will broach one of the most important questions and one we all ask: “Who am I?”. The aim is to get the whole nation thinking about questions of identity, from our evolutionary heritage and commonalities with the animal world, to the way in which the complex interplay between our modern environment and our genomes shape who we are.

UCLan will show Lecture 2, examining man’s relationship to our closest evolutionary relatives and how we diverged from them, at 6.00pm on Thursday 13 December in the Darwin Lecture Theatre – home to the UCLan and Ri Young Scientist Centre.

The Christmas Lecturesare the longest running science communication series in the world. Having been delivered every year since 1825. They were the first science programme to be broadcast on UK national television in 1936 and have been broadcast every year since 1966.

Entry is free but places are limited and must be booked via Eventbrite https://riannualchristmaslecture.eventbrite.co.uk