Instant Genius

It’s a scene many of us will have experienced: we’re at the cinema, the lights go down, the film begins and then suddenly the person behind us starts rustling a packet of sweets or noisily chomping on popcorn.

For most of us this is merely an annoyance and after a while we’re able to tune the sounds out and concentrate on enjoying the cinematic experience. But for some, it can be unbearable and engender feelings of distress, anger and even panic. These people are experiencing misophonia.

In this episode, we catch up with Dr Jane Gregory, a clinical psychologist and author of the book Sounds Like Misophonia: How to Stop Small Noises from Causing Extreme Reactions.

She tells us what’s going on in our brains when we experience a misophonic reaction, how it can trigger our fight or flight response and why it’s surprisingly common.

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

Finding alien life could be just around the corner. At least, that’s if the James Webb Space Telescope and other techniques help us discover their extraterrestrial homes. In this episode, astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger and author of new book Alien Earths: Planet Hunting in the Cosmos talks us through the ways she and her team are looking for these planets and the kinds of life they might hold.

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

Why are we here? Where did we come from? What are we even made from? These must be some of deepest questions humans can ever ask. But that has never stopped scientists throughout the ages asking them.

In this episode we catch up with Professor Tim Coulson, a zoologist based at the University of Oxford to talk about his new book, The Universal History of Us: The science of why we exist.

He helps us trace the origins of human beings right back to the Big Bang and the beginning of the Universe itself and goes on to investigate whether our existence was inevitable thanks to the underpinning laws of nature or whether we were just extremely lucky.

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

Addiction can be devastating not only for the addict themselves, but also for their loved ones and anyone around them. But what causes it, and how should we treat it?

According to Dr Elias Dakwar, a psychologist based at Colombia University, New York, we should be looking beyond the commonly held brain disease model of addiction and deeper into its philosophical or existential underpinnings.

In this episode, we speak to Dr Dakwar about the years of clinical research he outlines in his latest book The Captive Imagination: Addiction, reality and our search for meaning.

He tells us about his thinking on how addiction stems from our desire for happiness and feelings of meaningless, how it fits in with the notion of personal freedom, and details some of his work with clinical patients in treating addiction in new ways.

Warning: Recreational drug use can be dangerous to your health and possession of certain controlled substances in the UK can result in an unlimited fine, prison sentence or both. For more information visit talktofrank.com

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

These days, pretty much every move we make online is tracked in one way or another. Whether it’s through our social media accounts or online shopping habits, algorithms are getting better at painting a picture of who we are and how we think. But why do we let this happen?

In this episode we catch up with science broadcaster and writer Timandra Harkness to talk about her new book, Technology is not the Problem.

She tells us how various online agencies keep tabs on us, whether we should be worried about it, and why sometimes it can be too hard to resist buying that expensive pair of shoes you keep getting ads for.

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

Black holes are surely one of the most fascinating and mysterious phenomena in the known Universe. But few people know that the story behind their discovery, and the cast of dogged, often ignored scientists behind it, is just as interesting.

In this episode we catch up with the award-winning science writer and long-time BBC Science Focus contributor Marcus Chown. We talk about his new book A Crack in Everything: How black holes came in from the cold and took cosmic centre stage.

He takes us through the gripping story that saw black holes go from being a mere mathematical curiosity to one of the most talked about cosmic objects ever observed.

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

We humans are never truly alone. This is because our bodies are colonised by vast numbers of microscopic organisms that can be found living everywhere from the surface of our skin to deep within our guts.

Collectively, this population of microbes is known as the human microbiome, and they play a key role in maintaining our health and wellbeing.

In this episode we catch up with Dr James Kinross, a colorectal surgeon and researcher based and Imperial College London and author of the new book Dark Matter: The new science of the microbiome.

He tells us about the fascinating ways that our microbiomes can impact our brain health, regulate our emotions and if we could ever use them to make an effective love potion.

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

The existence of flight in the animal kingdom is something that many of us take for granted. But on closer inspection, it can perhaps be thought of as one of the miracles of nature.

In this episode we catch up with the writer Lev Parikian about his book Taking Flight: How animals learned to fly and transformed life on Earth, which was shortlisted for Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize.

He tells us about how flight has evolved independently in four separate groups of animals, how bats became the only mammals capable of powered flight, and how some birds ended up losing the ability to fly altogether.

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

The internet is full of false facts and misinformation, but how can you tell what is real or fake? We spoke to Alex Edmans, author of May Contain Lies, who gives us tips on how to separate the real from the false.

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

In the short time since its launch in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope has produced some absolutely breathtaking images of the cosmos. And there’s much more to come.

In this episode I speak to the head of Space Science at the UK Space Agency Dr Caroline Harper about her new book Unseen Universe: New secrets of the cosmos revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope.

We talk about some of the highlights of the telescope has delivered so far, including incredibly detailed images of Jupiter, its Moon and some of the most distant stars and galaxies ever observed, how it can look for extra-terrestrial life on exoplanets, and also about some of the future space missions that Dr Harper is most excited about.

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