Podcasts by Category
- 746 - Uncharted: Access denied
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery.
A young researcher gains access to a secretive data set and discovers a system causing harm to the very people it is supposed to help.
One day a student makes a discovery which, if true, could shake the intellectual foundations of a global movement, and undermine politicians around the world.
Producer: Lauren Armstrong Carter
Mon, 25 Mar 2024 - 745 - The Evidence: The science of the menopause
Millions of women around the world experience the menopause each year; it’s an important milestone, which marks the end of their reproductive years.
But every individual's experience of it is personal and unique. In some cultures, there's a stigma about this life stage – it's viewed with trepidation and as something to be dreaded. In other cultures, it's considered to be a fresh start - a time of greater freedom when women no longer have to worry about their menstrual cycles.
In this edition, recorded at Northern Ireland Science Festival in Belfast, Claudia Hammond and her expert panel take a global look at the science of the menopause and debunk some myths along the way.
As Claudia and her guests navigate their way through the menopause maze, they look at the most recent academic research in this area. They also discuss the physical and psychological symptoms, the lifestyle changes women can make and the different treatments available, including Hormone Replacement Therapy.
Claudia also speaks to the American biological anthropologist who has dedicated an impressive 35 years of her life to studying the average age of the menopause in different countries - and finds out how hot flushes vary in different cultures. She also speaks to a doctor who is working hard to make women’s health less of a taboo subject in the community where she works. And she hears from a Professor of Reproductive Science who is setting up the UK's first menopause school.
Producer: Sarah Parfitt Co-ordinator: Siobhan Maguire Editor: Holly Squire Sound engineers: Andrew Saunderson and Bill Maul Mix engineer: Bob Nettles
Image used with permission of the Northern Ireland Science Festival
Thu, 21 Mar 2024 - 744 - Uncharted: The gossip mill
Hannah Fry explores two more tales of data and discovery.
Gossip and rumour are plaguing a tile manufacturing company. The chatter is pulling morale to new lows, and amid it all, a question hangs in the air: who is spreading it? Can the science of networks find out?
And, what is the secret to ageing well? One man believes he may have found the beginnings of an answer, and it is hiding in a convent.
Produced by: Ilan Goodman and Lauren Armstrong Carter
Mon, 18 Mar 2024 - 743 - Uncharted: The happiness curve
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery.
Do orangutans - or humans - experience a midlife crisis? Hidden deep in the data, two economists have found a surprising pattern: happiness is U shaped.
And, John Carter has a terrible choice to make. One path offers glory, the other to death. His decision hinges on one graph, but can it help him take the right road?
Produced by: Ilan Goodman and Lauren Armstrong Carter
Mon, 11 Mar 2024 - 742 - Uncharted: The doctor will see you now
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery.
Two couples are brought together by a tragedy and a tatty piece of paper, which reveals a serial murderer hiding in plain sight.
And, across the world in Singapore, a metro system is misbehaving wildly. The rail engineers and company officials are flummoxed. Can data save the day?
Produced by: Ilan Goodman and Lauren Armstrong Carter
Mon, 04 Mar 2024 - 741 - Uncharted: The returning soldier
Hannah Fry explores two tales of data and discovery.
In a few specific years across the 20th Century, the proportion of boys born, mysteriously spiked. We follow one researcher’s obsessive quest to find out why.
And next, a tale of science and skulduggery. Michael Mann was a respected climate scientist, unknown outside of a small academic circle, until he produced a graph that shocked the world and changed his life forever.
Producer: Ilan Goodman
Mon, 26 Feb 2024 - 740 - The Life Scientific: Michael Wooldridge
Humans have a long-held fascination with the idea of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a dystopian threat - from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, through to the Terminator movies. But somehow, we still often think of this technology as 'futuristic', whereas in fact, it's already woven into the fabric of our daily lives, from facial recognition software to translator apps.
And if we get too caught up in the entertaining sci-fi narrative around AI and the potential threat from machines, there is a more pressing danger that we overlook real and present concerns - from deep fakes to electoral disinformation.
Michael Wooldridge is determined to demystify AI and explain how it can improve our lives, in a whole host of different ways. A professor of Computer Science at the University of Oxford, and the director of Foundational AI Research at the Alan Turing Institute, Mike believes the most common fears around this technology are "misplaced".
In a special 300th edition of The Life Scientific, recorded in front of an audience at London's Royal Institution (RI), Mike tells Jim al-Khalili how he will use this year's prestigious RI Christmas Lectures to lift the lid on modern AI technology and discuss how far it could go in future. Mike also reminiscences about the days when sending an email was a thrilling novelty, discusses why people love talking to him about the Terminator at parties, and is even challenged to think up a novel future use of AI by ChatGPT.
Presenter: Jim al-Khalili Producer: Lucy Taylor Audio editor: Sophie Ormiston Production co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
Mon, 19 Feb 2024 - 739 - The Life Scientific: Mercedes Maroto-Valer
How do you solve a problem like CO2?
As the curtain closes on the world’s most important climate summit, we talk to a scientist who was at COP 28 and is working to solve our carbon dioxide problem.
Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer thinks saving the planet is still Mission Possible - but key to success is turning excess of the climate-busting gas, carbon dioxide, into something useful. And as Director of the Research Centre for Carbon Solutions at Heriot-Watt University and the UK’s Decarbonisation Champion, she has lots of innovative ideas on how to do this.
She also has a great climate-themed suggestion for what you should say when someone asks your age…
Presenter: Jim Al-Khalili Producer: Gerry Holt Audio editor: Sophie Ormiston Production Co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
Mon, 12 Feb 2024 - 738 - The Life Scientific: Sir Harry Bhadeshia
The Life Scientific zooms in to explore the intricate atomic make-up of metal alloys, with complex crystalline arrangements that can literally make or break structures integral to our everyday lives. Professor Sir Harry Bhadeshia is Professor of Metallurgy at Queen Mary University of London and Emeritus Tata Steel Professor of Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge. He’s been described as a ‘steel innovator’ – developing multiple new alloys with a host of real-world applications, from rail tracks to military armour. Harry’s prolific work in the field has earned him widespread recognition and a Knighthood; but it's not always been an easy ride... From his childhood in Kenya and an enforced move to the UK as a teenager, to the years standing up to those seeking to discredit the new path he was forging in steel research - Jim Al-Khalili discovers that Harry's achievements have required significant determination, as well as hard work.
Presenter: Jim Al-Khalili Producer: Lucy Taylor Audio editor: Sophie Ormiston Production Co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
Mon, 05 Feb 2024 - 737 - The Life Scientific: Cathie Sudlow
“Big data” and “data science” are terms we hear more and more these days. The idea that we can use these vast amounts of information to understand and analyse phenomena, and find solutions to problems, is gaining prominence, both in business and academia. Cathie Sudlow, Professor of Neurology and Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, has been at the forefront of enabling health-related research using ever-increasing datasets. She tells presenter Jim Al-Khalili why this type of research matters and how the COVID-19 pandemic changed attitudes towards data in healthcare. Over the course of her career, Cathie has held a variety of roles at different organisations, and she is currently Chief Scientist and Deputy Director at Health Data Research UK. She believes that there is no room for prima donnas in science, and wants her field to be open and collaborative, to have the most impact on patients’ lives.
Presenter: Jim Al-Khalili Producer: Florian Bohr Production Co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
Mon, 29 Jan 2024 - 736 - The Life Scientific: Sir Michael Berry
Professor Jim Al-Khalili meets one of Britain's greatest physicists, Sir Michael Berry. His work uncovers 'the arcane in the mundane', revealing the science that underpins phenomena in the world around us such as rainbows, and through his popular science lectures he joyfully explains the role of quantum mechanics in phones, computers and the technology that shapes the modern world. He is famed for the 'Berry phase' which is a key concept in quantum mechanics and one Sir Michael likes to explain through an analogy of holding a cat upside down and dropping it, or parallel parking a car.
Presenter: Jim Al-Khalili Studio Producer: Tom Bonnett Audio Editor: Gerry Holt Production Co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
Mon, 22 Jan 2024 - 735 - The Life Scientific: Sarah Harper
People around the world are living longer and, on the whole, having fewer children. What does this mean for future populations? Sarah Harper CBE, Professor in Gerontology at the University of Oxford, tells presenter Jim Al-Khalili how it could affect pensions, why it might mean we work for longer, and discusses the ways modern life is changing global attitudes to when we have children, and whether we have them at all. Fertility and ageing have been Sarah's life's work and she tells her story of giving up a career in the media to carry out in-depth research, and going on to study population change in the UK and China, setting up the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and later becoming a Scientific Advisor to UK Government.
Presenter: Jim Al-Khalili Producer: Tom Bonnett Production Co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
Mon, 15 Jan 2024 - 734 - The Life Scientific: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
Our primate cousins fascinate us, with their uncanny similarities to us. Studying other apes and monkeys also helps us figure out the evolutionary puzzle of what makes us uniquely human. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy’s work brings a female perspective to this puzzle, correcting sexist stereotypes like the aggressive, philandering male and the coy, passive female.
Sarah is professor emerita of anthropology at the University of California, Davis, and studies female primate behaviour to create a richer picture of our evolutionary history, as well as what it means to be a woman or a parent today. Her overarching aim is to understand the human condition, a goal she initially planned to pursue by writing novels. Instead, she found her way into science: her ground-breaking study of infanticide among langur monkeys in northern India overturned assumptions about these monkeys’ murderous motivations. Later in her career, she looked into reproductive and parenting strategies across species. We humans are primed by evolution, she believes, to need a lot of support raising our children. And that is a concern she found reflected in her own life, juggling family commitments with her career ambitions as a field researcher, teacher, and science writer.
Mon, 08 Jan 2024 - 733 - The Life Scientific: Edward Witten
The Life Scientific returns with a special episode from the USA; Princeton, New Jersey, to be precise. Here, the Institute for Advanced Study has hosted some of the greatest scientific minds of our time - Einstein was one of its first professors, J. Robert Oppenheimer its longest-serving director - and today's guest counts among them. Edward Witten is professor emeritus at the institute and the physicist behind M-Theory, a leading contender for what is commonly referred to as ‘the theory of everything’, uniting quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of gravity. He talks to Jim al-Khalili about a career that’s spanned some of the most exciting periods in modern theoretical physics - and about one particular problem that has obsessed and eluded him since his days as a student.
Producer: Lucy Taylor
Mon, 01 Jan 2024 - 732 - What's stopping us from exercising in older age?
Exercise in older age is high on the agenda, but the idea that with age comes bags of time and a desire to ‘get out there’ isn’t true for a lot of us. How do you juggle exercise around caring for partners, grandchildren or staying in work? What if you haven’t exercised for years? What can your body take, and how has it changed with age? James Gallagher hears how octogenarian athlete ‘Irongran’ keeps going, he explores the mental and physical barriers that stop us exercising and he finds out what he might feel like in 40 years as he pulls on an ageing suit.
(Photo: Elderly man going for a run. Credit: Charday Penn / Getty Images)
Mon, 25 Dec 2023 - 731 - When does sitting become bad for health?
How many hours do you spend sitting down per day? Six? Maybe eight? Or 10? Between commuting, working and relaxing, sitting can soon add up to hours and hours. James Gallagher delves into the science to find out exactly how much sitting is too much; when does it become worrying for our health? James visits a lab to explore what prolonged sitting does to the body and he’ll find out whether there’s anything you can do to offset the effects of sitting a lot. We’ll hear about the origins of sitting research - and just because we like to explore every angle on a topic, we’ll hear all about why standing too much can also be a worry.
(Photo: Woman sitting at desk in office. Credit: Richard Drury / Getty Images)
Mon, 18 Dec 2023 - 730 - Putting the Mouth Back into the BodyTue, 12 Dec 2023
- 729 - Tooth and Claw: Cheetahs
Adam Hart investigates the fastest land animal in the world – the cheetah! Built for high-speed chases, these spotted cats are slender, with semi-retractable claws for good grip and a flexible spine plus a long tail for balance and manoeuvrability. Cheetahs rely on speed over brute strength when hunting – and can make tight, quick turns to shift course in fast pursuit of their prey. But with shrinking populations cheetahs are classified as vulnerable – so what’s being done in terms of conservation and are these projects having any success?
Adam hears how cheetahs differ from lions and leopards and learns about their relationships with other predators. He looks at their unique adaptions and behaviours, as well as the different approaches that conservationists are undertaking to try and reverse the population decline. And we also hear about the re-introduction of cheetahs to India.
Contributors:
Professor Sarah Durant is from the Zoological Society of London and is project leader of the Africa Range-Wide Cheetah Conservation Initiative.
Vincent van der Merwe is director of The Metapopulation Initiative and is cheetah metapopulation coordinator for Southern Africa and India.
Presenter: Professor Adam Hart Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Editor: Holly Squire Production Coordinator: Jonathan Harris Studio Manager: Andrew Garratt
(Photo: Cheetah, Credit: Paul & Paveena Mckenzie via Getty Images)
Mon, 11 Dec 2023 - 728 - Tooth and Claw: Piranhas
Adam Hart investigates a frenzied and voracious fish from South America – the piranha! Said to be able to strip their prey to the bone in mere minutes, there are plenty of gruesome tales about the bubbling bloodbaths that occur when shoals of these hardy fish feed in the freshwaters across South America - from up in Venezuela in the Orinoco River, to the Amazon and down to the Paraná River in Argentina. What role did former United States President Theodore Roosevelt have in creating the piranha’s fearsome reputation? And is this reputation misguided?
Adam hears what piranhas are really like, both in the wild and in captivity. He learns about how these fish hunt, the impact that humans are having on them and tries to establish if they really are as bloodthirsty as we’ve been led to believe.
Contributors:
Marcelo Ândrade is a professor at the Federal University of Maranhão in Brazil. He researches the environments that piranha live in and their behaviour, as well as plastic ingestion by piranhas.
Hannah Thomas is the aquarium team manager at Chester Zoo in the UK where they care for 40 red-bellied piranhas.
Presenter: Professor Adam Hart Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Editor: Holly Squire Production Coordinator: Jonathan Harris Studio Manager: Neva Missirian
(Photo: Red-Bellied Piranha, Credit: Ed Reschke via Getty Images)
Mon, 04 Dec 2023 - 727 - Tooth and Claw: Great White Sharks
Adam Hart investigates the most famous and feared predator in all the ocean – the great white shark! With rows of large, serrated teeth, it’s often thought of as a ferocious man-eater and was the villain of the film Jaws – which frightened a generation of beachgoers. This star of the silver screen may be the subject of fascination and fright for many, but is it really the ultimate predator of the ocean as Hollywood has led us to believe?
Adam hears what it’s like to see these sharks up-close and in person for the very first time. He learns more about how great whites detect and hunt their prey, as well as the challenges they’ve been facing due to another ocean predator. Contributors:
Dr Alison Towner is a postdoctoral researcher at Rhodes University in South Africa. She has a PhD in white shark ecology and has been studying the displacement of great whites due to orcas (killer whales) in South Africa.
Professor Gavin Naylor is Director of the Florida Program for Shark Research. He is a biologist who has specialised in evolutionary and population genetics, focusing on sharks.
Presenter: Professor Adam Hart Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Editor: Holly Squire Production Coordinator: Jonathan Harris Studio Manager: Jackie Margerum (Photo: Great White Shark, Credit: Todd Winner/Stocktrek Images via Getty Images)
Mon, 27 Nov 2023 - 726 - Tooth and Claw: Wolverines
Adam Hart investigates the largest terrestrial member of the weasel family – the wolverine. They’re far more than just a superhero played by Hugh Jackman! With a reputation for gluttony and ferocity, these solitary killers use snowstorms to hunt much larger prey. Found in the snowy tundra and boreal forests of the Northern Hemisphere, their future looks uncertain – they've come into conflict with Scandinavian farmers by hunting their reindeer and are threatened by climate change in North America and Mongolia. But have we misunderstood wolverines? And can we learn to co-exist with them?
Contributors:
Rebecca Watters is founder and director of the Mongolian Wolverine Project, as well as the executive director of the Wolverine Foundation, a non-profit that’s dedicated to advancing science-based conservation of wolverines.
Jenny Mattisson is a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, who is involved in the monitoring of wolverines in Scandinavia. She has studied interactions between wolverines and Eurasian lynx, as well as their predation of reindeer.
Presenter: Professor Adam Hart Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Editor: Holly Squire Production Coordinator: Jonathan Harris Studio Manager: Donald MacDonald (Photo: Wolverine, Credit: Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Mon, 20 Nov 2023 - 725 - The Life Scientific: Alex Antonelli
With the world's biodiversity being lost at an alarming rate, Alexandre Antonelli, Director of Science at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has made it his life's mission to protect it. He is a bio-geographer revealing how changes to the Earth's landscape, such as the formation of mountain ranges and rainforests, leads to the evolution of new species and causes plants, fungi and animals to move around the world.
His work is a masterclass in joined-up thinking, bringing together different fields of research by starting conversations between scientists who would rarely talk to one another. Together, they paint a more holistic picture of how our planet's biodiversity has developed in the hope of informing how we can protect it in the future.
Alex tells presenter Jim Al-Khalili about a life spent in the wild, beginning with his earliest memories of growing up in Brazil cataloguing life in the Atlantic Rainforest. That passion is still with him today. We've only scratched the surface of understanding what lives here on Earth, he says, more than 4,000 new species are found every year. Alex is passionate that we need to speed up the rate at which we document the richness of life, arguing if we don't identify what there is we can't protect it.
Mon, 13 Nov 2023 - 724 - The Life Scientific: Paul Murdin
Astronomer Paul Murdin believes a good imagination is vital for scientists, since they're so often dealing with subjects outside the visible realm.
Indeed, over a long and successful career his imagination has taken him on a journey through space, discovering various new and unusual celestial occurrences - notably the first successful identification of a black hole, Cygnus X-1.
Paul tells Jim Al-Khalili how he spent much of his career at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, working with astronomers around the world on some of the most advanced telescopes ever built. He headed up the Astronomy section of the UK’s Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, was Director of Science for the British National Space Centre and even has an asteroid named after him.
This list of achievements is testament to the fact that Paul has never let his disability hold him back; a leg brace and walking sticks have been part of his life since contracting polio in childhood. But he maintains that as long as you have curiosity and a vibrant imagination, nothing should stand in your way.
(Photo: Paul Murdin in 1971 next to the Isaac Newton Telescope at the time of the discovery with that telescope of Cygnus X-1. Credit: Paul Murdin)
Mon, 06 Nov 2023 - 723 - The Life Scientific: Bahija Jallal
Some of the most complex medicines available today are made from living cells or organisms - these treatments are called bio-pharmaceuticals and in this episode of The Life Scientific Dr Bahija Jallal, CEO of Immunocore, shares her story of leaving her home in Casablanca, Morocco to become a world leader in developing bio-pharmaceutical cancer treatments. She tells Professor Jim Al-Khalili that she has always found herself ahead of the curve. When she began in oncology, the study of cancer, the common treatment was chemotherapy which attacked all the cells in an affected area. Her first studies into cancer treatments were looking at how certain therapies could focus in on the cancerous cells and move away from what she describes as the 'sledgehammer' of traditional chemotherapy. It was an early step in what became known as targeted cancer therapies, and it set Bahjia on course for a career dedicated to developing innovative drugs to improve cancer patients' lives. Through a deep understanding of the science and a resolute commitment to putting treatments in the hands of people who need them, she has produced astonishing results.
Mon, 30 Oct 2023 - 722 - The Life Scientific: Chris Barratt
Reproductive science has come a long way in recent years, but there's still plenty we don't understand - particularly around male fertility. The reliability and availability of data in this field has become more of a concern in light of a study published this year, suggesting that sperm counts worldwide have dropped 62% in the past 50 years. As yet there is no clear answer as to why that is. Professor Chris Barratt is one of the scientists working to change that. He's the Head of Reproductive Medicine at Ninewells Hospital and the University of Dundee Medical School, and has dedicated his career to better understanding male infertility; driving breakthroughs in how to study sperm dysfunctions – and most recently spearheading advances in developing a male contraceptive pill. Chris talks to Professor Jim Al-Khalili about his academic struggles as a youngster, the lecture that changed his life, his research into 'head-banging sperm' and why he believes a new male contraceptive could be a game-changer.
Mon, 23 Oct 2023 - 721 - The Life Scientific: Gideon Henderson
We’re used to hearing the stories of scientists who study the world as it is now but what about the study of the past - what can this tell us about our future?
Gideon Henderson’s research focuses on trying to understand climate change by looking at what was happening on our planet thousands of years ago. His work has taken him all around the world - to the deepest oceans and the darkest caves - where he collects samples containing radioactive isotopes which he uses as “clocks” to date past ice ages and other major climate events.
As a geochemist and Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, his work deals with the biggest questions, like our impact on the carbon cycle and climate, the health of our oceans, and finding new ways to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
But in his role as Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, he also very much works on the present, at the intersection between the worlds of research and policy. He has overseen the decision to allow gene-edited food to be developed commercially in England and a UK surveillance programme to spot the Covid-19 virus in our waste-water.
(Photo: Gideon Henderson. Credit: Gideon Henderson)
Mon, 16 Oct 2023 - 720 - The Life Scientific: Deborah Greaves
If you’ve ever seen the ocean during a storm, you’ll understand the extraordinary power contained in waves. On an island nation like Britain, that power could well be harnessed to produce clean energy; so why have we barely begun to tap this bountiful resource? Deborah Greaves is trying to change that. As Professor of Ocean Engineering at the University of Plymouth, she combines physical wave tanks with sophisticated computer modelling to test how well wave power devices respond to stormy seas. And as Director of the Supergen ORE Hub, she brings together researchers in offshore renewable energy to imagine a future of widespread, eco-friendly ocean power. Deborah tells Jim Al-Khalili about growing up in Plymouth fascinated by the sea, and about breaking from the norm in her arts-focused family, to pursue a degree in engineering. But she spent years as a civil engineer building tunnels for the London Underground - and going on expeditions to the Arctic with her husband - before undertaking a PhD at Oxford University, exploring what happens when waves crash into solid structures. She eventually returned to Plymouth and set up the institute’s Coastal, Ocean and Sediment Transport (COAST) Laboratory - a building with a swimming-pool-sized wave tank for testing new technologies. As Jim hears, these wave devices have an extraordinary diversity of uses - and could help to propel Britain into a greener energy future.
(Photo: Deborah Greaves. Credit: Deborah Greaves)
Tue, 10 Oct 2023 - 719 - Metamorphosis: Bee brains and the cockroach
Erica McAlister on the bee intellect and whether bigger brains are always better. Plus cockroaches may be reviled by many people, but Erica discovers the extraordinary flexibility of their simple nervous system led to the birth of neuroendocrinology.
(Photo: A honey bee feeding on nectar from Echinacea purpurea. Credit: Barnaby Perkins)
Mon, 02 Oct 2023 - 718 - The Evidence: Is the world becoming more allergic?Mon, 02 Oct 2023
- 717 - Metamorphosis: Soldier fly and desert beetle
Erica McAlister on the innocuous wasp-like black soldier fly, a crown jewel of a fast-growing insect farming industry that's addressing the urgent need to find cheap clean protein. And how Namib Desert beetles have evolved in a very special environment, where the only source of water exists in the air.
(Image: Desert beetle in Namib desert. Credit: Martin Harvey/Getty Images)
Mon, 25 Sep 2023 - 716 - Metamorphosis: Blowflies and dazzling disguise
Blowflies may be some of the most reviled insects on the planet, but as Erica McAlister discovers, they are central to the surprisingly long tradition of forensic entomology and how there's more than meets the eye in the distinctive structural colour of the morpho butterfly wing, whose dazzling sheen is a key for camouflage and commerce.
(Photo: A fly on a leaf. Credit: Christina Bollen/Getty Images)
Mon, 18 Sep 2023 - 715 - Metamorphosis: Drosophila melanogaster, hoverfly
Dr Erica McAlister uncovers a treasure trove of remarkable insights from the insect world including the innocuous flies that are Drosophila melanogaster. More is known about these flies than any other animal on the planet, as a model for human genetics. And the hoverfly that arguably undergoes the biggest transformation of any animal and how insect metamorphosis could be a tool to track future climate change.
Producer: Adrian Washbourne Presenter: Dr Erica McAlister
(Photo: Drosophila melanogaster. Credit: nechaev-kon/Getty Images)
Mon, 11 Sep 2023 - 714 - Metamorphosis: Jumping fleas and mighty mouthparts
Dr Erica McAlister uncovers a treasure trove of remarkable insects from the humble flea whose jump enables them to fly without wings and the mystery of the hawkmoth’s tongue, whose varying length has offered the simplest and most effective proof of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection in action.
Producer: Dr Adrian Washbourne Presenter: Dr Erica McAlister
(Photo: Dr Erica McAlister. Credit: Dr Erica McAlister)
Mon, 04 Sep 2023 - 713 - The Life Scientific: Harald Haas
Imagine a world in which your laptop or mobile device accesses the internet, not via radio waves – or WiFi – as it does today but by using light instead: LiFi.
Well, that world may not be as far away as you might think. In fact, the technology is already here; and it’s thanks in large part to the engineering ingenuity of Harald Haas, Distinguished Professor of Mobile Communications and Director of the Li-Fi Research and Development Centre at the University of Strathclyde.
He tells Jim Al-Khalili about the two decades he has spent researching optical wireless communications, building up to his LiFi breakthrough in 2011, where he made waves in the scientific community and beyond by showing how a simple desk lamp could be used to stream a video.
Harald’s research could well have a very real impact on people’s lives, reinventing the way we connect online – but, as Jim hears, his early life was dogged by a very real fear he may have the same devastating disease that took his mother's life at an early age; an experience that shaped his early years and which has driven him to succeed in his own life and career.
(Image: Harald Haas. Credit: Harald Haas)
Mon, 28 Aug 2023 - 712 - The Life Scientific: Anne-Marie Imafidon
Anne-Marie Imafidon passed her computing A-Level at the age of 11 and by 16, was accepted to the University of Oxford to study Maths and Computer Science. She's used to the 'child prodigy' label that's followed her throughout her career, but that doesn't mean she's had an easy ride.
It was a combination of personal experience and the discovery that the number of women working in the STEM sectors - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - was in free-fall that inspired Anne-Marie to found Stemettes: a not-for-profit social enterprise introducing girls to STEM ideas and careers in fun and accessible ways. It's now in its tenth year and still growing, while Anne-Marie has received an MBE, enjoyed a successful stint as the numbers guru on the TV series Countdown, and is the current President of the British Science Association.
In conversation in front of an audience at the UK's 2023 Cheltenham Science Festival, she tells Jim Al-Khalili about her quest for equality and diversity across the scientific community - and explains why she thinks everyone has the potential to be a 'child prodigy', given the right opportunity...
(Image: Anne-Marie Imafidon. Credit: Anne-Marie Imafidon)
Mon, 21 Aug 2023 - 711 - The Life Scientific: Anne Ferguson-Smith
Our genes can tell us so much about us, from why we look the way we look, think the way we think, even what kind of diseases we might be likely to suffer from. But our genes aren't the whole story. There are other, complex and intriguing systems within every cell in our bodies which control which of our tens-of-thousands of genes are switched on, or off, in different parts of the body, and under different circumstances.
Welcome to the fascinating world of 'epigenetics', which our guest, the molecular geneticist Anne Ferguson-Smith, describes as 'genetics with knobs on'.
Anne, now Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of Cambridge, tells Jim Al-Khalili about her life and work. She's spent her professional life at the cutting edge: from a degree in a brand new field of Molecular Biology, to post-grad working on brand new genetic structures, through to a lifetime of discoveries and breakthroughs which have changed our understanding of the genome.
Yet she wasn't always destined to be a scientist. She says she was a 'bad student' for a lot of her early life, and believes that embracing failure is an essential part of being a working scientist.
(Image: Anne Ferguson Smith. Credit: Anne Ferguson Smith)
Mon, 14 Aug 2023 - 710 - The Life Scientific: Bruce Malamud
From landslides and wildfires to floods and tornadoes, Bruce Malamud has spent his career travelling the world and studying natural hazards.
Today, he is Wilson Chair of Hazard and Risk and executive director of the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience at Durham University - but as he tells Jim al-Khalili, a lifelong passion for discovery has taken Bruce from volunteering with the Peace Corps in West Africa and a Fulbright Fellowship in Argentina, to fieldwork in India; not only studying hazards themselves, but also the people they affect - and building up the character and resilience to overcome personal tragedy along the way.
Over the years, his work in the field has opened up new ways of understanding such events: from statistical modelling to show how groups of hazards occur, to examining the cascading relationships between multiple hazards. And today, his focus is on projects that can bring tangible benefits to people at serious risk from environmental hazards - finding innovative ways to help them to better manage that threat.
(Photo: Bruce Malamud. Credit: Bruce Malamud)
Mon, 07 Aug 2023 - 709 - The Life Scientific: Andre Geim
The world around us is three-dimensional. Yet, there are materials that can be regarded as two-dimensional. They are only one layer of atoms thick and have remarkable properties that are different from their three-dimensional counterparts.
Sir Andre Geim created the first-ever man-made 2D material, by isolating graphene, and is one of the pioneers in this line of research. Even beyond his Nobel Prize-winning work on graphene, he has explored new ideas in many different areas of physics throughout his career. Andre tells Jim al-Khalili about his time growing up in the Soviet Union, being rejected from university based on his German ethnicity, his move to Western Europe, and levitating frogs.
(Photo: 2010 Nobel Physics laureate Andre Geim during 2019 China Science Fiction Convention, Beijing, 3 November, 2019. Credit: VCG/Getty Images)
Mon, 31 Jul 2023 - 708 - In search of stardust
Norwegian jazz musician Jon Larsen was having breakfast one clear spring morning when he noticed a tiny black speck land on his clean, white table. With no wind, birds or planes in sight, he wondered if it fell from space.
Dust from space is not as fanciful as it sounds. Billions of microscopic meteorites, dating back to the birth of our solar system, fall onto Earth every year. But they are so tiny, hidden among the copious dust of everyday life, that scientists believe they are impossible to find outside ultra clean environments like Antarctica.
But this doesn’t deter Jon, who, against the advice of all experts, decides he is going to be the first person to find an urban micrometeorite.
He takes presenter Caroline Steel and planetary scientist Dr Matthew Genge up onto some roofs, in search of the elusive particles. Can we find stardust on the top of the BBC?
Featuring Jon Larsen, Dr Matthew Genge and Svein Aarbostad.
Presenter: Caroline Steel
(Image: Cygnus Nebulosity and Starclouds Credit: VW Pics / Contributor | Getty Images)
Mon, 24 Jul 2023 - 707 - Bodies, brains and computers
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now.
Evolutionary biologist and broadcaster Professor Ben Garrod, is off to meet some of the sensory innovators and technological pioneers who are developing human like-sensing technology. From skin patches that can read our sugar levels, to brain implants that could use our thoughts to control computers. This is the technology that could blur the boundary between body, mind, and computer chip.
We meet Jules Howard, a zoologist who uses VR to help us explore the anatomical worlds inside animals. Jules shows us the inner-workings of a ducks vagina. We meet Anagram, who’s augmented reality experiences can visualise the inner-worlds of those experiencing schizophrenia and ADHD. We play with the health monitors and wearable tech that claim they could make us fitter, happier, and more productive humans. And meet Dr David Putrino, a clinician with Mount Sinai in New York, who’s conducting some of the first medically-approved surgery for brain implants.
Presenter: Professor Ben Garrod Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski Production co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
(Image: Artificial intelligence robot and binary. Credit: Yuichiro Chino/Getty Images)
Mon, 17 Jul 2023 - 706 - Remote touch
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological revolution is starting to profoundly change not only how we interact with the world around us, but is allowing us to see, hear, smell, taste and even touch things we never imagined possible before.
An artificial intelligence revolution is super-charging sensing technology, promising us eyes with laser precision, ears that can distinguish every sound in a mile's radius and noses than can sniff out the early signs of forest fires before the first flame forms.
Evolutionary biologist and broadcaster Professor Ben Garrod is off to meet some of these sensory innovators and technological pioneers - the programmers, robotics engineers and neuroscientists, who are turning our world upside down and inside out.
In episode four - we’ll explore touch and what role does it plays for our nearest living relatives. Ben tries to give his mum a hug from 5,000 miles away. We discover what brain scans show when Ben given both painful and pleasurable touch. We explore what role the body could play in our use of computers in the future. We hear about remotely-operated sex toys. And learn about how all this might shift our understandings of intimate relationships in the future.
Could these new technologies and natural evolutions be redefining what it is to touch? Ben takes us through the amazing adaptations, and technological developments that could help touch become digitised.
Presenter: Prof Ben Garrod Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski Production Co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
(Photo: Hands touching fingers. Credit: Kelvin Murray/Getty Images)
Mon, 10 Jul 2023 - 705 - The Evidence: Exploring the concept of solastalgia
In The Evidence on the BBC World Service, Claudia Hammond will be exploring the concept of solastalgia; broadly defined as the pain or emotional suffering brought about by environmental change close to your home or cherished place.
Made in collaboration with Wellcome Collection, Claudia Hammond and an expert panel examine this relatively new concept, one that might be increasingly heard about as the effects of climate change are felt.
Claudia will be hearing stories of solastalgia from communities in Kenya and Indonesia and examining where storytelling fits in with other types of evidence when it comes to health and wellbeing. What kind of impact can personal stories of loss have on policy makers?
On stage with Claudia and in front of a live studio audience, are artist Victoria Pratt, Creative Director of Invisible Flock; Daniel Kobei, Director of Ogiek People’s Development Program; epidemiologist Dr Elaine Flores from the Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; former prime minister of Australia Julia Gillard and environmental activist Laetania Belai Djandam
Produced by: Helena Selby and Geraldine Fitzgerald Studio Engineers: Emma Harth and Duncan Hannant
Photo: Man standing in grey climate whilst looking towards bright climate. Credit: Getty Images.
Sat, 08 Jul 2023 - 704 - Smelly people
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological revolution is starting to profoundly change not only how we interact with the world around us, but is allowing us to see, hear, smell, taste and even touch things we never imagined possible before.
An artificial intelligence revolution is super-charging sensing technology, promising us eyes with laser precision, ears that can distinguish every sound in a mile's radius and noses than can sniff out the early signs of forest fires before the first flame forms.
Evolutionary biologist and broadcaster Professor Ben Garrod, is off to meet some of these sensory innovators and technological pioneers. The archaeologists, ecologists and medics, who are turning our world upside down and inside out.
Could these new technologies and natural evolutions be redefining what it is to smell? Ben takes us through the amazing adaptations, and technological developments that could help broaden how we think of our noses.
Presenter: Professor Ben Garrod Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski Production co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
(Photo: Close up of human nose smelling an animated smell. Credit | Getty Images)
Mon, 03 Jul 2023 - 703 - Sound solutions
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological revolution is starting to profoundly change not only how we interact with the world around us, but is allowing us to see, hear, smell, taste and even touch things we never imagined possible before.
An artificial intelligence revolution is super-charging sensing technology, promising us eyes with laser precision, ears that can distinguish every sound in a mile's radius and noses that can sniff out the early signs of forest fires before the first flame forms.
Evolutionary biologist and broadcaster Professor Ben Garrod is off to meet some of these sensory innovators and technological pioneers; The archaeologists, ecologists and medics, who are turning our world upside down and inside out.
In episode two, Ben finds sound solutions to tricky problems. We’ll hear about the ear which works up to depths of 500m below the ocean. In this light-deprived oceanic environment, we’ll find out how sound has become the most important sense. We’ll learn how noise pollution has inspired a number of revolutionary scientists to create sound-based solutions to better animal conservation. Along the way, we’ll meet engineers and computer programmers who’ve been able to find animals we thought previously extinct, and learn how one colour blind ornithologist mapped the entirety of a Caribbean archipelago so he could help protect his favourite species from storms and freak climate events.
Could these new technologies and natural evolutions be redefining what it is to hear? Ben takes us through the amazing adaptations and technological developments that could help stretch our hearing further than ever before.
Produced by Robbie Wojciechowski Presented by Professor Ben Garrod Production Coordinator: Jonathan Harris
(Photo: Field mouse with large ears. Credit: Zoological Society of London/PA Wire)
Tue, 27 Jun 2023 - 702 - Seeing more
We've been building computers to think like us for years, but our ability to replicate human senses has been impossible. Until now. This technological revolution is starting to profoundly change not only how we interact with the world around us, but is allowing us to see, hear, smell, taste and even touch things we never imagined possible before.
An Artificial Intelligence revolution is super-charging sensing technology, promising us eyes with laser precision, ears that can distinguish every sound in a mile radius and noses than can sniff out the early signs of forest fires before the first flame forms.
Evolutionary biologist and broadcaster Prof Ben Garrod, is off to meet some of these sensory innovators and technological pioneers. The archaeologists, ecologists and medics, who are turning our world upside down and inside out.
In episode one, Ben tries seeing further. The visible world to us is tiny, and we are able to detect just a fraction of the light spectrum that is out there. But new technology is pushing the boundary of what is visible. Ground penetrating LIDAR arrays are helping us to peel back the layers of planet Earth, and see the remains of ancient civilisations, previously invisible to us. The same technology is being used on the moons of Jupiter to provide 3D maps of the craters of faraway worlds. In the forests of west Africa, we meet the psychologists using infrared to monitor the stress levels of silverback gorillas being returned to the wild. And in a lab in central London, we meet the extraordinary animals that see hidden patterns in the natural world and perhaps even fields that are entirely invisible to us.
Could these new technologies be redefining what it is to see, hear, smell, and feel? Ben takes us through the amazing adaptations and development under the bonnet, and speculates where else these all seeing eyes may yet gaze.
Presenter: Professor Ben Garrod Producer: Robbie Wojciechowski Production co-ordinator: Jonathan Harris
(Image: Concept illustration of eye seen through clouds. Credit: Hans Neleman/Getty Images)
Thu, 22 Jun 2023 - 701 - Sperm counts
James Gallagher get's behind the hype to find out if sperm counts are really falling? There are plenty of headlines telling us they are, but also scientists who disagree - he unpicks the evidence with two of them. James also gets his own sperm sample analysed and meets a couple who found the reason behind their low count was one of the leading causes of male infertility.
Mon, 12 Jun 2023 - 700 - Psychedelics
James Gallagher reports on a psychedelic renaissance; a new wave of research testing hallucinogenic drugs like magic mushrooms to treat mental health conditions.
There’s genuine excitement and some early encouraging evidence. A manufacturer tells James that in five years’ time, it’s possible that psychedelics could be part of the medicine cabinet – but with the hype, there’s risk too and there’s much still to learn about who these drugs could help and how.
Presenter: James Gallagher Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald
Image: Fungi on purple background. Credit: Getty Images.
Mon, 05 Jun 2023 - 699 - Fungal pandemic threat
We are familiar with fungal infections like Thrush and Athlete’s Foot, but fungal diseases that can kill are on the increase. The World Health Organisation is so concerned that it has published its first ever list of life threatening fungi. James Gallagher hears stories of hospitals being shut down, a ruined honeymoon and fungal infections that consume human tissue leaving terrible disfigurement. Add to that The Last of Us, a hit video game turned TV series where a parasitic fungus manipulating the brains of ants has jumped to people. Sounds fanciful but while this particular fungus could not cross from ants to humans, Dr Neil Stone explains why invasive fungal infections are on the rise and a potential pandemic should not be dismissed.
Mon, 29 May 2023 - 698 - Food Insecurity
Soaring food prices mean putting food on the table is a daily struggle. This is the grim reality for millions around the world. But hunger, so long a feature in lower-income countries, is becoming a familiar picture in richer ones too. James Gallagher reports from the UK, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where food prices are rising at the fastest rate for 45 years and millions are turning to charity to feed themselves and their families. He visits the charities which help people to continue to eat and cook healthy food and hears from Professor Sir Michael Marmot from University College London, who has spent a lifetime researching the consequences of inequality and poverty. Food insecurity, he tells James, damages the health of children and adults.
Mon, 22 May 2023 - 697 - Maggots in medicine
After centuries of use in wound-healing, the maggot is back. The rise of the drug-resistant superbug means fresh eyes are focused on the superpowers of the larvae of the greenbottle fly species, Lucilia Sericata. James Gallagher reports on the healthcare professionals who are turning to maggot therapy to help clean up wounds and stop infection.
He talks to Melanie who has Type 1 Diabetes and had a quarter of her foot amputated. When the skin around the wound started to die, threatening the whole limb, she was offered maggot therapy. Now a self-declared maggot superfan, Melanie watched as the larvae, inside a bag a bit like a teabag, digested the dead skin on her foot.
And James visits a factory in Wales, BioMonde, preparing medical grade fly eggs for use across the UK health service.
(Photo: Larvae of the greenbottle fly sitting on so-called horse blood agar seen through a magnifying glass at the pharmaceutical company BioMonde. Credit: David Hecker/DDP/AFP/Getty Images)
Mon, 15 May 2023 - 696 - Lazy guide to exercise
James Gallagher is on a mission to find out what is the least amount of exercise you can do to still stay healthy. James goes on a Ramblers wellbeing walk, uses a treadmill for the first time and takes a hot bath all to find out how lazy he can be and still gain some health benefits.
(Photo: James Gallagher on a treadmill. Credit: Emma Lynch)
Mon, 08 May 2023 - 695 - The impossible number
There is a bizarre number in maths referred to simply as ‘i’. It appears to break the rules of arithmetic - but turns out to be utterly essential for applications across engineering and physics. We are talking about the square root of -1, which makes no sense.
Professor Fry waxes lyrical about the beauty and power of this so-called ‘imaginary’ number to a sceptical Dr Rutherford.
Dr Michael Brooks, author of The Maths That Made Us, tells the surprising story of the duelling Italian mathematicians who gave birth to this strange idea, and shares how Silicon Valley turned it into cold hard cash. Professor Jeff O’Connell, Ohlone College California, demonstrates that it is all about oscillations, and Dr Eleanor Knox, philosopher of physics at KCL and a senior visiting fellow at the University of Pittsburgh reveals that imaginary numbers are indispensable for the most fundamental physics of all - quantum mechanics.
Mon, 01 May 2023 - 694 - The mind-numbing medicine
This episode will render you oblivious, conked out and blissfully unaware. It’s about anaesthetics: those potent potions that send you into a deep, deathly sleep. Listener Alicia wants to know how they work, so our sleuths call on the expertise of consultant anaesthetist Dr Fiona Donald. Fiona shares her experience from the clinical frontline, and explains what we do and don’t know about how these chemicals work their mind-numbing magic.
We hear about ground-breaking research led by Professor Irene Tracey, which reveals how a pattern of slow brain waves can be used to determine the optimum dosage of these dangerous drugs.
And finally, Drs Rutherford and Fry wonder: what does all this tell us about normal consciousness? Professor Anil Seth shares how we can use brain tech to measure different levels of conscious awareness – from sleepy to psychedelic.
Thu, 27 Apr 2023 - 693 - The resurrection quest
‘Can we bring back extinct species?’ wonders listener Mikko Campbell. Well, Professor Fry is pretty excited by the prospect of woolly mammoths roaming the Siberian tundra once more. And everyone is impressed with the science that might make it happen. But Dr Rutherford comes out STRONGLY against the whole thing. Can our expert guests win him over?
Dr Helen Pilcher shares the tale of Celia the lonely mountain goat, and makes the case for cloning to help protect species at risk of extinction. Professor Beth Shapiro sets out how biotech company ‘Colossal’ plans to engineer Asian elephants’ DNA to make a new group of mammoth-like creatures. And we hear how genetic technologies are being used in conservation efforts around the world.
BUT WHAT ABOUT T-REXES? Not gonna happen. Sorry.
Contributors: Dr Helen Pilcher, author of ‘Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-Extinction’, Professor Beth Shapiro from the University of California Santa Cruz, Dr Ben Novak of Revive and Restore and Tullis Matson from Nature’s SAFE.
Mon, 24 Apr 2023 - 692 - The puzzle of the pyramids
The Great Pyramids of Giza are awesome feats of engineering and precision. So who built them - and how? Was it a mysteriously super-advanced civilization now oddly extinct? Was it even aliens?
Nah, course not! Rutherford and Fry investigate how these inspiring monuments were really constructed, and learn about the complex civilisation and efficient bureaucracy that made them possible.
Professor Sarah Parcak busts the myth that they were built by slaves. In fact, she reveals, it was gangs of well-paid blokes fuelled by the ancient Egyptian equivalent of burgers and beer. And Dr Chris Naunton explains how it was not some mysterious tech, but incredible organisation and teamwork which made it possible to transport massive stone blocks over long distances several thousand years before trucks arrived.
Dr Heba Abd El Gawad points out how racism led to bizarre assumptions in the history of archaeology, and how those assumptions linger in contemporary conspiracy theories which refuse to accept that Egyptians could have built the pyramids themselves!
Contributors: Professor Sarah Parcak, University of Alabama, Dr Chris Naunton, Egyptologist and broadcaster, Dr Heba Abd El Gawad, University College London
Mon, 10 Apr 2023 - 691 - The magnetic mystery
Magnets are inside loads of everyday electronic kit - speakers, motors, phones and more - but listener Lucas is mystified. What, he wonders, is a magnetic field?
Our sleuths set out to investigate the mysterious power of magnets, with the help of wizard physicist Dr Felix Flicker, lecturer in physics at Cardiff University and author of the The Magick of Matter, and materials scientist Dr Anna Ploszajski, author of Handmade.
They cover the secrets of lodestones, naturally occurring magnetic rocks, how to levitate crystals, frogs and maybe even people.
Matthew Swallow, the Chair of the UK Magnetics Society, explains why magnets make the best brakes for rollercoasters, and Dr Ploszajski explains how magnetically-induced eddy currents are used to sort through our recycling.
Finally, Dr Flicker persuades Adam and Hannah that to really understand magnetic fields you have to leave classical physics behind, and go quantum. So our sleuths take a leap into the strange subatomic realm.
Sat, 04 Mar 2023 - 690 - The Case of The Blind Man's Eye
Close your eyes and think of a giraffe. Can you see it? I mean, *really* see it - in rich, vivid detail? If not - you aren’t alone!
We’ve had scores of messages from listeners who report having a ‘blind mind’s eye’. They don’t see mental images at all and they want to know why. Jude from Perth wants to know what makes her brain different, and Diane from Scotland wonders whether it affectes her ability to remember family holidays.
Our sleuths learn that this is a condition recently termed ‘aphantasia’. They meet the chap who came up with the name, Professor Adam Zeman, a neurologist from the University of Exeter, and quiz him on the brain mechanisms behind this mystery.
Professor Julia Simner - a psychologist who, herself, doesn’t see mental images - shares the surprising research into how aphants differ slightly from others in a range of cognitive skills. We also hear about the world class artists and animators who can’t visualise - but can create beautiful, imaginary worlds.
Philosophy professor Fiona Macpherson from the University of Glasgow, deepens the mystery: perhaps this largely hidden phenomenon is behind some of the most profound disagreements in the history of psychology. Our mental experiences are all very different - maybe that’s why thinkers have come up with such different theories about how our minds work.
Search for the “VVIQ” or Vividness of Visual Imagery questionnaire to take the test yourself. Look for “The Perception Census” to take part in this massive online study of perceptual variation. And look up the 'Aphtantasia Network' if you're curious to find out more.
Presenters: Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford Contributors: Professor Adam Zeman, Professor Julia Simner, Professor Fiona Macpherson
Mon, 27 Mar 2023 - 689 - Our Microbes and Our Health
We are a teeming mass of interconnected microbes and the impact of this microscopic universe on our health, our minds, even our moods, is profound.
Made in collaboration with Wellcome Collection, Claudia Hammond and an expert panel explore one of the fastest moving areas of science and what it means for modern medicine.
Recorded in front of a live audience at Wellcome’s Reading Room in London, Claudia discovers how our microbes could be harnessed to improve our mental and physical health.
And along with the scientific insights, there are important answers to questions everybody wants to know the answer to, such as why some peoples’ “emissions” smell so badly and how having a dog or cat enriches your microbiome.
On stage with Claudia are immunologist Professor Sheena Cruickshank from the University of Manchester, microbiologist Professor Glenn Gibson from the University of Reading and neuroscientist Professor John Cryan from University College Cork in Ireland.
Produced by: Fiona Hill and Elisabeth Tuohy Studio Engineer: Bob Nettles and Emma Hearth
Image: Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of bacteria cultured from a sample of human faeces. Credit: Steve Gschmeissner/Science Photo Library/Getty Images
Sat, 25 Mar 2023 - 688 - Judith Bunbury: Unearthing the secrets of Ancient Egypt
Think Sahara Desert, think intense heat and drought. We see the Sahara as an unrelenting, frazzling, white place. But geo-archaeologist Dr Judith Bunbury says in the not so distant past, the region looked more like a safari park.
In the more recent New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, from around 3500 years ago (the time of some of Egypt’s most famous kings like Ahmose I, Thutmose III, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and queens like Hatshepsut) core samples shows evidence of rainfall, huge lakes, springs, trees, birds, hares and even gazelle, very different from today.
By combining geology with archaeology, Dr Bunbury, from the department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Senior Tutor at St Edmund’s College, tells Jim al-Khalili that evidence of how people adapted to their ever-changing landscape is buried in the mud, dust and sedimentary samples beneath these ancient sites, waiting to be discovered.
The geo-archaeological research by Judith and her team, has helped to demonstrate that the building of the temples at Karnak near Luxor, added to by each of the Pharaohs, was completely dependent on the mighty Nile, a river which, over millennia, has wriggled and writhed, creating new land on one bank as it consumes land on another. Buildings and monuments were adapted and extended as the river constantly changed course.
Mon, 20 Mar 2023 - 687 - The Life Scientific: Clifford Johnson
Clifford Johnson's career to date has spanned some seemingly very different industries - from exploring quantum mechanics around string theory and black holes, to consulting on some of Hollywood's biggest movies; but it makes sense once you understand his ambition of making science accessible to all.
A Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Clifford's worked in the United States for decades – but was born in the UK, then spent his formative years on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, before moving back to England to study. Here, he fell in love with quantum mechanics - before moving to the US, where he's broken new ground in finding ways to talk about quantum gravity and black holes.
Clifford's other big passion is getting as many people as possible engaged with science, making it more exciting, entertaining and most importantly diverse - and it's this attitude that's led to regular work as a science consultant on various TV shows and films; and even a recent cameo in a major movie.
Mon, 13 Mar 2023 - 686 - The Life Scientific: Rebecca Kilner
A fur-stripped mouse carcase might not sound like the cosiest of homes – but that is where the burying beetle makes its nest, and where Rebecca Kilner has focused much of her research.
A professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Cambridge, Rebecca’s work – initially with cuckoos, then more recently with beetles – has shed invaluable light on the relationship between social behaviours and evolution.
She tells Jim al-Khalili how the beetles' helpfully swift generational churn and mouse-based parenting has allowed her team to study evolution in action, demonstrating for the first time what was previously just evolutionary theory.
Mon, 06 Mar 2023 - 685 - The Life Scientific: Tim Lamont
Tim Lamont is a young scientist making waves. Arriving on the Great Barrier Reef after a mass bleaching event, Tim saw his research plans disappear and was personally devastated by the destruction. But from that event he discovered a novel way to restore coral reefs. Playing the sounds of a healthy coral reef entices fish in to recolonise the wrecked reefs. Tim's emotional journey forced him to realise that environmental scientists can no longer just observe. They need to find new prisms with which to view the world and to intervene to save or protect the natural environment.
Mon, 27 Feb 2023 - 684 - Bad Blood: Newgenics
Are we entering a ‘newgenic’ age - where cutting-edge technologies and the power of personal choice could achieve the kind of genetic perfection that 20th century eugenicists were after?
In 2018, a Chinese scientist illegally attempted to precision edit the genome of two embryos. It didn’t work as intended. Twin sisters - Lulu and Nana - were later born, but their identity, and the status of their health, is shrouded in secrecy. They were the first designer babies.
Other technological developments are also coming together in ways that could change reproduction: IVF can produce multiple viable embryos, and polygenic screening could be used to select between them.
Increased understanding and control of our genetics is seen as a threat by some - an inevitable force for division. But instead of allowing genetics to separate and rank people, perhaps there’s a way it can be used - actively - to promote equality. Professor Paige Harden shares her suggestion of an anti-eugenic politics which makes use of genetic information
Contributors: Dr Helen O'Neill, lecturer in Reproductive and Molecular Genetics at University College London, Dr Jamie Metzl, author of Hacking Darwin, Professor Kathryn Paige Harden from the University of Texas and author of The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality.
Mon, 20 Feb 2023 - 683 - Bad Blood: The curse of Mendel
In the mid-19th Century, an Augustinian friar called Gregor Mendel made a breakthrough. By breeding pea plants and observing how certain traits were passed on, Mendel realised there must be units - little packets - of information determining characteristics. He had effectively discovered the gene.
His insights inspired eugenicists from the 1900s onwards. If traits were passed on by specific genes, then their policies should stop people with ‘bad’ genes from having children.
Mendel’s ideas are still used in classrooms today - to teach about traits like eye colour. But the eugenicists thought Mendel's simple explanations applied to everything - from so-called ‘feeblemindedness’ to criminality and even pauperism.
Today, we recognise certain genetic conditions as being passed on in a Mendelian way. Achondroplasia - which results in short stature - is one example, caused by a single genetic variant. We hear from Professor Tom Shakespeare about the condition, about his own decision to have children despite knowing the condition was heritable - and the reaction of the medical establishment.
We also explore how genetics is taught in schools today and the danger of relying on Mendel’s appealingly simple but misleading account.
Contributors include Dr Brian Donovan, senior research scientist at BSCS, Prof Tom Shakespeare, disability researcher at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Dr Christine Patch, principal staff scientist in Genomic Counselling in the Society and Ethics Research group, part of Wellcome Connecting Science.
(Photo: Johann Gregor Mendel (1822-1884). Austrian botanist, followed breeding experiments, discovered paired units of heritable characteristics. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Mon, 13 Feb 2023 - 682 - Bad Blood: Rassenhygiene
In the name of eugenics, the Nazi state sterilised hundreds of thousands against their will, murdered disabled children and embarked on a programme of genocide.
We like to believe that Nazi atrocities were a unique aberration, a grotesque historical outlier. But it turns out that leading American eugenicists and lawmakers like Madison Grant and Harry Laughlin inspired many of the Nazi programmes, from the mass sterilisation of those deemed ‘unfit’ to the Nuremberg laws preventing the marriage of Jews and non-Jews. Indeed, before World War Two, many eugenicists across the world regarded the Nazi regime with envious admiration.
The Nazis went further, faster than anyone before them. But ultimately, the story of Nazi eugenics is one of international connection and continuity.
With contributions from Prof Stefan Kühl from the University of Bielefield, Prof Amy Carney from Penn State Behrend, Dr Jonathan Spiro from Castleton University, Prof Sheila Weiss from Clarkson University and Dr Barbara Warnock from the Wiener Holocaust Library
(Photo: German women carrying children of an alleged aryan purity in a Lebensborn selection centre, births by eugenicists methods during World War Two. Credit Keystone-France Getty Images)
Mon, 06 Feb 2023 - 681 - Bad Blood: Birth controlled
Who should be prevented from having children? And who gets to decide? Across 20th century America, there was a battle to control birth - a battle which rages on to this day.
In 1907, the state of Indiana passed the first sterilisation law in the world. Government-run institutions were granted the power to sterilise those deemed degenerate - often against their will.
In the same period, women are becoming more educated, empowered and sexually liberated. In the Roaring Twenties, the flappers start dancing the Charleston and women win the right to vote.
But contraception is still illegal and utterly taboo. The pioneering campaigner Margaret Sanger, begins her decades long activism to secure women access to birth control - the only way, she argues, women can be truly free.
In the final part of the episode, sterilisation survivor and campaigner Elaine Riddick shares her painful but remarkable story.
Contributors: Professor Alexandra Minna Stern from the UCLA Institue of Society and Genetics, Professor Wendy Kline from Purdue Univerity, Elaine and Tony Riddick from the Rebecca Project for Justice
Featuring the voice of Joanna Monro
(Photo: Elaine Riddick was sterilised without her consent, when she was 14, in North Carolina. Credit: Tami Chappell/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Mon, 30 Jan 2023 - 680 - Bad Blood: You will not replace us
"You will not replace us" was the battle cry of white supremacists at a rally in Charlottesville in 2017. They were expressing an old fear - the idea that immigrants and people of colour will out-breed and replace the dominant white 'race'. Exactly the same idea suffused American culture in the first decades of the 1900s, as millions of immigrants arrived at Ellis island from southern and eastern Europe.
The 'old-stock' Americans - the white elite who ruled industry and government - latched on to replacement theory and the eugenic idea of 'race suicide'. It's all there in The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald's novel set in 1922 - which takes us into the world of the super-rich, their parties and their politics.
Amidst this febrile period of cultural and economic transformation, the Eugenics Record Office is established. Led by Charles Davenport and Harry Laughlin, it becomes a headquarters for the scientific and political advancement of eugenics.
By 1924, the eugenically informed anti-immigrant movement has triumphed - America shut its doors with the Johnson-Reed Act, and the flow of immigrants is almost completely stopped.
Contributors: Dr Thomas Leonard, Professor Sarah Churchwell, Professor Joe Cain
Presenter: Adam Rutherford Producer: IIan Goodman
(Photo: Immigrants arriving in Ellis Island, New York, 27 May 1920. Credit: Getty Images)
Clips: BBC News, coverage of Charlottesville protests, 2017 / CNN, coverage of buffalo shooter, 2022 / MSNBC, coverage of buffalo shooter, 2022 / Edison, Orange, N.J, 1916, Don't bite the hand that's feeding you, Jimmie Morgan, Walter Van Brunt, Thomas Hoier / BBC Radio 4 Great Gatsby: Author, F Scott Fitzgerald Director: Gaynor Macfarlane, Dramatised by Robert Forrest.
Mon, 23 Jan 2023 - 679 - Bad Blood: You've got good genes
We follow the story of eugenics from its origins in the middle-class salons of Victorian Britain, through the Fitter Family competitions and sterilisation laws of Gilded Age USA, to the full genocidal horrors of Nazi Germany.
Eugenics is born in Victorian Britain, christened by the eccentric gentleman-scientist Sir Francis Galton. It’s a movement to breed better humans, fusing new biological ideas with the politics of empire, and the inflexible snobbery of the middle-classes.
The movement swiftly gains momentum - taken up by scientists, social reformers, and even novelists as a moral and political quest to address urgent social problems. By encouraging the right people to have babies, eugenicists believed we could breed ourselves to a brighter future; a future free from disease, disability, crime, even poverty. What, its proponents wondered, could be more noble?
The story culminates in the First International Eugenics Congress of 1912, where a delegation of eminent public figures from around the world gather in South Kensington to advocate and develop the science – and ideology – of better breeding. Among them Winston Churchill, Arthur Balfour, the Dean of St Pauls, Charles Darwin's son, American professors and the ambassadors from Norway, Greece, and France.
But amidst the sweeping utopian rhetoric, the darker implications of eugenic ideas emerge: what of those deemed 'unfit'? What should happen to them?
Contributors: Professor Joe Cain, Daniel Maier, Professor Philippa Levine, Professor Angelique Richardson
Featuring the voices of David Hounslow, Joanna Monro and Hughie O'Donnell
(Photo: Francis Galton (1822-1911), British man of science born in Sparkbrook (England). Ca. 1890. Credit: adoc-photos/Corbis/Getty Images)
Mon, 16 Jan 2023 - 678 - Tooth and Claw: Cougar
Hiding in the shadows across the American continents lives a big cat with many names. From puma to mountain lion to panther to cougar, this animal is carnivorous, cunning and uses stealth to silently ambush its prey. Its elusiveness and brutal attacking style has earnt it the reputation of a cold-hearted killer. But behind this façade, hidden camera footage has revealed the cougar is all about caring for their family. And its silent whispering amongst the trees could actually be saving human lives. Adam Hart and guests uncover the mysteries of the ‘ghost of the forest’ and break its merciless stereotype.
Dr Laura Prugh, associate Professor of Quantitative Wildlife Sciences at the University of Washington, and Dr Mark Elbroch, ecologist and director of the Panthera programme in Washington USA.
Mon, 09 Jan 2023 - 677 - Tooth and Claw: Wasps
Why do wasps exist? While many see them as unfriendly bees who sting out of spite, their aggression could be interpreted as a fierce form of family protection. They are hugely understudied and even more underappreciated, with hundreds of thousands of different species carrying out jobs in our ecosystems. Some live together in nests whereas others hunt solo, paralysing prey with antibiotic-laden venom. In abundance, they can destroy environments - outcompeting most creatures and taking resource for themselves - but could we harness their predatory powers to take on pest control? Adam Hart and guests are a-buzz about this much-maligned insect and explore why we should be giving them more credit.
Professor Seirian Sumner, behavioural ecologist at University College London, and Dr Jenny Jandt, ecologist at University of Otago, New Zealand.
Mon, 02 Jan 2023 - 676 - Tooth and Claw: African Wild Dog
As a great African predator and a hot-spot on safari, it is hard to believe that only last century, the African wild dog was considered vermin. It's beautiful coat of painted strokes makes it undeniably distinctive. Yet out in the field, this animal is hard to find. Yes, it camouflages easily against the landscape, but years of persecution, bounties and unintentional trappings means it's now one of the most endangered mammals on the planet. Revelations about its reliance on the pack for protection, predation and parenting means every dog matters in its bid for survival. So how can we further stop numbers dwindling? Adam Hart and guests investigate the tools and tales of the magnificent painted wolf.
Dr Dani Rabaiotti, zoologist at the Zoological Society of London, and David Kuvawoga and Jealous Mpofu, conservationists at Painted Dog Conservation in Zimbabwe.
Mon, 26 Dec 2022 - 675 - Preparing for the next pandemic
Infectious diseases which cause epidemics and pandemics are on the rise.
Claudia Hammond is joined by an eminent panel of disease detectives, who spell out why the risks are increasing and most importantly, what we can do to predict, prepare and protect ourselves against potentially devastating new outbreaks.
Will the next infectious disease to wreak havoc across the globe again jump from animals, a zoonotic jump across species?
Think SARS, HIV, MERS, Zika, Nipah Virus, Lassa Fever, Ebola, Avian Flu, Swine Flu, Mpox and of course the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
The panel is unanimous in their plea for recognition that human health is inextricably linked to both animal health and the health of the environment. Without an understanding that we are part of an ecosystem and that climate change and the loss of biodiversity have a direct impact on epidemic and pandemic risk, we’ll struggle to keep ourselves safe they say.
Claudia is joined by vet-turned-virologist Marion Koopmans, Professor of Viroscience at Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands and head of the Pandemic and Disaster Preparedness Centre; by Tulio de Oliveira, Professor of Bioinformatics, director of the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation (CERI) and the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform (KRISP) in South Africa and Malik Peiris, Professor of Virology at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health.
Produced by: Fiona Hill and Elisabeth Tuohy Studio Engineer: Duncan Hannant
Image: Chickens in Thailand Credit: Wut'hi Chay Si Tang Kha/EyeEm/Getty Images
Sat, 24 Dec 2022 - 674 - Tooth and Claw: Komodo dragon
With nicknames like ‘prehistoric monster’ and ‘living dinosaur’, the Komodo dragon has been well and truly judged by its cover. Its gigantic size, razor sharp teeth and deadly attacking power has earned it a vicious reputation. But beneath the scales of this solitary beast are fascinating tales of rapid healing, decoy nests, and virgin births. And as climate change threatens its native Indonesia, can this hostile reptile adapt to living in closer quarters? Adam Hart and guests dig into how a lonely life may be putting the Komodo dragon at risk...
Deni Purwandana, program co-ordinator for the Komodo Survival Program in Komodo National Park, and Dr Chris Michaels, team leader of Reptiles and Amphibians at London Zoo.
Mon, 19 Dec 2022 - 673 - Wild Inside: The Alpaca
Alpacas may have been domesticated for thousands of years but their native lands are the steep hostile mountains of South America where they continue to thrive far from the modern luxuries of animal husbandry. Prof Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French delve deep inside this hardy herbivore to unravel the anatomy and physiology that’s secured the success of this extraordinary member of the camelid family of camels, llamas and vicugna.
Mon, 12 Dec 2022 - 672 - Wild inside: The Harbour Porpoise
Prof Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French get under the skin of the harbour porpoise to unravel this enigmatic and shy aquatic mammal’s extraordinary survival skills - from it’s ability to dive for long periods to accurately echolocating its fast moving prey. They join Rob Deaville, project leader for the Cetacean’s Stranding Investigations Programme at ZSL (Zoological Society of London) to open up and examine what makes this animal unique in terms of its anatomy, behaviour and evolutionary history.
Mon, 05 Dec 2022 - 671 - Wild inside: Great Grey Owl
One of the world’s large owls by length, the Great Grey Owl is an enigmatic predator of coniferous forests close to the Arctic tundra. It's most often seen hunting around dawn and dusk, when it perches silently at the edges of clearings. But as Prof Ben Garrod and Dr Jess French delve deep inside to understand its true secret to survival, they find the deep feathery coat belies a deceptively small head and body that‘s evolved unbelievably powerful abilities to silently detect and ambush unsuspecting prey.
Mon, 28 Nov 2022 - 670 - Wild inside: The Cheetah
Zoologist Ben Garrod and veterinary surgeon Jess French delve deep into some amazing internal anatomy to unravel the secrets to survival of some of nature’s iconic animals.
They begin with one of the rarities of the cat family – the cheetah, which at just under two metres long, is the world’s fastest land animal capable of reaching speeds of up to 70mph in three seconds. As Ben and Jess reveal, the body’s rear muscles, large heart and nostrils enable it to achieve record breaking accelerations. But over long distances, it risks total exhaustion and predation from larger carnivores and the risk of losing its valuable prey. We hear during the course of this intricate dissection, how it treads a fine line between speed and stamina in the quest for survival.
Mon, 21 Nov 2022 - 669 - The puzzle of the plasma doughnut
What do you get if you smash two hydrogen nuclei together? Helium and lots of energy – it's nuclear fusion!
Nuclear fusion is the power source of the sun and the stars. Physicists and engineers here on earth are trying to build reactors than can harness fusion power to provide limitless clean energy. But it’s tricky.
Rutherford and Fry are joined by Dr Melanie Windridge, plasma physicist and CEO of Fusion Energy Insights, who explains why the fourth state of matter – plasma – helps get fusion going, and why a Russian doughnut was a key breakthrough on the path to fusion power.
Dr Sharon Ann Holgate, author of Nuclear Fusion: The Race to Build a Mini Sun on Earth, helps our sleuths distinguish the more familiar nuclear fission (famous for powerful bombs) from the cleaner and much less radioactive nuclear fusion.
And plasma physicist Dr Arthur Turrell, describes the astonishing amount of investment and innovation going on to try and get fusion power working at a commercial scale.
Mon, 14 Nov 2022 - 668 - The Riddle of Red-Eyes and Runny-Noses
Sneezes, wheezes, runny noses and red eyes - this episode is all about allergies.
An allergic reaction is when your immune system reacts to something harmless – like peanuts or pollen – as if it was a parasitic invader. It’s a case of biological mistaken identity.
Professor Judith Holloway from the University of Southampton guides our sleuths through the complex immune pathways that make allergies happen and tells the scary story of when she went into anaphylactic shock from a rogue chocolate bar.
Professor Adam Fox, a paediatric allergist at Evelina Children’s Hospital, helps the Drs distinguish intolerances or sensitivities – substantial swelling from a bee sting, for example - from genuine allergies. Hannah’s orange juice ‘allergy’ is exposed as a probable fraud!
Hannah and Adam explore why allergies are on the increase, and Professor Rick Maizels from the University of Glasgow shares his surprising research using parasitic worms to develop anti-allergy drugs!
Contributors: Professor Judith Holloway, Professor Adam Fox, Professor Rick Maizels
Mon, 07 Nov 2022 - 667 - The problem of infinite Pi(e)
Pi is the ratio between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. Sounds dull – but pi turns out to have astonishing properties and crop up in places you would never expect. For a start, it goes on forever and never repeats, meaning it probably contains your name, date of birth, and the complete works of Shakespeare written in its digits.
Maths comedian Matt Parker stuns Adam with his ‘pie-endulum’ experiment, in which a chicken and mushroom pie is dangled 2.45m to form a pendulum which takes *exactly* 3.14 seconds per swing.
Mathematician Dr Vicky Neale explains how we can be sure that the number pi continues forever and never repeats - despite the fact we can never write down all its digits to check! She also makes the case that aliens would probably measure angles using pi because it’s a fundamental constant of the universe.
Nasa mission director Dr Marc Rayman drops in to explain how pi is used to navigate spacecraft around the solar system. And philosopher of physics Dr Eleanor Knox serves up some philoso-pi, revealing why some thinkers have found pi’s ubiquity so deeply mysterious.
Mon, 31 Oct 2022 - 666 - The suspicious smell
Why are some smells so nasty and others so pleasant? Rutherford and Fry inhale the science of scent in this stinker of an episode.
Our sleuths kick off with a guided tour of the airborne molecules and chemical receptors that power the sense of smell. Armed with a stack of pungent mini-flasks, professor Matthew Cobb from the University of Manchester shows Hannah and Adam just how sensitive olfaction can be, and how our experience of some odours depends on our individual genetic make-up.
Dr Ann-Sophie Barwich from Indiana University reveals how most everyday smells are complex combinations of hundreds of odorants, and how the poo-scented molecule of indole turns up in some extremely surprising places.
With the help of a flavoured jellybean and some nose clips, Hannah experiences how smell is crucial to flavour, adding complexity and detail to the crude dimensions of taste.
Speaking of food, listener Brychan Davies is curious about garlic and asparagus: why do they make us whiff? Professor Barry Smith from the Centre for the Study of the Senses reveals it's down to sulphur-containing compounds, and tells the story of how a cunning scientist managed to figure out the puzzle of asparagus-scented urine.
Finally, another listener Lorena Busto Hurtado wants to know whether a person’s natural odour influences how much we like them. Barry Smith says yes - we may sniff each other out a bit like dogs - and cognitive neuroscientist Dr Rachel Herz points to evidence that bodily bouquet can even influence sexual attraction!
Mon, 24 Oct 2022 - 665 - The Wild and Windy Tale
How do winds start and why do they stop? asks Georgina from the Isle of Wight. What's more, listener Chris Elshaw is suprised we get strong winds at all: why doesn't air just move smoothly between areas of high and low pressure? Why do we get sudden gusts and violent storms?
To tackle this breezy mystery, our curious duo don their anoraks and get windy with some weather experts.
Dr Simon Clark, a science Youtuber and author of Firmament, convinces Adam that air flow is really about the physics of fluids, which can all be captured by some nifty maths. The idea of pressure turns out to be key, so Hannah makes her own barometer out of a jar, a balloon and some chopsticks, and explains why a bag of crisps will expand as you walk up a mountain.
Professor Liz Bentley, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Scoiety, reveals how the dynamics of a simple sea breeze – where air over land is heated more than air over water – illustrates the basic forces driving wind of all kinds.
Then everyone gets involved to help Adam understand the tricky Coriolis effect and why the rotation of the Earth makes winds bend and storms spin. And Professor John Turner from the British Antarctic Survey explains why the distinctive features of the coldest continent make its coastline the windiest place on earth.
Mon, 17 Oct 2022 - 664 - The Case of The Missing Gorilla
DO WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION?
Good! But how does that work!?
Our intrepid science sleuths explore why some things immediately catch your eye - or ear - while others slip by totally unnoticed. Even, on occasion, basketball bouncing gorillas.
Professor Polly Dalton, a psychologist who leads The Attention Lab at Royal Holloway University, shares her surprising research into ‘inattentional blindness’ - when you get so absorbed in a task you can miss striking and unusual things going on right in front of you.
Dr Gemma Briggs from the Open University reveals how this can have dangerous everyday consequences: you are four times more likely to have a crash if you talk on the phone while driving -even handsfree.
Drs Rutherford and Fry also hear from stroke survivor Thomas Canning, who developed the tendency to ignore everything on the left side of space, despite his vision being totally intact.
And Dr Tom Manly, from the University of Cambridge’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, helps our sleuths unpack the neuroscience of this fascinating condition.
Mon, 10 Oct 2022 - 663 - Chi Onwurah
Chi Onwurah tells Jim Al-Khalili why she wanted to become a telecoms engineer and why engineering is a caring profession.
As a black, working class woman from a council estate in Newcastle, she was in a minority of one studying engineering at university in London and encountered terrible racism and sexism. She went on to build digital networks all over the world, the networks that make today's instant muli-media communications possible. And Chi built the first mobile phone network in Nigeria, when the country was without a reliable electricity supply. Today she is Shadow Minister for Science, Research and Innovation.
When Chi decided to go into politics, her engineering colleagues were not impressed. Why would anyone leave their noble profession to enter a chaotic, disreputable and dubiously useful non-profession, they asked. But, Chi believes, parliament desperately needs more scientists and engineers, not only to help us solve science-based problems but also to create technical jobs and build a strong economy.
Mon, 03 Oct 2022 - 662 - The Evidence: How pandemics end
Six and a half million dead. More than a hundred times that infected. The Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc across the globe. But in the final months of the third year of this health crisis, some now claim it’s all over.
Scientists with key roles in the global response join Claudia Hammond to consider the evidence behind the declarations that the pandemic has finished and they set out how, officially, this global health crisis will be brought to an end.
They reject claims that the pandemic is over, but say the emergency phase of this global health crisis is coming to a close.
But only if countries remain vigilant and maintain pandemic preparedness.
If vaccines reach arms, if treatments are shared equally and if nations re-introduce public health measures like mask wearing and social distancing when the inevitable new waves (and potential new variants) emerge, the appalling loss of life we saw at the beginning of the pandemic, they tell Claudia, won’t be repeated.
There are stark warnings too that the dramatic global drop in the sequencing of virus samples (which enables us to see how the virus is evolving) is posing a serious risk.
We can’t react to a new threat, Claudia’s panel say, if you can’t see it. Sequencing, as well as testing, has fallen by 90% since January this year, from 100,000 weekly sequences ten months ago to less than 10,000 now. This severely limits the ability to track the known variants (currently 200 sub-lineages of the Omicron variant).
Produced in collaboration with Wellcome and recorded in front of a live audience in Wellcome’s Reading Room in London, Claudia’s expert panel includes Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organisation’s Technical Lead for Covid-19, Professor Salim Abdool Karim, co-chair of the south African Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19 and a member of the Africa Task Force which oversees the African continent’s response to the virus and Professor Sir Jeremy Farrar, the Director of Wellcome and a former adviser to the UK government on its Covid response.
Presenter: Claudia Hammond Produced by: Fiona Hill and Maria Simons Studio Engineers: Giles Aspen and Emma Harth
Sat, 01 Oct 2022 - 661 - David Eagleman
Literature student turned neuroscientist, Prof David Eagleman, tells Jim Al-Khalili about his research on human perception and the wristband he created that enables deaf people to hear through their skin. Everything we see, taste, smell, touch and hear is created by a set of electro-chemical impulses in the dark recesses of our brain. Our brains look for patterns in these signals and attach meaning to them. So in future perhaps we could learn to ‘feel’ fluctuations in the stock market, see in infra-red or echo-locate like bats? Each brain creates its own unique truth and David believes, there are no real limits to what we humans can perceive.
Mon, 26 Sep 2022 - 660 - Frances Arnold
Nobel Prize winning chemist Frances Arnold left home at 15 and went to school ‘only when she felt like it’. She disagreed with her parents about the Vietnam war and drove big yellow taxis in Pittsburgh to pay the rent. Decades later, after several changes of direction (from aerospace engineer to bio-tech pioneer), she invented a radical new approach to engineering enzymes. Rather than try to design industrial enzymes from scratch (which she considered to be an impossible task), Frances decided to let Nature do the work. ‘I breed enzymes like other people breed cats and dogs’ she says.
While some colleagues accused her of intellectual laziness, industry jumped on her ideas and used them in the manufacture of everything from laundry detergents to pharmaceuticals. She talks to Jim Al-Khalili about her journey from taxi driver to Nobel Prize, personal tragedy mid-life and why advising the White House is much harder than doing scientific research.
Tue, 20 Sep 2022 - 659 - Sir Martin Landray
Who could forget the beginning of 2020, when a ‘mysterious viral pneumonia’ emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Soon, other countries were affected and deaths around the world began to climb. Perhaps most alarmingly of all, there were no proven treatments to help prevent those deaths.
As the World Health Organisation declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic, and the UK and the rest of the world braced itself for what was to come, doctor and drug-trial designer Martin Landray had his mind on a solution, devising the protocol, or blueprint, for the world’s largest drug trial for Covid-19.
As Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Oxford University, Martin was perfectly positioned to jump, delivering what became known as the RECOVERY Trial. The trial was tasked to deliver clarity amid the predicted chaos of the pandemic and galvanised every acute NHS hospital in the UK. Within its first one hundred days, it had yielded three major discoveries and it has transformed Covid-19 treatment worldwide, already saving over a million lives. Sir Martin Landray was recently knighted for this work and RECOVERY’s legacy lives on, not just for Covid. Martin plans to revolutionise drug trials for other diseases too.
Mon, 12 Sep 2022 - 658 - How Covid Changed Science, part 3
In the third and final part of our series How Covid Changed Science, Devi Sridhar Professor of Global Health at Edinburgh University looks at the legacy and lessons of the pandemic for scientific research. Tackling the virus became a global issue, but many have pointed out the inequality of both resources and effort in the response. Going forward do we need to be directing research more towards improving health and disease surveillance in less wealthy parts of the world, would investing there help prevent future pandemics?
Mon, 05 Sep 2022 - 657 - How Covid changed science, part 2
In the second of our series How Covid Changed Science, Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Health at Edinburgh University looks at the scientific messaging. Just how do you explain to both politicians and the public that a growing global pandemic is likely to kill many people, and unprecedented measures such as a nationwide lockdown are needed to prevent even more deaths. What information should be imparted and how?
Similarly how to address the clamour for information on the development of vaccines and other potential treatments when there often wasn’t clarity? And with the rise of misinformation how did individual scientists who became the subject of conspiracy theories cope with being targeted?
In this programme we hear from scientists and politicians directly involved with the pandemic response. For some the experience of explaining their often highly technical research to the general public was a daunting experience. For others it became a mission to answer the publics concerns and fears.
Mon, 29 Aug 2022 - 656 - How Covid changed science, part 1
Until 2020 developing a new drug took at least 15 years. Scientists by and large competed with each other, were somewhat secretive about their research and only shared their data once publication was secured. And the public and the press had no interest in the various early phases of clinical trials. An incremental scientific step possibly on the road to somewhere was simply not newsworthy. Face masks were the preserves of hypochondriacs in the Far East, with no scientific evidence base for their use.
Now the findings of research are published as soon as they are ready. Often they are being openly discussed in social media before they have been peer reviewed. The speed of research, collaboration between science and industry, and public perception of science are areas that have undergone incredible and likely permanent change.
Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Health at Edinburgh University hears from scientists in a variety of fields, whose working lives and practices have been affected, in some cases revolutionised by the pandemic.
Mon, 22 Aug 2022 - 655 - Satellites versus the stars
If you look up into the night sky, there are around 7,000 active satellites orbiting the Earth. They’re part of our daily life – essential for things like the internet, the GPS in our cars and giving us weather reports. Seven thousand might not sound a lot in the infinite expanses of space. But the reality is that most satellites are found in a small slice of the solar system - called Lower Earth Orbit - and countries and satellite companies are planning to launch hundreds of thousands more in the next decade. So things are about to get crowded. In this week’s Discovery, Jane Chambers speaks to scientists, astronomers from the ALMA Observatory in Chile, space environmentalists and satellite companies like SpaceX about the benefits of this explosion in mega satellite constellations, as well as the unintended consequences to those who value a clear and unhindered view of the stars.
Picture: Radio Telescopes at ALMA Observatory in the north of Chile, Credit: Jane Chambers
Mon, 15 Aug 2022 - 654 - Plant based promises, diet and health
Giles Yeo learns how to make a Thai green curry with Meera Sodha. This is a recipe without meat or prawns but with tofu and lots of vegetables. If we need to eat less meat and dairy to help prevent global warming- what difference will altering our diets make to our health. For a long time now people have been urged to cut down on red meat and processed foods but if you have been eating them all your life it takes an effort to develop new habits. Plant based products that can replace for example dairy milks, cheeses, sausages, burgers and meat based dishes such as lasagne can be helpful in making this transition but are they healthier?
Mon, 08 Aug 2022 - 653 - Plant based promises and sustainability
In Plant Based Promises, Giles Yeo a foodie and academic at Cambridge University, asks how sustainable are commercial plant based products? This is a fast growing sector with a potential value of $162 billion by 2030. Giles travels to the Netherlands Food Valley to look at companies developing plant based alternatives and to find out what role they have to play in changing diets. And Giles designs his own plant based Yeo Deli range online but discovers that new markets are already causing shortages of alternative proteins, so what will the future look like?
In 2019 the Eat Lancet Commission set up specific targets for a healthy diet and sustainable food production. The aim was to keep global warming to within 1.5 degrees and to be able to feed the world’s 10 billion people by 2050. The Commission’s recommendations are best visualised as a plate of food, half fruits, vegetables and nuts and the other half whole grains, beans, legumes and pulses, plant oils and modest amounts of meat and dairy. Is there room on the plate for Giles Yeo Deli Baloney range.
Mon, 01 Aug 2022 - 652 - Plant based promises, rise of the plant based burger
In Plant Based Promises, foodie, researcher and broadcaster Giles Yeo looks at the science behind plant based diets and the increasing number of plant based products appearing in supermarkets and restaurants. The market for plant based products could be worth $162 billion in the next ten years and Giles asks how sustainable and healthy the products are and the role they play in decreasing the world's carbon footprint.
Globally food production accounts for about 30% of greenhouse gases. In the UK we eat over six times the amount of meat and more than twice the amount of dairy products recommended to prevent the global temperature increasing more than 1.5 degrees C, after which extreme weather events become more severe. But eating less meat and dairy means new protein sources from plants are needed and how easy or practical is it for people to change their diets? Veganuary, where people pledge to go vegan for the month of January show that people are willing to change what they eat for a variety of reasons including animal welfare, sustainability and health.
In programme one Giles, an expert on food intake looks at some of the foods being developed to replace animal based foods and looks at alternatives to the iconic cheeseburger. Giles meets biochemist Professor Pat Brown founder of Impossible Burgers, a Silicon Valley start up making burgers from genetically modified yeast to replicate the taste of meat.
But from high tech to the artisanal, sisters Rachel and Charlotte Stevens missed eating cheese so much they are now making cheese alternatives using traditional moulds, cultures and aging techniques while replacing dairy ingredients with nuts.
Mon, 25 Jul 2022 - 651 - The mysterious particles of physics, part 3
The smaller the thing you look at, the bigger the microscope you need to use. That’s why the circular Large Hadron Collider at CERN, where they discovered the Higgs boson is 27 kilometres long, and its detectors tens of metres across. But to dig deeper still into the secrets of the Universe, they’re already talking about another machine 4 times bigger, to be built by the middle of the century. Roland Pease asks if it’s worth it.
Image: CMS Beampipe removal LS2 2019 (Credit: Maximilien Brice/CERN)
Mon, 18 Jul 2022 - 650 - The mysterious particles of physics, part 2
Episode 2: Lost in the Dark
Physics is getting a good understanding of atoms, but embarrassingly they’re only a minor part of the Universe. Far more of it is made of something heavy and dark, so-called dark matter. The scientists who discovered the Higgs boson ten years ago thought they’d also create dark matter in the underground atom smasher at CERN. But they haven’t seen it yet. Roland Pease joins them as they redouble their efforts at the upgraded Large Hadron Collider, and travels to Boulby Underground Laboratory inside Britain's deepest mine, where subterranean telescopes hope to see dark matter streaming through the Galaxy.
Image: CMS Beampipe removal LS2 2019 (Credit: Maximilien Brice/CERN)
Mon, 11 Jul 2022 - 649 - The mysterious particles of physics, part 1
The machine that discovered the Higgs Boson 10 years ago is about to restart after a massive upgrade, to dig deeper into the heart of matter and the nature of the Universe.
Roland Pease returns to CERN’s 27-kilometre Large Hadron Collider (LHC) dug deeper under the Swiss-French border to meet the scientists wondering why the Universe is the way it is. He hears why the Nobel-prize winning discovery of the “Higgs Particle” remains a cornerstone of the current understanding of the nature of matter; why the search for “dark matter” – 25% of the cosmos - is proving to be so hard; and CERN’s plans for an atom smasher 4 times as big to be running by the middle of the century.
Image: CMS Beampipe removal LS2 2019 (Credit: Maximilien Brice/CERN)
Mon, 04 Jul 2022 - 648 - The Life Scientific: Adam Hart
Ant-loving professor, Adam Hart, shares his passion for leaf cutting ants with Jim Al Khalili. Why do they put leaves in piles for other ants to pick up?
Talking at the Hay Festival, Adam describes the experiments he designed to test the intelligence of the hive mind. When does a waggle dance become a tremble dance? And how do the honey bees know when this moment should be?
We like the phrase ‘as busy as a bee’. In fact, bees spend a lot of time doing nothing at all, a sensible strategy from the point of view of natural selection.
And where does Adam stand on insect burgers?
Producer: Anna Buckley
Mon, 27 Jun 2022 - 647 - The Life Scientific: Jacinta Tan
When a person with severe anorexia nervosa refuses food, the very treatment they need to survive, is that refusal carefully considered and rational, as it can appear to those around them? Or is it really the illness that’s causing them to say ‘no’?
This is one of the thorny ethical dilemmas that Jacinta Tan has wrestled with over the course of her career. She is deeply curious about the mind, and has spent hundreds of hours sitting with people with anorexia nervosa, not persuading them to eat, rather listening to them talk about what’s going on in their minds and how the illness influences their decisions.
These rich internal worlds, that she has revealed, shape her work as a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, where she treats people with eating disorders. The views of those with the condition and their families have been central to the recent government reviews of the Eating Disorder Services that she led in Scotland and Wales.
These conditions can be hugely challenging to treat. Jacinta Tan tells Jim al-Khalili how it's the art of medicine, as much as the science, that helps people recover.
Producer: Beth Eastwood
Mon, 20 Jun 2022
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