Burnt buildings are ubiquitous in the archaeological record and have been for as long as humans have built structures; they also permeate ancient history and literature, from Troy to Rome. Only recently have archaeologists attempted to understand the nature of these fires by using forensic investigation techniques to attempt to unpick the accidental from the deliberate from the malicious. This presentation will present the research as it stands currently.

The application of quantitative observations from space to climate research, particularly in the context of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Earth Observation Programme, will be described. Examples shown and discussed include a recent project (the ATSR Sensors) to measure, with the particularly high accuracy required, the Surface Temperature of the global oceans.

Children with disabilities are more likely to have eye and vision problems than are typical children. Yet these children find it harder to access examinations, and eye care providers are not always confident in managing children who do not fit the norm. This talk will explain why eye care is so important to children with disabilities, and how eye examinations can be made easy for children of all abilities.

Today's 'Wicked problems' such as climate change and biodiversity loss require new approaches to science education. Can we bring together effective ways of teaching in and out of school to create a new blended approach to science education?

The lecture will show how plants from Wales and the Welsh Borderland not only greened the planet but also provided habitats and food for animals and gradually changed the composition of the atmosphere.

As we answer demands on agriculture to produce more food sustainability, we need further to exploit GM. Evidence for new GM approaches to pest management are provided by agroecological systems developed in sub-Saharan Africa based on exploiting plant secondary metabolites by companion cropping.

Plastics are completely artificial materials, which were first synthesized as recently as the first half of the 20th century. In this context, it is arguable that the creation and development of plastics is one of the greatest engineering achievements in human history. The remarkable diversity and functionality of modern plastics (or polymers) is epitomized by two of my main areas of research; organic semiconductors and &qout;polymer opals&qout;.

Amidst an ongoing whirlwind of hype and sensationalist reporting about new applications of 3D printing in healthcare, this talk reviews technical and clinical factors from real cases, and identifies barriers to achieving routine adoption in the NHS. Polymer 3D printers have been used for at least 20 years in the custom implant fabrication process - with metal printers producing end-use parts for a decade. However, this digital approach is still far from routine; because of inefficient design processes, ill-defined design requirements, and a significant lack of shared interdisciplinary understanding - from both engineering and clinical perspectives. Promising routes to solving these problems are outlined.

In this talk I will reflect on the scientific difficulties faced by industrial researchers. These include the inadequacies of animal disease models, the complexity of disease mechanisms even when the underlying cause is a single gene mutation, the neglect of clinical science by medical researchers in academia, and the weakness of clinical pharmacology in universities and teaching hospitals. Finally I will consider industry academia relationships. I believe these are key to future success and I will describe the approaches being adopted by the Francis Crick Institute which is to be opened early in 2016.

Is sea level rise the most destructive environmental force in our future? Research and the media focus on temperature trends, and attribution has diverted attention from this elephant in the climate change room. The inevitability of major sea level rise will have profound impacts on coastal societies, mega-cities and global onshore and offshore resources.

My research focuses on the science of gravitational waves, ripples in space that are caused by some of the most violent events in the Universe such as exploding stars and colliding black holes. Gravitational waves were predicted by Einstein in a 1916 paper, but have only just been detected for the first time. I'll talk about this recent breakthrough and it's implications for our understanding of the Universe.