Instant Genius

Future human races may indeed live extra-terrestrial lives. But how will we reproduce and continue survival once we’re in space? To find out, we spoke to space gynaecologist – yes, you read that right – Dr Varsha Jain from the University of Edinburgh. We cover everything from the myths about women’s bodies in space that stopped them being allowed on the early missions, right through to the impacts of space on a pregnancy, and the future of space babies.

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Artificial intelligence has grown drastically in recent years, entering everything from art to medicine. We talk to Nigel Cannings, an expert in artificial intelligence to better understand the ethics behind AI and copyright, working rights and energy consumption.

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When it comes to the climate crisis, energy is one of the biggest and most complex topics. To help us break it down into something more manageable, we spoke to engineer Dr Bart Kolodziejczyk from Monash University in Australia. (Bart has advised everyone from the UN to the World Economic Forum on clean energy technologies).

In this episode, Bart tells us about the surprising energy transition that he predicts will happen after renewables, the research he’s working on that could reduce global carbon emissions by a whopping 10 per cent, and what you can do to help transition our energy towards a sustainable future.

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If we learnt anything from the COVID-19 pandemic it was that, as a society, we owe a huge debt to the scientists around the world that work, day in, day out, on developing medicines to keep us healthy and to fight disease. But how does this process work?

In this episode we catch up with Prof Simon Ward, Director of the Medicines Discovery Institute at Cardiff University.

He tells us about the journey a new medicine has to take, starting from its initial inception in the lab, through various rigorous clinical trials before it can finally be used in clinics and hospitals around the world to save lives.

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We humans depend on the Earth’s natural resources for our very existence so it’s vital that we take as good care of them as we can. However, it’s abundantly clear that the environment isn’t in great shape at the moment.

In this special six-part series we explore the different factors affecting the sustainability of our natural resources, investigate what their current state is and discuss what we could be doing to take better care of them.

And in this episode, we’re delving into the biggest myths of biodegradability, which itself is actually a rather misleading term. To debunk the biggest biodegradability mistruths we’re joined by Mark Miodownik, a professor of materials science at University College London, and author of Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World.

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We humans depend on the Earth’s natural resources for our very existence so it’s vital that we take as good care of them as we can.

However, it’s abundantly clear that the environment isn’t in great shape at the moment.

In this special six-part series we explore the different factors affecting the sustainability of our natural resources, investigate what their current state is and discuss what we could be doing to take better care of them.

Smart materials are a tool that have grown in popularity in recent years. Able to change properties back and forth, these materials can be used to revolutionise everything from the clothing industry to the buildings that we live in, making our world both smarter and more sustainable.

We’re joined by Anna Ploszajski, a material scientist and writer to find out more about these materials. She guides us through shape-shifting clothes, heat-absorbing roof tiles and everything in-between.

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We humans depend on the Earth’s natural resources for our very existence so it’s vital that we take as good care of them as we can. However, it’s abundantly clear that the environment isn’t in great shape at the moment.

In this special six-part series we explore the different factors affecting the sustainability of our natural resources, investigate what their current state is and discuss what we could be doing to take better care of them.

Thanks to its ease of manufacture, versatility and durability plastic can be used for making everything from packaging and building materials to children’s toys and clothing. But the material’s great success comes with an equally big downside – how do we dispose of it once we are finishing using it?

In this episode we catch up with Dr Costas Vellis, a lecturer in resource efficiency systems at the University of Leeds. He tells us how widespread plastic pollution is, how we have reached this point and what we can do to solve the problem.

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Like it or not, food plays a central role in all of our lives. It’s so important that whole societies and economies have formed around it, wars are fought over it, and, now, the way we consume it is having profound impacts on the planet. So just how stable are the food systems on which most of us depend?

In this episode, Prof Tim Benton, research director at Chatham House, joins the podcast to talk about food security. Tim has been working on issues in food, ecology, biodiversity, sustainability for 30 years.

We humans depend on the Earth’s natural resources for our very existence, so it’s vital that we take as good care of them as we can. However, it’s abundantly clear that the environment isn’t in great shape at the moment. In this special six-part series we explore the different factors affecting the sustainability of our natural resources, investigate what their current state is, and discuss what we could be doing to take better care of them.

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Most of us are aware that an asteroid strike led to the extinction of the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago. But fewer are aware that this was just one of several mass extinction events to have occurred throughout the Earth’s history.

In this episode we catch up Prof Michael Benton, a palaeontologist based at the University of Bristol and author of the new book Extinctions: How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves.

He tells us all about the previous extinctions that have changed the balance of life on Earth, how they happened and what we can learn about the future of the planet by studying them.

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What’s beyond our Universe? Will time travel ever be possible? And what might aliens look like? All huge questions that today we’re asking a special guest, Neil DeGrasse Tyson – astrophysicist and author of the new book To Infinity and Beyond: A Journey of Cosmic Discovery. 

In a wide-ranging conversation, DeGrasse Tyson unpacks the biggest scientific mysteries of our Universe, from whether space is really empty, to if humans are actually smart enough to make sense of the cosmos.

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