Everywhere we look we’re surrounded by materials of all kinds – from the fabrics we use to make our clothing, to the bricks and mortar we use to build our homes and places of work, to the complex transistors and circuits we use to build our digital devices. Life as we known it simply wouldn’t be possible without them. But what will the materials of the future look like?

In this episode, we catch up with Mark Miodownik, professor of materials and society based at University College London, best-selling author and veteran presenter of many BBC television and radio science documentaries.

He tells us how the advent of materials such as paper, bronze and ceramics transformed early humans into a truly technological species, how nano-machines are already showing promising results in several areas of medicine, and how we may one day be living in buildings that can generate their own electricity and repair themselves.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices