Guardian: The Royal Institution in London is shortening its popular Christmas lecture series, launched in 1825 by Michael Faraday. Instead of five days, the series will span only three days—a cost-cutting measure by the institution. The lectures present scientific subjects for a general audience in an entertaining fashion, and have been broadcast on television since 1966. A video archive of past lectures is available on the RI website.
Modeling the shapes of tree branches, neurons, and blood vessels is a thorny problem, but researchers have just discovered that much of the math has already been done.