The Royal Institution

The 2009 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, Prof Sue Hartley will show you plants and their relationship with animals as you've never seen them before.

Lecture 1 - Why Elephants Can't Dance If you were to drop a hamster and a dog off the tallest building in the

Lecture 1 - Why Elephants Can't Dance How strong is a leaf-cutting ant? And why didn't the queen ant get an i

Lecture 2 - Why Chocolate Melts and Jet Engines Don't Why does an iron rod just heat up in a bunsen burner flame whilst iron filling produce fireworks? We got in a pyrotechnics specialist for this one. It was definitely the biggest Bunsen burner anyone at the RI had ever seen. The iron powder that we used is more often found in fireworks, for obvious reasons. The Ri is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://www.rigb.org/home/editorial-policy Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter

Lecture 3 - Why Are Mountains So Small? Can a cannon ball float and is it possible to hold a piece

Lecture 2 - Why Chocolate Melts and Jet Engines Don't Why is there an inflatable velcro wall in the Royal Institution and what does a head louse really look like? This demonstration made quite a few people at the RI very nervous, note the proximity of the giant Velcro wall to the priceless paintings and chandeliers that live in that room. To make things a little more difficult we put a scanning electron microscope (worth tens of thousands) right next to it. But it did mean that, in one room, you could see what happens to Velcro on big scale and on a very small scale -- surely a world first?! The Ri is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://www.rigb.org/home/editorial-policy Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter

Lecture 3 - Why Are Mountains So Small? Is it possible to escape gravity? Tune in to find out... The first time Mark got into the harness to defy gravity it was unfortunately too tight in key places! The Ri is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://www.rigb.org/home/editorial-policy Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter