Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea

Have we just been made futile as a reproductive species? This week researchers in the University of Cambridge and in the US announced their creation of synthetic human embryos that won’t need eggs or sperm. To explore how they did this and its practical implications, Dr David Walsh, chairman of First IVF joins Jonathan to discuss.

Generally speaking, Ireland is a pretty safe place. For example, when it comes to natural phenomena, insects, or animals, very few things can do you serious harm.

We have no snakes, bears, wolves, or venomous species, and our spiders are 99.9% benign.

And it's also the case that seismic activity is very rare here and even if it is detected, it pales in comparison to our nearest neighbour, the UK. Why?

Chris Bean who leads the Geophysics Section at DIAS joins Jonathan to discuss.

Recently hundreds of leading technology experts, journalists, and policymakers from across the world released a statement saying that: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside pandemics and nuclear war”.

But as we are just now beginning to grapple with this brave new world of generative artificial intelligence it can still be difficult to know what the future might actually hold for us, what role AI will have in our lives, and where the danger really lies.

Patricia Scanlon, Ireland’s AI ambassador, and founder of Dublin-based speech recognition tech company SoapBox Labs joins Jonathan to discuss.

When you look up into the night sky and you see the incredible array of stars and planets that are visible to us here on Earth, it is impossible not to feel something. Wonder. Amazement. Insignificance. Inspiration - maybe all of these things and more.

Either way, it’s truly humbling to see just how small we really are.

But soon you might have a very different experience - one where there is nothing to gaze up at at all - and that future might be nearer than we think.

Prof. Peter Gallagher, Head of Astrophysics, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies joins Jonathan to discuss the impact of light pollution on our night sky.

Dr. Shane Bergin from UCD & science communicator, Catherine McGuinness also join us for this week's installment of Newsround.

Nature is, without over-egging things, an unstoppable force – one which we pale miserably in comparison to with all our brio and intellect.

But we do try to understand nature and the world we live in and perhaps the most fundamental way that we do that is through numbers.

And while we like to think we have a pretty good grasp of them, that’s unfortunately, not always the case.

Georgina Sturge, author of ‘Bad Data: How Governments, Politicians and the Rest of Us Get Misled by Numbers’ and the House of Commons Library's statistics specialist.

She joins Jonathan to discuss.

Induced temporary hibernation for surgery and long-term space travel, creating energy from nothing, skin patch immunotherapy for peanut allergies, and the mechanism of our foot arches- Jonathan looks back at the latest breaking stories from the world of science this week with Catherine McGuinness, science communicator and Dr Shane Bergin, physicist, and an assistant professor in science education at UCD's School of Education.

Jonathan explores the establishment of Ireland's first Institute for Clinical Trials at the University of Galway. Led by Director Peter Doran, the Institute aims to transform the clinical research landscape by translating scientific advances into improved patient care. Through collaboration with academia, clinicians, and industry partners, the Institute will prioritize research areas that benefit the wider population, with a focus on improving patient outcomes and positioning Ireland as a leader in clinical trials. Jonathan hears from Peter Doran and parent Noreen Doyle about how this new initiative will drive innovation and positively impact healthcare delivery.

Immunotherapy is a type of treatment which helps the immune system fight cancer. It enhances the system ability to recognize, target, and eliminate cancer cells, wherever they are in the body, making it a potential universal answer to cancer. However, not all cancers respond to this type of treatment. Why is it only effect in 20-40% of cases? And is there anything we can do to improve the response rate?

Aideen Ryan joins Jonathan to bring us up to date on new research which may hold the answers for improving cancer treatment. She is an associate professor in tumour immunology from the University of Galway.

People with prosthetic limbs are able to feel warmth in their missing hands, a type of bacteria in babies being a predictor of future weight struggles, car racers seemingly blink in synchronicity, and new research suggesting chronic and acute pain are two different things. The latest science news is brought to you by Dr Ruth Freeman from Science Foundation Ireland, and Dr Jessamyn Fairfield from the University of Galway.

Jonathan also speaks with Sara Sabry, an astronaut who was selected from 7,000 citizens to go into space at the age of 29. She was the first Egyptian astronaut, the first Arab woman in space, and the first woman from the African continent to go to space. She is the Co-Founder of Deep Space Initiative and appearing at the Dublin Tech Summit, held between 31 May 2023 and 1 June 2023.

Speech to text, text to speech, but what about thoughts to text? A new technology has been developed which allows AI to convert your thoughts into text. The person behind the research is Alexander Huth, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. He joins me on this week’s Futureproof Extra to discuss “semantic decoders”.

On this week’s episode, Eoin Murphy and Dr Jessamyn Fairfield take us through the latest stories in our Newsround. We hear about the world’s deadliest mushrooms, gender disparity in science referencing, dream gloves and what bears are telling us about blood clot prevention. Not only that, but we get to hear from a lung and evolutionary expert on why humans can’t breathe underwater and what the likelihood is of us ever developing that ability again.