Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea

Over the 13 years of doing this show one of the things that we, and indeed all of the field of Astrophysics, has been trying to get our collective head around is the idea of Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

To the layperson, these ideas can seem like rather convenient inventions thought up merely to paper over the cracks in our current models.

But let’s be honest, most of us don’t really know enough about physics to make such bold accusations.

This week's guest however does, and not only does he think that there is no such thing as Dark Matter, he also says our fundamental model of gravitation is wrong.

Pavel Kroupa is a Professor of astrophysics at the University of Bonn and Head of the Stellar Populations and Dynamics research group. He joins Jonathan to discuss.

Evolution is constantly adapting us to our environment, making species more suited and better equipped to survive in their natural habitat.

So why did our distant ancestors have better teeth than we do? And what can the study of our gnashers tell us about our diet, our oral health, and our very origins as a species?

Professor Peter Ungar is a Paleoanthropologist, and author of 'Evolution’s Bite: A Story of Teeth, Diet, and Human Origins'.

He joins Jonathan to discuss what teeth can tell us. First Aired 28/7/2018

From day one we feel our way into, and through, the world.

By utlising a complex array of sensory receptors that grow and evolve as we mature, we come to understand not just everything we encounter in our external lives but also in our internal lives as well.

We are sentient beings.

But what is sentience and when did it arise in animals?

And why are we sentient at all?

Nicholas Humphrey is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the London School of Economics. He is the author of many books on the evolution of human intelligence and consciousness, the latest being ‘Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness' - available in all good bookshops or online - he joins Jonathan to discuss.

One of the most blindingly obvious problems facing human space travel is that space is very big. It’s like REALLY big.

Space being big means things in it are far away and the amount of time it takes to get from one rock to the next presents a myriad of challenges for any aspiring "Star Trekker". First of all, you’re going to need a lot of supplies, you’re going to have to spend a lot of time exposed to radiation, and you’re going to get bored and old.

Mainly for the sake of storyline, Sci-Fi has often circumvented these problems by putting the crew into hibernation but as it turns out, that might just be a viable solution in the real world as well.

Sandy Martin is Professor Emerita in the Department of Cell & Development Biology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus - she joins Jonathan to discuss.

Photography may, at a cursory glance, appear to dwell in the domain of the humanities and artistic expression but it is a vital tool to science as well.

When it comes to understanding the vastness of the cosmos or the structure of a cell, we rely on imagery to help us better understand the natural world around us.

But how do the technologies that give us these images actually work?

How do we make the invisible visible and what developments might we expect in the years to come?

Jack Challoner, an independent science writer and the author of more than 40 science books the latest of which is ‘Seeing Science: The Art of Making the Invisible Visible’.

He joins Jonathan to discuss.

For most of us, the word “multiverse” probably conjures up some sort of fun sci-fi episode like the universe in which we all have hot dogs for fingers in Oscar contender ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ or the parallel universe in Star Trek where there’s an evil you with a moustache.

Multiverses are just vehicles for our flights of fancy, right?

Well, that’s what we thought until Professor Will Kinney casually mentioned that the majority of physicists now accept that we live in a multiverse in an interview with us earlier this year.

Laura Mersini-Houghton is a Professor of Theoretical Physics and Cosmology in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of 'Before the Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe and What Lies Beyond', she is also one such physicist, and furthermore, she says she has the evidence to back it up.

She joins Jonathan to discuss.

In this special insatllment of Futureproof Gold, we take a listen back to our award-winning episode 'Enemies of the State'.

Among other guests, Mara Hvistendahl, Contributing Correspondent for Science, National Fellow at New America and author of the Wired article 'Inside China's Vast New Experiment in Social Ranking', joins Jonathan to explore the true potential that technology has in controlling and manipulating the behaviour of entire populations through social credit scores.

For this very special episode of Futureproof, recorded live at the TU Dublin Grangegorman Campus, Jonathan was joined by a panel of guests to explore the limits of human and artificial intelligence.

Joining Jonathan is:

-Dr. Benjamin Cowan, Associate Professor at UCD's School of Information & Communication Studies and Co-Principal Investigator at The ADAPT Centre.

-Dr. Tomás Ryan - Associate Professor in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology and the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin.

For this very special episode of Futureproof, recorded live at the TU Dublin Grangegorman Campus, Jonathan was joined by a panel of guests to explore whether it is possible for a human being to run forever.

Joining Jonathan is:

- Ultra Runner, Keith Russell

- Helen French, Associate Professor in the RCSI School of Physiotherapy

- Dr. Oran Kennedy, Senior Lecturer in Anatomy and Regenerative Medicine at RCSI

- Sinead Bradbury, Performance Nutritionist (SENr)

Dr.Ruth Freeman from the SFI & Dr. Susan Kelleher, Assistant Professor of Polymer Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at UCD were also on hand to go through the top news stories from the world of science for Newsround.

Joining Jonathan to discuss how the skills needed to perform laparoscopic keyhole surgery as well as e-sports can be significantly enhanced by applying electric neurostimulation during training is Adam Toth, ESRL Research Program Manager at Lero in the University of Limerick.