Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea

Every minute of every day we are forced to make split-second decisions in order to navigate the worlds we have cultivated for ourselves.

The most amazing thing is that all of these actions come as second nature - we don’t even realise we’re actually engaged in a highly sophisticated dance of thought and action.

But how do we actually do this?

How do we get from the formation of a thought to taking the right course of action?

In other words - how do we get things done?

David Badre is Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences at Brown University, on the faculty of the Carney Institute for Brain Science at Brown University, and author of ‘On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done’ he joined Jonathan to discuss.

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If humans ever do manage to get to Mars, an untold number of problems will have had to have been solved to do it.

From propulsion, life support, radiation and just actually landing there - there’s a lot to take care of.

But what kind of effect might this kind of journey have on the human body itself?

What kind of changes might we expect to take place?

Nicholas Brereton, a research fellow at the University of Montreal’s Plant Biology Research Institute joined Jonathan to discuss.

Also on the show, Jonathan is joined by Dr. Ruth Freeman and Dr. Shane Bergin to look at the science news stories of the week.

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There’s nothing like a good mystery. 

If you or I were out walking in the Rockies we’d probably barely notice the different types of rocks under our feet, let alone realise that some rocks are a little out of place. 

But when John Craddock and his team of archaeologists found some unusual rocks at their feet they knew something was afoot.

Dr John Craddock is Professor in the Geology department at Macalester College, Minnesota

Now, when it comes to the obesity crisis facing many developed nations all across the world it can be easy to be reductive about it.

“Just eat less” or “ just cut out the junk” or something like that. But what if there was something going on inside your brain that meant you never felt satisfied?

What if you felt hungry all the time no matter how much you ate? How could we fight such a primal urge?

Dr Moran Shalev-Benami, from the Department of Chemical & Structural Biology & Principal Investigator at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel joined Jonathan to discuss

On this week's Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea asks what happens when our neurons fire? He'll be talking to Professor Mark Humphries - Chair in Computational Neuroscience at the University of Nottingham and author of ‘The Spike: An Epic Journey Through the Brain in 2.1 Seconds’

Also on the show, Jonathan is joined by Dr Jessamyn Fairfield from NUI Galway and Dr Fergus McAuliffe of iCRAG, to look at the science news stories of the week.

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For millions of years, things were very much the same; just the wild randomness of the natural world throwing challenges and opportunities at different species and seeing what happened next.

But for the last few thousand years, humans have started to become perhaps the primary cause of change for so many other animals and plants on this planet.

So, just how much of an impact are we having on the evolution of life around us?

Helen Pilcher, science writer and author of ‘Life Changing: How Humans are Altering Life on Earth’ joined Jonathan to discuss.

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We have all had to adapt and make changes over the last 15 months.

Keeping our distance is probably the biggest one, and the one that has impacted people’s lives the most.

From staying at home, avoiding people in the street, to no more handshakes - it all felt so unnatural.

But what is that reflex of reaching out to shake someone’s hand? Where does it come from? Is it cultural or something deeper?

Ella Al-Shamahi, a National Geographic Explorer, paleoanthropologist, evolutionary biologist, and author of 'The Handshake: A Gripping History' joined Jonathan to discuss.

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On this week's Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea he asks how hard is it to learn to perceive the world if you were only able to see or hear as an adult and not since birth? Jonathan speaks to Susan R. Barry - Professor Emeritus of Biology and Neuroscience at Mount Holyoke College and author of Coming to Our Senses: A Boy Who Learned to See, a Girl Who Learned to Hear, and How We All Discover the World.

Also on the show, Jonathan is joined by Jessamyn Fairfield from NUI Galway and Fergus McAuliffe, Environmental Scientist at University College Cork, to look at the science news stories of the week.

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We come across all kinds of people in our day-to-day lives.

Most, in our experience, are pretty good people -  but some can be tricky, evasive, blunt, secretive, rude or even downright awful.

So where do all of these personalities actually come from? 

And what if we want to change? Is that even possible?

Dr Christian Jarrett, cognitive neuroscientist, Deputy Editor at psyche.co, and author of ‘Be Who You Want: Unlocking the Science of Personality Change’ joined Jonathan to discuss.

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On this week's Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea he looks at Self Assembling Structures with Skylar Tibbits the Co-Director and Founder of the Self-Assembly Lab housed at MIT's International Design Centre.

Also on the show, Jonathan is joined by Dr Shane Bergin of UCD and Dr Susan Kelleher of DCU, to look at the science news stories of the week.

Listen and subscribe to Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

  

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