In recent months, the world has been astounded by cosmic images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. By gazing deep into space, it can see billions of years back in time, and promises to transform human understanding of the universe. In this episode, first released in December 2021, host Alok Jha explores the telescope’s promise. And, science correspondent Gilead Amit asks NASA’s head of science Thomas Zurbuchen about the mission’s impact on the agency.

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With thanks to Don Giller for supplying additional audio.

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Six months have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine. It is arguably the most transparent conflict ever, thanks to publicly available satellite data and social media. How has open-source intelligence (OSINT) shaped the war? The Economist’s defence editor Shashank Joshi examines the technologies behind the OSINT revolution, and how this new era of openness is changing warfare. Alok Jha hosts.

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NASA’s giant new rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), will soon embark on its maiden journey to lunar orbit. The launcher is designed to send humans back to the Moon, but was built on old technology, and is years late and shockingly over budget. Does NASA even need a successor to the Space Shuttle, when Elon Musk’s SpaceX is developing a cheaper, more powerful alternative? Host Alok Jha examines the politics behind the SLS and the role of NASA against the backdrop of a now-flourishing, innovative, private-sector space industry.

Listen to our guide to SpaceX’s Starship rocket at economist.com/starship-pod.

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A debate has been raging in technology circles, after an engineer at Google claimed in June that the company’s chatbot was sentient. Host Kenneth Cukier explores how to define “sentience” and whether it could be attained by AI. If machines can exhibit consciousness, it presents myriad ethical and legal considerations. Is society equipped to deal with the implications of conscious AI?

Find The Economist’s list of the five best books to read on artificial intelligence here. 

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Since April a mysterious outbreak of hepatitis in children around the world has baffled doctors. Some children have required liver transplants and more than 20 have died. Recent findings may link the spike in cases to covid-19 lockdowns. We examine the evidence and ask how a lack of exposure to bugs can affect immune systems. What other consequences could pandemic restrictions have for the long-term health of children—and adults? Kenneth Cukier hosts.

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DeepMind’s artificial-intelligence system AlphaFold has predicted the three-dimensional shape of almost all known proteins. The company’s boss Demis Hassabis tells us how the AI was able to solve what was, for decades, biology’s grand challenge. Plus, Gilead Amit, The Economist’s science correspondent, explores the significance of the breakthrough for scientists tackling neglected diseases and designing new molecules. The leap forward could be AI’s greatest contribution to biology to date, but how else could machine learning help science? Kenneth Cukier hosts.

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Digital tools and sophisticated wearable devices are being combined with the latest knowledge on metabolic science to build personalised eating plans. Slavea Chankova, The Economist’s health-care correspondent, explores the future of nutrition. Data from new nutrition technology can also be tied to exercise monitoring devices and blood biomarkers, to build algorithms that aim to make people get healthier. But can the emerging personalised nutrition era make a real difference to public health? Alok Jha hosts.

Listen to our recent collection of episodes on the digital health revolution at economist.com/babbagewearables.

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The age of quantum computing is coming closer, presenting both an opportunity and a risk for individuals, companies and governments. Host Alok Jha explores why quantum computers threaten to crack the codes that keep data and communications secure over the internet. We also investigate how encryption techniques can be improved for a post-quantum age, and why it is urgent that they be deployed as soon as possible.

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The evolutionary journey that created modern humans was once thought to be relatively linear. But new technology is revealing a far more complex picture. The Economist’s Dylan Barry travels to South Africa to trace the story of our evolution, and explains how interbreeding with other species provided the genes possessed by many people today. To uncover our origins, scientists are nowadays not only hunting for clues in the bones of our ancestors—but in the genomes of living people, too. We speak to the researchers who are helping to rewrite the human story. Alok Jha hosts.

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This week, the Large Hadron Collider returned to life after a three-year upgrade. By recreating conditions as close as possible to the Big Bang, it might provide answers to some of physics’s greatest mysteries. Recent findings have shown chinks in the armour of the Standard Model of particle physics, currently scientists’ best understanding of the universe at its smallest scales. Through the lens of an intriguing anomalous result, host Alok Jha investigates the new theories that might supersede the Standard Model. How could such ideas impact our comprehension of the universe and what it contains?

This episode follows our two-part series about the reopening of the Large Hadron Collider. Listen at economist.com/LHC-pod.

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