This Monday evening over 80 students and staff members of Imperial College, together with members of the local Jewish community, gathered to hear Professor Lord Robert Winston.

Lord Winston spoke about his new book "Bad Ideas", due to be published 18th February.  In this unique and timely book, he takes a fresh look at man's greatest discoveries and innovations and asks whether our dependence on science and technology has led us into a precarious situation which is doomed to become worse before it gets better? As well as tracing the history and fall-out of our very worst ideas, this book also advocates the merits of scientific progress. For our drive to invent and improve the world around us is what, after all, makes us human.

Many Imperial students were present, and also students from other nearby colleges. Mark Harris studying maths at IC said "I was very interested in his subject matter, and his examples were all thought provoking, and presented in a way I had never thought of before".

Professor Winston connected the 'drive to invent' to the first biblical commandment in Genesis (1:18), "be fruitful and multiply, fill the world and conquer it". He explained  the term "conquer it" as meaning that it is telling us to take control of science and harness the innovations that we come up with and use them for positive things.

"The talk was thought provoking and well received, both by scientists and non-scientists" Rabbi Mendy Loewenthal director of Chabad of South Kensington said. As Adam Szerenyi said, an undergraduate in finance at Budapest University, "he brought scientific concepts to a level that make them universally understandable".

Chabad - Lubavitch (UK) has long been active on university campuses in London, including  IC,  with classes and social programmes. In 2008, the activities expanded to include a full time Chabad House in South Kensington, serving the needs of Jewish students and other locals. Since their inception they have been extremely busy with holiday programmes, weekly packed Friday night Shabbat dinners, numerous lectures and much more.