Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea

It’s almost exactly 4 years since the Covid 19 pandemic came to these shores and although thankfully the pandemic is over, there is still a lot to learn about the disease and its after effects.

Long Covid is particularly perplexing but Irish scientists from the FutureNeuro Centre may have shed some light on one specific aspect of it; Brain Fog

So what exactly is brain fog and how does a Covid infection bring it about?

Jonathan speaks to Cass Sunstein - Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard and Co-Author of "Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There" about habituation and his new book.

Jonathan is joined by Jim Carlton - Professor of Marine Sciences, Emeritus, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Jonathan is joined by Brenna Hassett - Lecturer in forensic osteology and archaeology at the University of Central Lancashire and author of Growing Up Human

In this special edition of Futureproof, Jonathan joins researchers from DIAS as they travel to a volcano on the Galapagos Islands. Funded by Coimisiún na Meán with the TV licence fee. Also funded by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.

Jonathan speaks to Professor John Cryan from UCC

Scientists at Yale think freezing ovarian tissue at a young age could help us to postpone or event prevent the onset of menopause altogether. Jonathan speaks to Dr Kutluk Oktay, Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, and Director of the Laboratory of Fertility Preservation and Molecular Reproductive Biology at the Yale School of Medicine.

Researchers from Diageo have discovered that the yeast used to make Guinness is genetically different from any other Irish beer. Joining Jonathan to discuss this is Daniel Kerruish, Group Microbiologist at Diageo.

This week Elon Musk announced his Neuralink company has implanted a wireless brain chip into a human for the first time.

But how significant is this step and how exactly does a brain implant affect the mind?

Joining Jonathan to discuss this is Dr. Manus Biggs, Associate Professor at the University of Galway and Investigator with Curám, the SFI research centre for medical devices. 

Also joining Jonathan for this week's installment of Newsround is Dr. Ruth Freeman from Science Foundation Ireland & Laura Healy, Sustainable Food Production Scientist.

As we’ve discussed before on Futureproof, nature has some strange but very cool patterns - one such pattern is the Coriolis Effect. Joining Jonathan to explain this is Dr. Conor Sweeney, Lecturer in Applied and Computational Mathematics in the School of Mathematical Sciences at UCD; Deputy Director of the UCD Earth Institute; and President of the Irish Meteorological Society.