Progress on the Road to Curing Motor Neuron Disease - Professor Chris Shaw

0:00 // Introduction — Trump versus the Constitution after 16 monthsUploaded 17-07-261:27 // The five worst Supreme Court decisions of all time3:13 // Dred Scott 1857 — the case that helped start a civil war5:33 // Plessy v Ferguson 1896 — separate but equal and Angola prison8:38 // Buck v Bell 1927 — eugenics, sterilisation and echoes in the present10:43 // Korematsu 1944 — Japanese internment and the road to Guantanamo13:39 // Bowers v Hardwick — criminalising sodomy and how Stafford Smith fought it18:00 // Lawrence v Texas — how the Supreme Court finally overruled Bowers19:18 // The current court — immunity for presidents and the 22 unanimous decisions21:38 // Roberts versus Clarence Thomas — two very different conservatives23:44 // The biggest decision of this term — Trump's tariffs struck down 6 to 326:19 // Why Britain needs a constitution — prisoners' votes and Cameron's contempt27:43 // Criminal cases — death row, mental disability and the court doing its job31:20 // First Amendment cases — conversion therapy, gender and street preaching35:38 // Louisiana v Calais — gerrymandering, affirmative action and why it will backfire42:13 // Conclusion — the Constitution is surviving, but Britain has no such protectionWatch the Q and A session here: https://youtu.be/EYtlT4N0z28The Americans are very proud of their written constitution. During the first 3/8 of President Trump’s second term of office, the constitution has been severely tested. Where has the Constitution succeeded in providing legal safeguards, clarity and stability, and where has it failed? How will the remainder of this presidency look? And what is coming after Trump? This lecture was recorded by Clive Stafford Smith on the 4th of June 2026Clive Stafford Smith JD OBE is a dual UK-US national, the founder and director of the Justice League a non-profit human rights training centre focused on fostering the next generation of advocates. He was the Senior Prefect at Radley College, where he studied maths and science; then a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), where he took a degree in Politics; and a Stone Merit Scholar each of his three years at Columbia Law School, graduating in 1984. He previously founded and directed the legal action charities Louisiana Capital Assistance Center (1993 in New Orleans) and Reprieve (1999 in London). Since 1984 he has tried many capital cases, and helped to represent over 400 people facing execution in the US and elsewhere. He also brought the first challenge to Guantánamo Bay, where he has secured the release of 87 detainees, and continues to assist the remaining 15. In all five of the cases he has helped bring to the U.S. Supreme Court the petitioner has prevailed. He has recently taken on the case of Aafia Siddiqui, the woman who has most suffered from the US rendition-to-torture program – abducted with her three children. He continues to work on capital cases in the US, including a Post-Mortem Project where he is investigating the claims of innocence of 184 people executed since 1977.Clive has published a number of books including Bad Men (2008, describing work in Guantánamo) and Injustice (2012, on the capital case of Kris Maharaj), both of which were short-listed for the Orwell Prize; and most recently The Far Side of the Moon (2023), deconstructing the parallel lives of his father and a client Larry Lonchar, both of whom were labelled Bipolar. He has many other publications, including manuals for the defence of capital cases, and law review articles about aspects of capital defence. He has worked on many films and documentaries, starting with Fourteen Days In May (1987), recently ranked as one of the top BBC documentaries of all time. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/current-chal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Black Holes seem to have a bad press that is largely undeserved. The lecture will explain what Black Holes are, how we can discover them even through they cannot be seen and how Stephen Hawking has shown that they are not totally black!Uploaded 11-08-11The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/black-holes-no-need-to-be-afraidGresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Britain's history has been shaped by its relationship with the sea. The possibilities and profits offered by maritime trade were particularly important in defining the country's development as a global power in the Age of Sail. Richly illustrated with images and objects from the collection of the National Maritime Museum and beyond, this lecture explores how British overseas trade went hand in hand with Britain's global empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Uploaded 18-10-11[All images featured in this lecture are courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.]The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the full conference's page on the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/soothing-the-savage-breastGresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bevis Marks Synagogue is the oldest synagogue in the UK (consecrated 1701), and is the 'cathedral synagogue' of a community which arrived in England in 1656 with the blessing of Oliver Cromwell, thus ending over three-and-a-half centuries of Jewish exile from this country. For the last 350 years this community has existed as an integral part of religious and cultural life in the City of London. Uploaded 30-11-11This lecture explores the history of this interaction, with a particular focus on how it has affected the community's musical-liturgical heritage, from its origins in the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam and the conversos fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, through the time of Handel and Hadyn, the Romanticism of the 19th century, right through to the present day. The lecture is illustrated by live performances of selections from the congregation's liturgical music by the choir of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation, as well as archive recordings of times gone by. The lecture is jointly delivered by Maurice Bitton, Beadle and Curator at Bevis Marks Synagogue, and Chazan Eliot Alderman, Director of Music of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews' congregation.The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-history-and-music-of-the-spanish-and-portuguese-jewish-congregationGresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website.http://www.gresham.ac.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

00:00 | Introducing Dr. Wang: Art, Science and the BodyUploaded 14-07-2601:22 | Setting the Scene: Modernity Fought Through the Body02:35 | 1919: Nude Models Arrive at Shanghai Art Academy05:11 | The New Cultural Movement and Coeducation06:32 | 1925: The Warlord Government Bans Nude Models08:03 | "The Nude Doesn't Belong in China": One Critic's Case09:09 | Brushwork as the True Essence of Modern Art11:14 | The Counter-Case: The Nude as Scientific Truth11:44 | 1851: A Pioneering Anatomical Treatise in Chinese13:29 | Anatomy, Evangelization and Scientific Racism14:31 | The Body as a Site of Empire: "Sick Men of Asia"15:08 | 1892: Medicine First Undresses the Female Body16:56 | Eugenics and the Politics of Women's Health18:24 | The Nude Goes Global: Transnational Print Networks19:20 | The Young Companion: Venus Meets Chinese Beauty20:47 | 1927: Breast Binding Bans and the Cult of Curves23:48 | March 1927: The Wuhan Women's Emancipation Parade27:32 | Pan Yuliang: From Brothel to First Female Professor30:20 | War, Exile and the 1941 Paris Salon Attack33:45 | Legacy: The Nude Debate Resurfaces in 1979 BeijingWatch the Q and A session here: https://youtu.be/gmlQqetDMlkThe bare, naked, nude, and tradition-defying body constituted one of the most radical sites of cultural transformations in China’s pivotal historical transition from the last imperial dynasty to a new Republic. This lecture reveals how the female nude – at the intersection of art, medicine, and science – became deeply entwined with the cultural politics of nationalism and modernisation, structured new racial, gender, and class relations, and simultaneously, shaped the genesis of modern art and visual culture in China.This lecture was recorded by Dr Di Wang on the 8th of June 2026 at Barnard's Inn Hall, LondonDr Di Wang is an art historian and curator. Her work focuses on art and culture of East Asia from the late-nineteenth century to the present.Following her doctorate at the University of Oxford, she has taught as a departmental lecturer and research associate at the Department of History of Art at Oxford. Her first book project reveals the surprising entanglement of medicine, science, and revolutionary politics in the genesis of a socially engaged modern art and visual culture in China, offering the first inter-disciplinary history on how science and medicine shaped the contours of avant-garde thinking in China during the modern period.The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/nude-chinaGresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/Website: https://gresham.ac.ukTwitter: https://twitter.com/greshamcollegeFacebook: https://facebook.com/greshamcollegeInstagram: https://instagram.com/greshamcollege Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices