Lecture 15: The Chemistry of Life

DNA and RNA are the key molecules of living cells. DNA plays a vital role in storing and transmitting the hereditary information that constitutes the "operating instructions" of living cells; how to construct the functional and structural proteins that perform vital cell function ...  Show more

Extremophiles are organisms that are adapted to survive in extreme environments. This lecture describes the challenges that extremes of heat, cold, acidity, salinity, and radiation pose to organisms, and show examples of how evolution has nonetheless allowed some organisms to ada ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life cycle of stars. In his poem Bright Star John Keats wrote, "Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art". For Keats the stars were symbols of eternity- they were beautiful and ordered and unchanging - but modern astronomy tells a very d ...  Show more

Are we alone in the Universe? This lecture explores the question of how we might go about finding life on planets around other stars. Rather than talking about speculative ideas, like the Drake Equation or SETI, I am instead taking the approach of posing it as a problem of what t ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the abrupt transformation of stars after shining brightly for millions or billions of years, once they lack the fuel to counter the force of gravity. Those like our own star, the Sun, become red giants, expanding outwards and consuming nearby plane ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the abrupt transformation of stars after shining brightly for millions or billions of years, once they lack the fuel to counter the force of gravity. Those like our own star, the Sun, become red giants, expanding outwards and consuming nearby plane ...  Show more