Alan is a little obsessed with chatbots, and he’s become only too aware that these products of artificial intelligence can become seriously – even dangerously – stupid. What’s urgently needed, argues tech guru Kevin Kelly, are people with a particular talent – the ability to coax chatbots into being useful – AI whisperers.

Her almost uncanny ability to connect with creatures from rhinos to octopuses led her to a love affair with one of the planet's swiftest and fiercest predators. Meanwhile Sy Montgomery has been in a nurturing relationship with a collection of creatures who are the hawks’ polar opposites – turtles. 

Alan and Executive Producer Graham Chedd chat about and play excerpts from Alan's conversations with some of the guests in the new season, beginning next week. Guests include naturalist Sy Montgomery; comedian Judd Apatow; and founding executive editor of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly.

A childhood illness robbed her of a leg, but that hasn’t stopped her from trekking through jungles, swamps and mountains in search of medicinal plants. Her hope: that her discoveries may lead to new medications to counter the rising threat of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

Pioneering a new way to search for signs of life on planets circling other suns, Sara Seager battled through a devastating personal loss to see her method vindicated by NASA’s powerful new space telescope.

She wrote, produced, directed and starred in the hit series “Better Things” for five years. Nominated multiple times for multiple awards, she recently directed her first movie. She trades reminiscences with Alan, who’s known her since she was a kid.

Her new book lets us eavesdrop on the chatter between creatures – even plants – that our ears can’t detect. And reveals how new technologies, including AI, are opening the possibility of our being able to converse with other animals.

The founder of the multi-billion-dollar nutrition bar company KIND has rolled out "Starts With Us," a non-partisan movement working to overcome cultural extremism by fostering curiosity, compassion and courage as daily habits.

Built during WWII, the world’s first electronic computer, the ENIAC, was an engineering marvel. But at 80 ft long and 6 ft tall it was mute until it was brought to life by six young women mathematicians who figured out how to program it.

You need a microscope to see them, but tardigrades aren’t only nature’s ultimate survivors – they hold secrets that may make vaccines more available and help astronauts live in space.